Your Little House Deep In The Desert
Oct. 19th, 2002 07:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
venetianarchiveSo, I haven't talked about Red Mountain yet, and I should. I would recommend it, since it was overall a good experience, although I don't think that others would find the experience as I lived it quite to their taste. Left early Saturday, encountered stupid SamTrans schedules and had to take a cab part of the way to the airport. On the journey out (St. George via Salt Lake City) I started The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials I). Arrived, got oriented, had a quick exercise before dinner, then had a Revitalizer treatment after dinner. I also finally caved and bought a little stuffed animal spa bear that I'd seen in Las Vegas in August. I still have this odd weakness for cute things - hence the ongoing love of Hello Kitty and such. Finished book and slept.
The next morning, I started by joining a group hike to Padre Canyon, where I learned a bit about the area - St George is a tourist town, for the most part - near the national parks, plus they have a lot of retirees from the warm weather. Continued the day with gentle yoga, exercise, swimming and jacuzzi (I now own a few durabooks, which you can read in the water - great for this type of relaxing.) Dinner, a meditation sampler, and a massage ended the day. Also continued with The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials II).
Finally, on Monday, I went for a walk across the lava fields, exercised, swam, had a facial, attended cooking class, had a pedicure, went on a garden walk, and spent the afternoon reading The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials III) in a hammock and on the plne home. All in all I kept to myself (although I think this would ba nice place to go with an SO or group of friends, as many here did.) The food was good and on the healthy side, although I wasn't really focused on health or weight loss, just escape.
This was best achieved by the books, of course, and the pairing of the HDM trilogy with being in a distant desert landscape was odd yet refreshing. I found the story engaging if slow moving at times, and I wish that the opposing forces had been better explained and developed - much of the story was focused on the two children, who while sympathetic, weren't nearly as interesting as some of the supporting characters. I would love to read the prequel to these events - although, as many sagas, what has gone before is interesting to us because we cannot touch it - it is rather more mythic. Still, a well developed and detailed world and a suitably unhappy ending were enough to please me.
I was also aware that it was yet another of several recent stories I've become aware of with young female protagonists, which I can't help but see as a good thing. Neil Gaiman's Coraline, and Chihiro of Spirited Away, like Lyra Belacqua, are on the edge of adolesence finding their way into adult lives and responsibilities, just as they step over the borders of reality into other worlds. It's a hopeful thing, although it makes me feel old, because I've already stumbled into my adulthood and "grown up" responsibilities, but I feel as though I am losing that spark, that hope for something really amazing and life changing to happen. I wish that like the characters, something incredible had happened when I was twelve or thirteen, that I'd found something magic or fallen in love, so that I could accept the quiet life that spreads out before me with greater contentment. For the rest of my life is just working and thinking and striving, and while not unhappy, there's damn little joy left in it. I wonder what it is I've lost.
The next morning, I started by joining a group hike to Padre Canyon, where I learned a bit about the area - St George is a tourist town, for the most part - near the national parks, plus they have a lot of retirees from the warm weather. Continued the day with gentle yoga, exercise, swimming and jacuzzi (I now own a few durabooks, which you can read in the water - great for this type of relaxing.) Dinner, a meditation sampler, and a massage ended the day. Also continued with The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials II).
Finally, on Monday, I went for a walk across the lava fields, exercised, swam, had a facial, attended cooking class, had a pedicure, went on a garden walk, and spent the afternoon reading The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials III) in a hammock and on the plne home. All in all I kept to myself (although I think this would ba nice place to go with an SO or group of friends, as many here did.) The food was good and on the healthy side, although I wasn't really focused on health or weight loss, just escape.
This was best achieved by the books, of course, and the pairing of the HDM trilogy with being in a distant desert landscape was odd yet refreshing. I found the story engaging if slow moving at times, and I wish that the opposing forces had been better explained and developed - much of the story was focused on the two children, who while sympathetic, weren't nearly as interesting as some of the supporting characters. I would love to read the prequel to these events - although, as many sagas, what has gone before is interesting to us because we cannot touch it - it is rather more mythic. Still, a well developed and detailed world and a suitably unhappy ending were enough to please me.
I was also aware that it was yet another of several recent stories I've become aware of with young female protagonists, which I can't help but see as a good thing. Neil Gaiman's Coraline, and Chihiro of Spirited Away, like Lyra Belacqua, are on the edge of adolesence finding their way into adult lives and responsibilities, just as they step over the borders of reality into other worlds. It's a hopeful thing, although it makes me feel old, because I've already stumbled into my adulthood and "grown up" responsibilities, but I feel as though I am losing that spark, that hope for something really amazing and life changing to happen. I wish that like the characters, something incredible had happened when I was twelve or thirteen, that I'd found something magic or fallen in love, so that I could accept the quiet life that spreads out before me with greater contentment. For the rest of my life is just working and thinking and striving, and while not unhappy, there's damn little joy left in it. I wonder what it is I've lost.
