Turks and Caicos, winter 2007

I suspect that every journalist at some point thinks he or she is going to be/can be a travel writer.  I was (am?) not immune.  At one point in my fervent quest to turn my journalism career into that of a fabulous, globe-trotting travel writer, I got a freelance job helping a strange woman write a travel book on Caribbean destination wedding hotels.  I was told to get my information from the hotel brochures.  Supposedly it was to be a Frommer’s guide, and, clearly, the hotels were paying her.  It was all very disillusioning (and where was my actual trip to the Caribbean, anyway?).  Travel writing, I’ve come to theorize, is as much about luck as effort.  Because believe me, I’ve put in the effort:  I’ve come home from trips to Europe and South America and even Idaho with bags stuffed full of obscure restaurant menus and museum ticket stubs, pictures, and journals filled with my daily encounters, only to find that the newspapers to which I submitted my stories seemed already to have a cadre of  regulars.  Breaking in was difficult (at least for me). 

All this was during my “traveling years,” now somewhat abandoned for law school and Little Bugs (although, to be fair, we did go to Turks & Caicos last year).   Still, when I read good travel writing I not only fully appreciate the effort and meticulous detail that goes into a story, but I am incredibly jealous of the writer and also filled with practical questions: how did he or she get this gig?  Is this their only job?  How did they break in?  Matt Gross, who writes the Frugal Traveler column and blog for the Times, has been my favorite travel writer for a few years — I love it when he’s on one of his $100-a-day trips:  from traveling around the world or driving across the U.S. , to his current journey, retracing Europe’s “Grand Tour” on 100 Euros a day (a nod to the dismal exchange rate).  His writing is accurate — probably the most important trait for a travel writer — but also witty, personal, and at times surprisingly poignant.   Check out his current trip here.  Reading this makes me wonder how many European law firms need a U.S. tax lawyer…

As I noted before, I don’t like movies that are suspenseful, scary, violent, or downers. And so therefore I didn’t see many of this year’s Oscar nominated movies.  Last night, however, we watched Once, which won the Oscar for original song, and whose tagline is “How often do you find the right person?” (which right there makes it my kind of movie!)  Here’s what else makes it my kind of movie: it is a surprising love story in that by not being a typical love story it’s all the more poignant  and heartbreaking; it’s Irish and is set in Dublin; it’s about music; and, both physically and musically, the main character is a cross between Damien Rice and Chris Martin (check and check check check).  My sister and her husband (who met through their Middlebury a cappella group and who dabble in the guitar) recommended it, so after the first few minutes (a long scene of the main character busking on a Grafton Street sidewalk), Tim was skeptical (“They probably liked this only because they’re musicians…”).  But I was already hooked, and soon enough, Tim was too.  We have, of course, already downloaded the soundtrack.

 What was most touching to me, however, was a more subtle revelation about the artists.  A quick recap of my day to set the mood in which I watched the movie:  I took the MPRE in the morning (and still feel like I may have failed it), and Tim immediately picked me up so we could trek to the Babies R Us in Everett to buy some childproofing stuff for our about-to-be-quite-mobile 8-month-old. I find huge stores like that enervating to begin with, and the driving rain and traffic didn’t help.  In other words: not a good way to relax after a tough and important exam. So, despite a lovely bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape that we were saving for a special occasion, I still hadn’t completely unwound from my self-induced yuppie stress.  Back to the movie:  the story is about a musician who sings on the streets of Dublin, but lives at home in the suburbs, helping his aging father in his vacuum-repair shop and a young, Czech émigré who sells roses and cleans houses, and who ducks into a music store on her lunch hours to play their floor model pianos.  She helps the singer with lyrics and harmony, and he decides to record a spec CD to take to London to get a record deal.  He asks some other buskers who perform down the street from him to help out on the tracks – another guitarist, a basist, a drummer.  All five of them practice in John’s tiny bedroom and spend an entire night in the studio recording.  What gave me goosebumps was the transforming effect of the music.  The characters were no longer a vacuum-repair guy, or a housecleaner, or street buskers.  In a poignantly powerful detail, one of the guitarists even wears a tie into the recording studio.  It was worth it to them to live a relatively meager quotidian existence for the chance to do their art:  music was that important.  And, in the movie at least, this passion was tangible and authentic.

A few years ago, in a fit of despair and clarity (the former often brings on the latter), I thought I might run off to Rome and sweep floors in a well-known yoga studio to pay for my classes there and to support myself freelancing.  I’m totally serious.  It sounds terribly romantic and naïve, but I felt I’d be forced to be true to myself and, by giving up material comforts, might finally become the “real” writer I’ve always wanted to be.  And yet, here I am, just months away from become a big-firm attorney.  It would be easy to say that materialism and things won out, but, of course, real life is more complicated:  this was, after all, just a movie that I watched last night.  Still, I have a deep and almost soulful admiration for true artists who put their music or their writing or their painting first and let that art sustain them more than creature comforts.  After taking the MPRE yesterday I thought, almost happily, that if I failed it and couldn’t sit for the bar, I’d have a whole summer to write a novel (which would, of course become so successful that I wouldn’t have to take the bar and be a lawyer anyway).  Oh, the irony.

An idea for yet another soon-to-be-written bestseller (on which Tim’s plans for an early retirement so solidly rest…)

http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2008/02/07/where-are-the-working-parents-in-childrens-literature/