We wake up to loud music playing at the hotel room next door, a song is ending, and the beginning of "New York, New York" starts. Edward lifts the receiver of our vintage 1960s phone (its a boutique hotel, with a 60s mod theme) and whispers in French. The only thing I can translate him saying is: "We can hear music, 'New York, New York.'" Then much more is said in French, then he hangs up.
Read MoreIt would become the story we told all summer: Philippa emerged from the Rocky Mountain National Park bathroom, rounding a corner, and shouting across a parking lot to me.
"Ariel! Have you seen my phone?"
Read MoreThe woman smiled and looked me up and down like she was reading me. I let my vivid imagination and writerly brain run wild -- a story about a perfumer who was actually psychic who reads customers and gives her life prescriptions under the guise of giving directions for perfume. I've romanticized the idea that a stranger can look at you and tell you exactly what you need.
Read MoreBefore 11 pm, still happy from my meal at the Crow's Nest, I slid into the bubbly rectangle in the cave, the water rising up to my chin. I then got up to my waist in the heated pool, then I told Edward I was going to sit in the sauna and borrowed his flip flops.
Read MoreSure, we'd had a success that day. But we couldn't all party and rejoice without keeping the momentum going for the many months or years that we would need to. Showing up was only 1/4 of the battle.
Read More"This, Ariel Davis, is the craziest thing you've ever done." Maybe I'd reached my limit, maybe I'd done something too crazy. I think of my idol, George Sands, who whisked Frederick Chopin to Majorca. I think of Max Frisch. Maybe this is just the great literary tradition.
Read MoreBy noon, I was twisting a can of Montauk Summer Ale into the sand at Ditch Plains.
Read MoreStimulus. Traveling, as a writer, is like having lived in a desert and suddenly arriving at an oasis. Everything is worth being written about when I'm traveling. Every view, every long walk, every overheard conversation (a hipster on a bus). The temperatures, the mistakes. The new views out of new window panes.
Read More
