A Banner Year

Hey guys, I'm going to be an aunt!! My handsome, all-growed-up brother and my beautiful and glowing sister-in-law are going to have a baby boy in July. This is still so surreal for many reasons, but they just announced the gender today so it's getting more real. Although all three of my cousins on my dad's side of the family have procreated prolifically, my brother's baby will be the first on my mom's side of the family. My brother is the youngest on both sides, and it's been clear for a while that any grandchildren were probably going to come from him. My brother and I have always been friendly but not that close, partly because we haven't lived in the same town since I left for college. We've gotten to know each other better as adults, and especially lately, it seems that we've had a better connection during our occasional phone conversations. But I'll admit that I still think of him as my little brother. He's still the grubby-fingered, chubby-cheeked, smelly and embarrassing little brother in my mind. But he's been married for more than 4 years to a woman I've enjoyed getting to know, he's been a pastry chef for some cool restaurants, he has owned a home for more than a year, which they've been fixing up for a while, and now he and his wife are going to be parents. And they're going to be great parents - creative and fun, responsible, so loving, and they'll do everything they can to give this child whatever he needs. So it's time for me to paint a different picture of my brother, one as an adult and a professional and a family man. And just so you know, I'm going to be the best aunt ever, even though I have to do it from many miles away. That kid is going to appreciate how cool science is, dammit!

It's not just the baby that has brought joy lately. My mom and her companion, a man she has shared her life with for 8 years, are getting married this year in a big hippie celebration. I'm so happy that she has found happiness and that she has a great guy to hold her hand through the good and the bad. I hope she doesn't feel that the baby has stolen her thunder, because all wonderful things in life deserve great celebration, and she deserves this joyous celebration of love in her own life.

As for me, just toodling along. I bought my plane ticket to France, fingers crossed that my job would not fall victim to the government's purse-tightening. So far, I'm safe, but I'm going to go to France no matter what, because the fates have decided that this is my year, and I'm not letting political nonsense get in the way of my dream. Unfortunately it's a shorter trip than I would prefer (really anything shorter than 2 months is too short) so I'm trying to prioritize. On the list: a few days in Paris, the ancient cave paintings in Dordogne, a few chateaux, some cheering as the Tour de France cyclists whiz past, a trip to the coast, some serious culture (art, food, wine, music), and if I can manage it, at least a train ride through the Alps. Too much for only 10 or 11 days, but I'm determined to make it work. Alas, my special someone cannot join me on this trip, but we're good at taking mini-vacations together, so a visit together to the City of Love will have to wait for now.

So yes, this is shaping up to be a banner year so far, and it's only March. I've been tiptoeing around any real celebration of all this good fortune because for so many years, my family has had small spurts of good fortune, followed by long spans of exhausting challenges and can't-we-just-get-a-break fist-shaking at the Powers-That-Be. The joke was not to say too loudly that we had some extra money because then something would surely break. We've never done things conventionally and it's taken us a while to get our bearings. But the past couple of years have been better. Calmer. Not free of challenges,  because that's just a part of being alive, but free of the ridiculous challenges that threaten our sanity yet again. More importantly, truly good things have happened, and actually stuck, finally. Life has settled down for us, and it's about time. Thirteen may be an unlucky number, but for an unlucky family, 2013 has been pretty great. I'm so truly thankful for the peace of mind we all have, and I hope every year is filled with such happiness, even without milestone events to celebrate.

Dreaming of gardens

The birds are chirping loudly. Even though robins live here year-round, their numbers suddenly seem to have tripled. Beneath the melting snow, tender blades of green grass are tentatively poking out. But the real sign that spring is starting to make its way here: the garden stores now post on their signs that SEEDS AND SUPPLIES NOW IN! It's too early to plant those indoor starter pots, the ones that will be transplanted outside after the last frost, but those stores know what we crave after the holiday season ends. It's cold and snowy, and although the days are growing longer, the land is an ugly brown. Now is when we indulge in the dreams of flowers and vegetable gardens to keep us going until the time comes to sow seeds and mow lawns.

Whoever decided that Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the start of a new year should fall during the darkest 6 weeks of the year was brilliant. Hanging lights and sparkly colorful ornaments on trees and roofs, holding parties to give us excuses to socialize with others and take our minds off the short days and cold weather, providing a sense of meaning and an opportunity for introspection at a time we would prefer to sleep through - it helps us muddle through. But then we wake up on New Year's Day, hung over from heavy food and too many drinks and exhausted from shuttling among parties, friends, and relatives all month, and we're ready for something refreshing. It starts that morning with the Rose Parade, those whimsical floats covered with organic materials and the freshest flowers you've ever seen.   Then, the awards shows, actors and actresses dressed up like irises and roses and birds of paradise. Next, the home and garden shows, which tease us with the newest gardening implements, the most fabulous ideas for turning discarded items into planters, and OH! the hanging baskets and walkways overflowing with blooms!

When I lived in Chicago, this was the time of year that I always visited the Garfield Park and Lincoln Park conservatories, their humid greenhouses filled to the brim with the most wonderful exotic plants and flowers that bloom year-round. Same with the U.S. Botanic Garden in DC, and I volunteered at the Amazonia exhibit at the National Zoo, which was a two-story greenhouse with giant fish, exotic birds, and monkeys roaming freely among the kapoks and other jungle plants. All of those places are free and open to the public every day of the year. Boise has no such place. The Idaho Botanical Garden is lovely, but it is not free, there is no public greenhouse, and it's closed on the weekends November through March. I have played with the idea of starting a crowdsourcing campaign to raise money for the Boise Department of Parks and Recreation to build a conservatory in the Boise area that would be open everyday with free admission. But how much does something like that cost? And at a time when there are so many more problems in this world, problems bigger than just the winter blues, is that something people would really support?

In the meantime, I'm starting to plan my own garden. This year, I think I will plant vegetables on the east side of the house where the grass doesn't grow. It's a pain to mow around the tree stump there, and it gets lots of morning sun but isn't blasted all day, so I think it will survive better than on the too-sunny south side where I planted last year. I think I'll do kale, broccoli, tomatoes, beets, and carrots. Maybe radishes and red cabbage too. And I want to scatter flowers all over the yard. I'd love a couple more rose bushes or peonies, and I'm thinking of potted flowers too. This year, I want to turn an old bathtub into a planter. Not sure where I'll put it, but I have some options. Why, oh why, is it only February?!

I hardly knew ye

When I wrote this post a year ago today, my head was filled with ideas about a life I had just left behind and another life that I was just beginning. I didn't even know what was actually possible, just that this new place with 4WD and mountains and sagebrush and cold, clear rivers was so much different from the tall buildings and knowing neighbors and the vibrations of a busy East Coast city. I thought that I would live Wild West-style here while trying to find fragments of the things I loved in other places. Because that's what you do when you move from one place to another: keep ahold of what you know to bring you comfort in a new and foreign land. I'd be a city girl in a medium-sized western town, enjoying the novelties like rodeos and shotguns and pickup trucks and getting stuck in godforsaken places with the wind and dust whipping through unkempt hair, like in an Annie Proulx novel.

Instead, I camped and hiked in God's country, vast valleys filled with wildflowers and alpine lakes. I rocked out to a local music festival. I watched fireworks from a blanket in the park after rafting on the small river that splits the town in half, biked along that river to the county fair twice (and home in the dark twice), and hiked along that river in numerous spots. I slept in my tent so much it started to feel like a second home. I gathered with friends to grill in the backyard on hot summer nights; I read in a chair on my porch for entire days at a time, gardened and pruned and mowed and explored my little plot of land, cooked up a storm for Labor Day and Thanksgiving get-togethers, and snuggled in front of the crackling fire in the wood stove on a cold winter night. I dreamed about the renovations I would make if only I owned this random red house on the hill.

I thought that when I moved here, I would spend some time trying on the things that supposedly make one a westerner, in order to fit in such a foreign place about which I knew very little. But as a native Midwesterner, befriended by other Midwestern transplants in this Midwestern-seeming town, I'm actually living the life I was always supposed to live. This is a mostly tame place, with little danger unless you seek it out, and there is just enough excitement to satisfy the city girl in me, while the nature-girl part gets to play as often as I want. Today, a chickadee visited my bird feeder and five mule deer meandered along the sidewalk near the nature center. This is my version of the wild west, wild as in wildlife, as in nature right at my doorstep.

The person I have become is the person I always was. When I reflected last year on the tumult of the previous years, I didn't recognize then that I had been bracing myself for so long against the gales that whipped through my branches because my roots were seeking purchase in the wrong soils. I thought that I could grow anywhere if given the right sunlight, enough water, and sufficient nutrients. But I was operating as though I were a different species; now that I have been transplanted, I can thrive among the Great Basin sages and grasses and the Rocky Mountain conifers.

Last January, I had high hopes for the coming year because I didn't know what to expect in such a different land. This year, for the first time, I have different goals: fix up the great used bike I bought, build a kitchen table from a used door, expand my garden, buy a kayak, take that trip to France I've been dreaming of since I was a kid. These are the dreams of someone who is already where they want to be, and now they can dig their roots down deeper. There is no more looking ahead to the next move, at least not for a while. Now is the time for nesting, for building on what I started last year, for owning my life.

Breaking Up with my Bank

Dear Bank of America,

I'm sorry to deliver this bad news during the holiday season, but I felt it was time to tell you that I'm breaking up with you. Sure, it's been a good 6 years. You treated me well, and I have no complaints about my service. Your website and phone app are very user friendly, and I always felt like you had my back in case my security or identity were potentially compromised. And you seem to care about the environmental sustainability of your operations, which is admirable, although I sometimes suspect it's just for the good PR.

But you have treated many other people very poorly, people whose dreams of owning a home were at first unrealistically realized and then dashed because of your eagerness to make a quick buck. People who trusted you with their money, which you then misused or squandered. My idea of a worthy partner is someone who treats me with respect and also treats others with respect. Someone who shares my values of a thriving, healthy community where everyone has a chance of living a life free of financial worry. And you have turned your back on that community. So I am moving on, to be with someone who shares my values. I would have broken up with you sooner, but the hassle of moving my affairs seemed daunting. Now I know that it's worth the effort.

You should know that I have joined a credit union. I have already moved some of my money over to my new account, and I'll slowly come for the rest of it as I notify the utilities and other relevant parties of the change. This credit union might be less flashy, their website and phone app less advanced, but they offer all of the same services you offer, for free, and they even gave me a better rate on a new credit card. They're part of my community, and I know they're looking out for me, at least partly because I own a share of the business as a member of the credit union.

I'm proud of my decision to take a stand against your deceptive and unfair business practices, Bank of America, and I will encourage others to make the same move I have made, at least until I truly believe that you have made amends for your despicable actions. The American people deserve better. Surely the actions of one person won't make a dent in your bottom line, but at least I'll know that my money isn't supporting what you do, and that's enough for now.

Thank you for a good 6 years together. I hope that the new year brings to you a new sense of responsibility to do what's right. After all, your name says that you are the bank of America, so please take this opportunity to give back to the people of this country, and to represent what we as a nation represent.

Good day.

Oh, mother

It's fall again, December, really, and I am so grateful for each day and the new challenges they bring. As I get older, more friends start families, and my life has felt so carefree. I have been fortunate to have so many opportunities to take adventures, to change my life so drastically, to pick up and go on a whim. The longer my life stretches on like this, and the more of my friends who have children, the farther apart we seem to grow. Lately, this has begun to sink in more because my special someone shares equal custody of his two children with his ex-wife. I met the boys early on in the relationship, but only now, after a number of months, have we all gotten to know each other more. I would never deign to replace their mother, but playing in that role during the weeks they're with their dad has reinforced the point that having kids is a lot of work but also brings such great reward. The weeks my beau is childless, we have some great adventures, enjoying the careless feeling of freedom, limited only by our minds and budgets. When he is dad, the afternoons and evenings are filled with Nerf gun shoot-outs, art and cooking projects, battles to finish dinner and complete homework and chores, cheesy kids' shows, and snuggles on the couch. He reads aloud while I clean the kitchen and make snacks. The kids now request my attention - I must watch their funny online clips, listen to their stories, play games with them, help get things from tall shelves, and duck as they ambush me upon my arrival. My brother wasn't a "typical" boy with guns and sports, so it has taken me a while to get my sea legs with these boys who seem so typical sometimes but not others. The weeks with children are noisy and hectic and allow little time to think or look inward.

Life with children does not allow space for selfishness. They need attention and care, balanced with a long leash and trust to let them discover, succeed, and fail. It's almost never obvious what length the leash should be. I think that more people would be better parents, and more people would choose to delay or completely avoid parenthood - if they had to co-parent for a certain length of time. Not just babysit, but actually attempt to live their own lives while simultaneously caring for children who believe that their parents' sole role in life is to give them whatever they need, at any cost. I get it now, why parenting is so wonderful and yet so completely exhausting in every way.

I've lived a selfish life so long - caring for a cat is on a different plane - that the learning curve has been steep. I've realized that I am probably beyond the point of being able to give up enough of myself for my own full-time kids, but that I also can't imagine dating someone without kids, because they add so much meaning to life. Before this experience, I had a hard time understanding why people have kids - they're great and all, but I wondered whether they're really worth the work. Now I'm beginning to understand that there's more to it than that. It's not so black-and-white, but it's still difficult to imagine compromising my lifestyle to be a full-time parent. Being a part-time parent sounds just right. 

Ask a Grown Person

When I was a teenager, I read Sassy magazine. Oh, how I wish I would have grown up in the Age of the Internet. Rookie magazine, what Sassy would have been as an online 'zine if written by the readers instead of adults, would have made me a much more well-adjusted teenager, because I would have known that there were other people out there who thought differently, and I wouldn't have felt so out of place. And guess what: I follow Rookie on Facebook and often read their pieces, including Ask a Grown Man and Ask a Grown Woman, because I may be a grown woman myself, but I think we all still have insecure teenage selves hidden deep inside, and that makes Rookie relevant no matter how old we get. If you have young people in your life, share Rookie with them and let them know that you're never too old to watch Ira Glass make balloon animals while giving love advice. The rest of the content is also superb and shows just how far we have come as a society that teenagers not only talk about previously taboo topics but also accept everyone's gender/racial/sexual/cultural identity differences without question. Women of my mother's generation set the gender equity bar such that although women may still struggle in some areas, those in my generation never questioned whether women could do anything that men can do. I like to think that my generation is setting the cultural bar such that the next generation (i.e., Rookie readers) will never question their worthiness or capabilities across gender, sexual, racial, or any other lines. That's encouraging.

One year later

My Boiseversary was last week. One year since pulling into this cowtown, unhappy kitty in tow (Dear Kitty hates riding in cars, especially after four 10-hour days on the road). I was scared shitless, unsure of what I was getting myself into, knowing only that I had been overdue for a drastic change and in desperate need of a way to shake off that feeling that I was still a kid. So I paid my first month's rent and collected my house key from the landlord, pulled into my garage, and plopped Dear Kitty on the green carpeting in the empty living room, where she sat down and looked at me as if to say, "This is my last stop. You can keep driving but I am going nowhere." We both knew we were home. I celebrated that night with delivery pizza and a bottle of wine from a local winery, and the next day, got to work unpacking.

A year later, the rooms are full. Art is on the walls and curtains are hung. The garage and spare bedroom are collecting various items to outfit various adventures. The porch has been sat on, grilled on, and partied on. The pathetic garden has been tended and the sad lawn has been mowed. I have seen the mountains and the desert, though there is still much more to see. Some things around here could use some work, but the point is that I have spent the year taking it all in, learning what each season looks like, and now I know how to do it better in the coming year.

I hardly recognize the person I was in DC. That world now feels so foreign, and it has been replaced with a world in which I awaken every morning, hardly believing that is isn't just a fantasy. This is the life that I am supposed to be living. There are some kinks yet to work out, but what would life be without something to strive for?

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” - Dr. Seuss

Changing of the Feathered Guard

It's been nearly a year since I moved here, but this time, as autumn moves in, I know what to look for as the seasons change. The hummingbirds are long gone, as are the lazuli buntings. For a while, the house finch fledglings ate all the seeds in the feeders almost as soon as I refilled them, but this week, things seem quieter. Instead, the robin fledglings are poking around the yard, fully grown though dusty in color, picking through the regreening grass. A dark-eyed junco or two have been spotted, returning from Canada to their southern winter home. More red-breasted nuthatches and mountain chickadee-dee-dees have been hanging around, hopping back and forth between the trees and the feeders. Today a pair of northern flickers came down from the canopy and have been picking through the fallen leaves and berries from the Russian olive trees. House sparrows were pulling at the juniper bark and some kind of wood warbler peeked between the Russian olive leaves.

These are normal comings and goings, but I wonder what will be different this year now that word has gotten out about the bounty to be found here. What's different this week is the Steller's jay that has been sharing the feeders and hopping brazenly around the porch. It seems to have lost its way, since although I live in the foothills, my neighborhood is hardly like the higher elevation forests it usually calls home. Could all of the forest fires this year have chased it away, caused it to seek temporary shelter in an area with trees and guaranteed food? I wonder if it's here to stay, or whether it will return home when rain and snow extinguish the fires for good.

5773

I went to synagogue today. I hadn't been to a religious service in seven years. Being immersed in a Jewish community had burned me out on the whole thing, and anyway, I decided a while ago that the words found in a prayer book don't express my heartfelt views. I believe in the existence of something bigger out there, which I call God because I don't know what else to call it, but I worship no supreme being. The nail in that coffin came when I stood at the base of some mountains here in Idaho and stared up at their peaks, towering above wildflowers I had never seen and creeks so unbelievably clear, I thought for sure I was in another world. When I need to feel grateful, to cower beneath grandeur and beg for the chance to spend another day on this planet, I go to the mountains. When I need to feel grounded, to seek out meaning and to understand life's big questions, I go to the rivers. When I seek out my purpose, a way to leave this world a little bit better, I look inward for the answers. I thought I had no use for religion, and so I gave it up.

But now I have a special person in my life, three months and counting, and he is actively practicing another faith. Our spiritual views are mostly aligned, so we can spend lovely nights on a small mountain beneath the setting sun and talk about what that means to us. But because he cares too, and because he shares that with his children, I feel the need to balance his religion with mine. To teach him ha-motzi lechem min ha'aretz to say sometimes when he says grace and to explain the holidays to him, even if I don't observe them. To understand better what I do believe so that we can have more meaningful conversations about what keeps us going during the darker moments of our lives. While researching some tidbits about the Jewish New Year to share with my special someone, I came across videos of people blowing the shofar, a ram's horn played with four different notes to inspire us to consider our lives and vow to live better in the coming year. It moved me deeply, like it always did, one of the few things I loved about the high holidays as a kid.

So I went to synagogue for Rosh Hashanah in this small town populated mostly by Mormons and Christians and everything that isn't Jewish. The hall was filled with people, many more than I had expected. The service was some of what I remembered, peppered with new tunes for old prayers and new ways of saying things. The rabbi quoted Wendell Berry and Terry Tempest Williams, and the people called to chant the prayers and read from the Torah were all women, in recognition of the 40th anniversary of the first woman ordained as a rabbi. The West may be very different from what I grew up with, but Jews in all places are mostly the same, and I felt at home in this foreign land.

I still don't believe most of what's in that prayer book, but I'm glad I went to services today. I'm glad I challenged myself to think about the traditions in which I find meaning, to question why I still cling to them, and to appreciate the spiritual road I have consciously headed down. I don't rule out going back to synagogue some day, but I'm glad to know that here in Boise, I can bring the mountains and the rivers with me if I do.

Unintended Bounty

My garden was pretty much a flop this year. I'm chocking it up to poor soil, wrong placement, and bad timing. Next year, I think I will do a mixture of container gardening and some raised beds. In the meantime, there's a small tree in my yard, on the hill by the sidewalk, beneath the conifers, that has provided excellent shade for the cheatgrass. The tree produced little green fuzzy knobs that I suspected were apricots, but over the whole summer, they never ripened. Until now. Except that they are peaches. Tiny, but ripe. The tree is small enough that the tiny peaches cause the branches to bow and bend under their weight. So I am off to relieve the tree of its burden. When life gives you tiny peaches, make tiny peach pies.

Down, But Not Out

The outpouring of support for my friends recovering from the terrible attack last month has been so encouraging, and based on his wife's updates, every day brings new hope that TC will pull through this with the same vigor he approaches everything he does in life. If you want to follow his recovery through the eyes of his wife, read her touching, inspiring blog posts at Love for the Maslins (this is different from the fundraising site I mentioned before). I can't even begin to imagine the range of emotions she goes through every day, watching the love of her life struggle to heal, knowing that she can only do so much to help him. Please cheer them on - every little bit counts. In the meantime, the police have video of someone trying to use TC's credit card at a gas station, so maybe they'll get some good leads and eventually catch the person or people who assaulted him. Watch this video, pass it around, and let the police know if you see or hear anything.

Violence in the streets

I was going to write about the fantastic backpacking trip I did last weekend in the Sawtooth Mountains. But then I came home to find that a friend from grad school had been brutally attacked in the Eastern Market area of DC. Washington DC is a weird place - even the good neighborhoods are still susceptible to crimes like robbery, assault, and rape. It's been heartening to see the incredible support, much of it from people who only peripherally know TC and/or Abby, and I send healing thoughts to them and their family every day. It's an awful thing that happened to some great people (not that anyone deserves harm), and even though TC is making progress, he still has a long way to go. Some friends set up a site where people can make a donation to help the Maslins pay for medical care and child care - I wish I could have donated more, but where my finances fail, the opportunity to engage others in the cause can take over. If you can spare even a little bit, please consider donating through this Simple Registry site: Love for the Maslins. Simple Registry was started by some of my friends, who are also TC and Abby's friends, so I know it's a reputable site run by great people. Your donation will get there, safe and sound.

News of TC's attack has been all over Washington Post and the local TV stations, and some trolls have pointed out that if TC were black, his attack wouldn't be getting this kind of coverage. A sad but possibly true point, since plenty of crimes happen all over DC, in fact, all over the nation, and they get swept under the rug. Violence in Chicago has been escalating, much to the detriment of communities all over the city. Unless you have a connection to Chicago, you probably don't know anything about it. This weekend's shootings warranted a simple bulleted list of victims in the Chicago Tribune; whether any of the victims get more coverage is doubtful. We hear about the individuals who shoot up army bases, political rallies, movie theaters, religious centers, and office buildings, but the mass crimes that happen on a daily basis get little or no attention, perhaps because thoroughly covering each assault would fill the pages of the newspaper each day. It's all we would see on the local news programs or splashed across the media websites. But failing to properly acknowledge the victims makes it easier to ignore the problems that led the perpetrators to turn to violence, and the violence continues. This is not just a matter of gun control or mental illness, although addressing those issues would go a long way toward ensuring that people who should not have deadly weapons cannot acquire deadly weapons. People turn to crime because they feel they have no other options. In America, the Land of Opportunity, crime should not be the avenue anyone takes in an attempt to solve their problems. We work so hard around the world to get food, clean water, shelter, and medical care to the disadvantaged. We should be doing better by the residents of our own country. I don't know what the answers are, but failing to talk about the problems takes us backward, not forward.

I met the mountain

I brushed my teeth beneath the crescent moon

Acknowledged the mountain and the multitude of stars

Gave thanks to heavens that put me here

That gave me the chance to show the world what I'm made of

For it's no small thing to have two working legs, two working arms, capable lungs and a pounding heart

So I stepped onto the steep trail, along the dusty path, over tree roots, past pine skeletons twisted like ghouls. Birds chirped and flies buzzed. 

I had high hopes. But the higher I got, the more they dissolved.

Finally, I met the mountain. 

Climbing to a 12,662-foot peak is a hearty physical endeavour. I had prepared physically and felt ready. Borah may be meager compared to some of the great mountains of the Earth, but it requires tremendous courage. The mountain sized me up and found me wanting. The previous week had drained whatever I was prepared to give mentally. At the base of the ridge, the dam broke. I hadn't been aware that floodwaters were collecting, but now they came rushing forth. The mountain told me that today was not my day. 

My rational mind wonders abut God, but watching the sun rise just above the ridge, I felt certain I was staring God in the face. Some people climb mountains to feel that they have conquered something. Others want to stand a little closer to God. I just wanted to see what I could see, but standing in the shadow, confronting scrambles and climbs and slides, I realized I had no right to challenge the spirit in the rock. We humans don't belong in this place, scrambling like ants in the thin air. The view from that point is spectacular, but there are some things we mortals will never see. Struggling to be humble, I accepted defeat by something bigger than me and returned from whence I came. 

Dreary

It needs to rain. The sky needs to open up and let fall big drops of wet rain. All day long. Or at least for a few hours. I don't remember the last time it rained here. Occasionally a storm will blow through, big clouds that come in fast from the Owyhees to the south, but the precipitation barely hits the ground, and then it's gone as fast as it came. I miss the summer thunderstorms of the Midwest and East Coast. There, the humidity builds oppressively until KABOOM! the sky can no longer hold all that moisture and hot drops pound the ground and collect in puddles everywhere. One summer during college in Missouri, it felt like it rained every single Friday, from morning until mid-afternoon. Then the clouds would slowly thin and the sun would peek out, and then the air would get sticky hot again but the land would feel clean.

It doesn't rain like that here in the deserts of the Intermountain region or the Great Basin, except for maybe occasionally in the fall or winter. But now, in the heat of summer, it is just sun sun sun and dry heat. Clouds tease but never release their contents. It's amazing that anything is still green in these parts, a feat attributable to the snowmelt trickling down from the mountains and the irrigation systems that feed this parched land. Sunny is wonderful, but it is tiring. There's no good excuse for not playing outside (too hot? just go to the mountains or the river) and the almost-10 pm sunset forces you to stay up too late to fill the long day with as much as possible before winter renews its grip. This is the time of year when I look forward to autumn, with its days of reasonable length, comfortable weather, occasionally cool and rainy moments, and a chance to catch my breath. Right now, I'm dreaming of chilly, foggy days along the Oregon coast, damp sweater weather and cappuccinos, curling up in a big chair with a book and a blanket. A break from the unrelenting heat and sun. But there's just a month left of real summer, and suddenly it feels like I haven't done nearly enough, and there's so much left to do. Come September, summer will have felt way too short, the little time spent lounging in front of the television or in bed will have seemed a waste. Rainy days absolve that guilt, which is why we need a couple out here in this dry land. But with none in sight, all we can do is push on. 

Exhausted

May and June were the months of boundless stamina. The sun stayed out longer, the air was finally warm. The energy of emerging spring brought countless opportunities for exertion: long hikes, long runs, strength training and yoga, day after day of activity. A yearning to avoid being alone, coupled with the satisfaction of nature at my fingertips, kept me going everyday. Occasionally, internal doubts would examine my ability to press on and find it sufficient. Don't stop now - as long as I have the energy, let's keep going. I survived on fish and bread, turkey sandwiches and unappetizing salads, chicken sausage with pasta, all with a strange distaste for most vegetables.

Now, it's July. Those lazy days of summer. The promised 100+ degree temps have arrived, and with them, my ability to press on is waning. I have that heavy feeling in my sternum that drags me back into bed or flattens me on the couch. Play time is over, temporarily. The trails can wait. Watching movies in the cool AC sounds about right. Low-intensity workouts at the gym. Cooking real food, vegetables included. Rolling on the carpet with the cat at dusk. Taking time to notice the little things, to process what I've seen, to start something new and special. Nesting. 


With the arrival of spring, I sprinted out of the gate, daring life to bring it on. At 32 years old, I'm in the best shape ever. It was just May, and suddenly now it's the second week in July, and every weekend from now until Labor Day has a plan. Summers are too short; to keep up that frenetic pace would mean a season come and gone in a blink and winter arriving too soon after it just ended. The sun has arrived at the northernmost point in the sky for the year, and as it starts to head south again, I'm ready to let go of the reins a bit. Ready to be a little lazier, to embrace some quiet times, to look back inward again. To enjoy the romance of the season in all its sweaty, short-shorts, lounging-by-the-water glory. 

Why it was too much

A few weeks ago, I lamented here the deaths of a beautiful bird and a character in a foreign movie. Perhaps I'm overly empathetic, but at that point, I had also just had too much of death for a while. A couple weeks before that, my mom made the difficult decision to euthanize our aging family dog, the sweet pup we just couldn't stay mad at when she peed in the house or escaped down the street or barked incessantly, because she also did funny things and licked our faces and always had a smile on that cute pointed muzzle. But she was heading toward the light, and it was just time. She'd been with the family for so long that I have felt her absence despite living far away for many years. Then, one morning about a week before that post, the local news announced the death of two airplane pilots who had crashed the day before while delivering assistance to firefighters in the Utah mountains. And I knew one of the men. Not well - I had only met him once, on an awkward date back in November, after exchanging messages through a dating site - but still, I knew him. He seemed like a nice enough guy. Any death is sad, but when it's someone you have met, it hits a little closer to home. That one felt weird for quite a few days, especially since, when we had started talking and I found out what he did, I thought "Gee, flying small planes like that sounds dangerous." So by the time the bird and the man in the movie had perished, I had had enough of death. I guess I was crying not just for them but also for the pup and the pilot. I hope the mourning doves cooed extra hard that day.  

Brushfire

It's summer. The air is warm, and it sticks to your skin. Scents of food and flowers, chlorine and sunscreen, waft through the air, through the windows, through the countenance of the season. The hot winds blow hair into whorls as sweat beads on the temples and neck and clavicle. Magic happens now, scandalous things that make you blush and tingle beneath raised eyebrows and wide eyes. The energy of something about to happen crackles like the moment just before lighting strikes. Fires are set. They burn everything that has worn out its welcome, that has come and gone and since dried up, which feeds all that is poised to emerge from the ash-laden soil. Fed by those hot winds, the scene is set for new possibilities, the likes of which we can hardly imagine.

How not to hike up to Stack Rock

Last weekend, my friend and I embarked on a trek up to Stack Rock, an impressive rock formation near Bogus Basin. Except that there's very little information on how to actually get up to Stack Rock, despite the fact that the trail was dedicated a few years ago. The connecting trails from Bogus Basin create a 17-mile round-trip hike, something we didn't feel up for attempting. As it turns out, our final mileage didn't fall too short of that. We trusted this guy, assuming that even though the trailhead is unmarked, after starting on the trail the path would be obvious. It was not. Compare Stueby's 9.5-mile trail outline with ours: 

In order to avoid this 15.7-mile debacle, do not:

• Take the high trail along the ridgeline. You will just have to backtrack. Instead, take the trail that curls down and along to the right, crisscrossing over a small stream through some gorgeous, cool forest in the valley. 
• When you reach the intersection of trails 120 and 122, don't turn right on #120. You will just run into a woman and her 10-year-old son training for Half Dome by hiking the 17-mile trail you and your friend shunned, and they will persuade you to turn around and backtrack to the intersection. Showoffs. Instead, turn left onto #120, crossing the creek once again.
• When you reach another intersection where the main trail curves to the right, away from Stack Rock (which you can now see in the distance), don't freak out and wonder where the trail to the left goes. Just follow the main trail to the right, even though it looks wrong.

The lunch spot. Don't take the trail behind that log.

• When you finally reach the marked trailhead for Stack Rock (#125), don't walk past the open area on the left. Sit and have lunch there; listen to the sky and the breeze and the birds. This is one of the few things we did right. Don't choose an unsheltered spot for a pit stop, unless you're okay with being buzzed by a prop plane while your bare ass is out in the open. 

• When you've made your way around the Stack Rock loop, having marveled at the looming granite above you, don't decide to find out where the trail behind the trail 125 marker goes. It's not a short-cut. It's a long-cut. It will switchback through the open meadows of the foothills and dead-end at Bogus Basin Road. From there, it's 2.75 miles along Bogus Basin Road back to the car. Uphill. In the sun. With cars whooshing past you, none of them even giving you a funny look. As if two thirty-something women wearing hiking clothes and day packs walk along the winding mountain road all the time. If you walk up this road and you'd like a ride back to the car but have too much pride to thumb it, don't look healthy and capable. Do exaggerate a limp or rest woefully against the concrete barrier. 

• Don't get upset when your best-laid plans go astray. It may be a long-ass haul, but with the right company, an appreciation for some gorgeous scenery and a sense of adventure, it'll be a great day that you can brag to your friends about. This, we also got right. It was worth it:

Stack Rock: worth the trouble it takes to get there

The view from behind Stack Rock

Too much

Today, a bird flew into my sliding glass door and died. I came home to find it lying motionless on its side on the porch. A few ants had already gotten to it - big, fat ants, the kind that can be picked up and taken back outside when they sneak their way into the house. They were crawling on the bird's beak, its eye squinting as if in pain. There was no blood, no gore, just a body on the red wood in the warm sun. I dug a hole in the corner of the yard and buried it there, beneath the pine needles, where it will return to the earth.

Other birds have flown into the door before, but they flew away unharmed. This one didn't make it. And I was so sad. I would have been sad if it were any of the many house finches that hang around the feeder all day, or the robins that fend off the squirrels in the trees, or the mourning doves that tiptoe across the roof. But this bird was a western tanager, with its deep black wing weathers and golden yellow head, an orange crown spreading. I had never seen one before moving here, and its bright feathers made my little wooded yard feel so magical. Birds fly into windows all the time, all over the world. I knew that they flew into mine and I didn't do anything to make sure it didn't happen again. I did nothing to prevent this beautiful bird from flying into my door, and now it is dead.

This evening I watched a movie in which one of the main characters reveals that he has a disease and that he is dying. In one dramatic scene, he screams and writhes in pain, not from the disease, but because he doesn't want to die. And I cried for him, because I know that's how I'll go someday, kicking and screaming in protest, and I cried for the bird, this beautiful bird, because I feel responsible for its death. The man in the movie was a billionaire, but he died, just like everyone else. In this magical yard where life teems, this poor bird died. One can have it all, and still, death comes knocking at the door. Right away, I covered my door with stripes of white, yellow, and green electrical tape, the only thing I could find that would prove to the birds that something solid marks the boundary between the porch and the house, so that no more magic will be lost. At least, not if I have anything to say about it.

Now I've gone and done it

I said I would write more. That I would flex my creative muscle and make something worth sharing with the world. I thought originally that I would do it here, but if I want people to take notice, the people who can give me a writing or editing gig some day, it should be in a more elegant format. Not something that screams MeMeMe. Instead, something that gives thanks to the here and now, to the place we came from and the place we're heading, from the spot where we stand to the greatest span of the cosmos. No matter how we believe this all came to exist, we can all agree that it is incredible and inspiring, beyond comprehension. This digital space will still be all about MeMeMe with some other stuff thrown in, but please visit This Wondrous Place for something a little different, inspired partly by Radiolab, partly by Ken Burns' The National Parks series, and partly by the creative endeavors of some fabulously talented writer friends who dare to bare their souls. This Wondrous Place is where my soul lives. Please respect it.