Stina's Trip

More fake blood and pop culture references, please

(LURAY, Va.) — It’s one of those slow nights in the middle of nowhere. All around me are green, rolling fields and cows and farms, but even at 5:30 p.m., it’s too black outside to see any of that. It’s also eerily silent, and I’m kind of into it. It reminds of why I moved to the desert when I was 22. I just wanted to be with myself. I was craving the simple life, without so many options and daily competitions. Of course Silver City, N.M ended up being just as complicated as anywhere else, but at least I felt at home there. It made sense to me. And strangely, I feel a tiny fraction of that comfort here, in northern Virginia.

Maybe it’s just a reaction to being in an intimate place after visiting so many huge places recently. In the last few weeks, I’ve seen New York City, Baltimore and D.C. Now that I’m out of all that, I look back on it warmly, but I’m also happy to be away. I’m on my own again, far from all my extremely sweet and welcoming friends who have migrated to the East Coast in the last few years. Now I don’t know anyone for thousands of miles, and that feels good somehow. I already miss my friends, but it’s time to be alone. I’m craving solitude in a way I can hardly explain. I want to write and take pictures and plan my next few moves. I want to see how well I get on while being completely alone. Really, isn’t that what this trip is all about? I think so.

In honor of my last month or so, in the next week I’m going to post quite a few stories and photo essays of my recent travels, mostly to cities. Right now I’m going through a real turning point in my trip. I get to choose it all over again and decide if this life is really what I want. I think is. I almost know it is, but if that’s the case, I have to start making more money and soon. These next few months are going to be the test of whether I can do this or not. I’m a little nervous, to be honest. I just want to do good work and support myself and see more of America, but I know those aren’t the easiest of things.

Tonight, at the lovely RV park where I’m staying (Country Waye RV Resort — total gem), a guy from Québec looked at my trailer and said, “You have to be a poet to live like that.” To this, I replied, “I’m trying.”

Until I’ve got some words to give you, here’s a photo album of my Halloween, spent in New York City. It was a rainy night, so most of the pictures are from the subway. My favorite costumes were clever, homemade ones, and I loved watching people shine with pride when they were complimented on them. I saw one guy dressed as “balloon boy,” complete with the titular, silver balloon and a sock monkey. I gave him a thumbs-up as he boarded a train, and he mouthed an excited “thank you” at me as his car pulled away. That sort of innocent, bubbly energy is my favorite part of Halloween.

OK, I also get a kick out of men dressed in drag, too. Don’t ask me why…it just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside and reminds me that anything is possible.

Cirocco, my friend's roommate and my guide into the crazy web of New York City's Halloween parade. Under this black jacket was a beautiful, vintage dress from the 1960s or '50s. But no, no, no, she was not someone from Mad Men. That she made clear.

I love it when you tell a complete stranger to "work it" for your camera — and then they do.

Save the children!

One of the many, many zombie parties going on Halloween week. I have to say, I love zombies, but I can't exactly tell you why.

Any costume that makes a girl cover her face completely in makeup is a costume I like. The dedication is awesome, I think. She is an Oscar, by the way.

I, on the other hand, was just dead.

This is the only pictures I took at the actual Halloween parade. Damn the rain.

I have no idea what her costume is, but I'm impressed.

Best group costume ever. A gaggle of gay Tiffany jewelry boxes. What you don't see here is that theyr'e all wearing togas.

Work it.

I loved watching his couple in the subway. They were cute and caring toward each other, exchanging knowing glances that I couldn't decipher throughout the whole ride. This was around 11 p.m. Halloween night.

Cultivated Boston, in pictures

(BALTIMORE, Md.) — Follow-through. It’s something I’m working on. You see, about a month ago, I spent one day — one short and rainy, yet sweet day in Boston. And only now am I posting the pictures. This follow-through thing is a process, I guess.

Everything went by so quickly while I was there, but I remember it vividly.

Many of the city streets were wide, wet and gray, but not drab. They were teaming with activity and life. Having lived in the desert for about two years, I’m not used to horse-drawn carriages, open air markets and cobblestones, but that’s what was in front me. I had never thought about Boston at all before my visit, never cared about it. In my head, it had always been too far east and too full of college students for me to comprehend. But I felt like I got it a little bit on this trip. It was big and upscale and bursting with people. I liked the whiff of formality and history in the air, which was mixed with a surprising bit of friendliness.

Eric, a friend from Silver City, rode the train with me into Boston and the lovely Jerrie, a friend from Colorado, showed me around. There were a few hours in there when I was completely alone, and even that was surprisingly personable. At one point, I wandered into a Vera Wang wedding dress boutique, just to see what it would feel like to be close to so much opulence (just as a lark really, because I don’t care at all about lavish weddings). When the friendly, Israeli storekeeper kindly asked me when my wedding day was, I realized it would be much easier and less embarrassing for us both to simply pretend. I don’t like lying like that, but it made sense in the moment, and on some level it was fun to imagine that a Vera Wang wedding really was my reality. I didn’t try anything on (I didn’t want to get too Muriel’s Wedding about this thing), but there was something special about being next to so much shiny satin and lace. It was as though I was in another country, one I don’t particularly want to live in, but one with a beauty I can certainly appreciate.

In case you’re curious, I told her my faux wedding is taking place about a year-and-half from now in San Francisco. He’s a great guy, not to mention the fact that his parents are paying for the dress.

Public library. Boston.

Looking out from the library.

My friend, Jerrie.

It was a little strange to see hoards of tourists in a graveyard, but I could understand. I had hardly seen anything in the US as old as this cemetery, either. Many of the graves were from the 1600s.

Many people have taken a ride on this donkey, I know. But how many have done it in the rain, sober? Finally, I feel original.

Boston at night.

For my mother

(BALTIMORE, Md.) — This city is like nothing I have ever seen, at least this part of it. In Hampden, where my friends Avelino and Meredith live, not a thing is uniform, except for overwhelming use of brick. It seem hodge podge here, with junky front yards butting up against well-groomed ones and bumper stickers of every political persuasion plastered to cars. Even the duplexes are split into two different colors. The streets come in all sizes and lengths, and many are downright European in their tininess. There are a bunch of hipsters that live here, a well as many older folks, and the rents are cheap enough that the pool of residents can get more varied in time. I feel like I’m in a scruffy version of an Edward Hopper painting — a strange, urban one with a sense of lonesomeness at its core. I like it here.

It’s getting to be that time of year just past the bright fall colors when the leaves are starting to really drop from the trees. This reminds me of my mom. Once, when I was little, she was driving through somewhere when she saw a gust of wind pick up a big group of leaves and swirl it around with abandon. I can’t remember her words describing this, but I know she was entranced and contemplated nudging me awake so I could see. She has told me, more than once, that she has always wished that she would have woken me up to watch “the dancing leaves.” The thing is, whenever I see leaves blowing like that, I do take notice now. Because of that story, I am always awake for the dancing leaves.

For some reason, this is the closest I have ever come to telling her.

Broadway boogie woogie

(JERSEY CITY, N.J.) — Why am I treating New York City like an attractive ex-boyfriend? I can’t really figure this out. Here I am in one of the most interesting places in America, and something is holding me back from really digging in and loving it. The city is full of pungent smells and bright lights and a lot of people being pretty damn creative. It’s like nowhere else in the US (I mean, I had Malaysian food last night). But instead of gleefully applauding all of the city’s attributes and advances, I feel like I’m giving it props only begrudgingly. Like an ex might, New York makes me feel insecure about myself, and its successes only make me question my own choices. I’m surrounded by people who are here to “make it” — as a writer, a photographer, an actor, whatever. Their drive and ambition makes me question my own. Like I did crossing the border into Canada a few months back, I am forced to ask myself some big questions.

What am I doing with my life? What is my passion? Who am I?

It is at this point that I feel like ducking into one of New York’s hip eateries, one that serves only cupcakes or crepes or designer donuts and drowning these questions in something sweet. I don’t want to complain. I don’t feel bitter. I simply feel challenged by this city. It keeps asking me why I don’t live here, and I can’t think of an answer that’s not touched by defensiveness. And, like any slightly painful breakup scenario, I don’t want to be defensive, nor do I want to be judgmental. I just want to be myself.

All this said, I am awed by this city. My surroundings are so rich that I have had no idea where to start, and I’ve spent most of my days just walking and observing people. I could watch people all day here and be happy doing just that. I love the cozy, multicolored leaf canopy of Central Park and the quaint, tree-lined streets of the West Village. Times Square’s neon tangle of tourists and cameras and huge, animated advertisements is both exciting and exhausting. I still want to see Harlem. I have yet to check out Brooklyn. I am surrounded by an infinite amount of coolness and possibility, and I know it. I simply want to enjoy it.

And then get back to my trip.