Susie Monday . El Cielo Studio

4. Travel.

OK, every year can't bring a capitol letter Vacation (like last year's 3 week trip to northern Italy). Every month can't include even a weekend outing to someplace a bit closer to home (though I apparently think so with April's trip to Rockport, June's to Corpus Christi and this month's trip to see my sister in Salida, CO). BUT, even with gas prices what they are (and I don't want to hear another word about that as long as y'all are out there drinking bottled water), travel is truly broadening and amazingly good for the creative juicer whether it's in real time and space or a virtual trip across the universe via web sites and other-people's-trips.

Think about these possibilities:

 First of all, whichever trip you take, take a sketchbook and journal, ideally a digital camera, along with you. Collect ephemera and souvenirs, take photos, better still sketch and watercolor, interview the experts and the locals. Be adventurous. Don't stick to the tourist destinations, but find out how people live, what they create with their hands, what is eaten, what it' s like to live under that sun. Write in a cafe or under a tree. People watch. Try the contour drawing trick (Pt. 2 of this series.)

Then: 

Prowl the downtown and tourist destinations in your own community. I am never more flabbergasted than when I ask San Antonio residents how recently they have visited the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park and hear that its been a.) years, or b.) never. Hey, some people pay big money and take lots of time to come visit some place you drive by every week. One little day trip or weekend outing can cost little in time and give you an enormous boost to creative visioning when you travel with that intent in mind. You can even take public transportation to a lot of these sites.

Choose a country, city, natural wonder or other vacation destination to study for a month or a season or even a year. Pick some place that fascinates you for its visual, historical or symbolic power. Check out books from the library, even audio tapes and movies. Go to museum exhibits and concerts that originate in your vacation place. Learn a little of the language. Start an imaginary itinerary. Keep a travel journal "as if." Draw from photographs, literally and figuratively for your muse.

Spend just a weekend at a retreat center, state park, or natural area, or an out-of-town workshop venue (like my El Cielo Studio retreats), or some place else that takes you away from your ordinary day and your ordinary city/suburban life. The place might be a spa, it might be a swimming hole or a river raft trip. If you can't afford to go further, spend an entire day at a city park. Take food, drink, books, a quilt to lie upon. Listen, look, experience the weather from dawn to dusk. Live in the natural world, so that means no cell phone chatter, no IM, no radio or ipods. I think of this as a trip away from technology. You can even do it in your own backyard or on the balcony.

Start planning and saving today for that dream trip next year, or the year after. Be realistic, but not too realistic. My experience has been that once I commit to a plane ticket, I will find both the time and the money for everything else, even with the EURO rates lately. It is all too easy to think you'll never have the money or time to see a part of the world that calls to you. First step (if your destination is out of country, get that passport this month). It always helps me to do this one with companions, then its harder to back out.

 Eavesdrop on someone else's travel. There are tons of web sites where intrepid travelers tell you all about their wanderings, and then there is Anthony Bourdain, No Reservations on the Travel channel. Another great trip I've taken lately has been with Bill Buford in Heat, a great audio book or read about his education as a cook with Mario Bateli and in Italy. You may notice a trend here, see the next suggestion.

Cook your way around the world. Try a different recipe from a different country each week. Seek out an ethnic grocer if you can in order to buy the ingredients, or order them from an ethnic grocery supplier online. Cooking and art go together in my mind. I think of ingredients the same way I think of colors. I like to look at new ones, and new combinations of them. I eat visually as well as with my mouth. Food is an amazing way to explore another culture, country or part of the U.S.

Then, what to do with all this input. Create with its energy. With the new eyes you had to have. With its content -- sketches, paintings, fabric altars and quilts, photo albums, amazing travel journals. Artist's postcards and ATCs, you'll figure it out!

The last three days we've spent several hours a day kayaking, walking, dipping into the surf. Relaxation for the mind, body and spirit. What's on the reading list:

Martha Beck's The Four Day Win, an interesting and convincing "anti-diet" book by a Harvard-trained life coach. I'm tryiug out the Four Day Win practise. More about this strategy for change later.

Sue Monk Kidd's First Light, a compilation of her early writing, mostly for Guideposts magazine. (on audio in the car)

 John Sandford's Invisible Prey, a mystery thriller by  this best-selling author  -- the first of his I've read, and so far, this one about two vicious murderers who are also art thieves, is a great beach read.

Keith A. Arnold and George Kennedy's Birds of Texas, a new field guide, since I can't manage to remember to bring any of the seven birding field guides I have at home (real truth: field guides of all stripes are among my favorite affordable luxuries)

I'm a dip in-and-out reader and like to have a several things in different genres going at once.I beg that you share your favorites as we've just canceled the TV satellite service. (DirecTV wanted to charge me  $100 to remount the dishes after we put gutters on the house. Why a company will give you free service for new accounts, even free service if you move to a new house and then want to charge for the same service to a longtime customer, I don't get. When I called back to cancel, they  did offer to move the dishes for free -- too bad, by then, we'd decided we don't watch enough TV and would rather have the $ for something else. I subscribed to Netflix and paid for an out-of-county library card -- there's a new branch on my usual path) and I guess I'll find someone to tape Top Chef and Project Runway or get them on tape!)

Just a quick note until I get my long-promised e-newsletter together this week. The beautiful Majestic Ranch Arts Foundation will host a weekly fiber arts class this summer -- hopefully continuing throughout the year. I'll be there for the first six weeks, then Lisa Kerpoe , with her incredible eye for color and art cloth, will teach the second of two sessions.

The Majestic Ranch is located at the top of a spectacular hilltop about 5  miles from El Cielo (as the crow flies!), on State Highway 46 between Boerne and Hwy. 16 to Pipe Creek and Bandera. It's a pretty convenient location for those living in Boerne, Kerrville,  Bandera, Helotes -- and for those in the city who would like a little country respite each week. For more information, click through on the links above. I hope some of you will be able to take advantage of this wonderful setting and the studio fun with fiber.  

On one of the lists that I subscribe to, one correspondent posted this ritual for the New Year. As we turn the sunlight into the next season, remembering that the days will lengthen, the dark will receed, the fields that are fallow will soon turn green with new growth...

I want to record this in order to make it part of our morning ritual during the Journal workshop in  January -- still dark enough to benefit, even though the Solistice is past. I hope she doesn't mind the quote.....

Gather together family and friends and give everyone a stick or twig, 5 or 6 inches long. At one end of the twig tie a red ribbon and at the other end, a green ribbon. You'll need a fire of some kind: this could be done in your fireplace or an outdoor firepit or just the grill on your deck. Toast to the sun or say a few words about the returning of the light, then everyone breaks their stick in two. As you toss the red-ribboned stick in the fire, think about the bad events and negative habits you're eager to lose in the flames. Save the green end as a souvenir, a token of hope, and think about new beginnings.