In Which: I've also clearly got Baggage!

Since I got my luggage and had a nice outfit, I decided to go out last night. To a very nice restaurant, for a very intense chicken mole negro – mole sauce is made from chocolate, chiles, peanuts, and a host of other secret ingredients. It’s tasty, though perhaps not quite to my taste, and well, not very well aligned with the comfort of my digestion. It is a famous local dish, though, so I wanted to be sure and try it.

Travel is an odd thing. It forces me to stretch my boundaries, try new things, struggle with a foreign tongue, and have new – and often uncomfortable – experiences. At the same time, I find that I snap quite firmly back into my most comfortable and reliable habits, those things that make me feel most safe and normal. For example, one of the first places I found here in Oaxaca was the English-language lending library. Such institutions are frequently found in arty, temperate, ex-pat filled towns like Ubud in Bali and, apparently, Oaxaca here in Mexico. Counting the plane trip, I’ve gone through at least five novels, and turned down several polite offers to join other travelers at dinner, preferring to sit alone and read. I am an introvert at heart, and it just feels easier to sit alone and eat really good food and read than to try and make conversation and find common ground with complete strangers – even if they do speak English.

I’ve also found a really good Italian restaurant and eaten pizza – the same pizza, a small one with mushrooms, pepperoni and ham – for at least three meals. Even though eating pizza generally gives me sort of a cheese/wheat hang-over headache and makes me so tired that I sleep 12 hours. It’s still comfort food. And I seem to want to (need to?) sleep a lot, even though the bed is very tiny and you could break rocks on the pillow. It seems I need a lot of “down time” when I’m so stimulated by all the amazing sights and sounds and colors . . . and occasionally even new tastes, like crickets and mole.

It also makes me want to laugh when I do venture out into the wonderful warmth and sun, encounter other human beings, (as I did earlier today) and something like the following happens. Which it invariably does.

I meet an older American couple wearing almost identical straw hats. We are all trying to visit the Botanical Gardens, but a guard is standing just inside the open gates, wearing a gun, frowning and pointing to a sign (written in Spanish) and repeating several phrases, quickly and firmly and clearly without argument (also in Spanish). I’m starting to put the pieces together when the couple says to me, “You have to have a guide to enter, and the only English guides are on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“Oh.” I say. Cleverly.

“You have to visit the church, though,” she says. “It’s lovely.”

“I haven’t been inside the church yet,” I say, “It was closed when I tried to go. But I have heard that’s it’s wonderful. But the cultural museum next door is amazing – have you been?”

“No,” he says. “It looked closed. How do you get in?”

“Oh,” I say, “It’s closed on Mondays.”

“Well,” she says, “That explains that!”

“Will you be able to go tomorrow?” I say, thinking that that they have to say the exhibit with the almost life-size Day of the Dead-inspired drawings of skeletons in village scenes. I have been thinking of returning, just to get the book of illustrations from the exhibit.

“No, we leave for Puerto Escondido tomorrow.” She says, glancing at him, and he nods. “We only have a few days.”

“Oh, yes, the beach.” I say, “I’ve been thinking of going for a few days,” but I’m not sure if I’ll really have time to make the 10-14 hour round trip just to dip my toes in the ocean.

“Are you traveling alone, not with a group?” She asks, putting the pieces together, and looking at me in wonder.

“Yes,” I say, offering the fact that my boyfriend gets very little time off from work as a kind of explanation.

“Oh!” she exclaims, “You’re very brave!”

And I smile and laugh and wish them a good trip and secretly hope that I haven’t just given away the goods to a couple of very cleverly disguised con artists. I know how very unbrave I am, reading books alone at dinner and eating pizza.

Feeling Quiet Today . . .

Friends are coming over for dinner . . . heating up tamales, making some black beans with mangoes, and some steamed kale and chard with feta to go with . . . I like a lot of flavors. Imagining myself sitting quietly with a small glass of wine, just watching them talk and eat and laugh. Very happy. Maybe I'll make a pear-apple crumble, too.

And what's better on a quiet, rainy, introverted day than cooking and poetry? Here's another bit of word art from my poetry truck, The Blank Canvas, a proud member of the Portland Poetry Posse with Trixie the Poetry Car.


And a query I cannot begin to answer . . .

Return of the Secret Introvert

Today, I did one of my Favorite Things - I sat in a room with several other creative types talking about how to market ourselves and how to make a living doing what we love. That was thanks to Vicki Lind and her Job Club for Creatives. It gives me some accountability, and helps me work out a plan, develop it, and implement it rather than just sitting in my studio coming up with Really Great Ideas which may or may not help me actually Meet My Goals. (Goals, yes - those things that you work towards when you're not being distracted by a world that is full of Shiny Things - and my world is full of a Lot of Very Shiny Things).

And the meeting is small and has some structure, which makes my Secret Introvert very happy, because it is like school. I spoke clearly, was comfortable sharing my story, offered occasional feedback, and - hopefully - listened well and didn't try too hard to overcompensate by being funny (read: obnoxious).

I also did one of my Least Favorite Things. I hung up fliers to promote my upcoming workshops. Yes, there are people that can be hired to do these things, but they don't usually want to hear, "Hey, I'm copying these fliers now and they need to go out yesterday. Can you do that?" Time travel includes a nasty surcharge.

So, today found me posting fliers along Alberta. Which means walking into a coffee shop or an art store or a restaurant or a gallery or a food co-op and looking around to see if they have a community bulletin board and then putting up a flier.

This sounds completely painless. However, for Secret Introvert, this is torture.

What if they have a sign that says, "Please ask before posting"? What if I have to engage in clever small talk with an owner or a clerk who would really rather be selling something to an actual customer instead of dealing with another self-promoting paper-wasting hooligan? What if they look at me funny if I leave without buying anything? What if I decide to be bold and ask a question of someone who owns a gallery that I would really like to be represented by and she says, "What kind of work do you do?"

Well, apparently, if the latter happens, I will stutter and cross my arms and say something really witty like, "Oh, well, ahem, I do a lot of things, really, I . . . ah, work in mixed media, you know, collage and encaustic and fiber. I like mixing up as many media as I can."

Smooth.

And this is why e-mail and blogs are the Secret Introvert's trusty sidekicks. And this is why I'm part of the Job Club for Creatives. So that I can answer that question a little more smoothly next time.

Wanna Trade?

One of the coolest things about big art retreats like Art & Soul is the chance to trade . . . artist trading cards, handmade beads or charms, inchies, MOO cards . . . whatever little creative detritus and inspirational tidbits we can make and share . . . pictured above are the groovy 2-D trades I wandered away with!

I love trading in part because it says "what you make and what I make are equally cool" and "everyone deserves some original art or at least a cool limited edition." And I love it that I get to share and see what other folks are doing - and it's such a non-threatening, non-precious way to make art! "Oh, I have these little things and I can just make them and give them away and isn't that cool!"

So, I made a few little things to trade, and did a few trades. And it's hard to do trades when you're a secret introvert, like me. I wandered around vendor night with my little box and couldn't approach anyone . . . and I tended to only trade if someone else suggested it! And then my MOO cards came in this week (after Art & Soul, but it's never too late . . . ) and I said to myself, "Well, I can still trade, right?" So, if you'd like to send me some little art trade, I'll happily send you something back! Just send it to:

Bridget Benton
PO Box 4076
Portland, OR 97208-4076

and be sure to give me your name and address! Don't have anything to trade yet?