Now it's real

I have a real home now. With the assembly and set-up of the desk and chair in the spare bedroom, I have a home office for the first time in my adult life. All of the indoor furniture has been purchased and moved in. Some pictures have been hung on the walls, with more to come. Curtains with tie-backs grace the windows. I live in a house, and it is home.

Last summer, I started a new journal, after filling the previous one with all kinds of thoughts. It helped me process a lot of things that happened in my life, those three short years in DC. Every time I start a new journal, I make a list on the first page with hopes for the coming years. This new journal included a promise to find a place, make it home, and stay there for a while. I need to break the pattern of setting up shop and immediately looking for a new adventure somewhere else. Why do I start running again as soon as I arrive wherever I was heading? It's time to stop doing that. Resist the urge to seek out greener pastures elsewhere, and instead make my home pasture as green as can be.

Fox in the garden

Last night, dear kitty wanted desperately to look out the bedroom window. The blinds were closed, but there was something out there she just had to see. So I turned out the lights, pulled the blinds up just a bit, and together we peered into the darkness. With her night vision, dear kitty saw them before I did, her eyes reflecting in the window: foxes roaming the yards in the cul de sac beneath the glowing streetlights, the moon not yet risen. It looked like four foxes, though there could have been just two, one with a white-tipped puffy tail, the other with a long snout and curled tail, more dog-like than fox. They sniffed under the junipers, poked through the wood pile, and investigated the low rock wall in my yard. Finding no tasty morsels there, they wandered off, noses to the ground, avoiding being illuminated by the headlights of an approaching car. Soon after they left, dear kitty lost interest and curled up on the bed.

How did dear kitty know they were there? Could she smell them through the plaster and wood of the sturdy house? Did she hear them silently sniffing for food, their small paws crunching on the pine needles and dried leaves? And why did their presence matter to her, a small house cat who goes outside only when supervised, and only during the day? Perhaps her wildness is not yet bred out completely. Perhaps her homeless days still hold a place somewhere in her tiny mind. Or perhaps she just wants to know about the world outside her home, even if she never ventures far from it.

Why we do it

Whether or not it becomes your career, you don't decide to be a writer. It chooses you. Drawn to words from a young age, you seek out any opportunity to read what someone else has written - on cereal boxes, in any magazine or brochure or book that lands in front of you, even the closed captioning on a television program. When you see a word, you can own it. Parse out the sounds each letter makes, roll it off your brain and then your tongue to make it real. Put it together with other words. Try different combinations to see what gets the feeling and the meaning across. Compose a symphony, each word a musical note, each sentence a different instrument. When you wake up or go around a corner and words or phrases repeat themselves over and again in your mind, you know you are a writer, even if you do nothing with those words except let them float around in the ether.
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I don't remember learning how to read. I was just always able to put letters together, sound out the words, get a sense of their meanings. Everyone has a thing, something that they just know. Words, I just know. But what can you do with words? You can inform people. You can move them. You can haunt them. The best writers do this so well, and the rest of us just fumble in the dark for a way to tell others what we know. Despite this language that consumes us, we will never be like those whose words are held up high for all to read. It's this art that grips us 'til the end but which we can never seem to elevate beyond scribblings in journals and now musings in whatever public spaces we can manage. There's too much out there that's of too little value, but some of the really good, meaty non-fiction can be found here. With any luck, it could be any of us there someday, although given what some of those writers have been through or who they met to get the story, perhaps it's better them than us sometimes.

Call from the wild

On Saturday afternoon, New Year's Eve, we heard a rap-tap-tapping on the house. It was loud, right outside the window, too many in a row and too random a rhythm to be made by a human. A peek out through the window revealed nothing immediately, but the image reflecting off the windshield of the car in the driveway below showed two birds clinging to the red clapboard of the house, just below the roof. I quietly snuck down through the open garage and peered up at the house. One bird flew away immediately, and the other, a Northern flicker, paused and peered at me for a moment, caught in the act of delivering a message, before it too flew away. This was no accident. My house cannot be mistaken for a tree. There is no rotting wood hiding grubs for hungry woodpeckers. The birds wanted us to know that change was coming. That the days ahead would be different. That we should keep our eyes to the sky.

Time to get back on the wagon

Last year, 2011, was the year of not caring. The year of saying yes, of doing things I shouldn't have done or shouldn't have been able to get away with. Given the musical themes often present, last year felt like my joyous high school days, when life was easier but we thought it was hard, because we don't know any better when we are 17. Last year, and the late parts of the year before, were filled with what-the-heck fashion choices, like getting that third ear piercing and wearing aqua-colored fishnet tights with my black dress on New Year's Eve and a short school-girl skirt to dance away the night to music from the '90s sometime in April. Last year was I'm Going to Do Whatever I Want year - birthday at the aquarium, lots of concerts (like The Beach Boys at Wolftrap), a last-minute trip to Dallas to celebrate a milestone year with a best friend, kayaking and eating crabs in Annapolis, a solo camping trip with wild ponies on the Eastern Shore, way too many happy hours, a shirking of duties, birding in the park, and finally, the big move out West.

See, I needed last year to blow off adulthood. 2009 and 2010 were so full of caring about everything: the beginning, middle, and end of an intense relationship, a yearning to go somewhere, anywhere, just not where I was; an overwhelming sense of being utterly lost. By the time 2010 wound down, I was ready for something completely different. I was ready to just not care anymore. I said too much, sometimes inappropriately, and I let it all hang out, metaphorically. The heavy cloak fell from my shoulders, and I floated through 2011 with that whatever attitude that gets one into trouble - mostly the good kind though. I carried that with me to Idaho, where I figured that if no one knew me here, I could be whatever I wanted, and that's just how they would know me. I rode a mechanical bull on Halloween, for pete's sake. I chopped some wood and told people my secrets. I bought some real furniture.

The year ended on a different note, signaling that it's time to pull myself together, to get a little more serious again. I found myself really caring again, for someone special who lives in the mountains but isn't from the mountains. As the new year has rolled in and the lovely but fleeting relationship has slipped away, it seems like time to focus again. There's still room for fun - so many of the friends I've made here already have stepped in to distract me when I really need it, and I can't just stop having fun after getting so much better at it - but I have to put more thought into my life again. I have to decide where this is heading and start wandering that direction. The past few years were desperately spent getting to this point. This is no time to waste all that effort or squander the opportunity that is now presenting itself. Adulthood shouldn't mean boring, but it definitely can't be spent trying to escape by going back to our formative years. Age 29 was intense; 30 was rough, and 31 was just plain fun. May 32 be good. Not good as in good-but-not-great, but good as in satisfactory. Agreeable. Fit. And yes, virtuous.

Winter in Idaho

Last year, I wrote about the vanilla sky and egg yolk sun of a winter in the Mid-Atlantic, a place so lush and green nearly year-round that the stark paleness of the winter light seems incongruous. But here in southwest Idaho, a place that is mostly pale during all except the wetness of spring, the light is bright and clear, the sky cerulean blue, the sunrises and sunsets juicy with strawberries, peaches and tangerines as the sun traverses across the sky from one mountain range to another. We are on the western edge of the Mountain time zone, and thus, the sun takes its time rising. It is still dark at 7am, with still just a hint of light in the distance at 7:30am. But once it is here, it is warm, even when the air is cold. And even during the shortest days of the year, the sun is still wandering slowly down the slopes at 5:30pm, heading toward the Pacific Ocean and the lands beyond this country to start a day anew half a world away.

Shoes. SHOES! Shooooooooooes....

This is not a deep post about the complexities of life, nor is it symbolic of anything. This is a joyous celebration of a lifestyle in which I get to wear shoes. This might be the very first time in my life in which I can wear the fabulous but sometimes impractical shoes that my heart aches for when I walk through the department stores or along the rows and rows of displays at DSW. I have always loved shoes, mostly because my father works in the shoe business and my mother always loved shoes too. Foot fashion is a family affair. Oh, how I long to don a pair of high high heels or a tall boot to click-clack on tile floors and cement sidewalks for a night on the town; to wrap the ribbons of an espadrille wedge around my ankles or slide on a pair of mules for a summer excursion.

Alas, I was blessed with both an adoration of foot attire and the wrong-shaped foot for most of it. My size 6, narrow-heel/wide-toe, high-instep feet have proven prohibitive in this area. As a kid, I mostly wore fashion athletic shoes but had a few pairs of something fancier lurking in the closet. In college and grad school, I mostly wore what was comfortable because trudging around campus all day in uncomfortable shoes is a bad idea and mostly unnecessary. Why dress up for class when you're just going to head to the gym or computer lab afterward? While living in Chicago and DC, where fashionable feet are everywhere and there are plenty of excuses to strut your stuff, commuting is mostly done by walking, biking, and riding the train and bus, where you will likely have to stand a large portion of the time. Some people wear comfort shoes to commute, then change into their cute shoes upon arrival at their destination. I worked in offices where no one cared and I would have been out of place in pumps, so I opted for comfortable shoes that looked decent enough in the business-casual environs. Oddly enough, Casual Fridays were the only times that the cute shoes came out, because can be worn with jeans, and because as Stacy and Clinton say, just because it's casual doesn't mean you have to look like a slob.

In my new job, in this new state, every day is Casual Friday. I could get away with wearing jeans and a t-shirt and hiking boots all the time. But why? I drive to and from work, I sit at a desk all day, I don't have to run up and down a lot of stairs, and some of the young women in my office do dress more nicely. This is the ideal environment for all of those shoes that lay largely unused in my closet, plus some others that call to me from the store shelves. So, out come the teal suede Mary Jane heels with the  cut-outs on the toes. Out come the black patent booties with the square toes and the tan suede booties with the buckle that rattles. In the past two months here, I have also acquired some brown boots with a chunky heel and grey suede wedges. These tootsies will have to relearn how to walk in heels, because it's time to get stylin' again. Of course, there will be some stylish flats to add to the collection as well, since matching the boring black slacks is no longer a concern.

Shoes may be a small, trivial thing in the grand scheme of life, but we all need our vices. How can we bring joy to others if we don't feel joy ourselves? And, after all, I'm stimulating the economy.

These are the things we tell ourselves to justify our selfishness. Please forgive me, and then compliment my shoes.

Another notch on the proverbial post

Yesterday, I went to the home improvement store and bought a log splitter. Today, I split all of the shorter logs in the pile underneath my porch. It came a month after I replaced my car's side view mirror on my own. Both tasks make me feel like beating my chest and grunting like Tim 'The Toolman' Taylor. Maybe it's more like when Tom Hanks rejoiced in Castaway after starting a fire on his own. I can do this myself, without anyone's help! Well, Google showed me how to replace the mirror, but I did it for real.

I don't recall ever having swung an ax before, but it looked difficult. The heavy iron head tapers to a sharp edge, balanced on a long, thin handle, which makes it hard to lift and too easy to bring down quickly. One false move and a foot or ankle is sliced to the bone. So I begin with caution. Find a crack in the phloem, the brittle bark, that goes all the way down to the xylem, the meaty wood. Lay the log on a flat surface, the crack exposed to all the world. Grasp the handle firmly. Line the blade up with the crack, lift it up over the shoulder, bring it down halfway, deliberately, then let gravity and momentum take over. Feel the wood resist the blade with a smack, or, if you actually hit the crack as planned, a satisfying creak as it splinters. Place a foot on the log for leverage to pry the blade from the cut. A couple (or many) more just like that and the log halves fall satisfyingly away from each other, exposing the fresh wood inside.

Most of the logs didn't take that long. My aim was decent, my strength enough to deliver sufficient power to the swing. Without a large enough crack, though, the wood would splinter but mostly remain intact. I like the physicality of the task, the breaking of something to use later, and the knowledge that I can do this myself. But I'm generally not good at exploiting cracks or weaknesses. I'd rather throw the log on the fire whole and let it burn down on its own, or else find something more powerful to cut it apart quickly, no whittling away needed. I might be better off with a wedge and a mallet - easier to wield, and less dangerous - but the stove is small and all I have is a log splitter, so I swing the ax with care and keep at it until the work is done.

There are more logs in a different pile, some without visible cracks and some too narrow to split and too long for the stove. For those, I will need a chainsaw...

The November of my youth

In case it's not totally obvious from the previous post, today isn't exactly the cheeriest of days. Not depressing or anything, just grey. Boise has been grey for what seems like forever but is probably only a few days here and there. This must be what they call the inversion, when thin clouds settle over the valley and just hang out. Forever. Blue sky is visible in the distance, over the tops of the foothills somewhere, but the clouds hold it back just out of reach. Just enough to reassure us that the world hasn't ended and the entire planet isn't smothered. November in Chicago is cold and grey. It rains. It's windy. But at least it's doing something. Here, the temperature isn't too cold, and it's not particularly windy or rainy. Just grey. Sometimes the clouds thin out and the wan sunlight filters through, like looking at a lightbulb from beneath a bedsheet. It seems like everyone here skis, and now I know why. The ski resorts reside just above the cloud line, right where that unattainable blue sky hangs out. Up there, it's bright and sunny and the snow sparkles festively. Grey sky alone is one thing, but the looming mountains really make the valley feel closed-in, capped, sealed. As if we could climb up and poke a hole in the clouds and a whoosh of fresh air would come rushing in. Or better yet, sweep away the clouds with a broom like we do with the cobwebs in rooms that have gone stale.

Giving Thanks

A few days past the official Thanksgiving holiday, I am especially appreciative of what I am fortunate enough to have. Last night on 60 Minutes, the first story was about families in Florida who are now living out of their cars because they lost their homes when the jobs left and the economy crashed. There have been many stories like this in the media lately; for example, Diane Sawyer hosted a one-hour special last month on an American Indian tribe in North Dakota that is among the poorest communities in the country.  Poverty exists all over the world and is much more rampant in many places outside of the United States. It's one of the core reasons for violence in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and in other war-torn areas. From our comfy couches, it's easier to ignore them. Send some money to an international aid organization and hope it doesn't get accidentally used to pay off corrupt politicians or fund projects that are doomed from the start. Sponsor a child, Sally Struthers-style. Some people take up the cause and fly across the world to try to help people whose circumstances are mostly beyond the control of those who live outside that nation and have no political power. Sometimes it works - some microloans and education and infrastructure initiatives, for example - but without support of the government, it's much more difficult to raise a country as a whole out of poverty. So we throw up our hands and turn the heat up in our cozy homes.

But the United States is now on a slippery slope. Our people can't find work, which leads to tighter budgeting, which leads to feeding their families two meals a day instead of three, because they can't afford more food. Food pantries are struggling right now to provide enough food for the growing number of people who rely on them to put food on the table. This isn't just a problem of eating fast food because it's cheaper than fresh food. It's a problem of no food at all. One family in the 60 Minutes piece said that after cutting back from three meals to two meals a day, they still had no extra money, and they ended up living in their car until a woman who runs a local program helped get the family a hotel room to live in. But a family of five can't live in a hotel room forever. It's a temporary fix.

This is sad. We as a country are no longer taking care of our own. Our government is fighting about stupid stupid things, mostly about how to split the money. Raising taxes may or may not help. Cutting spending may or may not help. This problem isn't about just throwing money at people and hoping it doesn't get wasted. Government doesn't exist simply for its own good and it isn't about making rules for rules sake. It's about providing what our society needs to function and thrive. Private business is about providing goods and services for members of our society. During a time of increased need, not just from those in communities where poverty is perpetuated, but also in once-comfortable communities that looked just like ours, why are we fighting over words and ideas? Why are we not doing something, even if it's small, to help even one family move out of their car and into a real home? This isn't a bleeding-heart liberal thing. It's a human thing. Our country might be in debt for years to come, but our neighbors are faltering right now. It could happen to any of us. One medical emergency or a lost job, and we could be next.

On this day, I am especially thankful for all that I am fortunate enough to have. My furnace broke on Thanksgiving, and I had to rely on a space heater and a wood stove for warmth, although I was lucky enough to be able to stay with a friend for the weekend. What it must be like to have nothing but a wood stove for warmth all the time, or to have no one else to stay with in an emergency, or to have no home at all, I just can't imagine. My heart goes out to all of those people who need so much more. I wish that I could give it.

Adjusting

I knew it would be different here. That was the point. I needed a reset. I needed to start over in a place where no one knows me, where they have no preconceived notions of who I am or where I came from, so I can be whatever I want. I needed a different view, to see things from another angle. But like my cat, I discovered that I long for freedom but am afraid of what's actually out there.

Life in the city is easy. Go to the same few bars and restaurants, shop in the few stores that have what you want, listen to your iPod as you go about your merry way. Keep up the same routines: go to the gym after work or during lunch. Run errands on the weekends. Meet up with friends in between. Meet new people. Cook dinner with the usual ingredients. Listen to the same radio shows, watch the same tv shows, read the same newspapers and magazines. These things are easily transferrable among lives.

It's life outside the city that's scary. Get up into the mountains, among the tall pines and gushing streams, and it's a different world. So quiet. No people around, no airplanes overhead, no birds chirping or leaves rustling. My attempts at hiking have been cut short as I was consumed with a fear of being eaten by a wolf. Or worse yet, partially eaten, with no cell service and no passers-by to help. Leisurely drives along roads in higher elevations feel like death traps, an icy patch or a sneeze all that's necessary to take one wrong turn off the road and plummet into the valley below. Venturing into the wild here is an exercise in stuffing fear into a compartment deep in the belly and trying to enjoy the incredible scenery instead. Coming from a land where people worry more about getting a flat tire on the highway than breaking an ankle while traversing a high mountain trail, this place feels utterly dangerous at times. Is this how other people feel when they move to the West after living in Mamby-Pamby Town for so long? Or are these fears totally unfounded, revealing themselves in this form but being rooted in some deeper, unconscious fear? This is the first time I've done something so different in my life, and being scared is an important part of the process. Maybe it's just that: it's new, and new is scary. Exciting too, but until you learn its secrets and crack its code, new means stumbling in the dark, the world only illuminated as far as your little flashlight beam can reach. Once you know what's just beyond the beam of light, you don't have to guess what's out there, and that's a more comforting place to be. Having someone to hold your hand helps too.

Urban Wildlife, Boise Style

One of the first few days I was here for good, I looked out my window and saw a doe and two young deer standing in my yard. It was opening day for deer hunting, and I wanted to shout at them, "RUN!!!" But no one here in the foothills would shoot at a deer among the houses, especially not with two young. Right? There have been numerous skunks as roadkill, and I've heard rumors of foxes or coyotes running off with the neighborhood cats at night. My sweet kitty doesn't get to go outside at night at all. Not that I have a reason to be worried - she snuck out the open door one evening and came running back a few minutes later. Yearning for freedom, afraid of what's actually out there.

There are also the usual suspects - red and gray squirrels, Canada geese, various song birds, a few small raptors in the open areas. They remind me that I have to get to know a whole new selection of birds out here, because many species don't live out east. My favorite are the California quail that hang out in packs among the bushes, shrubs, and dense clusters of conifers out here. They sound like guinea pigs, squeaking and grunting in the foliage. It's pretty rare to see them - they go running from any disturbance. This evening, I looked out my bedroom window to see maybe 30 quail picking through the fallen willow leaves and pine needles in my backyard, followed by a nosy squirrel whom they didn't seem to notice. Quail are so funny, with their colorful patches of feathers and their one curled feather on their forehead that quivers as they bob for seeds and berries and bugs. Even the females have a little tuft of feather on their heads. It's so regal.

Identity

"Stay in the North End," they said. "The North End is where everything is that you'll need. There's no reason to leave the North End." I've been fighting against this mindset that other educated, progressive Boiseans (Boiseites?) have regarding the old-home, kid-safe, coffee-shop-and-food-co-op neighborhood where apparently most of the liberals in Boise live. I grew up in a pretty diverse area in Chicago. My parents are working-middle class folks, and I always liked to think of myself as part of the proletariat in a way. I'm an educated professional, intellectually curious and well-rounded, but I never assumed badly of someone who works in retail or industry or who doesn't have a college degree. I worked in retail for many years with people who didn't go to college, and they mostly didn't seem like people I needed to avoid. Then again, I have always spent the majority of my time (outside of retail work) with people like me, by default, because after college, I have worked in all white-collar jobs. I never really noticed the difference between those who take a more nuanced approach to life and those who don't give much thought to intellectual pursuit until I moved to Washington, DC, a city rife with people ready to pick apart the world.

Anyway, this Boise Liberal attitude really left a bit of a distaste in my mouth. All of the other Boiseans I have run across have seemed really quite nice and normal, and we liberals can be a tad elitist at times.

Then I dived into the dating scene here, via a free online dating site. And now I understand why my cohorts here in Boise stick to the North End. There is a wider gulf here between those who are liberal and highly educated (often beyond a bachelor's degree) and those who are something else. Still lovely people all, but in a liberal-ish small city like Boise in a staunchly conservative state like Idaho, you just stick with what you know. Because it's easier than explaining yourself to those who don't get it, no matter what your political persuasion, level of education, religion, or job. It's live-and-let-live out here, and everyone stays on their side of the line.

Cross-country

The drive across the United States, from the East Coast to the Northwest, is a lesson in land use. Head out up I-270 from Washington, DC, and suburban Maryland rolls with the hills, part subdivision and part farmland. The trees change color in early fall as elevation climbs into Pennsylvania. The highway winds through the mountains, where the temperature drops and billboards implore travelers to support the coal mining industry, as if there was nothing damaging about blowing apart the earth and hauling out its inner contents, displacing entire towns and polluting the air and water along the way. As if the local economy struggling from the loss of mining was worse than the long-term multiple impacts of extractive industries.

Soon, the mountains give way to a familiar sight: the flat agricultural lands of the Midwest. There's not much here that existed 100 years ago. It has been plowed and plucked and mowed and developed over and again. You're never far away from an ear of corn, a bale of hay, or a tractor. The highway through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois is a lesson in monotony. The giant aluminum siding cross at Effingham, Illinois, is the only distinguishing landmark for miles. But the sun setting over the Mississippi River approaching St. Louis is a thing of beauty. The Midwest is full of simple beauty, seemingly empty but at peace with it, knowing that important things are happening just beyond the view from the highway.

Missouri is a different story. It's a nice mix of farmland and foothills - more dramatic than other parts of the Midwest, because it has more to offer. It's multidimensional. And driving the cliffs along the Missouri River encourages vulnerability and the need to throw it all into the muddy water and leave it all behind. North along the river and through Nebraska is the last chance to enjoy the flat lands with the wide yellow sun, for just beyond the Wyoming border, the earth takes over. The Midwest looks wide and flat, but it's nothing compared to the wide open of the West. In the Midwest, one still feels under the watch of the sun and stars, and clouds float close overhead. In the West, storms arriving can be seen floating in mid-air, approaching but never actually coming close. The land out here is what it has been for thousands or millions of years. People out here don't use the land; the land permits them to reside where they dare, puncturing the upper crust in small splotches. Cows, goats, sheep, and horses graze in dispersed groups on hillsides, barely visible among the patches of sagebrush and the shadows cast by passing clouds. It's a humbling feeling to be out here, like we could disappear at any time and the earth would just swallow us up unnoticed.

Overtly personal

I grew up with a mother who likes to analyze everything, who processes her life by talking about every speck of it, and so I have also become a person who is deeply introspective and fairly self-aware. I have come to measure my life not in terms of my accomplishments, but rather in terms of how I've progressed internally. In Chicago, I fostered my love of music, got in touch with my inner environmentalist, and planted the foodie seed. In North Carolina, I embraced my inner hippie, lost the urgency to get married and have kids, and discovered the value of having friends who are more like me. In DC, I became the independent outdoorswoman I am today. I learned the difference between the fantasies I wanted for my life and the realities that are much more suited to who I am. I struggled with tasks and forced myself to dig into them instead of taking the easy way out, accepting that sometimes just-good-enough isn't good enough. I discovered that I could open up to someone and love so deeply, and then heal more completely when that love went away. I identified the issues that have been holding me back for so long, like my reliance on other peoples' ideas instead of forming my own, and I learned to tell a select few people some deeply personal things that I have only just begun to accept for myself. I discovered that we are all flawed, and that it's okay to be flawed, and that being open about your flaws will not make people automatically dislike you. In the past 3+ years, I have made great strides - I think I had to move past a lot of things in my mind before I could move to a new place on this planet.

But we are all a work in progress, and I always have to have a project. The new one that will follow me to Boise is not a unique one: I don't like my body. In my mind and deep under my layers of cellulite lies a person who is toned and muscular and strong. I feel it in my muscles and in my bones. But my genes work against me, those eastern European Jewish genes that panic at the mere suggestion that it might be cold outside or that I might have to subsist on rations, and so no matter how strictly I count calories, limit carbs, pile on the fresh fruits and veggies and low-fat protein, bike, run, swim, hike, lift weights, do yoga, and get a full 8 hours of sleep, I maintain a layer of padding all over, especially on my stomach and hips. No matter how much I tell my D-cup breasts to get smaller, they just hang there and get in the way, those uncomfortable globs of fat that draw unwanted attention, which I would happily reduce to half of their size or less. I don't snack or eat lots of unhealthy things or fill emotional holes with food, and I am active. I am a healthy person, strong and decently fit, but this body I have is not my own. I have a very womanly hourglass figure for which I get a fair amount of attention from men, but I have never, ever felt like a woman. In my mind, I am not woman, and not really man either, just someone with a strong, fit, capable body with little body fat and no curves. Some people can change their bodies in drastic ways, like training two hours every day (or longer) or hiring a good plastic surgeon. I could kill myself at the gym and restrict every ounce of food I eat like an Olympian, but even with less body fat and more muscles, I cannot escape the physiology, like my short stature, knock-knees and wide hips, that will always betray my gender, and I am limited in my physical abilities by my asthma. Part of it may be my desk-job lifestyle - I'm sure I would prefer a more physically active job, but while I have student loans and a yearning for intellectual stimulation, working full-time in a job that fulfills my need to constantly move my body is not a viable option, doing it part-time will not suffice, and I don't want to wear my body out prematurely.

My angst is not inspired by those beauty magazines, which I don't read, nor by the models, actresses, and the women in my life, all of whom I admire for their talents, personality, quirks, and unique beauty. I don't look in the mirror and say, "I am fat" or "I hate my body." I don't feel pressure to be skinny, I don't think that I am unlovable because of my body shape, I don't feel that I am less of a person for how I look, and I would certainly never take on anything so drastic that could damage my body. I know that I am not a large person and that my size and weight is considered average and healthy. It's not vanity, it's a genuine physical discomfort. I don't look outside the way I feel inside, and my efforts so far to shed the padding that makes life often physically uncomfortable have been mostly unsuccessful. I need to find a way to connect my inner self with my outer self, to accept what I am and find a way to move past this. Unlike the other obstacles I have surmounted, this is not just a struggle with my mind, that abstract and intangible entity; there is a physical dimension to this project, and I fear that like many other women, it may be something I work on my whole life. But I figured out ways to work through other issues, and I'll figure out this one too.

Moving away, not moving on

Two weeks from today, I will be on the road on the way to Boise, probably somewhere on I-70 in Pennsylvania. How did seven weeks turn into 14 days? And how did I accumulate so much stuff in my little bedroom? Reality of the move is setting in. After two years of being out West in my mind, I invested in my DC life over the past 9 months, and now I'm not ready to leave. Despite the noise and traffic and crowds of people, despite the annoying public transit commute and lack of parking, despite the high prices for just about everything and the difficult dating scene, I love it here. I love my friends, who are fun and funny, smart and varyingly intense, who work too much but know how to have a good time, and who have accepted me despite my stupid jokes, inappropriate conversations, occasional retreats into my introverted lair, life indirection, geeky pursuits, general lack of fashion sense, and overall casual awkwardness. I've been told that I'm easy to be around, so maybe that's why they continue to let me tag along.

I love that everything is at your fingertips here, including food, art, and music from just about every ethnicity or culture; movies, theater and dance productions big and small; celebration of LGBTQ culture; wonky political/scientific/global discussions; museums of all kinds; and colorful people. DC can exhibit that well-ingrained East Coast conformism, it's true, but there seem to be enough non-conformists that escape is possible. Speaking of escape, I love that in just a couple of hours, one can drive to the coast, the forests, the mountains, other big cities, and farmland. This is the place for explorers. If I were a big-city girl, I would happily plant roots and stay here forever.

But I don't have the mental or emotional energy for a place like DC. I seem to have inherited a touch of the anxiety disorder that plagues my family, and I'm sensitive to sounds and smells. Sensory overload is something I know well. Although I can ignore the daily noise and commotion of a big city, it wears on my soul. There are too many options in a city like this - how do I choose among all of the fabulous restaurants to find one place to eat?! How do I decide what to do on any given Saturday evening?! How do I connect with new people among all of those rushing to and fro? Cursed with a love of all of these things and a concurrent inability to choose among them, I have accepted that it is time to transition to a slower pace of life, rather than fork over cash every month for the anti-anxiety meds that would enable me to better cope with the constant assault of the cityscape. So I'm moving away, to a place still hopping but calmer, still interesting but not overwhelming. My heart will still be in DC, a place that draws ire from many Westerners. I fully became the person I am while living in DC, so I can never move on completely.

First impressions

I've been in Boise for three days, looking for a place to live. I didn't really take to the city right away. It reminds me of a smaller Salt Lake City, but aside from the downtown area, there's not much going on. Plus, it just seems gritty, scrubby. My initial reaction was resistance - "I don't want to live here. What did I get myself into?" But a meeting with my new coworkers reminded me of what I'm getting myself into. Instead of struggling through economic theory and picking through farm-level data, I'll be nerding out on riparian habitat and stocking levels with a bunch of easygoing sciencey folks who joke around all the time. This sounds wonderful. So, determined to get to know (and eventually like) Boise, I went for a morning jog along the Boise River greenbelt. It was bugging me that I couldn't really pinpoint why I was resisting this place. It's not lush or diverse or exciting like DC, but it's also not noisy and crowded and expensive and dangerous like DC. Boise is different from the Midwest and East Coast - lots of people have tattoos, piercings, and funky hair. Bikes are ridden for transportation. Clothes are used as personal expression, not as a tool for fitting in or showing off. The fancy beers here have DC happy hour prices; the other beers are way cheaper. These are all good things. It's scary moving to a new place, but Boise seems nice, comfortable enough. So what was my problem?

Then it hit me while I was jogging. Everything in the Midwest and East Coast is lush and green. We're talking deep green, like you can smell and taste the chlorophyll while walking down the street. And the sun is yellow, like an egg yolk. It's so bright in the summer that you almost want to hide from it. As someone who is happiest wandering around a forest all day, this seems safe and normal. Plus, it's all I've known. But Boise is not lush. There are tons of trees (the city name is derived from "les bois", which means "the woods" in French) and the grass is green (although it's so dry in the summer that without watering, it turns into a brown mass), but the green isn't as deep and the sun is paler, though still warm. It's dustier here. But there's beauty in that. It's less intense. Even though it's been in the 90s since I got here, the warmth is comfortable. Nature doesn't knock you down in Boise, it just hangs out, like the foothills lurking on the northeast side of the city. I didn't take to Boise immediately because it wasn't begging me to like it. It didn't get in my face or show off for the masses. This city will let me figure it out on my own time, no rush. It's a relief after three years of bracing against the barrage of sights and sounds in the big city. So, okay. I'm moving to Boise.

I'd rather be a talented musician than a fast runner

We are not athletes in my family. We never played on any teams or had piles of rackets and mitts and shin guards lying around. We like music and books and food and stimulating conversation and corny jokes. I suppose I'm the most physically active member of my family - even though I always hated gym class and have a mild case of asthma, I took dance and horseback riding lessons; I played softball for two summers (the highlight of my brief career being the one hit I got off a pitch instead of a toss-up; my own father later struck me out as home plate umpire) and played one game on a soccer team; I played beach volleyball in Chicago one summer and kickball on an intramural league one year in grad school. I go on long bike rides, hikes, runs (sometimes), and I swim laps. I do yoga, lift weights, work the elliptical machines, and perform any number of different kinds of crunches on a regular basis. I'm not very good or fast or skilled or strong at any of those things and the scale never seems to budge no matter how much I do any combination of them, but I do them because I enjoy them, they relieve my stress and anxious tendencies, and they give me something to do instead of being bored.

Hence the RunStock 5K I ran last night with my friend. It's not just a road race, it's a race around the Quantico Marine Corps Base, accompanied by random bands along the route and the School of Rock students performing at the finish line all evening. I had fun running the race, I shaved more than two minutes off my total time without training much beforehand, and I felt good for pushing myself. Races are a blast - there's something about running through the empty streets with a bunch of other random people that really gets my adrenaline pumping. I may have done well based on my personal achievement, but let's face it, I'm not an athlete. A woman carrying one small child on her shoulders and leading another child paced me during the first part of the run, when I was really pounding it out. They finished only slightly behind me. No, I am not a fast runner.

But I don't really care. After sprinting through the finish line and grabbing my mini bottle of water and my chocolate chip cookie (the only way to refuel after a race, in my opinion), I meandered over to the stage, where a small girl, perhaps 9 or 10 years old, with long straight hair, a flannel shirt, and denim shorts, was belting out a Joan Jet song while her slightly older band mates were accompanying her on guitar, drums, and keyboard as professionally as any cover band I've seen lately. These kids were rocking it! On stage! In front of a bunch of hot, sweaty strangers! How cool is that?! I didn't care that I had run 3.10685 miles in 34 minutes. I was so jealous of those kids on stage. Me, jealous of a girl singing a Green Day song about masturbation and smoking pot that was released when I was 14 years old. She was probably not even born yet.

School of Rock of Greater Washington DC states, "Since 1998 the School of Rock has been saving rock & roll, one kid at a time. We've helped thousands of kids learn how to rock, and develop a lifelong love of music." (I'll ignore the punctuation errors in those sentences because rock n' roll don't need no stinkin' grammar.) They provide a combination of private lessons, group rehearsals, and real live gigs to teach students (ages 5-17) about not just playing an instrument or singing but also performing on stage. There's even a summer camp for a more intense learning experience, and they have also added an indie band program for students who want to write and play their own music, not just cover the classics. It all sounds pretty rad to me. Can I go back to being a kid, just to participate in something like this?

I guess that says a lot about how my upbringing has influenced me: I'm okay with not being an athletic superstar, but it kind of kills me that I don't have the musical chops to master an instrument and perform for the masses. Guess I'll have to stick with belting out the tunes along to the radio and playing some serious air drums at my desk.

Musical interlude

Just in case that Rolling Stones/The Sundays song isn't planted firmly enough in your brain:



And a classic that should have been conjured up immediately:

Wild ponies

My office moved to a new building this week, so I got some much-needed time off. I used the past two days to check off a few things on my bucket list: go camping one more time, go to the beach, go to Assateague Island to see the wild horses. I stayed at a tent camp site in Assateague Island National Shoreline, a park that straddles the Maryland/Virginia border on the Delmarva peninsula. Camping is only allowed on the Maryland side, but one can walk along the beach all the way, and the scenic drive from Assateague to Chincoteague (on the Virginia side) takes about an hour through the countryside along the bay. The Chincoteague area includes a national wildlife refuge and NPS visitor center and some longer hiking trails. The road to Chincoteague passes by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and NASA visitor center, where tall satellite dishes and other massive equipment stand at the ready. Assateague is the more commercialized area and receives more traffic and visitors. Chicoteague is quaint and quiet, although don't believe the signs - "historic" Main Street is dotted with the same schlocky stores meant to draw business from people who just want to sit on the beach and spend their cash.

Anyway, before this trip, when I thought of wild horses, I imagined the song "Wild Horses" by the Rolling Stones (although the version in my head is the one sung by The Sundays) accompanying some pintos frolicking on the beach, their manes and tails whipping around in the wind. You probably did too. But alas, my friend, these horses seem neither wild nor exotic. They look like regular horses, grazing along the side of the road and trudging through the salt marsh. Sure, they're beautiful, but they're even less scared of people than the white-tailed deer in Rock Creek Park. And their poop is everywhere. Other "wildlife" common throughout the island include some pushy gulls that laughed too much at me while I tried to pitch my tent, some cottontail rabbits who peek out from behind the brush, and a fawn that ventured up to a large group on the campground and took food from their hands while their Jack Russell terrier sniffed at its feet. But there are also some shore-specific creatures, like the Atlantic mole crabs, who skittered to rebury themselves after each wave washed them out of their hiding spots, the various other crabs that burrow into the sand, the evidence of which can be seen at dawn when their empty burrows dot the shore, a green heron watching carefully from the salt marsh, and the shorebirds that dig the crabs from the sand for a tasty crustacean meal. Red-winged blackbirds flit among the grasses and some falcons circle high above.

I had hoped for some peace and solitude on my two-day retreat, but alas, even at midnight with the bright almost-full moon reflecting off the water and at dawn with the orange ball of light rising in the pink sky from some clouds along the horizon, people were still up and about. I had my own little piece of dune, but solitude was nowhere to be found. Even so, it was freeing to direct my own vacation, to move in my own little space, to let the shore envelop me for just a few moments when I was there and nowhere else.