It began a month ago with three large metal storage cubes...
We filled two of them and gave away or sold the rest rather than fill the third.
We packed a suitcase each and put three cats in the back seat and drove out of Georgia...
When all you keep with you is whatever you call family and a suitcase of clothes, you tend to be able to see more of life.
A month later and I'm still wearing the same five or six outfits I packed in the suitcase (washed, thankfully). A month later and we're still living with our brother and sister-in-law. We're sharing meals and taking turns cooking and cleaning.
Even though we will move into our own Seattle apartment this weekend, I'm reminded that the grandest experiences in life can occur when we are owned by fewer possessions. For this past month, we've had access to only a trunkful of our stuff, and I predict that when we open those metal storage cubes and move into our 800sqft apartment, we'll find ways to free ourselves of more stuff...
In honor of National Poetry Month--every April, all April:
Poets do not necessarily all make a practice of writing in lines on a page, though I love those who do.
What makes a poet?
irish sea / construction wall / old man / pup
Poets can hold both sides of the coin to be true. Poets, plumbing their unique pains, reach universal insights into life on earth. Poets create meaning in the very act of wrestling with meaninglessness. Poets know that the shortest distance between two points isn't always a straight line. They'll ride an old bike when a car would be efficient.
The world needs more poets--people who know things without having an explanation for them. People who know that often Truth doesn't arrive to us in data, nor even words, but around and in between words.
Wall Street needs more poets,
Washington needs more poets,
Churches needs more poets (albeit Jesus was a poet),
School boards need more poets,
Banks need more poets,
Every family needs a poet,
Every person needs a poet in their life.
Go find a poet today and be their friend! Or better yet, go practice being a poet today!
I don't remember how old I was, probably various ages between eight and thirteen. Sometimes, when I needed to get away by myself, I walked to the southwest corner of our 4.5 acre Illinois property, where our field of clover and alfalfa met two adjacent cornfields. Between the cornfields, a ridge of earth and long grasses marked the boundary.
By July, I could disappear between the fields, hidden by cornstalks, and walk what seemed like a mile to another confluence of hedgerows--a small patch of meadowy-soft tall grasses, and an old oak or hickory shading part of it. Seems like on at least one occasion, I found the grass beneath that tree matted neatly down--a deer's bed. I sat in my own spot of grass beneath the tree with a sandwich, a book, and a journal, and let time simply pass.
I don't think I fully appreciated that place, or I would have gone more often. I remember noting from season to season, the hedgerow seemed to get narrower, a few more inches here and there plowed under by the farmers on either side. I became afraid of foxes, coyotes, or worse, ticks. At some point all my experience with nature became clouded with the knowledge and worry of things out to get me--the knowledge of good and evil, and I let it chase me out of the garden.
And now I wish I could go back--that probably goes without saying. I regret not living there more, not inhabiting that nook in the fields more frequently. I lived in the house there for ten years before going to college. I lived there two more summers during. But I didn't live in the land enough, while it was available to me. Nothing that private is available to me anymore. But it doesn't have to stay that way.
Mid-60s - most likely 2 little boys are just off camera getting into trouble
A couple years before I was born, early 80s
How did they cope with empty-nest syndrome?
They got Happy Dog and gave birth to me!
The whole gang
An early mother's day tribute, because who says we can only celebrate the women who nurtured us on the second Sunday of May?
To my beautiful mom, the only person who genuinely cares about every single little detail of her kids' lives; who sewed us our clothes with her own two hands; who made us breakfast, lunch, and dinner every single day for eighteen years; who showed up to every single play, game, field trip, and spelling bee.
She only has ever done and will ever do her very best to give us the very best.
It may seem odd, but the moment I step off the plane in Boston, ready to ride the Silver line, then the Red line to Lesley University every six months, I feel as though I've stepped into a separate container of time and space from the one in which I live. Time there is sweet and beautiful, every moment is precious. The world gives us magical gifts, like calm summer nights and blankets of snow. Most importantly, we, the students and faculty, are gathered for ten endless and fleeting days to share the most important things in our lives--our writing, our dreams, our love.
But what makes this time so brimful of meaning is the same thing that makes it heartache-sour. We cannot continue forever. After one more residency, and a truncated graduating residency, we will never again converge in this sacred space with these saints in our lives.
A theme kept showing me its face today, peeking around corners at me, calling me to follow. It whispered in my ear, Loved, lost places--this idea that we leave a place and even if we come back, neither the place nor ourselves are the same; we can never return to that place, even if we are physically present there.
Maybe I've been listening to The National too much lately, but this kind of melancholy, I believe, allows us to appreciate even more deeply the transient, profound moments of our lives.
You history buffs out there, or eclectics like me, might enjoy a comparison of these three videos.
Each video was taken from a trolley traveling down Market Street, toward the San Fransisco Ferry
riding a SF trolley with friends in 2009
Building. You can see the spire of the ferry building at the end of the road in each of the videos.
I'm interested in the difference not only in the buildings and attire, but the attitude, expressions, and gestures of the people caught on film.
The first video, from 1905, pre-earthquake, is wild with activity. Rumor has it the cameraman hired his friends to drive around like maniacs in front of the trolley to keep the video lively.
The second video, taken just after the 1906 earthquake, is not surprisingly more sober. But I was intrigued to see families--men, women, and children--walking the streets as if it were any old Sunday morning.
The third video is modern San Fransisco, 2005, with characteristically busy pedestrians and drivers. Still, some were aware enough to smile and wave at the camera. I laughed out loud when 4:40 into the video one guy pushing his bike across the street waved his hat. It reminded me of a gesture someone from the 1905 video would have made. Word to the wise: listen to the third video on mute. The music is cringe-worthy. Sorry.
Second, newly uncovered 1906 footage of the city right after the earthquake and subsequent fires. From 2:30 to 6:00 is the trolley ride down Market Street. The rest contains footage of some of the demolition and clean-up efforts. (Footage from devour via kottke.org)
And here's the third video: a trip down Market Street today... well, 5 years ago. Remember to mute this one. And don't miss the guy at 4:40!
I hope you've enjoyed time traveling with me and seeing how people have lived in and with the great city of San Fransisco. What else did you see in the videos that you thought was interesting?
A friend of mine recently mentioned that she was "nearing 30..." and the first thought through my mind was that she can't be nearing 30, cause we're the same age. But regardless of whether I acknowledge it or not, life is moving forward and I'm caught in the stream. One way I plan to avoid getting caught in the shallows is to try new experiences. Be adventuresome. So we decided to try geocaching!
On Friday, my husband and I took off work and drove about two hours north to the Piedmont/ Blue Ridge region of the Appalachian mountains.
Our first stop was Amicalola Falls State Park in Dawsonville, GA. We had two objectives here: (1) hike down and then back up the (alleged) 600 steps along the waterfall ravine, and (2) find the geocache hidden near the lodge.
[About geocaching: Some friends of ours (I'll call them S & S) are big-time into geocaching, driving around all day with a handheld GPS, hunting down hidden caches by their coordinates, logging in, moving on to the next one. They were the ones who finally convinced us to try geocaching by lending us their little Garmin GPS. Here's what it's all about.]
The Georgia State Parks has a Geo-Challenge, which states if you find all 42 caches hidden in that many parks and historic sites, and stamp your PassPort with that park's unique stamp, you get geo-coins! A bronze coin for 15 caches, silver for 30, and gold for 40. Since we enjoy (and need an excuse) to hike in parks anyway, these are the caches we'll do, rather than those hidden in people's yards or in parking lots. We'll save those for days we're really bored.
So first we hiked the falls. We are also part of the Georgia Canyon Climbers Club, which means if we hike all four state parks that take part in this club, we get bragging rights. Oh yeah, and a t-shirt. (We're really not suckers for kitschy prizes, I promise!)
We parked at the top of the falls, climbed down about 425 steps to see this:
Amicalola Falls
From the bridge straddling the falls, we enjoyed the cool breeze and a chance to stretch our legs. (Going down stairs is a lot harder than you would think! Especially if you're nearing 30.) Andrew took lots of pictures with his classic "continuous shot" technique, so the above picture is one of 20 that look almost identical. While we were there, our GPS caught enough satellites to coordinate our position. Apparently a basic handheld GPS doesn't work very well under tree cover, but once we'd been on the bridge for a while it finally locked on. So, satisfied that we had a few good pictures and that the GPS worked, we trudged on. Down 175 more steps and a long downhill path to a reflection pond.
Friendly nature-people pic
Along the way we met another couple hiking uphill. We stopped to chat and take each others' pictures. Afterwards, Andrew said, "Why is it that nature people are so much nicer than regular people?" Food for thought, folks.
At the pond, Andrew apologetically fielded a work call (we needed another rest anyway), then we headed back to the top. I claimed we couldn't really call ourselves "canyon climbers" unless we actually went up in elevation. Right? I found that I much prefer going up than going down. I'd rather get a cardiovascular workout than have creaky knees and rubbery calves and quads. But that's just me.
From there we drove over to the park lodge. The description said the cache was hidden about 60 feet off a short, easy trail loop nearby. Using the GPS coordinates we found the closest point along the trail. "Sixty feet? I thought we weren't supposed to go off the trail!" I said. All along our hikes so far were signs saying basically,
"Leave trail at your own risk." "Stay on the trails for your own safety." "It is against the law to leave the trail."
Well, it didn't really say that last bit, but the young-Hermione-Granger part of me believed it was reckless and unfair to invite geocachers to wander around the underbrush of the forest trying to find an ammo box with a bunch of trinkets inside. Also, you've gotta understand, I'm a nature-loving city girl who incidentally HATES catching a spider web in the face and is paranoid of getting a tick.
our first cache!
But I followed Andrew off the trail anyway and we wandered around for a minute. There was a subtle footpath from the other cachers that helped point us in the general direction. We kept saying things like "It's gotta be around here somewhere," and "I think that's poison ivy." I was afraid we weren't going to find the cache before the spiders and ticks and poison ivy found us, but then I turn around and Andrew's looking smug and pointing at the ground. At his feet lay a pile of rocks and small logs--conspicuous enough to be the obvious hiding place, but natural enough to make it tough to spot, especially for caching virgins like us. We opened the box, I signed the log book, we stamped our cards, snapped a picture, and left a plastic jewel thingy I had found along the trail.
After a hiatus in civilization for some wine-tasting at Wolf Mountain Winery (they didn't card me--another indication I'm clearly nearing 30) and yummy pizza at Gustavo's in Dahlonega, we drove to Vogel State Park to fit one more cache in our day.
grapes!
giant veggie slice
We arrived at Vogel and walked straight to the trailhead of the 1/8 mile loop the cache was on. On the way, I turned on the GPS to let it catch some satellites. We wanted to enjoy the hike, but it was also 7:00, and nearing sundown, so we were kind of in a hurry. By the time we got to the trail, the GPS had 2 sats--not enough to triangulate our position. Then once we got under tree cover, reception was worse. It lost what signals it had, and wouldn't pick up anything else. Remember how it didn't get enough satellites in Amicalola until we'd been standing on the bridge for a while? Apparently the best way to let it get set is to stand still until the GPS picks up 3 or 4 satellites. Nice to know now. (Thanks, S & S!)
From the trail, I veered onto what looked like the same kind of footpath that led to the last geocache. We looked around there, but not knowing whether we were anywhere even close to the location, we kept going.
Near the highest point of the trail was a sort of camp circle with benches and logs, and we thought for sure the cache had to be there! The GPS even picked up enough satellites to tell us we were 50-some feet from the coordinates of the cache. We spent probably 20-30 minutes absorbed in the following activities: looking around the kumbaya circle, then continuing on the trail, then determining that doing so led us farther from the cache, and then retracing our steps to the kumbaya circle to look some more. Meanwhile, it's getting darker.
Finally, after resetting the GPS, we got a more accurate read that we were more like 100-some feet away. And we found that retracing the path the way we came in took us closer to the cache. But once again, as we descended the trail under more tree cover, we lost the signal.
centaurs might emerge from a dark forest
In the growing darkness (doesn't that sound scary?) we tried to search out what we might have missed on our hurried trip in. I followed the same footpath I had tried before, looking harder this time, fearless of spiders or ticks. (We were that desperate to find the cache before it got too dark.) Andrew ventured further than before, across a little gully, and found a familiar pile of rocks and small logs at the roots of a tree. We were so excited to have found it finally, in the near darkness under all those trees. But then when we opened it, the stamp for our cards was missing. Someone apparently thought it was one of the trinkets to trade and took the stamp! Consoling ourselves with "It would have been worse to leave without even finding the cache," we packed everything back in the box and made our way to the exit of the trail.
When we finally left, it was nearly 8:00, mostly dark, and we were tired and thirsty. On our way out of the park Andrew said, "I bet that's the most harrowing, frustrating state park geocache we'll ever do." I hope he hasn't jinxed us.
She picks up her electric guitar, begins strumming the offbeats. Stops. Waits. Starts again, just before people getting off walk by.
"Don't worry
'Bout a thing
Cause everything
Is gonna be alright"
When the stream subsides, she stops, looks around, puts the guitar in its stand, and reclaims her lonely seat on the bench--not even noticing I'm inside the train. And I'm still listening.
The doors close, and I'm lurched away. But her voice stays in my head.
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