Yesterday was a long day on the road. I awoke in Chamberlain, SD and broke camp around 7 a.m. Max and I saw the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD before we crossed the border into Minnesota. We listened to Garrison Keillor and songs about traveling and the road. In the afternoon, we crossed over the mighty Mississippi and into Wisconsin.
The best bit to the day was watching a robin's egg blue sky turn to charcoal black. As Wisconsin turned its face from the sun, it nestled its nose into layers of pastel gossamer...pink, tangerine, purple, steel blue.
Max and I arrived at one of the most beautiful hotels I've ever seen around 8:45 p.m. I walked Max and fed him his dinner. He had plenty of attention at this dog-friendly hotel as the entire staff doted on him and fed him dog bones. I quickly took a shower and found that the bar was still serving dinner. I enjoyed english pea soup with fresh herbs topped with crisp prosciutto and also a mixed green salad.
This morning over breakfast I thought whether I should reveal this particular escapade because it is so luxurious. The Iron Horse Hotel is truly a haven for a tired soul and its pup. However, in keeping with truthful reporting and my additional thoughts over breakfast, I realized I must report. The following are notes I made at breakfast on a piece of scratch paper....
I'm sitting in the breakfast room, which is aptly named "The Library," at a large rectangular table with six antique, wooden chairs and bronze reading lamps weathered from age and the distinct pattern of human interaction.
As I glanced around the room, I thought, "What is it about libraries?" To make a successful room do you really only need dark leather couches distressed by repeated entry of hind-quarters, and volumes holding reports of life being lived? Truly, what is more inspiring than reading accounts of the possible, or someone's imagination on fire by the quandary of the impossible?
Each day new books are written. With the amount of stories in the world, you'd think that if you didn't like the one you were living, you could just go to The Library and choose another. However, maybe that's why there are so many books...because there are so many individuals. I remember Donella Meadows and her steps to intervene in a system. The most important is to change the story you tell yourself about yourself. Maybe changing the story is the easy part, if you can call it that, and believing what you tell yourself is where difficulty lies.
Just thinking my way around the room maks me radiate with an excited urge to push away my double-hickory-smoked bacon, egg whites, and sourdough toast with Bonne Matin raspberry jam, and devour these catalogs of information. Food for thought. These books...some are bigger and some are smaller, but they're all the same (thanks to Eddie Greer for the quote with many applications!)....meaning they all convey a message for each person. That is true power. You don't have to believe or like the words that are written for you to receive the message. It may be in understanding a new word, realizing that motorcycle maintenance and buddhism are not for you, or seeing the new, perceived love-of-your-life amidst a collection of black and white photographs---yes, how could you have ever thought you would marry a man who didn't wear an ascot?
This room has stories, more than a few that are unwritten. You can tell from the exposed pillars made square with wood now dry and cracked yet fidel. There is one brick wall and a fireplace with an open hearth in the corner. Large turn-of-the-century windows suround and let light into the dust pages of opened books on the top shelves. I am waste-deep in books on all four walls of the room. A sunbeam has found one of the languid leather couches. I hear Frank Sinatra, kitchen noises, and white noise coming from exposed ducts.
In this room words and phrases come with ease, as if my brain is inspired just be simple proximaty to works of language. My stomach is satisfied and my soul is soothed. These are good feelings in which to tarry. I sit in my antique wooden chair, sip ginger lemongrass tea, and silently converse with this room as we both observe each other. I have no expression but an ever-so-slightly upturned mouth.
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