“You could die up there and no one would know, for like, days,” Noelle says to me after our long night out in BigCity, NC. We’re discussing the hike up, how I’ll be doing it alone at about two in the morning, and how I’ve got twenty pounds of groceries to carry while I’m at it.
But I want to tell her, oh the clusters of trillium in the afternoon light, the peach of sunrise over the grey hills, the splash of the spring water always reminding me how much this mountain has to give. Life is sustained here, I can see it and feel it and breath it and slowly, I’m becoming a part of it. It’s been one week on Fork Mountain and already I think I am in love. If I died up here, the mountain would know first and maybe that’s all that counts.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Saturday, April 28, 2007
One Map at a Time
It takes a couple false starts but finally, I find the tax office for our county and inquire about maps. The topographical ones, it turns out, are located one county over where the Forest Service headquarters are. But the tax office has the property maps, fire districts, townships, and so forth and this is just as fascinating to me. I shake hands with two gentlemen behind the counter who seem very curious to know who I am and where I’ve moved to within their district.
I offer the address and the older of the two gentlemen tips his hat up above his forehead, looks at my squarely, and addresses me. “Oh, up thataway, yup, Fork Mountain. That’d be map 0865 now, let me just see here…” He turns around and heads toward a wall of shelved maps, pulls a cluster of them from a lower rack, and lays them across an oversized drafting table. “This here, right? That’s your road.” He traces the road from the state route, across the bridge, past two cemeteries, and on up the mountain to the end of the line. “And the property line is right here, see.” His fingers are yellowed and worn, but slide effortlessly across the seams of the map. When he points to the property, his fingers tap the odd shape affirmatively as if to seal the deal. My eyes are drawn to the vast area of white beyond his fingers. The property I’m on has the last residence for miles if you keep going up and over the mountain. I see a small dot just a bit lower than the dot that marks my new home but I know already that it’s the small, abandoned shack up the logging road past the driveway. Beyond that, nothing. Beyond that, the other side of the mountain and different map. I see, too, that there are large tracks of land, some over one hundred and two hundred acres apiece, with hardly a dot on them. Who are these neighbors? What history does their land hold and where do they live if not on their own acres?
I pay the gentlemen five dollars for a copy of the map (it must be three feet by four feet), grab a free Tinytown map on my way out the door, and hit the road.
And on the walk home, oh, the way the purple-faced geraniums bob their heads in a crowd of green up the slopes of the mountain. And how the painted trillium bow their heads at dusk, setting their petals to rest with the sun each evening. And later, how I spotted new blooms of a multi-petaled white, wildflower (whose name escapes me now), it’s miniature blooms like explosions of fragrance from the earth. The mountain is waking up, stretching beyond its many hidden husks, growing upward with the rise of each day and exhaling slowly into the winds of each night. Soon the forest will fill completely, part of the view will be obscured by branches sagging with the weight of their labors. Small jungles will be born here, colonies of insects beneath every other boulder, the succession of wildflowers always giving way to brilliant growth, each stage a object lesson for life.
Inside the house, I set my backpack down and pour a glass of springwater from the faucet. I rummage through a box to find my tacs, and set to arranging the property map along one of the west walls of the main floor. It takes a bit of figuring to hang it straight and level, but once its set, I tack it down and find my road. My fingers trace the thing blue line up the shoulders of the mountain then stop where only white space remains. I tap the map with a smile. This, this is where ideas are born. Where I regain my faith in putting words on the page. Where I remember all that I have been given.
I offer the address and the older of the two gentlemen tips his hat up above his forehead, looks at my squarely, and addresses me. “Oh, up thataway, yup, Fork Mountain. That’d be map 0865 now, let me just see here…” He turns around and heads toward a wall of shelved maps, pulls a cluster of them from a lower rack, and lays them across an oversized drafting table. “This here, right? That’s your road.” He traces the road from the state route, across the bridge, past two cemeteries, and on up the mountain to the end of the line. “And the property line is right here, see.” His fingers are yellowed and worn, but slide effortlessly across the seams of the map. When he points to the property, his fingers tap the odd shape affirmatively as if to seal the deal. My eyes are drawn to the vast area of white beyond his fingers. The property I’m on has the last residence for miles if you keep going up and over the mountain. I see a small dot just a bit lower than the dot that marks my new home but I know already that it’s the small, abandoned shack up the logging road past the driveway. Beyond that, nothing. Beyond that, the other side of the mountain and different map. I see, too, that there are large tracks of land, some over one hundred and two hundred acres apiece, with hardly a dot on them. Who are these neighbors? What history does their land hold and where do they live if not on their own acres?
I pay the gentlemen five dollars for a copy of the map (it must be three feet by four feet), grab a free Tinytown map on my way out the door, and hit the road.
And on the walk home, oh, the way the purple-faced geraniums bob their heads in a crowd of green up the slopes of the mountain. And how the painted trillium bow their heads at dusk, setting their petals to rest with the sun each evening. And later, how I spotted new blooms of a multi-petaled white, wildflower (whose name escapes me now), it’s miniature blooms like explosions of fragrance from the earth. The mountain is waking up, stretching beyond its many hidden husks, growing upward with the rise of each day and exhaling slowly into the winds of each night. Soon the forest will fill completely, part of the view will be obscured by branches sagging with the weight of their labors. Small jungles will be born here, colonies of insects beneath every other boulder, the succession of wildflowers always giving way to brilliant growth, each stage a object lesson for life.
Inside the house, I set my backpack down and pour a glass of springwater from the faucet. I rummage through a box to find my tacs, and set to arranging the property map along one of the west walls of the main floor. It takes a bit of figuring to hang it straight and level, but once its set, I tack it down and find my road. My fingers trace the thing blue line up the shoulders of the mountain then stop where only white space remains. I tap the map with a smile. This, this is where ideas are born. Where I regain my faith in putting words on the page. Where I remember all that I have been given.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
More Adventures on the Mountain
This morning, yellow violets all the way down the gravel road. Maples seemed to burst overnight and small huddles of meadowrue decorated the pathways along the property. Just before the front entrance to the house, a cluster of white trillium.
I looked for the deer for several minutes upon waking, hoping to see them from my bed, nibbling in the garden down below. I searched again from the porch, thinking a bird’s eye view might help but still, no sign of them. After yoga, I stepped out onto the porch to play banjo and searched again. This time, a quick brush of movement up the south slope about sixty feet from the garden. Then another. I spotted two of them as they spotted me, their oblong noses pointed my direction, ears erect, tails flapping. I could sense their questioning, unable to place the tall figure in the distance of their field of vision. Surely I wasn’t a threat, else they would have bolted, but their curiosity was roused and we stared intently at each other for several minutes. I scanned the area for the third deer and finally caught sight of it. It had climbed further up the slope than its two companions, contently nibbling spring greens from the edge of the gravel driveway. Their size and stature make me think it is the same three deer I saw yesterday morning and already I am eager to greet them tomorrow and see if we cannot start to grow accustomed to each other’s morning routines.
At the Coffeehouse, Grover comes in with a proud smile and the county map in his hand. He points to “our mountain,” as he calls it, then shows me the road leading to his house. “And this here, this one’s your road. Except that driveway of yours isn’t on it, so you’re up even higher here than the line indicates.”
I nod and thank him. “I stopped by the Forest Service headquarters today, Grover. I asked for a topo but their maps are in another office back in Tinyville so I’ll pick it up on my way to work tomorrow. Come back and we’ll take a peek at it.”
“Will do,” he says, adding that know-how nod of his while keeping his gem eyes locked onto mine.
It’s the water that calls to me the most. Where it pours from, what it pours into, and its ultimate course in shaping the land, therefore the roads, therefore the communities, therefore the people. We are a culture and society of names and namers, labeling this and that, finding the source of things or becoming the source of other things. Springs abound on this mountain and the slopes of Roan form an entire watershed. I want to know what feeds the life here, how it nurtures its own forest and feeds a community of agriculture and small businesses down below. I want to know.
I looked for the deer for several minutes upon waking, hoping to see them from my bed, nibbling in the garden down below. I searched again from the porch, thinking a bird’s eye view might help but still, no sign of them. After yoga, I stepped out onto the porch to play banjo and searched again. This time, a quick brush of movement up the south slope about sixty feet from the garden. Then another. I spotted two of them as they spotted me, their oblong noses pointed my direction, ears erect, tails flapping. I could sense their questioning, unable to place the tall figure in the distance of their field of vision. Surely I wasn’t a threat, else they would have bolted, but their curiosity was roused and we stared intently at each other for several minutes. I scanned the area for the third deer and finally caught sight of it. It had climbed further up the slope than its two companions, contently nibbling spring greens from the edge of the gravel driveway. Their size and stature make me think it is the same three deer I saw yesterday morning and already I am eager to greet them tomorrow and see if we cannot start to grow accustomed to each other’s morning routines.
At the Coffeehouse, Grover comes in with a proud smile and the county map in his hand. He points to “our mountain,” as he calls it, then shows me the road leading to his house. “And this here, this one’s your road. Except that driveway of yours isn’t on it, so you’re up even higher here than the line indicates.”
I nod and thank him. “I stopped by the Forest Service headquarters today, Grover. I asked for a topo but their maps are in another office back in Tinyville so I’ll pick it up on my way to work tomorrow. Come back and we’ll take a peek at it.”
“Will do,” he says, adding that know-how nod of his while keeping his gem eyes locked onto mine.
It’s the water that calls to me the most. Where it pours from, what it pours into, and its ultimate course in shaping the land, therefore the roads, therefore the communities, therefore the people. We are a culture and society of names and namers, labeling this and that, finding the source of things or becoming the source of other things. Springs abound on this mountain and the slopes of Roan form an entire watershed. I want to know what feeds the life here, how it nurtures its own forest and feeds a community of agriculture and small businesses down below. I want to know.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Signs of Spring
This morning, three young deer fed in the garden a hundred feet below the porch on the lower portion of the property. I wished them a happy dawn, then turned on my heels back into the house where my yoga mat was set up and ready. I saluted the morning with a series of sun salutations as the soft light gave way to brightness and the deer slowly moved on through the forest.
On the trek down to the car, about a third of a mile on steep grade, there were bluets (the moth, not the flower) and sweet, purple violets coloring the path. Dogs barked in the distance and I thought about bears, wondering where they might sleep on this mountain and if I’d be blessed enough to see one. Past the first spring (I think it's a spring, anyway - water just comes out the side of the moutain!), hop over the puddles from the next spring, round the gate, and down to my car. It’s about a seven minute walk down, fifteen minutes up (if that doesn’t tell you how steep it is, I don’t know what will) and already I love it.
When it comes to trees, it’s the buckeyes that are blooming first up here on Fork Mountain. Two days ago, the branch that stretches its finger-like twigs to the edge of the porch had only a dozen visible buds on it. By sunset last night, small fireworks of lime green erupted from those buds and more could be seen that were about to burst. At dusk tonight, more than I could count and they stretched up and down the length of each branch, high into the sky. Still small and fleshy, almost like starfish, the new leaves of the buckeye flopped side to side in the slight breeze.
With sunset came the half moon, wide and bright in all its brilliance. The overflow from the spring gushed and gushed, siphoned downhill past the garden and on into the forest. Abundance abounds and I can feel my voice coming back to me. And it has less and less to do with words than I like to admit. That’s because really, it has everything to do with seeing the world in a particular kind of way. Up here in this new world, it feels as though my sense have been re-given to me. My words can come anew, my breath born in each instant, my heart pulsing gratitude out through my veins and into the core of the earth.
On the trek down to the car, about a third of a mile on steep grade, there were bluets (the moth, not the flower) and sweet, purple violets coloring the path. Dogs barked in the distance and I thought about bears, wondering where they might sleep on this mountain and if I’d be blessed enough to see one. Past the first spring (I think it's a spring, anyway - water just comes out the side of the moutain!), hop over the puddles from the next spring, round the gate, and down to my car. It’s about a seven minute walk down, fifteen minutes up (if that doesn’t tell you how steep it is, I don’t know what will) and already I love it.
When it comes to trees, it’s the buckeyes that are blooming first up here on Fork Mountain. Two days ago, the branch that stretches its finger-like twigs to the edge of the porch had only a dozen visible buds on it. By sunset last night, small fireworks of lime green erupted from those buds and more could be seen that were about to burst. At dusk tonight, more than I could count and they stretched up and down the length of each branch, high into the sky. Still small and fleshy, almost like starfish, the new leaves of the buckeye flopped side to side in the slight breeze.
With sunset came the half moon, wide and bright in all its brilliance. The overflow from the spring gushed and gushed, siphoned downhill past the garden and on into the forest. Abundance abounds and I can feel my voice coming back to me. And it has less and less to do with words than I like to admit. That’s because really, it has everything to do with seeing the world in a particular kind of way. Up here in this new world, it feels as though my sense have been re-given to me. My words can come anew, my breath born in each instant, my heart pulsing gratitude out through my veins and into the core of the earth.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Grover's Map
The most striking thing about Grover is his gem-blue eyes set in his wrinkled, round face with piercing precision. He visits the coffeehouse twice a week to collect recycling as a part of his campus rounds and I take pause every time, soaking in the richness of his gaze. Over the past two years, I have gotten to know him in fits and starts, depending on the length of his visit and whether or not there is a line of customers when he comes in. Since I’ve moved to Fork Mountain near Tinyville, NC, Grover’s taken up new interest in our friendship.
“You know, it makes us neighbors now,” he says, smiling across the counter. “Here, let me show you.” He reaches into his pocket and takes out a crumpled daybook, then comes behind the counter to grab a pen and draw a map across the month of April. “You’re here,” he points with the tip of the pen to the top of a ridgeline that he’s sketched. “And I’m on the other side of Fork Mountain, over here. This is Roan Mountain right up here. Fork Mountain isn’t really it’s own peak, see, it’s more like a ridge leading up to the top of Roan. The name came from the waters down below. Here’s my creek, down this side of the mountain and here’s your creek, down the other. Where you turn from the highway, the waters form a fork, and that’s how the road got its name.”
A customer waits patiently in line while Grover explains the flow of water, the elevation of the ridge, and how far apart we are as the crow flies. I’m genuinely interested in these insights and the customer is as well, peaking over the edge of the counter and paying close attention.
“So,” Grover says, slapping the daybook shut and stuffing it back into his pocket. “Next time I’ll bring you a county map, soon as I can get my hands on one. Then things will start to come together.”
“Thanks!” I say.
He steps outside to start sorting the recycling, his aged back humped slightly near his shoulders and his keg belly parting his knees as he squats down to reach the bins. If it weren’t for our paths crossing at work, I’m not sure Grover and I would get to know each other in these subtle, yet connected ways. I serve the patient customer his latte, then grab a handful of loose change from my tip jar to ring up a decadent slice of our chocolate velvet cake.
“Grover,” I say, peering out the coffeehouse doors. “Do you like chocolate?”
His eyes grow wide, glowing brightly in the spring day sun. He nods.
“Well then, this one’s on me.” I hand him the box with a smile. “It’s best cold, and this one’s been chilled in our back fridge here, so eat it up. After about four hours it will start to melt.”
“So in other words I’d better get to eating this real soon, then, right?” He nods again, with a twinkle in his eyes.
“Yessir. Have a good day now, we’ll see you on Thursday.”
“You know, it makes us neighbors now,” he says, smiling across the counter. “Here, let me show you.” He reaches into his pocket and takes out a crumpled daybook, then comes behind the counter to grab a pen and draw a map across the month of April. “You’re here,” he points with the tip of the pen to the top of a ridgeline that he’s sketched. “And I’m on the other side of Fork Mountain, over here. This is Roan Mountain right up here. Fork Mountain isn’t really it’s own peak, see, it’s more like a ridge leading up to the top of Roan. The name came from the waters down below. Here’s my creek, down this side of the mountain and here’s your creek, down the other. Where you turn from the highway, the waters form a fork, and that’s how the road got its name.”
A customer waits patiently in line while Grover explains the flow of water, the elevation of the ridge, and how far apart we are as the crow flies. I’m genuinely interested in these insights and the customer is as well, peaking over the edge of the counter and paying close attention.
“So,” Grover says, slapping the daybook shut and stuffing it back into his pocket. “Next time I’ll bring you a county map, soon as I can get my hands on one. Then things will start to come together.”
“Thanks!” I say.
He steps outside to start sorting the recycling, his aged back humped slightly near his shoulders and his keg belly parting his knees as he squats down to reach the bins. If it weren’t for our paths crossing at work, I’m not sure Grover and I would get to know each other in these subtle, yet connected ways. I serve the patient customer his latte, then grab a handful of loose change from my tip jar to ring up a decadent slice of our chocolate velvet cake.
“Grover,” I say, peering out the coffeehouse doors. “Do you like chocolate?”
His eyes grow wide, glowing brightly in the spring day sun. He nods.
“Well then, this one’s on me.” I hand him the box with a smile. “It’s best cold, and this one’s been chilled in our back fridge here, so eat it up. After about four hours it will start to melt.”
“So in other words I’d better get to eating this real soon, then, right?” He nods again, with a twinkle in his eyes.
“Yessir. Have a good day now, we’ll see you on Thursday.”
Monday, April 23, 2007
Reality Check from Redboots
I get an email from Redboots and she wants to know: “Do you feel like something is going on - I mean like in the earth's vibes etc.? When you have time to listen and tune in, please let me know if you are noticing anything strange especially at 4,000 ft above sea level.”
I look up from the desk. The window behind the computer screen looks out onto the slant of the mountain, where I can see downed locust, blooming spring greens, bounding squirrels, and forager birds. The south windows form an entire wall of the house and I look there too. “The earth’s vibes?…Something going on…?” I pause, look again. A few crows speckle the sky. In the distance all I can see are row upon row of mountains. I stretch my hands above my head and touch the tin lining the loft roof, then lean over the railing and take in the rest of the vaulted ceiling and spaciousness.
When Vic came to the housewarming party, it didn’t take long for her to name what the vibe was. In her deep, knowing voice with that calm overtone, she looked at me squarely and said it in one sentence: “This is the God Realm up here, Katey.”
Of course, she was referring to the different realms of existence in Tibetan Buddhism, which form the foundation of Tibetan cosmology and also provide a rich analogy for life as we experience it day to day in the Human Realm.
What she meant is that the abundance is so rich up here, and the world I see with my eyes, breath with my body, and feel with my heart on this mountain has so much to offer, it is almost too much. The temptation for gluttony could be overwhelming, the lure of the view utterly distracting, the sheer magic of the place like a tranquilizer.
What she meant is that even though this place is going to give me everything I need to do what I want to do, I still have to set my intentions and stick to them. There is still a path and I am still on it, and that will still take work. The fact that I have to hike almost half a mile every day from the car up to the house will serve as a pointed reminder of this and for that I am very grateful.
So when Redboots asked what was going on, and if I’d noticed a vibe, things started to come together. It’s no wonder the first few trips I made up to the house were a little terrifying. The place begs for perfection, for total balance, for wholeness of life and deed. But it also provides a vast playground for distraction or for taking life for granted. Will I rise to the challenge and achieve balance here? I can look out and feel as though I’m touching the entire world, which also means it feels at times like the entire world can look right back in those windows, tracing my every footstep and forethought. The mountains are watching me from every corner of the house, waiting, breathing through the wind, awaiting the next move.
I look up from the desk. The window behind the computer screen looks out onto the slant of the mountain, where I can see downed locust, blooming spring greens, bounding squirrels, and forager birds. The south windows form an entire wall of the house and I look there too. “The earth’s vibes?…Something going on…?” I pause, look again. A few crows speckle the sky. In the distance all I can see are row upon row of mountains. I stretch my hands above my head and touch the tin lining the loft roof, then lean over the railing and take in the rest of the vaulted ceiling and spaciousness.
When Vic came to the housewarming party, it didn’t take long for her to name what the vibe was. In her deep, knowing voice with that calm overtone, she looked at me squarely and said it in one sentence: “This is the God Realm up here, Katey.”
Of course, she was referring to the different realms of existence in Tibetan Buddhism, which form the foundation of Tibetan cosmology and also provide a rich analogy for life as we experience it day to day in the Human Realm.
What she meant is that the abundance is so rich up here, and the world I see with my eyes, breath with my body, and feel with my heart on this mountain has so much to offer, it is almost too much. The temptation for gluttony could be overwhelming, the lure of the view utterly distracting, the sheer magic of the place like a tranquilizer.
What she meant is that even though this place is going to give me everything I need to do what I want to do, I still have to set my intentions and stick to them. There is still a path and I am still on it, and that will still take work. The fact that I have to hike almost half a mile every day from the car up to the house will serve as a pointed reminder of this and for that I am very grateful.
So when Redboots asked what was going on, and if I’d noticed a vibe, things started to come together. It’s no wonder the first few trips I made up to the house were a little terrifying. The place begs for perfection, for total balance, for wholeness of life and deed. But it also provides a vast playground for distraction or for taking life for granted. Will I rise to the challenge and achieve balance here? I can look out and feel as though I’m touching the entire world, which also means it feels at times like the entire world can look right back in those windows, tracing my every footstep and forethought. The mountains are watching me from every corner of the house, waiting, breathing through the wind, awaiting the next move.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Housewarming Party
“Hello!” I hear Vic’s sweet voice before I see her, then she pops around the corner from the mud room with that wide, knowing smile. She, her husband, and her mother-in-law are the first guests to my housewarming party and we are all hugs and kisses and smiles. They pause at first, looking from side to side, then up to the vaulted ceiling. Then, they are drawn like magnets to the south-facing wall of windows that overlooks the mountains. Their silence says it all and I blush, still afraid to believe that I’m really here.
I give them the tour and it all feels right again. The entire house has the feeling of being both grounded and uplifted at the same time. It hangs down the side of the mountain, but the upper floors are so firmly grounded into the earth that nothing feels precarious.
Noelle and her dog Mr. Wetherford arrive next, all huffing and puffing from the hike up. She’s wearing her bright green backpack, of course, and immediately I serve her wine and some leftovers from dinner. “At least it’s easier the second time,” she says after a toast. “And I brought your flashlight back for you, too.”
Soon after, Gordon arrives with food and Sangria, fresh oranges to slice, and his happy dog Sophie. I turn some music on, there are drinks all around, and we all begin to soak up the view. DT, Raz, Wesley, and Deb arrive next and the house feels more alive with people and energy than it has since I’ve been here. Still, the space amazes me, as it never seems to fill up but everyone seems so comfortable.
The sun begins to set and we let the natural light fade in the house, sipping our drinks and wandering between the porch and the main living area. I give the tour several times, then there is a knock at the door. It swings open and the young Zac and Sammy bound through, leap across the hardwood floor, and offer polite hugs and hellos. They are my neighbors and two of the most joyful young boys I know from the Montessori school. Their mother is an artist and friend, and was the original builder of the house.
It’s an immeasurable gift – the gift of space and time, solitude and sanctity. I could not have dreamed of nor designed a more inspiring place, let alone imagined I’d be asked to live in it and care take. The energy is so commanding, the vibe so inspiring, the view so undeniably beautiful, that I cannot help but make healthy decisions here. Hello world, I am slowly starting to get back on track! I spent the afternoon writing and the evening among friends who make me feel loved and whom I love in return. I meditated three times today, woke up to do yoga, and drank loads of fresh spring water. This is where I need to be.
I give them the tour and it all feels right again. The entire house has the feeling of being both grounded and uplifted at the same time. It hangs down the side of the mountain, but the upper floors are so firmly grounded into the earth that nothing feels precarious.
Noelle and her dog Mr. Wetherford arrive next, all huffing and puffing from the hike up. She’s wearing her bright green backpack, of course, and immediately I serve her wine and some leftovers from dinner. “At least it’s easier the second time,” she says after a toast. “And I brought your flashlight back for you, too.”
Soon after, Gordon arrives with food and Sangria, fresh oranges to slice, and his happy dog Sophie. I turn some music on, there are drinks all around, and we all begin to soak up the view. DT, Raz, Wesley, and Deb arrive next and the house feels more alive with people and energy than it has since I’ve been here. Still, the space amazes me, as it never seems to fill up but everyone seems so comfortable.
The sun begins to set and we let the natural light fade in the house, sipping our drinks and wandering between the porch and the main living area. I give the tour several times, then there is a knock at the door. It swings open and the young Zac and Sammy bound through, leap across the hardwood floor, and offer polite hugs and hellos. They are my neighbors and two of the most joyful young boys I know from the Montessori school. Their mother is an artist and friend, and was the original builder of the house.
It’s an immeasurable gift – the gift of space and time, solitude and sanctity. I could not have dreamed of nor designed a more inspiring place, let alone imagined I’d be asked to live in it and care take. The energy is so commanding, the vibe so inspiring, the view so undeniably beautiful, that I cannot help but make healthy decisions here. Hello world, I am slowly starting to get back on track! I spent the afternoon writing and the evening among friends who make me feel loved and whom I love in return. I meditated three times today, woke up to do yoga, and drank loads of fresh spring water. This is where I need to be.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Back Online
I actually leaned over and kissed the desk goodbye. I said a silent prayer to the view of the Black Mountains from the porch. And three truck loads plus one station wagon load later, I left the valley.
Yesterday was my first hike in. I parked the Volvo a third of a mile down the mountain and started up, huffing a bit by the end. I must have taken about ten or fifteen minutes, and I greeted the birds along the way, cleared some brush blocking the old road, and gasped time and time again at the view.
And then I was alone. I mean really alone. It’s quiet and spacious up here and I may never have this much privacy again in my life. The ceilings are high and the walls are painted a pleasant stucco-like textured color. The floors are all hardwood and the view is astounding. Pictures will be posted soon. Spring water gushes from the overflow just beyond the porch, which overlooks the lower half of Fork Mountain and the Roan Valley below. There are organic garden beds on the lower portion of the property, and the summit of the mountain above the house. There is a meditation hut, a wood shed, a tool shed, and a fire pit.
The loft is as big as the downstairs of my previous cabin, and the loft will be reserved only for writing and reading. The middle floor is entirely open and includes the kitchen and living room, which is a vast open space right now since I only own about three chairs. The middle floor opens up to a lovely walnut wood staircase that drops you down to the bottom floor, which is a single bedroom. One wall of the bedroom is made entirely of windows, and my first night I lay in bed and could actually make out the entirety of the big dipper from my pillow. WOW!
I’ve unpacked a lot today, and hope to have a writing day with some unpacking breaks in between. More creative and inspired posts to come, I’m sure. This place begs for description, sanctity, patience, and wholesomeness. In other words, tonight I feel like one of the luckiest people on the planet.
Yesterday was my first hike in. I parked the Volvo a third of a mile down the mountain and started up, huffing a bit by the end. I must have taken about ten or fifteen minutes, and I greeted the birds along the way, cleared some brush blocking the old road, and gasped time and time again at the view.
And then I was alone. I mean really alone. It’s quiet and spacious up here and I may never have this much privacy again in my life. The ceilings are high and the walls are painted a pleasant stucco-like textured color. The floors are all hardwood and the view is astounding. Pictures will be posted soon. Spring water gushes from the overflow just beyond the porch, which overlooks the lower half of Fork Mountain and the Roan Valley below. There are organic garden beds on the lower portion of the property, and the summit of the mountain above the house. There is a meditation hut, a wood shed, a tool shed, and a fire pit.
The loft is as big as the downstairs of my previous cabin, and the loft will be reserved only for writing and reading. The middle floor is entirely open and includes the kitchen and living room, which is a vast open space right now since I only own about three chairs. The middle floor opens up to a lovely walnut wood staircase that drops you down to the bottom floor, which is a single bedroom. One wall of the bedroom is made entirely of windows, and my first night I lay in bed and could actually make out the entirety of the big dipper from my pillow. WOW!
I’ve unpacked a lot today, and hope to have a writing day with some unpacking breaks in between. More creative and inspired posts to come, I’m sure. This place begs for description, sanctity, patience, and wholesomeness. In other words, tonight I feel like one of the luckiest people on the planet.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Update
Still no phone line. Moving now. Hope to have my first night at the new house by Saturday. Will have internet there. Wish me luck. More posts if/when the phone line is up or if/when I'm in the new place. Sorry! [Obviously, I'm at work now which is why I can post this at all!]
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Semester Summary
[No phone line again last night...sorry for the delay.]
I've been challenged further by my advisor. She agrees that my story is the quiet story of growing up girl in America. She's persuaded me to begins using past tense and I've focused a lot this semester on framing, reflecting, and summary - and where all of these things are best placed in relation to a full scene. We've zoomed in on verbs and I took her challenge to write in the past tense without using "was" or any to be verbs at all. The result did wonders for my voice, because suddenly all my verbs were active but because was writing in the past tense, I had permission to reflect and summarize at crucial junctures in the narrative.
Now the challenge is furthered. Because my story is quiet, and often lacks narrative tension (no abusive stepfather, no alcoholism in the family, no suicide attempts, a relatively quiet adolescence, no arguing parents, etc.), my advisor tells me that I have to make up for that with insight, philosophical awareness, humor, and meaning. The good news is that I already have slivers of these things in what I write. The challenge is to make them sparkle, to bring poetry to them but not by force - by natural process and faith in the writing life.
The bad news, I suppose, is that I haven't been able to get into that kind of headpspace for two to three weeks now. The next deadline is closing in and my brain can't seem to put a creative sentence together in a roomful of boxes. If all goes well, I'll be moved in by Saturday. If all goes profoundly well, the gravel truck will make a delivery before then and I'll be able to make my car get up the driveway. And if all goes unfathomably well, I'll be settled enough by Sunday to pay serious attention to my heart's desires, and sit down and pray at the keyboard while those words find their way to the surface of the page.
I've been challenged further by my advisor. She agrees that my story is the quiet story of growing up girl in America. She's persuaded me to begins using past tense and I've focused a lot this semester on framing, reflecting, and summary - and where all of these things are best placed in relation to a full scene. We've zoomed in on verbs and I took her challenge to write in the past tense without using "was" or any to be verbs at all. The result did wonders for my voice, because suddenly all my verbs were active but because was writing in the past tense, I had permission to reflect and summarize at crucial junctures in the narrative.
Now the challenge is furthered. Because my story is quiet, and often lacks narrative tension (no abusive stepfather, no alcoholism in the family, no suicide attempts, a relatively quiet adolescence, no arguing parents, etc.), my advisor tells me that I have to make up for that with insight, philosophical awareness, humor, and meaning. The good news is that I already have slivers of these things in what I write. The challenge is to make them sparkle, to bring poetry to them but not by force - by natural process and faith in the writing life.
The bad news, I suppose, is that I haven't been able to get into that kind of headpspace for two to three weeks now. The next deadline is closing in and my brain can't seem to put a creative sentence together in a roomful of boxes. If all goes well, I'll be moved in by Saturday. If all goes profoundly well, the gravel truck will make a delivery before then and I'll be able to make my car get up the driveway. And if all goes unfathomably well, I'll be settled enough by Sunday to pay serious attention to my heart's desires, and sit down and pray at the keyboard while those words find their way to the surface of the page.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Stormy, Stormy Days
[Sorry there was no blog last night. We lost power up in the thicket for about six hours and the phone line was so spotty I couldn't even maintain a dial-up connection.]
But oh, it was the kind of morning where you woke up and had to squint your eyes real tight just to see straight out the window. The kind of morning where you woke up hungover from the wind and the way it had blown all night, like the Armageddon come down off the mountains rollin' and tumblin' 'till all that remained was you in your bed, lost in a windfall of dreams. The kind of morning where the trees leaned so hard against the ground, stretching their bark bodies in the wind so steep that you had to look down at your own two feet to make sure you were standing up straight and lookin' out at the world dead-on. The kind of morning where, even walkin' around in broad daylight, the weatherman having assured you the worst was over, you flinched with each gust, dodging its imaginary tendrils like bullets, afraid now from what you couldn't see comin' at you but felt surely in your heart was bound to crash down and hammer you into the ground like a fence post just about any second now.
The radio said from Virginia on up north into Maine, wind and rain come crashing down and snow in the interior but, you could stand with your flat feet in Carolina soil and prove it wrong, your toes stubbing against stray sticks, big branches dangling like loose teeth from their mother trees, meaty white scars where they'd ripped free now shining in the patchy sunlight and you thought good Lord, this storm almost just about bit down into the heartwood of us all.
But oh, it was the kind of morning where you woke up and had to squint your eyes real tight just to see straight out the window. The kind of morning where you woke up hungover from the wind and the way it had blown all night, like the Armageddon come down off the mountains rollin' and tumblin' 'till all that remained was you in your bed, lost in a windfall of dreams. The kind of morning where the trees leaned so hard against the ground, stretching their bark bodies in the wind so steep that you had to look down at your own two feet to make sure you were standing up straight and lookin' out at the world dead-on. The kind of morning where, even walkin' around in broad daylight, the weatherman having assured you the worst was over, you flinched with each gust, dodging its imaginary tendrils like bullets, afraid now from what you couldn't see comin' at you but felt surely in your heart was bound to crash down and hammer you into the ground like a fence post just about any second now.
The radio said from Virginia on up north into Maine, wind and rain come crashing down and snow in the interior but, you could stand with your flat feet in Carolina soil and prove it wrong, your toes stubbing against stray sticks, big branches dangling like loose teeth from their mother trees, meaty white scars where they'd ripped free now shining in the patchy sunlight and you thought good Lord, this storm almost just about bit down into the heartwood of us all.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Kurt Vonnegut
Well folks, we lost a great one.
Here is an obit a friend sent to me. Sorry I can't find a source/author for it:
Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007
The proper length for an obituary for Kurt Vonnegut is three words:
"So it goes." This one will do what Vonnegut never did, which is go on
too long.
"So it goes" is a phrase from Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five, or
The Children's Crusade. It's an expression the Tralfamadorians — a
race of four-dimensional aliens — repeat whenever somebody or
something dies. It expresses a certain airy resignation about the
inevitability of death. Vonnegut — who died Wednesday night at the age
of 84 from injuries suffered in a fall — had the Tralfamadorian
attitude. "I've been smoking Pall Mall unfiltered cigarettes since I
was 12 or 14," he told Rolling Stone last year. "So I'm going to sue
the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, who manufactured them. And do
you know why? Because I'm 83 years old. The lying bastards! On the
package Brown & Williamson promised to kill me."
Vonnegut was born Indianapolis in 1922, the son of an architect. His
early life shows the kind of aimless lateral peregrinations of someone
who was in the process of inventing a kind of person that hadn't
really existed before. He put in a mediocre stint at Cornell before
enlisting in the army in 1942, in the teeth of World War II. Shortly
afterward — and within a year of each other — two events occurred that
would prove to be formative for Vonnegut. In 1944, on Mother's Day, he
came home on leave to discover that his mother, an unsuccessful
writer, had committed suicide with sleeping pills. In December of that
same year Vonnegut was captured during the Battle of the Bulge and
sent to Dresden as a prisoner of war. On February 13, 1945 Dresden was
leveled in a massive Allied bombing assault so intense it created an
enormously destructive firestorm. Well over 130,000 people died.
Vonnegut survived by hiding in the basement of a slaughterhouse.
Perhaps because he began his writing career fully disillusioned,
Vonnegut's view of the world changed very little over his five decades
as an author. His first novel, Player Piano, was published in 1952 and
set in a spiritually empty, hyper-mechanized future dystopia.
(Vonnegut mixed literature with science fiction long before it was
cool.) His most famous novel — his personal favorite, and the one that
deals with most directly with the Dresden disaster — is
Slaughterhouse-Five, the story of one Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes
"unstuck in time": Billy experiences the events of his life in random
order, including his own birth and his own death. Understandably, this
imbues him with a weird, almost redemptive fatalism, which is echoed
by the narrator, who is Vonnegut himself. "There would always be
wars," he writes, "they were as easy to stop as glaciers... And even
if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain
old death."
Vonnegut's sincerity, his willingness to scoff at received wisdom, is
such that reading his work for the first time gives one the sense that
everything else is rank hypocrisy. His opinion of human nature was
low, and that low opinion applied to his heroes and his villains alike
— he was endlessly disappointed in humanity and in himself, and he
expressed that disappointment in a mixture of tar-black humor and deep
despair. He could easily have become a crank, but he was too smart; he
could have become a cynic, but there was something tender in his
nature that he could never quite suppress; he could have become a
bore, but even at his most despairing he had an endless willingness to
entertain his readers: with drawings, jokes, sex, bizarre plot twists,
science fiction, whatever it took.
Vonnegut struggled with silence and depression — including a suicide
attempt in 1984 — but in all he managed to publish 14 novels, three
short story collections, five plays and five works of non-fiction. His
last book, Man Without a Country, a collection of essays published in
2005, was a surprise best-seller.
Although he died a literary celebrity, lionized by the culture of
which he was so unsparing, Vonnegut was always drawn to outcasts and
failures in his writing: criminals, the deformed, the exiled, the
damaged, the insane, anyone who no longer had a stake in repeating
society's familiar lies. The cast of Cat's Cradle includes one of
those outcasts, a midget to whom Vonnegut gave the title speech:
"No wonder kids grow up crazy," the midget says. "A cat's cradle is
nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids
look and look and look at all those X's..."
"And?"
"No damn cat, and no damn cradle."
Here is an obit a friend sent to me. Sorry I can't find a source/author for it:
Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007
The proper length for an obituary for Kurt Vonnegut is three words:
"So it goes." This one will do what Vonnegut never did, which is go on
too long.
"So it goes" is a phrase from Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five, or
The Children's Crusade. It's an expression the Tralfamadorians — a
race of four-dimensional aliens — repeat whenever somebody or
something dies. It expresses a certain airy resignation about the
inevitability of death. Vonnegut — who died Wednesday night at the age
of 84 from injuries suffered in a fall — had the Tralfamadorian
attitude. "I've been smoking Pall Mall unfiltered cigarettes since I
was 12 or 14," he told Rolling Stone last year. "So I'm going to sue
the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, who manufactured them. And do
you know why? Because I'm 83 years old. The lying bastards! On the
package Brown & Williamson promised to kill me."
Vonnegut was born Indianapolis in 1922, the son of an architect. His
early life shows the kind of aimless lateral peregrinations of someone
who was in the process of inventing a kind of person that hadn't
really existed before. He put in a mediocre stint at Cornell before
enlisting in the army in 1942, in the teeth of World War II. Shortly
afterward — and within a year of each other — two events occurred that
would prove to be formative for Vonnegut. In 1944, on Mother's Day, he
came home on leave to discover that his mother, an unsuccessful
writer, had committed suicide with sleeping pills. In December of that
same year Vonnegut was captured during the Battle of the Bulge and
sent to Dresden as a prisoner of war. On February 13, 1945 Dresden was
leveled in a massive Allied bombing assault so intense it created an
enormously destructive firestorm. Well over 130,000 people died.
Vonnegut survived by hiding in the basement of a slaughterhouse.
Perhaps because he began his writing career fully disillusioned,
Vonnegut's view of the world changed very little over his five decades
as an author. His first novel, Player Piano, was published in 1952 and
set in a spiritually empty, hyper-mechanized future dystopia.
(Vonnegut mixed literature with science fiction long before it was
cool.) His most famous novel — his personal favorite, and the one that
deals with most directly with the Dresden disaster — is
Slaughterhouse-Five, the story of one Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes
"unstuck in time": Billy experiences the events of his life in random
order, including his own birth and his own death. Understandably, this
imbues him with a weird, almost redemptive fatalism, which is echoed
by the narrator, who is Vonnegut himself. "There would always be
wars," he writes, "they were as easy to stop as glaciers... And even
if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain
old death."
Vonnegut's sincerity, his willingness to scoff at received wisdom, is
such that reading his work for the first time gives one the sense that
everything else is rank hypocrisy. His opinion of human nature was
low, and that low opinion applied to his heroes and his villains alike
— he was endlessly disappointed in humanity and in himself, and he
expressed that disappointment in a mixture of tar-black humor and deep
despair. He could easily have become a crank, but he was too smart; he
could have become a cynic, but there was something tender in his
nature that he could never quite suppress; he could have become a
bore, but even at his most despairing he had an endless willingness to
entertain his readers: with drawings, jokes, sex, bizarre plot twists,
science fiction, whatever it took.
Vonnegut struggled with silence and depression — including a suicide
attempt in 1984 — but in all he managed to publish 14 novels, three
short story collections, five plays and five works of non-fiction. His
last book, Man Without a Country, a collection of essays published in
2005, was a surprise best-seller.
Although he died a literary celebrity, lionized by the culture of
which he was so unsparing, Vonnegut was always drawn to outcasts and
failures in his writing: criminals, the deformed, the exiled, the
damaged, the insane, anyone who no longer had a stake in repeating
society's familiar lies. The cast of Cat's Cradle includes one of
those outcasts, a midget to whom Vonnegut gave the title speech:
"No wonder kids grow up crazy," the midget says. "A cat's cradle is
nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids
look and look and look at all those X's..."
"And?"
"No damn cat, and no damn cradle."
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Gotta Love 'Em
See, they know they’re absolutely attractive, charming, sexy, and entertaining when they walk in the door. And they know they’re at home because I’m their barista and they’re caffeine appreciators and they’ve lived in these mountains long enough to call it home now, which makes their drama at the coffeehouse counter that much more fitting.
“He wants a double latte on the rocks with a twist of orange and a shot of whiskey with a twist of lime and a splash of chocolate.” Eichleberger says, ordering for his friend Z-Lo – host of last week’s Teensy Party. “Oh, and make that a skinny.”
I’m already laughing, so really, they could stop at that. But Z-Lo is at attention now, peering from behind an overlarge pair of pimp sunglasses, which he has drawn slightly down his nose so that he can peer at me while he orders. His sweet boy face is framed just so by a faux sheepskin coat with a tan, suede outer fabric. “Actually, make that a double mochachino,” he says, winking at me over the counter and leaning in a little bit.
“A what?” I say, smiling.
“With a slice of lime,” Z-Lo says. Then to Eichleberger, “It’s lime baby, not orange. Oh and Yes!, do we want a sale bagel as well?”
The two men stand very close, hips touching and shoulders leaning. They are neighbors, fellow artists, and buddies. But still, their game amuses me, and I wonder about the intricacies of deep male friendships.
“Very funny guys but really –“
“No. Yes. No. I mean, yeah. A double iced mocha,” Z-Lo mocks a serious tone.
“And –“
“A double Americano,” I say, “Right Eichleberger?”
“Right.”
“He wants a double latte on the rocks with a twist of orange and a shot of whiskey with a twist of lime and a splash of chocolate.” Eichleberger says, ordering for his friend Z-Lo – host of last week’s Teensy Party. “Oh, and make that a skinny.”
I’m already laughing, so really, they could stop at that. But Z-Lo is at attention now, peering from behind an overlarge pair of pimp sunglasses, which he has drawn slightly down his nose so that he can peer at me while he orders. His sweet boy face is framed just so by a faux sheepskin coat with a tan, suede outer fabric. “Actually, make that a double mochachino,” he says, winking at me over the counter and leaning in a little bit.
“A what?” I say, smiling.
“With a slice of lime,” Z-Lo says. Then to Eichleberger, “It’s lime baby, not orange. Oh and Yes!, do we want a sale bagel as well?”
The two men stand very close, hips touching and shoulders leaning. They are neighbors, fellow artists, and buddies. But still, their game amuses me, and I wonder about the intricacies of deep male friendships.
“Very funny guys but really –“
“No. Yes. No. I mean, yeah. A double iced mocha,” Z-Lo mocks a serious tone.
“And –“
“A double Americano,” I say, “Right Eichleberger?”
“Right.”
Correction
Ok. I never do this. But...
That post about Book Sense:
Of course I meant Dorothy Allison wrote Bastard Out of Carolina. Not, obviously, Dorothy Parker. I even had the book sitting right in front of me.
I also had about four hours of sleep.
That post about Book Sense:
Of course I meant Dorothy Allison wrote Bastard Out of Carolina. Not, obviously, Dorothy Parker. I even had the book sitting right in front of me.
I also had about four hours of sleep.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Fragments
Extra phlegm. Gargantuan right tonsil. Bloated. PMS on top of it all. Two stings from wasps that snuck underneath my clothes in my own home. What a day. Feverish. Trying to rest up. Deadline approaching. Still no word from my advisor (she’s officially taken a bit too long, now – but we all have our days/weeks). Wish me sleep and healing. I can’t get too sick here since I’ve got a big women’s singing performance in seven days. Argh. Breathe. Pee in the rain. Stay warm. Breathe again.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Book Sense
I’m about fed up.
I’ve whinnied and whined. I’ve philosophized and theorized. I’ve sought advice and given over to the random voices. And still, my reading list for this semester fails to dazzle me.
The reading list of twenty books (in five months, mind you) is a collaborative effort between my advisor and I. I had a few in mind, she had a list of musts, then we tossed in a few more and the list grew to twelve. We stopped at that and agreed we’d find the other eight as the semester progressed.
Fine. Fair enough.
But now I’m past twelve and I have to say that almost 50% of the books I’ve read this semester either lack metaphorical and literary significance, lack a clear and eloquent voice, and/or fail to make meaning of a series of experiences.
Today, I started two books on polar opposite ends of the spectrum, one approved by advisor and the other a must-read that my advisor will deem acceptable even though it’s a novel.
A sample from the first, Edward Hoagland’s Compass Points: How I Lived: “In my anti-modernist ebullience I was not, I think, a Pollyanna. I saw the South with a Yankee’s acidulous eye and the North with Thoreauvian impatience.”
A sample from the second, Dorothy Parker’s Bastard Out of Carolina: “You better. You better just watch yourself around her…Watch her in the diner, laughing, pouring coffee, palming tips, and frying eggs. Watch her push her hair back, tug her apron higher, refuse dates, pinches, suggestions. Watch her eyes and how they sink into her face, the lines that grow out from that tight stubborn mouth, the easy banter that rises from the deepest place inside her.”
I’d take Parker over Hoagland any day, which is why I’ll proceed in this bi-polar manner, swapping storylines with the completion of each chapter. Somehow, I’ll find a rhythm, I hope. Somehow, I’ll focus and find a sense of ground even amidst the packed boxes, the overflowing recycling, the lingering chill of our April mornings in the cabin. Yeesh, what a time of upheaval!
I’ve whinnied and whined. I’ve philosophized and theorized. I’ve sought advice and given over to the random voices. And still, my reading list for this semester fails to dazzle me.
The reading list of twenty books (in five months, mind you) is a collaborative effort between my advisor and I. I had a few in mind, she had a list of musts, then we tossed in a few more and the list grew to twelve. We stopped at that and agreed we’d find the other eight as the semester progressed.
Fine. Fair enough.
But now I’m past twelve and I have to say that almost 50% of the books I’ve read this semester either lack metaphorical and literary significance, lack a clear and eloquent voice, and/or fail to make meaning of a series of experiences.
Today, I started two books on polar opposite ends of the spectrum, one approved by advisor and the other a must-read that my advisor will deem acceptable even though it’s a novel.
A sample from the first, Edward Hoagland’s Compass Points: How I Lived: “In my anti-modernist ebullience I was not, I think, a Pollyanna. I saw the South with a Yankee’s acidulous eye and the North with Thoreauvian impatience.”
A sample from the second, Dorothy Parker’s Bastard Out of Carolina: “You better. You better just watch yourself around her…Watch her in the diner, laughing, pouring coffee, palming tips, and frying eggs. Watch her push her hair back, tug her apron higher, refuse dates, pinches, suggestions. Watch her eyes and how they sink into her face, the lines that grow out from that tight stubborn mouth, the easy banter that rises from the deepest place inside her.”
I’d take Parker over Hoagland any day, which is why I’ll proceed in this bi-polar manner, swapping storylines with the completion of each chapter. Somehow, I’ll find a rhythm, I hope. Somehow, I’ll focus and find a sense of ground even amidst the packed boxes, the overflowing recycling, the lingering chill of our April mornings in the cabin. Yeesh, what a time of upheaval!
Monday, April 09, 2007
From the Observation Deck
The middle-aged woman whimpers like a helpless bird, then gestures rapidly with her fingers, opening her mouth and directing her hand aggressively down into it. I am the barista, she is the customer. Duty dictates that I translate. I study the specimen a moment longer and decide this is truly a desperate situation. Finally, her motions stop and she looks me in the eye:
“Shoot me!” She’s morphed from bird to Southern in two syllables and I leap at her command. My brain works double-time until I realize that by Shoot me! she means she wants to order a Shot in the Dark (a cup of coffee with a shot of espresso in it) and that furthermore, by Shot in the Dark she means a Red Eye – our local term for said beverage.
Within 45 seconds she has a drink in her hand. She laps at it first, testing the temperature, then dumps an inch of cream into it to cool it down and bring it to taste. There is no time to stir. She gulps, gulps again, then emits a satisfying sigh into the air, as if she’s just run a marathon and taken her first gulp of water in miles.
“Why is it so good?” She asks. Then, “I feel human again.”
It’s worth pointing out that she is a regular customer. This is our routine, or some other exaggerated form of it, and then we talk shop in praise of coffee while she lingers at the counter and indulges in the rest of her drink.
Life is heavy in my heart and on my mind today. It’s PMS and it’s moving and it’s the cold (four layers today) and it’s the lack of exercise all piling up on me again. It’s the knowing that I’ll have to live with this heaviness for anywhere from 24 to 72 hours as hormones dictate.
But the bird/marathon runner/coffee addict is talking again and this time I ignore her completely, smiling and nodding enough to portray interest when instead my eyes traces the nuances of her graying hair, the stiffness of her Carhartt winter jacket, the pewter pitcher of her drawl. The world is a confetti of organisms, a spectacular arrangement of colors and voices, preferences and fetishes. And I’m lucky enough to have a job that invites rigorous study of the lot of them.
“Shoot me!” She’s morphed from bird to Southern in two syllables and I leap at her command. My brain works double-time until I realize that by Shoot me! she means she wants to order a Shot in the Dark (a cup of coffee with a shot of espresso in it) and that furthermore, by Shot in the Dark she means a Red Eye – our local term for said beverage.
Within 45 seconds she has a drink in her hand. She laps at it first, testing the temperature, then dumps an inch of cream into it to cool it down and bring it to taste. There is no time to stir. She gulps, gulps again, then emits a satisfying sigh into the air, as if she’s just run a marathon and taken her first gulp of water in miles.
“Why is it so good?” She asks. Then, “I feel human again.”
It’s worth pointing out that she is a regular customer. This is our routine, or some other exaggerated form of it, and then we talk shop in praise of coffee while she lingers at the counter and indulges in the rest of her drink.
Life is heavy in my heart and on my mind today. It’s PMS and it’s moving and it’s the cold (four layers today) and it’s the lack of exercise all piling up on me again. It’s the knowing that I’ll have to live with this heaviness for anywhere from 24 to 72 hours as hormones dictate.
But the bird/marathon runner/coffee addict is talking again and this time I ignore her completely, smiling and nodding enough to portray interest when instead my eyes traces the nuances of her graying hair, the stiffness of her Carhartt winter jacket, the pewter pitcher of her drawl. The world is a confetti of organisms, a spectacular arrangement of colors and voices, preferences and fetishes. And I’m lucky enough to have a job that invites rigorous study of the lot of them.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Winter Reminder
All of the sudden, winter is upon is again. In the morning, snow and sunshine engage in a cross fire over the mountaintops, here a cloud and flurries, there a blue patch of sky. Tonight, it’s a record-breaking (for April) fifteen degrees out with winds rolling down the slopes of the Blacks, hushing the valley into a frigid sleep.
Over the course of the morning, the wood stove brings the house temperature up from 47 degrees to a healthy 61 (in the loft – heat rises) but still, I wear my wool cap indoors and double up on socks, kick snow from the front stoop, and hustle through the brush for more wood. My pee bucket it frozen yet again – what can I say? A final gift from this valley before I depart, perhaps.
The quiet of snow stays with me, even as afternoon warmth melts it from rooftops, cars, and eventually the ground. I meditate. I read. I bake. I stretch. The Buddhists say that life in the relative truth, or in our everyday existence, is samsaric. We are always wanting and therefore never in the present moment. This is a cyclical form of suffering that we can try and liberate ourselves and others from. These days, it takes a vast halting of the world around me to recall that cycle, name it again for what it is, and commit a few moments to escaping it. In this way, snow is my teacher, all around me and underfoot, ever-changing, and always awe-inspiring.
Over the course of the morning, the wood stove brings the house temperature up from 47 degrees to a healthy 61 (in the loft – heat rises) but still, I wear my wool cap indoors and double up on socks, kick snow from the front stoop, and hustle through the brush for more wood. My pee bucket it frozen yet again – what can I say? A final gift from this valley before I depart, perhaps.
The quiet of snow stays with me, even as afternoon warmth melts it from rooftops, cars, and eventually the ground. I meditate. I read. I bake. I stretch. The Buddhists say that life in the relative truth, or in our everyday existence, is samsaric. We are always wanting and therefore never in the present moment. This is a cyclical form of suffering that we can try and liberate ourselves and others from. These days, it takes a vast halting of the world around me to recall that cycle, name it again for what it is, and commit a few moments to escaping it. In this way, snow is my teacher, all around me and underfoot, ever-changing, and always awe-inspiring.
Friday, April 06, 2007
It's Time to Move On
And so it hits me, with the snowflakes falling over the South Toe Valley, ripping off the Black Mountains through the pitch of night and settling like a veil of lace onto early Spring daffodils. It hits me, with the first box full of books and the gap left on the shelf like a missing tooth in a girlish smile. It hits me, that I am moving.
In twenty minutes I pack nine boxes of books and am halfway done (not counting the seven boxes of books I’ve stored permanently at my parent’s home) with the shelves. Four more boxes of odds and ends, household décor and superfluous little items I won’t need for months. Four other boxes are already packed, two for photography and two for yarns and crafty things. I leave the desk, the clothes, the kitchen, and the instruments untouched, at a loss for how to proceed. Ten days until depart, if all goes as planned, and a visit planned to the new place in Tinyville this coming Wednesday so that I can check out the spring water source for the house, the main water lines, the property lines, and the wood shed. I’m hoping the owners will let me do a preliminary drop off at this visit, say one carload’s worth of boxes, so I can clear out the “living room” to provide enough space to remove the double-sized bookshelf I’ve been borrowing.
The house breathes in the crackling wind. The fire pops like corn, flames licking the glass door of the woodstove in constant hunger. It is quiet but for the movement of emotions, the clattering of the mind at work, the crumbling of a psychological foundation as one sense of place obeys time and gives way to another. I remember Mel’s advice again: “You’re the writer. You carry your home with you.”
In twenty minutes I pack nine boxes of books and am halfway done (not counting the seven boxes of books I’ve stored permanently at my parent’s home) with the shelves. Four more boxes of odds and ends, household décor and superfluous little items I won’t need for months. Four other boxes are already packed, two for photography and two for yarns and crafty things. I leave the desk, the clothes, the kitchen, and the instruments untouched, at a loss for how to proceed. Ten days until depart, if all goes as planned, and a visit planned to the new place in Tinyville this coming Wednesday so that I can check out the spring water source for the house, the main water lines, the property lines, and the wood shed. I’m hoping the owners will let me do a preliminary drop off at this visit, say one carload’s worth of boxes, so I can clear out the “living room” to provide enough space to remove the double-sized bookshelf I’ve been borrowing.
The house breathes in the crackling wind. The fire pops like corn, flames licking the glass door of the woodstove in constant hunger. It is quiet but for the movement of emotions, the clattering of the mind at work, the crumbling of a psychological foundation as one sense of place obeys time and gives way to another. I remember Mel’s advice again: “You’re the writer. You carry your home with you.”
The Teensy Party
[Wrote this last night but I couldn’t get online b/c of heavy rains and water in the line.]
It’s for my friend and so I have to go.
I am dead-dog spitting-gull tired but I have to go.
It’s Eichleberger’s 30th birthday, after, all, so there is no question –
So I go. And because it is his 30th and society dictates a big bash, being the artist and punster and all around wholesome guy that he is, his friends instead throw him a Teensy Party – the antithesis of big.
All week long there are invitations, hand printed on one-inch square paper cut outs with teensy handwriting and teensy directions and a teensy sketch of a birthday cake. The invitations pop up everywhere on campus – on the coffeehouse baked goods shelf, on the sugar table, in the 2-D studio, along the walkway to The Pines. Teensy this and teensy that. Teensy teensy.
I change my perspective for a week. I go in search of teensy. At the health food store there are teensy spoons and teensy coffee scoopers and teensy jams and teensy chocolates. At work there are teensy finger condoms in the first-aid kit. At the thrift store I find a teensy barrette and a teensy jar to fit all the teensy things in. There is a plaster molded teensy sleeping boy curled against a pillow with his thumb in his mouth and his bum in the air. The flap of his teensy pajamas is sprung open at the seam and his teensy butt cheeks protrude into the open air. It is dirty and odd and mildly pornographic and just the perfect thing to add to the jar of teensy things for Eichleberger’s Teensy Party.
The hour arrives and Noelle and I walk along the top of Conley Ridge in the direction of Z-Lo’s porch light, where the party is to be held. We are arm in arm and I carry a teensy rose in my left hand to accompany the jar of teensies. Dogs bark, grass blades rustle, friends holler and we are there, there, there before we know it, hands slapping backs now and lips kissing cheeks, and “Come in, come in,” Z-Lo says, pushing open a teensy cardboard cut out door in the sidewall of his not-so-teensy house. How he rigged this I may never know, but inside, the full scale of teensy emerges.
Teensy beer pong with teensy shot glasses and teensy ping pong paddles and balls the size of your thumb nail that people are actually successfully playing with. Teensy burger patties and buns, teensy potatoes and tomatoes. Teensy kegs and teensy bottles of Budweiser and then I see him, Eichleberger, in his teensy pants and too-tight shirt and rock start 80’s head band, the crotch of his jeans riding obscenely close to the folds of his skin. He is all smiles and dimples, that sweet blondie and round face I’ve known for almost two years, blue eyes to twinkle at the girls and a soft yet masculine voice to please the crowd. Even looks aside, this kid is one of the best guys I know (remember the Shady’s Café blog post? Same guy.) and so it is that I find myself way past my bedtime, my sane brain long gone, here in the middle of the mountains trapped in the land of teensy, putting a finger condom on Eichleberger’s left middle finger while he fake orgasms.
This is funny, right?
Yes, my friends it is, because this is how we see and this is how we live and this how we keep it real in the mountains, single and all of us huddled around the same dream of living, breathing, sleeping art, art, art in our little Utopia at the craft school.
Except my dream also includes homework, to I drink a teensy sake and have some teensy fries and then get a teensy kiss on the cheek from the man of the hour and before I know it I am back on the road. The hum of the Volvo feels right, the car’s weight like a security blanket for the 17 mile drive home. Tonight, 40 pages of memoir to read. Tomorrow, an artist interview to conduct, three boxes to pack in prep for the move, then a full day of work and a night of homework. It’s a list and it’s a dream in the making, all in one. And when I get home, it’s all reality, so I get down to business at the desk and finally, start writing.
It’s for my friend and so I have to go.
I am dead-dog spitting-gull tired but I have to go.
It’s Eichleberger’s 30th birthday, after, all, so there is no question –
So I go. And because it is his 30th and society dictates a big bash, being the artist and punster and all around wholesome guy that he is, his friends instead throw him a Teensy Party – the antithesis of big.
All week long there are invitations, hand printed on one-inch square paper cut outs with teensy handwriting and teensy directions and a teensy sketch of a birthday cake. The invitations pop up everywhere on campus – on the coffeehouse baked goods shelf, on the sugar table, in the 2-D studio, along the walkway to The Pines. Teensy this and teensy that. Teensy teensy.
I change my perspective for a week. I go in search of teensy. At the health food store there are teensy spoons and teensy coffee scoopers and teensy jams and teensy chocolates. At work there are teensy finger condoms in the first-aid kit. At the thrift store I find a teensy barrette and a teensy jar to fit all the teensy things in. There is a plaster molded teensy sleeping boy curled against a pillow with his thumb in his mouth and his bum in the air. The flap of his teensy pajamas is sprung open at the seam and his teensy butt cheeks protrude into the open air. It is dirty and odd and mildly pornographic and just the perfect thing to add to the jar of teensy things for Eichleberger’s Teensy Party.
The hour arrives and Noelle and I walk along the top of Conley Ridge in the direction of Z-Lo’s porch light, where the party is to be held. We are arm in arm and I carry a teensy rose in my left hand to accompany the jar of teensies. Dogs bark, grass blades rustle, friends holler and we are there, there, there before we know it, hands slapping backs now and lips kissing cheeks, and “Come in, come in,” Z-Lo says, pushing open a teensy cardboard cut out door in the sidewall of his not-so-teensy house. How he rigged this I may never know, but inside, the full scale of teensy emerges.
Teensy beer pong with teensy shot glasses and teensy ping pong paddles and balls the size of your thumb nail that people are actually successfully playing with. Teensy burger patties and buns, teensy potatoes and tomatoes. Teensy kegs and teensy bottles of Budweiser and then I see him, Eichleberger, in his teensy pants and too-tight shirt and rock start 80’s head band, the crotch of his jeans riding obscenely close to the folds of his skin. He is all smiles and dimples, that sweet blondie and round face I’ve known for almost two years, blue eyes to twinkle at the girls and a soft yet masculine voice to please the crowd. Even looks aside, this kid is one of the best guys I know (remember the Shady’s Café blog post? Same guy.) and so it is that I find myself way past my bedtime, my sane brain long gone, here in the middle of the mountains trapped in the land of teensy, putting a finger condom on Eichleberger’s left middle finger while he fake orgasms.
This is funny, right?
Yes, my friends it is, because this is how we see and this is how we live and this how we keep it real in the mountains, single and all of us huddled around the same dream of living, breathing, sleeping art, art, art in our little Utopia at the craft school.
Except my dream also includes homework, to I drink a teensy sake and have some teensy fries and then get a teensy kiss on the cheek from the man of the hour and before I know it I am back on the road. The hum of the Volvo feels right, the car’s weight like a security blanket for the 17 mile drive home. Tonight, 40 pages of memoir to read. Tomorrow, an artist interview to conduct, three boxes to pack in prep for the move, then a full day of work and a night of homework. It’s a list and it’s a dream in the making, all in one. And when I get home, it’s all reality, so I get down to business at the desk and finally, start writing.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
A little shameless self-promotion
Check out the website updates, including a downloadable version of the essay that is going to be published by Oregon Quarterly and the latest PDF version of my essay on ceramic sculptor Lisa Clague.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Take Two
What am I seeking?
Quiet space and time each morning. A settled mind that thinks before it acts.
Time for a walk each day before work, even just a mile or two.
Time at night to reflect on my day, put it into words, and pass easily into sleep.
I tried this three weeks ago when work began on top of the MFA. But everything went awry and spun tightly until it uncoiled in violent fits and starts of sometimes laughable proportions.
I will try again. Breathe deep. Take care of myself so I can care for my writing and put my best step forward. Eventually, my perspective will return and I’ll put it into words. Cleary, I’m transitioning from the blog voice that originally shaped these pages. But I’m still the same person and same in spirit. We shall see how the words take shape on the page.
Quiet space and time each morning. A settled mind that thinks before it acts.
Time for a walk each day before work, even just a mile or two.
Time at night to reflect on my day, put it into words, and pass easily into sleep.
I tried this three weeks ago when work began on top of the MFA. But everything went awry and spun tightly until it uncoiled in violent fits and starts of sometimes laughable proportions.
I will try again. Breathe deep. Take care of myself so I can care for my writing and put my best step forward. Eventually, my perspective will return and I’ll put it into words. Cleary, I’m transitioning from the blog voice that originally shaped these pages. But I’m still the same person and same in spirit. We shall see how the words take shape on the page.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Breathe Again
Really, after all is said and done,
After the sunroof and the tire, the title and the tags, my new Volvo is rockin’.
And really, after all her poems were finished, Mary Oliver’s Friday night reading in BigCity, NC all boiled down to one jewel of advice for me:
When asked what advice she would give to young writers who are eager to create and put something beautiful into the world but anxious about all the greats who came before them, she replied simply, “Oh, that’s the anxiety of ambition. But you’ll grow older and more patient and you’ll be ok.”
I’ll be ok.
And really, after waking early on Saturday morning to do homework all day,
the costume party that night at Chasewood in the peak of full-moon mountain air, dancing the night away with friends and artists and the like,
may have been a foolish move right before a deadline
(as the margaritas and bonfire that occurred later on might have been over the top)
but I woke up smiling and thankful for rich company and community.
And even though I had to leave the benefit concert early this afternoon, choosing homework over tenth row seats to see Darrell Scott and his dad Wayne perform, between sets I was given the sweetest blessing from a friend who knows about Cass, which really made it all worthwhile in the end.
And even though I had a double latte, two cups of black tea, and it’s one in the morning, my packet is done and I read three books and I’m sending my advisor 27 pages of revisions, 8 pages of essays, and 6 pages of a process/craft letter.
What do I do now?
Oh yeah, that thing they call SLEEP.
After the sunroof and the tire, the title and the tags, my new Volvo is rockin’.
And really, after all her poems were finished, Mary Oliver’s Friday night reading in BigCity, NC all boiled down to one jewel of advice for me:
When asked what advice she would give to young writers who are eager to create and put something beautiful into the world but anxious about all the greats who came before them, she replied simply, “Oh, that’s the anxiety of ambition. But you’ll grow older and more patient and you’ll be ok.”
I’ll be ok.
And really, after waking early on Saturday morning to do homework all day,
the costume party that night at Chasewood in the peak of full-moon mountain air, dancing the night away with friends and artists and the like,
may have been a foolish move right before a deadline
(as the margaritas and bonfire that occurred later on might have been over the top)
but I woke up smiling and thankful for rich company and community.
And even though I had to leave the benefit concert early this afternoon, choosing homework over tenth row seats to see Darrell Scott and his dad Wayne perform, between sets I was given the sweetest blessing from a friend who knows about Cass, which really made it all worthwhile in the end.
And even though I had a double latte, two cups of black tea, and it’s one in the morning, my packet is done and I read three books and I’m sending my advisor 27 pages of revisions, 8 pages of essays, and 6 pages of a process/craft letter.
What do I do now?
Oh yeah, that thing they call SLEEP.
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