Puerto Peñasco, Mexico

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cupcakewalk.com
(PCT 2002)

frozenpoodle.com

5.24.03 Puerto Peñasco
In Tucson, it's above 100 degrees. We're on the coast at the famous Rocky Point where thousands come to drink and act stupid, especially late at night in the parking lot outside our room. The temperature is enjoyable.

Right when I woke up, Ed wanted to get out the door to go to the beach. I like the idea of not spending mid-day at the beach, but not rushing on a vacation day. We made our way to

I was fascinated with placelessness in my urban planning studies. Many malls become placeless as the stores and merchandise become the same, and as the look of the stores and place itself become indistingishable. I wanted to study this, but was not after a PhD, so I let it go.

Now I find myslef interested in placelessness again. This time it's the idea of living without a place.

I know many people who lived in the same house growing up. Many people are born, live and die in the same town or county. These people truly have place. Having place is natural where ever people put down roots: make the committment of a mortguage, or consistent schooling for thier kids. They choose place. They make a committment to a place out of love or logic.
Placelessness comes from not choosing a place. You can be in a place a long time (years!) and still be placeless. That's what my time on the Monterey Peninsula was after grad school.
Now, I continue placelessness by not choosing to be in any place for very long; only as long as it suits me.
Placelessness is not a bad thing if it's done by choice. If placelessness happens to a person, it's perhaps one of the worst ways to live.
The scale of having place and placelessness must be discussed to clarify the point. One must have the feeling of a place on the planet: One must feel the space to be one's self. There is room for everyone.
To have a place among the living is perhaps the biggest bundle we can feel tied to. We can also be part of many other bundles that give us place: some religions, ethnic or national identity, and other various groupings, like Civil War reenactment groups or cancer survivor groups. In contrast to that kind of socail placesness, I'm talking about the place or placelesness of day-to-day life and how that feels to the soul.
Where are you now? What does it mean to you?

[That's what I was thinking about down there...]

The beach was windy. The town was full of Americans, worse than those in Cabo San Lucas. The food in the restaurants was fair, but the taco stands rocked. I went in the ocean a few times, swimming out far. We ended up leaving Puerto Penasco early, opting for a quiet night of sleep at home.

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