I started reading Jonah Lehrer’s new book “Imagine: How Creativity Works” the other day.  One of the things mentioned on the inside flap of the book was the “importance of…adopting an outside perspective (travel helps).”

Isn’t it nice when something you love to do turns out to be beneficial for creativity?  (Are there people who don’t love travel?  There must be, but I feel sorry for them…)

Tomorrow we get to travel and spend a week as outsiders on the West Coast – not quite so culturally different as, say, ARGENTINA (waiting on that parent’s trip, Blake) but still pretty good.  Different ocean, different weather and free accommodations!  (A HUGE thank you to Martha & Jim Jansen for opening their house to us and making this trip possible.)

It has been my experience over the past 20+ years that sometimes the most eye-opening, mind-expanding experiences come from traveling within my own country.  Maybe because when I go overseas I expect things to be really different, but here the differences surprise me.  Sometimes for the good, sometimes not, but I always come away from it with a  new perspective.

And that is, after all, the point.

I might not blog as much while we’re away, but then again I may write like a madwoman every day and you’ll be sooo ready for me to get back to New York!

In light of recent posts on reading and subversive words, I’ve decided – at least for the time being – to end each of my posts with a quote chose at random from books that I like.  Look out, some of these words may be dangerous!!

“I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.”     – The Great Gatsby