Bliss Even in the Dells: Rewrite

This is a rewrite of my last post. Feedback on whether it's an improvement or not is most appreciated.

In response to how our weekend ski trip to Wisconsin Dells was, I said pensively, "It was bliss." From someone familiar with the Dells, I got back, "Bliss? In the Dells?" in a "come again?" voice.

After weeks of trying to find the perfect weekend ski getaway, I almost shamefully chose the Dells. Shamed because it was too easy—a known place from childhood trips with lame skiing. Shamed because I didn't even choose one of the kitschy camp 70s motels where my best friend and I and our little brothers grew away from our parents and into pre-teen independence. Shamed because instead I gave in to the suck and lure of the mega complex that took over the Dells—Mt. Olympus—one of those sprawling combo indoor-outdoor-theme-park-water-park accommodations without a soul, not even an inkling of personality. Stickers and plastic slapped together and propped up.

Upon arrival in the main lobby of Mt. Olympus, you wait in the roped area that goes back and forth like an amusement park line. This just to check in because you are among thousands. You get a plastic band locked onto your wrist. For the next three days you become part of the system. You move through the complex over painfully patterned carpet with no need for money or personal items. A scan of your wristband gets you a towel or a Bud light or a funnel cake.

There was no Mt. Olympus when I went to the Dells in the 70s. Though apparently the Greek family that started monopolizing the Dells was there—in the go-kart business—Goofy Karts to be specific. Since its inception in 2004, starting with roller coasters, Mt. Olympus has spread over the Dells like an infection. From over five roller coasters to the Trojan Horse go-kart track to its seven different lodging properties, it has entrenched itself as the owner of the north side of the downtown Dells strip.

The Dells was always a tacky, wacky, sugar-coated wonder to me—something I didn't get in my parents' hippie home of granola burgers and hand-sewn clothes. So I longed for and coveted that plastic indulgence of the Dells. We stayed at Monaco Motel. Next door to Flamingo Motel. Across the street from Shamrock and Mr. Pancake. 

We burnt our eyes out in the sun-blazed, chlorinated parking lot pool. Then shuffled flip-flop feet over to the dark arcade with its musty smelling AC that chilled goose bumps into our skin in an oddly exciting way. If we saw other kids, we kept our gang of four tight and observed them, daring each other to talk to them, whispering about them. We didn't stay long. Probably just a day and a night on the way to earthy camping that our parents thought was better but wasn't.

Over the years, big complexes and attractions have nudged their way in and spread their tentacles over the Dells. But last summer my best friend's brother, who was always my kissing partner in our kid-games like Seven Minutes in Heaven, his family, my kids, and I went back to the Dells. We stayed at Monaco Motel. Nothing had changed since the 70s. Nothing. I mean even the music being piped out to the picnic area and pool was the same. We ached for yesteryear listening to Barracuda, Bad Girls, Ku Fu Fighting, and Radar Love while our kids rubbed raw the backs of their thighs sliding down the same dolphin slide we did so many years ago. The small, fake wood-paneled arcade was the same. The light fixtures the same.

That summer I saw that the Dells retained much of the summertime pre-teen wonder. That slightly risky feeling of sweet fun that is just a little over the top—like a stack of chocolate chip pancakes when you normally eat Cheerios or AC that blows wastefully cold air when you normally lie in front of a weakly rotating fan or wearing short shorts or splurging for five roller coaster rides in a row. The Dells still had that feel even up against the over-the-top attractions that had come to town, making it like watching a loud, obvious 3D movie with a gallon of Coke that does little more than hurt your ears and teeth instead of a movie like The Hustler where your imagination fills in the blanks and leaves you internally readjusted for life.

The Mt. Olympus hotel that I finally, shamefully picked for our ski trip had none of that nostalgia; not even the kitsch really because doesn’t kitsch imply something so gaudy that it’s cool? This hotel evoked no feeling; it was like lodging in a warehouse. But the Monaco Motel was across the street. I could at least gaze at it longingly and ponder my 11-year old tingly, heady feelings.

I later learned that Monaco Motel was also recently bought by Mt. Olympus. Sigh.

So how then was I able to find bliss in this two-faced Dells?

I used my live-in-the-moment perspective. The very one I wrote about in an early post called Be Here Now. The one I have been burnishing over the years. The one that took me away from a life that was constantly frazzled, murky, Jonesing, and speeded up.

I learned the most about living in the moment when I read Slowing Down to the Speed of Life by Richard Carlson and Joseph Bailey. That was the 1997 edition; now I’m reading the 2009 revised and updated edition. I read it slowly; a little bit every day like a bible.

It tells me there are two modes of thinking: analytical and free flowing.

Analytical thinking is essential in doing things like using a computer, driving a car, following maps, learning language, and balancing checkbooks. In its proper usage, analytical thinking works from your memory. Because of it, you don’t have to relearn how to get to the grocery store each time.

Free flowing thinking happens when you are in the moment. You’re not looking for hidden meaning in your boss's condescending tone, not rehashing ideas of how to help your son love school like you did, not berating yourself for eating a whole sleeve of cookies, not imagining how much better your writing will be when you have a new iPad.

Instead you see how sun on your daughter’s skin shows the teeniest slivers of every color of the rainbow, how sadness feels like a swell in your chest and sometimes hurts more when you try to smile it away, how you like the look of your gnarled, rooty fingers because they look like your dad’s.

Unfortunately analytical thinking dominates our time and seeps into so many moments where it wreacks havoc. You cannot see the beauty in front of you if you are in your head trying to solve some problem of the past or to live some unreal life of the future. The key to staying in the free flowing thinking mode is just to recognize when you’re not in it. Just taking note changes the way you think.

It’s not always easy. You can easily stumble back into that pattern and not notice your overwrought thinking for days or weeks.  Or sometimes you’re right there in the peace of the moment and those analytical thoughts start barking in your ear. That’s when I recite Shifu’s line from Kung Fu Panda, “I…inn...inner peace, inn…inner peace” in a quavering voice.

                                          
                                      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmmrrfJKY7I

Now if you really practice mindful living, you know that there is good stuff to look at right in your own home, backyard, office, grocery store, car. Everywhere. Because it’s not the stuff that’s beautiful. It’s your perspective. But even Shifu gets distracted by flapping sounds. A boost, like travel, helps shoo the over-analytical thoughts away from the present moment.

And on that note, I propose that it doesn’t really matter where you travel. Even opposing forces of summertime nostalgia versus vapid establishment take-over in the Dells makes for good travel when you live mindfully and appreciate the moment.

I was able to slow way down and indulge in people-watching at the Mt. Olympus indoor water park. In my analytical mindset I would have seen the people as tacky, low class, shallow, sloppy. But in my free flow mindset, I witnessed a Rubenesque woman floating down the “Lazy River” holding her cherubic baby who raised his little butter ball clenched hand to her face and looked at her like she was a goddess. She was. They floated by in an otherworldly love bubble.

The man with MADE IN THE USA tattooed across his entire muscular back in block letters was wrought with meaning and metaphor for me. He was the symbol of a country built on the backs of its hardworking countrymen and women. I saw 1950s patriotic propaganda.

A snack bar cashier scanned our plastic wristbands and gave us nothing-tasting soft serve ice creams cones as the snow fell in big white flakes outside the steamy pool windows. She had an accent and I knew she must be working on a temporary visa from some European country. All brimming with future and potential, she did not exude that “stuck here” attitude. She was living life, exploring America, working in a water park for awhile then using her money to go on to explore maybe Spain or South Africa or Montana.

You see things in a positive light when you live mindfully. You don't take things so seriously. You’re not attaching a lot of predisposed ideas on your experiences. Instead of seeing the shoddy wallpaper work, you see a Greek fantasy bed.

You try things with an open mind. Instead of thinking that the food at a place with moose butt delivery cars must be terrible, you are intrigued by the restaurant called Moosejaw. And you eat there. And the kids think the chocolate milk is dreamy. You enjoy a 7&7 because it seems like the perfect thing to drink in the Dells. And it is. Sweet and silly.

You’re more apt to wander. Instead of saying, What the fuck is that? when you see three big boob-like mounds, you say, Hmmm, oooo, let’s check it out … and you instantly pull into the parking lot of the Dynasty Chinese Restaurant. And you eat there. And you plan on not going back.

Nostalgia sits quietly behind the newer mega-land-ness of the Dells. But it is still there peeking around the new massivity. There behind messy entrails of parking lots and roller coasters and theme parks and rooms and attractions. There behind the WETT bar that parents wonder if they should shield their kids' eyes from as they pass its huge window that clearly displays an interior of adults-only neon lights, glossy walls, multiple bars, and a slippery looking dance floor. There behind the stark white "Upside Down House" attraction with its empty parking lot that makes you wonder if it's really open despite the sign that it is and it's only $5 to enter.

And the bonus is that, through a mindful lens, the big, flashy attractions that took center stage over the Duck Boat rides of the 70s also seem worth a look. Why not? So pull off the road, slow down, and take a look.

Wander through life . . .

moment after sweet, silly moment.