Depth of Experience

On Friday, I once again treated myself to a wonderful Carol Wingert class at Scrapbooks, Etc. This time, we made Carol's Dos-a-dos travel journal, a project she has taught a couple other times this summer. It's a fun red and black multiple part book. The front is an envelope/honeycomb book assembled with envelopes between the front and back covers. And the back is a another book, one with a sewn signature that opens from the back. When you look down from the top, the two books (joined at the back) make a Z shape.


I made a few changes to the covers. Carol used the same two papers on each front cover, and I used one paper on one cover and the other paper on the other cover. Inspired by classmate Marissa, I overstamped both papers with the assortment of travel stamps Carol provided. I love the way this adds another layer of interest to the covers. Oh, and don't miss the fun clipboard on the front cover (see Carol's picture).


In this picture of the back book cover, the paper background is tan and it has a swirling floral pattern. The word "travel" in the upper right corner (under the bird) is stamped, so are the names of the days of the week below that.

I nearly finished the embellishments in the class, and I'm working on this today because I am taking it with me next week to Santa Fe. I've decided that I need a change of scenery and since I visited the ocean in February, I'm heading for the high desert. I've been to Santa Fe more than a dozen times before, but it's been at least 10 years since my last trip. I'm very excited to visit all of my old favorites and discover some new ones.

I've actually had some difficulty deciding to take this trip. As I figured up the cost, I realized the fun things I could buy with the money and stay home. I have always been that practical about money, but in the past, I found it very easy to justify buying experiences over objects. It's only been the last 10 years or so that I've been more focused on having something to show for my expenditures. I'm not sure where that came from, but now that I see it clearly, I recognize it is a weed in my garden and I know it has been choking my growth a bit.

From my youth, I've been a person who wanted to experience as much of the world and as many different ways of living as I could fit into my life. I have always valued quality over quantity, and so I've avoided having the same experiences over and over (quantity). I've also chosen to avoid the path of the crowd, so I'm not a fan of shopping malls and I don't see all of the popular movies and listen to the hit radio stations. I seek out other things, art house and independent movies, world music, small import shops over big box retail, and documentaries on TV rather than prime-time series. I feel this gives me a richer life, and more texture in my thoughts than what is available through the mass consciousness. I haven't seen a single Seinfeld episode (and hence miss the references to that experience in the collective consciousness), but I know more than a little bit about art history and I've seen landscapes from most of the countries of the world (through photographs). I've experienced the prayer practices of several faiths, and love to chat with people from other places about their homelands.

It's not the life that most people want, but for me, it feeds my thinking and feeling, and nurtures my writing and my art.