A Well is Hiding - Utah Valley

a child

2011-12-24T17:08:00.009-07:00

One of the greatest blessings is to see the bounties of life renewed, as they are viewed through eyes of a child.

Margo and her first Christmas tree

I believe in Santa.

Here he is waving at me at Orem's University Mall. See his jacket on a hanger on the left, where he keeps it when he's taking a break?

He had an open sack at the entrance to his chair, for letters that I assume may have been last minute, and might not have gotten to him in time if they'd been mailed. I really liked the one in the picture there,

"Dear Santa, I want to be good, but It's kind of hard not to yell and skream. And I got a questin. How do you deliver so fast?"

Good question, kiddo. It's a great mystery to so many.

Yes, I believe in Santa.

I believe in the joy he brings to children, and that the spirit of Santa holds one of the only kinds of hope that can transcend tough and terrible times in a child's mind. And I believe this can be shared with everyone, regardless of age or religion. It's the stuff of love and magic that provides children with a scaffold to understanding the greater philosophical concepts that govern the very faith in our lives.

Margo and her first Santa Claus

And while our belief may be tested as we grow within our younger years, the magic returns when we choose to believe again as we get older.

Oh yes, Margo, there is a Santa Claus.

Merry Christmas to all!

tree

2011-11-24T23:30:00.012-07:00

Painting outside the restrooms in the now closed Borders - Provo, Utah

It is the tree that is tested by storm and injury that grows the strongest roots and bears the sweetest fruit.

I've thought and rethought this post for six weeks now. Mainly because I haven't had time to do much else besides think. The winds of time are blowing a bit faster these days...

I have always said that I would prefer to go through the more intense trials of life, rather than only living through a presentation of relatively banal experiences, never learning to see layers that transcend the surface of things. And boy do I always seem to get my way with that one.

Tree of Life poster at the Broadway theater - Salt Lake City, Utah

A few months ago, Chris and I had the opportunity to go to Salt Lake City to see Terrance Malick's Tree of Life (the last movie we'll be seeing for a while, until we can make the drive to Park City's Redstone 8 movie theater with the ingenious "cry room"). Tree of Life is one of those movies that you can climb through and hang out in, long after the credits have rolled past...you can spend weeks just browsing through your memories and chewing on the leaves for a while. The movie exists as an effectively representative amalgam of how I, and maybe how we all, sift through thoughts of life and time, experience and history, and merge them together into a masterpiece of conscious being. My thoughts are drawn back to Tree of Life in pieces...I think of the moments of cosmic floating light and its gorgeous operatic overlays and how close that is to how I've always thought of the powers that be. I think of the moments in the attic, a single window in a sometimes empty room, except when the boy riding the tricycle is there, or the tall man, who reminds me of the drunk man the boy walked past with his mother, then the crippled man...all combining, all drifting apart... Some scenes are like those faint memories you have, where you can remember a vague tableau, a few tchotchkes, a pull in a bedspread and a bumpy glass vase suspended next to a headboard that wasn't really wood, but maybe something made to look like wood, and how it always smelled dusty like dry pine needles.

Orem Public Library courtyard - Utah

I spent my time thinking of these things first, the moments in this movie, visiting and revisiting and revisiting and revisiting, jumping from winding path to random parcel, as one does with memories until certain times and places and objects fade from possibility and others are more apparently there. I sifted through scene after scene - was the placement intentional, like the event or action itself? Or was it merely a representation of something else, something where the glimmer of a face or feeling is all that is left to remind you of the last resonating moments of the overarching impact that it had in the first place?

And so, life represents life representing life. It is itself, and so much else, and nothing else.

And so my life goes too.

View from my room on the 4th floor of Utah Valley Regional Hospital in the Mother/Baby wing - Provo, Utah

I thought of sharing my disdain for the medical community after experiencing 31 hours of hard labor that concluded with me being cut open and my baby being pulled from my abdomen instead of the more "natural" route, and then rethought the whole thing and decided I might praise the fact that modern science may be responsible for my very breath at the moment - had this been the dark ages, neither one of us might have made it. I rethought again, that had modern science not intervened during my pre-term labor in mid-August, I might have accomplished a positive outcome anyway, had we trusted that nature knew what it was doing in the first place instead of trying to make it wait... And then I might have shared the in's and out's of my subsequent medical problems, the feeling of having one's organs moved around and a baby pulled out with an epidural that could barely dull the pain of the last 15 hours of contractions that it was intended for, of badly placed catheters, anti-ergonomic hospital beds, the woes of 31 hours of IV fluid and resulting rehospitalization, and then my baby's concurrent and avoidable troubles of her own that delayed her homecoming for the first ten days of her life... But those details aren't important. For those events, the surface suffices.

Doll high chair in antique toy store in Ogden, Utah

My first memory of being a mommy begins with the scene in my hospital room. I didn't have bearings on where it was, I was in a morphine haze that must have been the only thing between me and the violent pain of the c-section after that botched epidural. I hadn't seen my baby yet because unlike the way the rest of babies are treated when they enter the world, they were trying to get her not to cry when she arrived. But of course, already so full of life, she took it upon herself to breathe in her new world, crying the prettiest cry I've ever heard, a breath that sent her straight into the arms of the emergency staff of the NICU. So about an hour after she was born, I'd only ever heard her, so I asked the two nurses when I'd be able to see her. They told me that as soon as I could walk well enough to get in a wheelchair, they'd wheel me up to the NICU. I'm fairly certain they meant hours, or a day? But, I told them I'd be going to see her right then. They asked me if I was sure, if I was truly okay to walk, echoing those questions unrelentingly. I told them I was fine and then watched as a mat was placed on the floor for me to step on, watched as my incision turned the mat into a monochromatic Jackson Pollock painting, watched the walls and floor sway as my hips and legs did as they pleased when I stepped toward the wheelchair. I heard myself chanting back to the echoes that I was fine, that I could make it, that I would be going to see her right then, and I felt the strong hands and arms of good nurses who were good to take me very seriously, keeping me from making my way toward the ground rather than the seat of the wheelchair. And minutes later, I saw her. My Margo. Bound to earth by mechanical vines and tendrils that worked to keep her rooted here.

Margo progressing in the NICU, after the removal of the IV in her head, arterial line through her belly, and other assorted cords, tubes, and wires...only needing her oxygen and feeding tube and monitors here...

So while our branches have been tested in recent storms, we abide. We spend our time immersed in watching a new little life develop a conscious being of her own. In these first few weeks, she has already lived through so much more than I would ever have expected to form the foundation of her understanding, even though as strong as the memories are for us, they will never be part of hers...of our collective memories. And we can only hope that as her timeline began at home on Day 11, we have been quickly replacing any ill-effects of the unexpected grafts that were placed in her first very isolated days.

Flower outside the OB/Gyn's office

And we celebrate that life...and living. And we are thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

by two

2011-10-03T09:21:00.013-07:00

At the moment, we are still living life by two...

Living by two, like this wonderful goose couple we watched at Utah Lake yesterday afternoon, in the newly fall-smelling air that I haven't had enough of a chance to get out in recently.

By two, like the two separate parts of life it would seem that I'm living, where I'm only just now feeling like I'm ready to go to swimming pools and play on a beach in the sun, like I've been trapped in a perpetual winter/spring and I'm only just now ready for summer. Only just now seeing that it's so green outside, that everything has been growing and flourishing...

One of last fall's first snows - Dry Canyon Trailhead, Uinta National Forest, Utah

Like there are two strange lives, one out here and one inside my head where I've been suspended in glass like a fairy tale waif who somehow landed in the hands of a powerful force unknown, and there is only enough space in there for the thought, "whatever shall I do now"? And all I can think is that real fairy tales hardly have glamorous endings...there's always sacrifice. So what now?

This little girl grows heavier in my gut by the day, and we know she'll be here soon, pressing her own separate little mass against this planet. I think she will make the winter nicer, holiday songs lovelier, the whole house cozier...

And if life didn't already have a pile of whimsy in it, I think she'd add more. And I hope she does.

"Garbage Cans in Love" - or so I thought from the moment I first saw the two of them, Orem, Utah

But in the meantime, I have plenty of whimsy to share.

"Caring" by Miles Metzger - Utah Valley University, Orem, Utah

And this year, very soon, we will have enough of us in number in our funny little home, to call ourselves a family and really feel the weight of the word, big in our hearts - heavier than just two, instead, now by three.

wait

2011-09-24T19:44:00.009-07:00

Wait.

I used to spend my time waiting for the future to happen. Thinking of the plans ahead to avoid the unreliable pace of the present and the uncertainty of the unscheduled events that would present themselves along the way. In some ways, it was unhealthy practice, causing me to miss the steady course of daily life and the small happiness, at the very least, that can be eked out of each day.

Waiting for December to come and move us to the other side of a mountain range - Tallahassee, FL - November 2009

Christopher and I have shared a ton of waiting. Piles and piles of days and months spent waiting together. We've set our sights on musical events, new apartments, new cities, semesters to start or end, vices to disappear, skills to improve, hobbies to flourish, life to develop, life to purge itself, life to arrive...and then we'd wait. With all that practice waiting, looking ahead instead of right in front of us, we developed a pretty good coping mechanism. After a ton of South Florida hurricanes and all these years of planning our lives, we've learned to just let the storms roll in, knowing we've done all we can to prepare for it - now at ease with battening down the hatches and just moving with current no matter how rough it gets. And somewhere in there came the confidence to sit back and take in the moments too, not bypassing them for whatever events could potentially eclipse them in the future.

So many coffee shops have shared our time as we've waited over the years - Salt Lake City, UT - April 2010

So now, after nearly eight years together, we're in this calm place where we're finally just feeling a sense of relief that we're still growing what seems to be a healthy future baby, one who's scheduled to arrive in only two and a half weeks (knowing that statistically, it could take even another two weeks longer than that), one who we have been looking forward to meeting through four seasons now. And as we're told, unrelentingly, about these last few weeks that so many experienced as a frantic wait fraught with nerves and worries, we're having a different experience, just appreciating the doldrums in our own funny way - finishing up her tiny laundry, making her bed, watching old movies, making music, driving out to a park to install the car seat, sitting on a Cracker Barrel porch drinking sarsaparilla and playing checkers...

Cracker Barrel porch - Springville, Utah - Sunday, September 18th 2011
Almost identical to all the others, where we feel quite at home, having set up our first date nearly eight years ago outside of the Deerfield Beach, Florida Cracker Barrel where Christopher's bluegrass band had a standing gig

This is not to say that we aren't in tune with the rhythms that lie ahead, and to be completely honest, this is partly an exercise in battling the repetition of new mothers past, as I mentioned in my last drops in this well. I know humans are creatures of habit, and that so much does repeat itself (contrary to the old adage about knowing history, it will be repeated anyway), but I think it's possible that there are always others, not merely outliers, who may share our sentiments and will hopefully land in this place where they will find some words that mirror their own thoughts - that waiting for the birth of a child doesn't have to be drenched in stress or fear, that some of us may be wired differently and can therefore wait differently.

Well, let's wait and see.

a space

2011-08-06T14:18:00.015-07:00

You carve a space in time for yourself, wherever and however you can.

We recently discontinued our internet service at home in order to adapt our budget to our weak financial situation at the moment. I've been spending a few hours a week at the Orem Public Library, catching up on email and blog posts, trying to transfer the blogs I like to read into Google Reader so I can keep up with them more expeditiously, now that I don't have time to browse through them randomly during all hours of the night. It seems that when time is limited, I use the space within the hours I do have, much more efficiently. It's like the writing mothers who I've read get more writing done than they ever have before, because they know there are only so many hours of baby naps to take advantage of.

One of those times when we felt there was nothing but time - Destin, Florida - April 2008

The idea of time and how much of it a new baby will absorb, is a pressing issue as of late. We still have about 6 weeks before this little one is fully baked (yes, like a cookie, or a pot roast), and about 9 weeks until she's due. So my time is only really my own for another couple of months at most...or so they say.

Packing it all in to move to the Big Bend at the end of 2006 - Coral Springs, Florida

The stories of frazzled mothers pushed to the edge by new sounds, new responsibilities, sleep deprivation, harried schedules, all bringing on weepy mornings, afternoons, evenings, whenevers, being at the end of one's wit, wherever that is, you know, with differing measurements for each personality...well, I don't know, it all sounds like the same ol' same ol' pile of stressors to me. Like grad school, or other spans of time that were considerably harder in all the years past. Or that year spent in 2006 with a full-time work schedule, a second part-time job, and a full-time undergrad course load, with a boyfriend in the hospital, both of us adapting to the parameters of his tenuous medical situation, and then moving house in the middle of it all to accommodate our changing finances before our big move from South Florida to the Big Bend (amidst a barrage of interesting commentary on the state of the union from certain family members). And you think, boy this is hard, but you know that the you who is not dealing with so many things at once is just sitting there in the space when all this passes, maybe sipping an iced tea, unsweetened, in a chair, in an air-conditioned building or maybe outside in a temperate atmosphere, with nothing but time and head space and room for happiness all around.

Our first "babies"
Finn and Sandwich, who needed extra around-the-clock care after leaving mama early, still googly-eyed at just 5 weeks old - May 2007

In other words, you will not crack. I will not crack. You know, unless I do. In which case, the space after will be in a room that's nicely padded, or I'll just be somewhere else entirely, I assume, with a lot less rattling around in my brain. But jokes aside, I just can't buy into all this new-mother fear-mongering that seems to be a frequent dirty hobby of new mothers past. It's life. Sometimes it gets really hard. And maybe it helps if being a new mother isn't the most stressful and difficult series of events to ever happen upon the early half of your years, because maybe then you're equipped to handle it in different ways...ways that incorporate all the hard-work and new feelings seamlessly into what you have referred to for so many years as your life. I am looking forward to it. Dirty diapers, wild screams, familiar insomnia, sheer exhaustion, yoked with fears for the health and well-being of someone for whom I love entirely, knowing that in their life too, they may experience harm that is not within my power to prevent - yep, sounds like life. But that description is missing all the good that comes along with the other stuff to balance things out.

Crocheted feather headband I recently designed to put in my etsy shop

And I'm not fooling myself, by any means. I am taking full advantage of my hours, using up my craft supply reserves to stock my etsy shop with the hopes that they will bring about a little supplemental income once the holidays get a little nearer, assembling words into literary pieces that I hope will one day do the same, and writing and playing music as always because that is the one pastime that is worth more than any monetary rewards - for me, like love, it's the currency of life itself.

So waste not, want not? In this space I have, I hope so.

journey

2011-07-26T09:30:00.016-07:00

When we try to absorb the elements of a journey, it is with the hope of extending what often lasts but mere seconds into a web of memories to call our life.

I find myself feeling like I'm in a strange part of my journey these days. Pregnancy, or gestating as I like to call it, has got me traveling among ideas ranging from sheer joy and amazement at the flipping and kicking life that can live for nine months in a woman's torso, to feeling a lot like an alien host for the very same reasons I am likewise fascinated. But I'm also finding that time is moving so quickly while also standing completely still. So I'm trying to live more in the moment, and for an impulsive yet perpetual planner, this is a lot harder than it sounds.

Pants Bird (2005-2010) when he was very small and had no tail

When we first got our little parakeet, Pants, back in 2005, we found him in the pet store riding on the tails of all the other birds. He looked like a runt - very small, not much of a tail to speak of - but he sure knew how get around. He saw a tail, latched on with his little feet, and hitched a ride all over that little budgie play area. And I'm feeling very much like I'm doing that right now. On my husband Chris' tail. And thankfully he is far more tolerant than the other large parakeets, so I'm not getting pecked at along the way. It's not that I'm just going along for the ride, mind you, I'm just eager to fall into his easy flow of letting things happen when they happen and trying not to spend the next few months analyzing things that may never occur - I just need a little break from my own head. Not to worry, it's only a temporary hiatus from my neuroses.

So when I first saw the sign draped across historic downtown Provo, bearing the words Llama Fest, what appeared to be an actual event revolving around llamas, I was ecstatic. Llamas are a bit of a spirit animal for Chris, in whatever loose way one might define such a thing as a spirit animal.

A giraffe I enjoyed feeding at Brevard Zoo back in 2005

Mine tends to float around a bit, often a giraffe, but also half-bird and half-cat (how's that for a tragic mulatto?), but he so very often gravitates toward his llama fancy.

So, for the first time in months, without morning sickness and with only minimal hip and back pain that day, I hitched a ride on Christopher's llama-loving tail, and had a peaceful day making memories of minutes spent indulging in our love of animals.

Traditional South American dancing with Hindu statue at the left of the stage

Llama Fest was held on the grounds of a Hindu temple in Spanish Fork, a sight itself even without the llamas, on a hill with a vista of Utah mountains behind it. The two together created an unexpected blend of the South American and the Middle Eastern, giving the feeling that our journey had meandered into a truly unusual place.

Peacock on an ordinary rooftop and pigeons behind him on an ornate one

And that's the sort of perpetual state I seem to find myself in now - static, for the next few months, at a crossroads of all my dreams, familial, literary, musical, visually artistic, career-oriented, and I'm finding that they are merging into a single road, all dreams present, but with some goals approaching with lightning speed while others still float out at the horizon. And I think that this blend will give me another monumental shift in my way of thinking, as has happened during many random phases of my life, into another truly unusual place.

Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple - Spanish Fork, Utah

But no matter. I am here now. And I will take these next few months to look at what I've brought along with me, and what I am taking forward, from moment to moment, to meet what lies ahead.

an anniversary

2011-06-19T17:23:00.007-07:00

The owl and the pussycat at Bridal Veil Falls for a two-year anniversary - Provo, Utah

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!'

Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?'
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

III

'Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.'
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

--Edward Lear

I placed a part of this poem on our wedding website two years ago, and today, we find ourselves in Utah on our anniversary, sharing cookies shaped like Mr. Owl and Miss Pussy-cat. It has been a wonderful two years, even lovelier after sharing the five years together before that.

Happy Anniversary to my love.

nest

2011-06-05T13:35:00.011-07:00

There is a decieving concentricity to a nest that implies that life will take up residence and revolve along with it.

When I saw that the tree outside of our window still held the robin's nest from last year, intact and empty as spring returned, it reminded me of what Chris said to me when we lost our little unborn baby last year - "we're like little houses made of sticks, that's all we are, we think it's so easy, but it's not..." It sounds oversimplified here, but in that moment, communicating something about our own mortality and the animation of the flesh was really just the best thing he could have said at the time, so he did.

The abandoned robin's nest in our tree , appearing to be perfectly reusable, and still occupying the ideal spot where a new nest could otherwise be built

It's hard to know what to say when someone experiences the loss of an unborn child. It's hard anytime the need arises to arrange our words in ways that extend beyond everyday use.

We visited a friend of mine in Austin about three years ago, and she told us that she had just had a miscarriage only a few months before. She was clearly not quite over it, seeming to resign herself to be a mommy to her dogs, doubting her ability to bring about a human child. I didn't know what to say to her. We all deal with being on either side of this event differently. So that's what I told her, "I don't know what to say" and "I'm sorry." And inevitably, the one who's suffered the loss is placed in the awkward position of being the griever reassuring the recipient of the news that all is well and life is being managed accordingly.

I did not take things nearly as well. I think I understand now why people think the subject of miscarriage is so taboo. I think it may have more to do with a decision to keep it hush-hush, to maintain privacy unless we meet another who's been through it, because it is such an open wound and we live in a world full of salt-laden tongues.

We really had an interesting range of responses, mostly appropriate, some downright wonderful, with tender descriptions of similar experiences or feelings, but some of those responses were a little off. One family member of "ours" asked Chris, "you're not totally devastated by this are you?" and another, in an email to us both (which has problematically embedded itself into the part of my brain that has a tendency to keep photographic images of certain textual arrangements) actually said, "[I heard] you guys were pregnant this summer (yay!) but then had a miscarriage (oh no, boo!)." And of course, even with them, we went the way of the awkward, no no, we're fine, yes life goes on, change of subject... How can you express to someone else what it is like to lose what you believed would be your first child? And yes, it was truly devastating, and I think everyone needs to know that, "yay" and "oh no, boo" are never appropriate to say to someone, in an email or otherwise, even when you learn of their pregnancy at the same time you learn that they have miscarried - congratulatory efforts are no longer suitable for the occasion and "oh no, boo" severely understates the gravity of the situation, don't you think? I hope it is not hurtful to them, in the unlikely event that they happen upon these sentences someday, because I sincerely think it would be good for them to know how much their words can cause injury, and maybe it will help them to avoid hurting others in a similar way. I have never believed that "words can never hurt you." Bones can heal from sticks and stones, but words can resonate forever.

A dismal day last year at Orem Summerfest 2010

Our loss had a tidy medical resolution almost a year ago, but since then, we've had to work to resolve the intangible part of it, sifting through the comments of friends and family, the emotions that have come up since the conception of our new expectation, the birthdate that would have been in March, decisions about the baby blog we'd started to share our pregnancy and childbirth with family, the milestones and fears and even outright panic of this pregnancy as compared to those of our little one last year ("Okay, seven weeks, and no bad cold with fever...okay good, not like last year," "Heard heartbeat at ten weeks...good, not like last year," "I've been at this altitude long enough for my blood volume to have adjusted by now, right? So if that had something to do with it, then this is not like last year"), and the fact that we just plain miss that little one who we only ever had the chance to meet in our hearts.

So we can't help but make comparisons.

The skies looked brighter this year at Orem Summerfest 2011

And now, as we continue on life's ride, preparing the nest for this little one, pulling out the baby and maternity clothes my mom sent last year and putting them in with the rest of this baby's things, I still haven't been able to reconcile two things. One is Golden Bear, the little amigurami teddy bear I crocheted for our little one last year, and the other, an unfinished rabbit, mostly done, still missing it's ears, face and stuffing.

My troubles come in with the idea of telling our daughter one day, that I made them - but who were they made for? Maybe it's not even a question that she would ask. They are hers, and I made them. Simple, yes? But it seems to remind me of those who didn't, or couldn't, understand that what we lost was, to us, our first child. The first one we expected and planned for. One who we saw, however small, in an ultrasound, quite clearly, a little head and body. One who was already given a temporary name (we did not know how temporary it would prove to be), one whom we called Minnow.

Baby's first Amigurumi animal - Golden Bear

Today, Chris and I were standing in the kitchen, and he mentioned Golden Bear, unaware of the revolving thoughts I'd been having over it. Chris, who experienced our loss with thoughts and ideas very similar to mine, told me that I made Golden Bear for my baby. And he says this meaning that it can now belong to the baby who will come this year, while still believing that what we lost last year was it's own unique life, with it's own unique place to be after not arriving here. And while I give semantics a high priority in my life, I don't know how both concepts can co-exist. So I sit here, still wondering how it will feel to pass the little bear along to his new owner.

A fallen branch that reminded me of a phoenix - Provo, Utah

It's funny how many things our little daughter already has out here to call her own. I think about the day she asks us what "DISCARD" means, which is stamped on all the books that we've already gotten for her from the sale shelf at the library where Chris works. And when she'll realize that her "stuffed animal" collection looks quite different from that of her friends', her animals being made of so much yarn, buttons, and pieces of random fabric. And whether she will first pick up the accordion or the ukelele that we will keep against the wall within her reach (the mandolin and the guitars having too many sharp parts at first), or if she will ignore them both entirely and stick to hammering her little hands along the four-keyed baby piano that I once bought during my thoughts of a baby many years ago, no particular baby, just my baby. And then I think, what if she doesn't do any of that at all. Even that is comforting to me. That we will meet her, say hello, and let her become whoever she will be, regardless of the external material things, with all of us just made of sticks.

a spring

2011-06-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

A spring is always most welcome after a long winter.

This year, winter was suffocating. While the rest of the country was getting record inches of snow, we were relatively "spared," and found ourselves in pretty bleak surroundings.

An eerie combination of dust and a light snow in January on Geneva Road - Orem, Utah

In my first year living outside of Florida during the entire season, I fell in love with winter. This year, I fell out of it. Winter darkens the sky and the ground, and it is the snow that makes it bright, even in the dark, making the ground like the gorgeous reflective surface of the moon itself. But without snow, I find winter to be unreasonable.

"Spring" at the Great Salt Lake - warm enough that the bugs could already spawn like mad

So while locals were thrilled with the relatively absent snow, only having the occasion to grump on a few days of the season this year, I couldn't even appreciate the little we had, and I eagerly waited for the sun to return. And then, as it did, I only accepted it half-heartedly, realizing just how deeply Florida is ingrained in me. We've lived in Utah for a year and a half now and, leaving cultural analysis for another post, I have to say that it doesn't provide me with the environmental qualities I need. In perpetual sunshine, your feelings are your own - in December through March, there is no questioning whether you're going through a deep depression and loathing for an experience, or just dealing with a bout of Seasonal Affective Disorder.

A storm that Chris and I watched roll in across the Florida Everglades - 2005

And I miss fishing and birdwatching, and hearing the screech of birds, native or not, and seeing storms roll in from as far as the eye can see. The sky is bigger than mountains, and is always moving.

I've noticed recently, on blogs and reality television shows, that there are babies who are afraid of the sand and ocean the first time their little feet are placed at the shore. They scream in horror at the wide monochrome surfaces expanding before them. If we are here long enough, our little one will only know mountains at first. Depressing.

Cascade Mountain behind the mall last spring - Orem, Utah

Sure, mountains loom and inspire awe. But they also tower over buildings, and hide the vastness of the sky. And so, unexpectedly, after a short while of being truly mesmerized by them, you sort of forget about them, or in my case, feel their weight start to press in uncomfortably on the valley. But even then, they don't make babies cry. Last year, a co-worker confirmed a concept that I was developing in a story after I arrived here - a native of Utah Valley, he once took a trip to the beach and found the ocean to be terrifying. He said that he couldn't live without the feeling of protection that comes from being surrounded by mountains, and after that trip, he decided that he would likely never move from this place. I think mountains make people feel artificially secure, fault lines and all, while the ocean tells things like it is. So I say, grow the babies up on the shore, and take them on vacation to the mountains.

The ocean, the last time we were home in So. Fla - Deerfield Beach, FL, April 2010

Thomas Wolfe famously wrote, "You can't go back home..." This is true, people change and places change. But you can find your way back to the same approximate geographical location and make a new one. Not nearly as eloquent as Thomas Wolfe, yet also a reality. As I work my way through this latest round of gestating (crass, yes?) with thoughts of where our home might be, I'm finding that what I crave most of all is the ocean. And oh do I hope to find us all there soon.

year

2011-02-07T01:52:00.002-07:00

Everything is now - the past and the present.

If only I could credit the person whose words I remember clearly, but whose name and face elude me now, who told me that an autobiography is always fiction - the writer is always choosing only the parts that they've remembered, or the parts they feel have affected them the most, and are thereby creating only partial truths and even inherent falsehoods that leave the story that is completely true, buried somewhere within the other undocumented lives and moments that were also linked to that time line.

I just finished listening to Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes this week at work. (It's a wonderful thing to be able to get lost in music and stories while working, although it is also a reminder that I'm doing work that has debatably little value.) I've never cared much for audiobooks. There's no time to really chew on a sentence, to go back to a moment, a line, a turn of phrase, and let it resonate. It goes on at the narrator's pace, relentlessly, unless you pause, rewind, and so on. But when I asked Chris (my handy live-in librarian aka husband) which book might be worth listening to at work, he suggested Angela's Ashes because it is read by Frank McCourt himself.

Now I believe myself to be a big fan of ol' Frank, even if I've only read the handful of anecdotal pages at the beginning of Teacher Man, and even if I can't be certain that the email I received from my twitter.com/EnglishTeaching account 29 days before his death, "Frank Mccourt is now following you on Twitter!" was really him or not (his last post recorded on June 24th of that year, until an apparent hacker recently posted and tweeted in Portuguese, and began following a mess of non-education-based profiles). Am I digressing? Not really.

For the last week, I've been meandering in and out of Frank's mind, with his own voice, sometimes singing, sometimes lilting, in a patchwork of memories that tenderly swing through poverty and starvation, always skirting any real joy or satisfaction by plunging back into depths of the ever-confusing state of childhood. And I've come away with a river of thought. At the shallow end, I've found a new love of audiobooks (although I am sure that they are not all this way), songs, sounds, pronunciations, and emphasis that may have been lost to ink on paper will now always be accessible, and I'm glad I didn't read the text before hearing it. At the deeper end, is a feeling that no matter what actually happens to us (Angela's Ashes has a bit of controversy surrounding the authenticity or fairness of it's representation) it really does come down to our perception of life, how we believe we are experiencing it, that becomes the truth once we tell our stories.

It's what we choose to put in our own patchwork of memories, the pieces we allow to dominate our rivers of thought, that create the current itself.

So what follows here is something of my year, of 2010. I don't find it to be at all representative of my year, or of any patchwork at all, but it will still tell a story, I imagine, for those who are looking for one, and maybe for me when I look at them again another year from now. But at the moment, all I can claim is that it is an artificial assemblage, a forced mosaic.

January - 2010 Utah International Auto Expo - Sandy, Utah

I love old cars. I love almost every old car there is.

February - Kitchen cabinet - Orem, Utah

There was something about unpacking our much diminished set of boxes after this move. It felt quiet and simple, and most of all, moved in.

March - Bedroom - Orem, Utah

My cat, Sandwich (short for Grilled Cheese Sandwich), popped our air mattress that we had hoped to live on for a few months until we were financially stable. We bought a second one, and he popped that too. He thought it was a fantastic game and was rather thrilled with himself. We now have a proper bed.

April - Orem City Center Park - Orem, Utah

I like parks, and things that are harmless. A group of teenagers made their way into the park and began doing, what is to me, one of the most utterly harmless things a teenager can possibly engage in. One is never too old to play.

May - Truck at nursery on Geneva Road and 400 - Orem, Utah

So surreal to me.

June - Chris cutting wood on the porch - Orem, Utah

One of the very first cuts this workbench experienced, with many more to follow.

July - The Living Planet Aquarium - Sandy, Utah

My first outing while pregnant with our little miscarried one. We spent the day enjoying new sorts of life.

August - Little girl's and mama's flower clip stand on 400 - Orem, Utah

I fell in love with the yard sales, lemonade stands, and other small entrepreneurial efforts that popped up along the little neighborhood roads in Orem during the summer.

September - Motorcycle statue - Springville, Utah

We discovered "The Art City," with its statues along the downtown streets, and began to think that we might want to settle there.

October - Main Street - Park City, Utah

It was a picturesque day for a leisurely stroll with my sister visiting from Florida. Park City is a wonderfully empty place when the seasonal effects of the Sundance film festival are absent from it.

November - Water from our gutter, frozen midstream - Orem, Utah

When I first saw this that morning, I thought it was beautiful. Then, it began to remind me of this ladder at a carnival I went to with my father when I was a child. You had to climb up to where it was suspended at a very gradual angle, and hope that it didn't flip over before you reached the bell (or the switch, or the prize?) at the top. I was certain that my father could do it. My memory tells me that he failed. Or perhaps that he decided not to try at all, creating for a me a memory that he did not expect to be successful, and therefore failed.

This is the man that I watched run straight up the slanted trunk of a coconut tree only a few years later. And then recently in October 2002 (or 2001?), at over 50 years of age, do several horizontal pull-ups on a bar attached to his bedroom door, legs straight out in front of him, pulling up flat at the chest.

If this were a memoir, there would probably be a summary of what it all means anyway, and I might just give a single outcome for the early memory and a single date for the later one, as if I were certain of how and when they happened. Or maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I would just tell them as I have here, to discredit myself in a way, or to lend credibility to the fact that it did happen one way or another, and at one time or another.

December - Provo Tabernacle - Provo, Utah

I caught the headline the morning of the fire, and for some reason it didn't register. On the way to work at noon, we drove by the Provo Tabernacle and found ourselves stuck in traffic, driving through a heavy cloud of smoke and seeing orange flames jumping above the roof of one of my favorite buildings. Twelve hours later, we visited again, on our way home from a late night of working ("making up hours" as we have been in the habit of doing with our rather liberal schedules with the same company).

The only decent pictures I ever got of the Provo Tabernacle are those that I took while it was burning. In March, we walked down half of the street that makes up the Historic Provo area, and took pictures of everything, saying that we'd save the other half for another lazy Sunday. We still have yet to make it back to the other half, and this building resides on the the corner at the end of that street.

A year has always seemed to me to be an arbitrary thing. A thing that never feels to be quite the same amount of time passed as it was during the one before it. And something that always presents a mental roadblock for me at the end of it, where I feel like I must turn it's corner before planning again.

I don't believe that resolutions are responsible for creating new outcomes - the most important outcomes are often beyond our control. So I'll just say, I'm around the corner now. The page has been turned, and I'm looking forward to reading the next chapter.

a holiday

2010-12-26T01:51:00.015-07:00

(Orem lights...as seen from the passenger seat of a car navigating through traffic)

A holiday always appears just in time to feel ill-prepared for it.

I started feeling the Christmas spirit early this year. For me, this means playing old Christmas records, stirring musical memories from my childhood, or setting aside some time to gather and display the few decorations I've held onto over the years.

(Where our 4 ft. noble fir was sold to us on University - Provo, Utah)

We started by buying a real live (or formerly so) Christmas tree - a proper one with full branches and a lovely smell flowing out of all four feet of it.

I saw Santa's chair set up at two different malls, long before he ever warmed their seats.

Chris took me to see Orem's little Christmas light display during a very brief break in our schedules, and a few days later, while driving down Center Street in Provo, I was convinced that the lights we were approaching for their display were flashing rhythmically, as though in time to music.

(Provo Christmas light show)

Sure enough, we stopped and found that there was a radio station to tune to that was playing the music for the light display, and we sat to watch and listen for a short while; a moment that was almost as nice as realizing that first, I was able to see the music.

(A Christmas scene, to me - Provo, Utah)

Things started looking like Christmas that wouldn't usually give one the merest thought of the holiday.

I even found two mystery deer next to the paper tree on my desk at work. No one will own up to it. The best excuse so far has been, "Where would I get tiny reindeer."

(Mystery deer of unknown origin - at work, on my desk, Provo, Utah)

So I really thought that things were going the way of a cheer-filled, nicely decorated, appropriately situated holiday. But it would seem that even with the best of intentions, the holiday was going to arrive without time to send my cards, or finish gift shopping, or even feel rested enough to realize that Christmas had come. I had to finish grading almost 60 essays and end-of-semester portfolios, meet with students in their last-ditch efforts to plea for grades that weren't earned, catch up on hours missed at my "day job" as a result of all of the grading and student conferences, mail the gifts that I hadn't yet sent out, and go grocery shopping before everything closed on Christmas Eve.

Ordinarily, this would all come as no surprise. But I really believed that the newly perfunctory feeling of our schedules, with both Chris and I having one full-time job and one part-time job each, would just melt away and reveal a Christmas day of cinematic proportions, with the food and family telephone greetings and plans to steal some time to see a movie all firmly in place. But we ended up in the process of recovering lost sleep until noon, and our big Christmas breakfast of Jamaican saltfish fritters and bully beef, turned into flounder fritters (no saltfish in Utah?) and bully beef for lunch and dinner. So much for my big plans of Christmas acorn squash stuffed with seasoned turkey burger...

We just sat around today, exhausted, hoping to stay awake long enough to remember that we had a Christmas at all. I managed to pull my guitar out of the closet, thinking I might tune the poor thing that's been sitting behind boxes for the last six months. Rusty as I am (much like the strings), I started strumming my way through the chords for Silent Night, and then I sang. And then Chris (a man who is not one of the biggest fans of Christmas music) sang too. And all of those wonderfully imagined Whoville sentiments came to pass - the unplanned becoming the very thing that produces what was hoped for all along.

We are different from the Who culture in one key way, however. Chris and I usually don't exchange planned gifts because we prefer to spend our time and money creating moments. It's the gift-centric attitude that makes some of the commercial aspects of Christmas rather disturbing. But I don't mind finding my Christmas cheer through commercial interpretations. Whether the chicken imitates life, or the art came before the egg, I don't much care. Even commercial propositions contain art, and they do help translate life.

So we're rounding off this holiday with Chris on the couch watching 2010: The Year We Make Contact, while I revisit my old well, trying to place drops of meaning onto the page and wishing that I could envision sugar plums, instead of the more trivial thoughts that have been floating around in the forefront of my mind: Do I need a filing cabinet for all the student papers that currently reside on the floor? Am I ruining my sleep schedule by choosing to type this at 3:30 in the morning, rather than opting for bed? Will those mystery deer have run away from my desk by Monday morning? ...among other things. But who knows. Doesn't matter.

Merry Christmas.

music

2010-10-03T09:58:00.023-07:00

In everything on this earth, there is music.

I've heard that there are people who say they don't like music. I can't understand what that means. Do they dislike words, speech, vibrations, all communication in general?

I remember being exposed to the idea that music is a language. When I was young, I was addicted to Looney Tunes, Merry Melodies, Tom and Jerry...all those old cartoons that use strong orchestration to convey feeling. And as I got older, I began to notice the language of music in other forms of media, and later translated into life.

When I was learning to play the flute in middle school, I did hit a speed bump in my musical exploration. It was all a matter of form and concentrated adjustment of embouchure, air flow, fingerings, time - it was all a bit disconcerting. I was used to music just flowing, out of radios, records, tapes, and my voice, with songs spontaneously created and pouring out unhindered by unfamiliar mechanics. But I learned that even those mechanics could be honed to gently guide music into its audible format.

(After playing the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, laying in the grass at Orem Park before work)

Whether our hands are wrapped around an instrument, or gesturing in the air, we are communicating musically. Sign language has many of the same linguistic properties that spoken language does. The slip of the tongue that can make us skip a word or stutter, can also happen with the fingers. And out of what can only be seen of our hands, there is singing.

(Native American drum circle - Heber Valley Pow-Wow 2010)

Even through the ground, without images, without sound, you can feel the music of drums...

Music isn't just a matter of time, rhythm, notes, melodies...it is in the way we can perceive a flow from one sensory experience to the next. It is a matter of connecting intangibles to create some sort of order, or disorder, in putting an organized feeling into the very air that we are busy applying our senses to, joining us with ephemeral moments in time.

And apparently, that time is flying.

It's already one month ago, today, that we played the 2010 Timpanogos Storytelling Festival.

It was a gorgeous day in the canyon, even with all the dust in the air that made both musicians and storytellers keep their bottles of water at the ready, with the hope of lubricating against a wayward tone.

(Hohner presswood pokerwork button accordion)

And the sweet sound of a working accordion is back...it arrived yesterday. Not the same one, of course, but one that will again fill the hours with songs that have traveled centuries to get to those fingers, through those bellows, past those reeds, and to a much-welcomed arrival...

(Our tent at the festival - Provo Canyon, Utah)

...in the mountains of Utah, where we have found a temporary home, a place for music to echo.

a grandness

2010-09-12T11:00:00.005-07:00

(My mother's parents, from Wisconsin, Grandma Millie and Grandpa John on their wedding day - Glendale, California 1942)

What is it about these people that strikes me as being just grand?

Is it their pioneer spirit - among the first several generations of foreign families, eager to move their line to the big country of dreams?

(My father's parents, from Jamaica, Grandpa Wright and Grandma Wright - Orlando, FL 1970s?)

And in these pictures there's something about the way they hold themselves, tautly suspended in time.

(Chris' father's parents, Grandma Ethel and Grandpa Frank on their wedding day - Richmond Hill, New York 1944)

I remember watching Chris' grandmother, the only grandparent I had the occasion to spend a good amount of my adult hours with. She said she had stopped smoking twenty years before, but I could picture her doing it as she held herself there with a decades-old grace, legs long and leaning to one side of her wing chair with her elbow propped up on one of the arms. Even as she leaned forward casually with her elbows resting on the fronts of her thighs and her legs extended across the floor with ankles apart, she suggested an old and elegant classiness the likes of which I have never seen in any other living person.

(A picture that feels very Oscar Wilde-ian to me - my Great-grandpa Irvan)

Maybe it's the way that we revise history to fit glamorous (or sometimes even wretched) archetypes. And in this case, I always think of how they dressed and held their heads pertly, no jauntily, above their shoulders with refined expressions in place - there's a feeling sometimes that they were always conducting some sort of official business - official work, official play, official life.

(Chris' mother's parents, Grandma Noreen and "Baba" on their wedding day - Rockville Centre, New York 1946)

But wasn't it really all just random moments captured when photographers were arranged at a fair price or from a camera in the hands of a family member who could afford one that made people just a little more cognizant of how they were presenting themselves? A self-awareness while being recorded that is slipping away from our culture now?

(Me, a teenager, back in the late 90s)

Yet when I was younger, I certainly was that brand of stoic that I imagined them to be - my face only cracking a smile when in absolute comfort with the people I was surrounded by. But then once you got me there, cameras or not, there was no stopping the ridiculous expressions I was bound to display.

(My Great-grandma Florence - b. October 4, 1898 d. September 15, 1927 )

But some photographs seem to capture a look, like our minds are far away somewhere, or too firmly in the present, a look that good actors can mimic but the rest of us just happen upon unawares. And I'm thinking now that really it's just the absence of the forced cheese-filled grin that makes our ancestors look like people who...are just being people.

(What I think is an uncanny resemblance...is it just the old film and the hairstyle of the day? - my Grandpa John, left, with four of my little aunts and uncles to be, and Chris' Grandpa Frank, right)

And it's in those pictures that it's most easy to see the foreheads and eyebrows and eyes and cheekbones and jawlines and just pure expressions that have been handed down to us from all those came before. It's easy to look at them and be reminded that we're thankful for their very lives.

(Chris' Grandma Ethel - another reminder to me that there will be no avoiding cheeks in this gene pool)

When the last of our grandparents passed away (Chris' grandmother in February 2009), we felt a strong sensation that a generational layer had been peeled off, and that we were no longer "the children," but instead that we'd moved to the center of the historical familial continuum. And should our family's next generation come, when it comes, to take our place, we are ready.

Happy Grandparent's Day

color

2010-08-29T20:59:00.006-07:00

We are constantly gathering pieces to add to our palattes that color our lives.

When the author of one of the blogs I follow most (at 37 Paddington) mentioned how common it was for there to be a mass exodus (or even worse...a permanent departure) of bloggers from their blogs during the summer months, I imagined a herd of women fleeing from their husbands like in The Seven Year Itch, and blogs with tumbleweeds, abandoned in the dusty corners of the internet, and I thought, "No, not my blog...I would never leave my blog to languish, suffering through the heat of summer, wordless and alone..." But then I realized, "My last post was over three weeks ago now, wasn't it? And in five more days, it will be a month..." But then I laughed it off. "I've got June covered, I'll get to it again in July..."

Today is August 29th.

Et je présent mes excuses.

It would be nice to say that I just spent my weeks enjoying the warmth of the summer that I misguidedly thought that I was looking forward to. But whatever excuses are made for "dry heat" somehow being easier or better than other kinds of heat, well, they're just plain wrong. I will take the soupy, thick-aired, suffocating South Florida humid summer over this dusty desert drama any month, any year. But that's not the reason I wasn't climbing mountains and riding jet skis across Utah lake.

(A colorful car that seems to enjoy itself as it drives around Orem in the summertime)

As far as true stories go, I'm not really one for embellishments because they feel too much like deception, but I was thinking that I might just glaze over the experiences of Sacha's Summer 2010. Like it was a summer festival of some kind, or a sort of enjoyable hiatus where I just ran off and looked at the sunshine for the last three months. But bearing in mind that I am always inclined to contradict myself, I don't really like the color yellow. And the sun and I don't always get along. Not to mention the fact that I can't say that writing here is cathartic if I avoid the heavy issues. So, as usual, with me the truth wins.

But I can stall, can't I?

(Beautiful girl with the eagle shadow - Heber Valley Pow-Wow 2010)

So let's add some color. Now if I tell you that I saw a young girl, surrounded by orange phoenix flames, turn into an eagle against the windy mountainside, would you believe me? Well I did. And as she moved in the wind, first dancing, then flying, I found myself wanting to fly too.

I spent a lot of time looking at the ground as a child, watching my shadow lengthen and shrink in the Texas and Florida sunshine, trying to figure out how my outline fit into the rest of the world next to everyone else's. I've spent so much time looking down, that everything I dare to steal a glance at remains a constant surprise. I don't have an eagle shadow now, but maybe I will one day.

At that same Pow-Wow, a couple of girls who may or may not have made the jewelry they were selling, told us that the juniper berry seeds on the necklace were harvested by an animal that first eats the bluish berry, then by another animal that gathers up the brown seeds and eats holes in them, on one side, after which they are collected by people who soak them and drill a hole through to the other side, thus creating the bead. After a bit of common sense and some follow-up research, it seems to me like this is a likely nonexistent process. But I have to say that it was fun to believe that there were little animals running around nearby starting to make pieces of someone else's necklace. It was colorful.

(A local kid's car that bears the words, "Chuck Norris spit here" with an arrow pointing toward a large dent...a perfectly colorful story)

It reminded me of when I was little, when my friend, Leila, and I used to talk to a pine tree named Charlie. We spoke a lot about the weather, and the status of the other trees in the forest. Well and there you go, you know it wasn't a forest, really. It was all that was left of a formerly swampy part of a park on the west side of 441 - once Everglades, once animal territory, once uninhabitable by both tree and man...or a tree, that was a man, or at least a personification of one.

(The only one of the three of us on the pier who caught any fish on January 23, 2006 - Boynton Inlet, Boynton Beach, Florida)

Is it alright to color the story? Make it something more palatable for the listener? A fish tale for the fisherman much like Chris' occasional exaggeration, no maybe overestimation, of size and space, especially when it comes to fish? Should you make it something more palatable for the listener? When one could argue that the frills of a fish tale are almost the fisherman's birthright and inherent responsibility?

(Flowers outside of the doctor's office - Provo, Utah)

Life is in fact a joyous celebration of color - even for the colorblind. And while coloring our stories makes them beautiful, here, at this moment, we will leave color out of things. You see, this summer, I only ever saw one little head attached to one little body in shades of ultrasound grey.

(Looking down at my purse and across at the empty chair while waiting for the doctor at my final follow-up appointment)

We found out about the wee little thing in that third week of June. We spent the beginning of our summer with me very sick (even the very color of my clothing could make me ill) and both of us very happy, thinking up a life in baby-infused technicolor, only to have our anticipation climax at the moment in the doctor's office when we saw the ultrasound technician type "NHTBT" without saying a word, while she scanned, turned on the heartbeat doppler with a sound that hung from the speakers, not quite silent, just crackling like the end of a record. And still she said nothing, she just scanned again and turned on the horrible hollow sound once more. As though somehow we wouldn't know what any of it meant until we were walked down the hall and sat in an empty room, until the nurse practitioner entered and said, "So, how are you?" As though that's the appropriate preface to that sort of news. I answered, "I don't know," and then tears started running in that way they do when they surprise you and you find that your face is somehow quite wet. And then she said that she was sorry, without ever actually telling us what happened...as though a patient's assumption was a proper substitute for a legitimate medical diagnosis.

And then I found myself winning the '1% of all women who have a "missed miscarriage" lottery', and then carrying around an expired little creature in my insides for three weeks sans HTBT, and then having to have a surgical procedure to take care of things that the fascinating human body does on it's own for the other 99% of miscarriages, and then my greatest concern becoming the all-consuming fear that I will be the 1 out of 250,000 people who have some kind of terrible life-ending allergy to general anaesthesia.

Well I didn't. So I'm here, but the little one is here with us no longer.

(Some flowers that may bloom)

So I won't so much mind when this summer ends. When the solstice hides the summer sun away and the leaves start taking over the task of being sunny. The leaves, then the snow, then the flowers and rain...I rather like sun-substitutes.

a season

2010-06-01T18:56:00.012-07:00

Changes are easier to accept when you know they are occurring within the boundaries of a season.

On May 24, 2010, it snowed nonstop for four hours in Orem and Provo, Utah. Not sleet or slush, mind you, pure driven snow. I watched it fall, through the big windows, ceiling to floor, while I worked that morning.

(Impromptu snowstorm on May 24, 2010 - Provo, Utah)

But it's almost June, my East coast friends declared.

Locally, everyone was worried about their tomatoes freezing in the late snow. An article in the paper assured that they would be just fine. I sort of wished that I had that kind of trouble to worry about. A little piece of land, some sensitive tomatoes. It left me craving a backyard and dirty garden gloves.

(When the snow stopped on May 24th, people cleared it off of their already green lawns - Orem, Utah)

Instead of backyards, I have pieces of public land, roads, sidewalks, state parks, and they suit me just fine until I can pin down a square of dirt to call my own.

(Snapdragons sprinkled alongside the old closed road that runs perpendicular to Center St. - Provo/Orem border)

It seems that I've been living on the 2nd floor or higher of apartment buildings for the last seven years, with concrete slabs for a backyard. Gardening in little pots and jars and things, to bide the time.

It's not so bad though, when I remember that I am in just another season of my life that is running its course.

(My favorite old truck back in winter - Provo, Utah)

I've lived here long enough now that I've seen things turn green where they were white before.

(My favorite old truck now in spring - Provo, Utah)

Long enough to actually appreciate the summer, including a 98 degree day that once would have been the bane of my every hour back in Florida. But then, as they like to remind - it's different here, it is a "dry heat."

And I'll enjoy it while I can. It will all be different again in another four months.

memorial

2010-05-31T15:07:00.010-07:00

On both sides of war, there is a memorial.

Each time I find myself with a camera in my hand, and the wind blowing a U.S. flag in a gorgeous way, I seem to be on the wrong side of it. I told this to Chris one day, and he said that there is no wrong side to the flag.

I think this is true.

Even when I considered the fact that the stars are embroidered on only one side, I remembered my fondness for the back of a piece of embroidered fabric, the lines and knots and zigzagging arteries from one stitch to another - both sides are beautiful, and necessary.

I remember our soldiers through our history books and photographs, through the knowledge of family members who served, and through one who is serving now. And I also remember soldiers from other countries, through their stories and even their poetry, all that we have of them from their short years here.

(Hotel Company Graduation - Parris Island, South Carolina September 2007)

I hope that we can soon find a way to make better use of soldiers, on both sides, so we can keep the words and bodies of our young men with us here a little longer.

in memorium

a year

2010-05-19T18:48:00.016-07:00

You cannot possibly predict all that will take root over the course of a year's time.

A timeline of twelve months is such an arbitrary snapshot of life's myriad events, yet in that length of time, it always seems that something has changed.

If anyone had told me last May, when I first started writing here, that I would be living in Utah, planning to return to school for anything other than a PhD, and happily starting over at an entry level job, I would have told them to quit the fortune-telling business.

(A man's Sunday morning ride down Geneva Road - Orem, Utah)

I couldn't have even imagined a year ago, that I would have a pastoral vista of cows, horses, and a proper lake (not the man-made Florida sort) at the entrance of my entirely suburban apartment complex with mountains looming at every turn as I drive through my city.

Talk about a sea change.

Yet there are threads that remain the same.

(Little, cold, house finch visitor - Orem, Utah)

Here, we have a tree that grows broad green leaves in front of our white balcony ledge, just as we did in Tallahassee. Although there it was the Indiana tulip tree in front of a wood ledge, and here it is a maple in front of a plastic one. In both, we have visits from the little house finches, but house finches didn't nest in our eaves here as they did every spring in Tallahassee, it's the robin that nested in our maple tree whose two babies we love to hear every afternoon.

(Orem park - Orem, Utah)

I still like sitting at the park, in my car or out of it, watching birds or people or plants or even garbage cans do whatever it is they do.

(Lovely sheep - Provo, Utah)

And I still dream of having a sheep farm.

It's just that here, I can live vicariously through people who actually have them.

I can feel the roots growing more everyday, adding to my well, becoming a part of what I will take with me always.

home

2010-05-11T20:48:00.020-07:00

Home is where.

I prefer the archaic definitions of things.

(Part of my brother's home in 2009 - Winter Park, Florida)

I like things to mean one specific thing while meaning everything else along with it, all barely milliseconds of thought apart, spinning around and co-existing simultaneously.

(Part of my sister's home in 2004 - Orlando, Florida)

Comme le mot français - sentir. Ça veut dire "smell" ainsi que "feel." A single word that allows within a single breath for you to both smell the air...or feel it.

(Part of my home that I found while visiting the in-law's "summer home" in 2006 - West Jefferson, North Carolina)

The kind of words that make it almost magical when hearing a guide on a travel show reverently refer to gorgeous French cheese as having the smell "of an angel's feet."

(Southport Raw Bar in 2010 - I dare say the best clams and oysters in town - Fort Lauderdale, Florida)

Creating an air of both the strange and the familiar.

(Part of the in-law's home, the garage, in 2010 - Boca Raton, Florida)

The kind of words that make you feel like you are home.

(Part of Mom and Laura's home in 2010 - Boca Raton, Florida)

Among the little things that weave our safety nets.

(Long-distance driving down A1A in 2010 - Boca Raton, Deerfield Beach, Pompano Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Florida)

Within a country, within a building, within a language, within a moment. Anywhere you tread...

(Part of Dad and Florah's home in 2007 - Rosedale Park Historic District, Detroit, Michigan)

...or even just a place where you might stand for a moment to watch things grow.

And so I say, home is where.

(Outside of work near the base of Cascade Mountain - Provo, Utah)

And I'll be there.

a place

2010-04-19T02:35:00.000-07:00

It is in the overlap between a place and my reflection where I find my self.

We received our copies of the U.S. Census for 2010, and you know I just can't commit to filling it out. It's not the ever-potential laziness that is holding me back. It's that world of "other" that I have come to know so well, and I just don't think the category of me can be accurately summed up anywhere on that form.

I know the arguments for the necessity of the data on the forms and for obtaining information on the links between socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and race, if for no other reason than to work toward creating new possibilities for those who are truly at a disadvantage as the result of their historical legacy.

(Truck stop dolls - Texas)

Regardless of what those who are run by their own political standings might think, we can't just hand out something to everyone to make things even, and we also can't ignore the disproportions that have resulted from certain injustices. No, we can't right past wrongs, and certainly most people in the United States now have the opportunity to overcome ancestral oppression, but I think we still need to work to provide cultural avenues to help them get there. Contrary to the implications in the Census commercials, I don't think its the census that will help provide the cure.

I find myself balking at the question that requires me to provide some type of ethnic classification, as though I can even begin to sum up my diverse ancestry into one little box or associate myself with a couple of oddball colors like I'm matching a paint swatch to a wall.

A few self-described Latin-American friends of mine in South Florida used to call my coloring cafe con leche. I can accept that, but I haven't seen that description next to a checkbox on a census yet.

I just call myself a blend of history.

And as a person with a recent interest in historical records and genealogy, I can even appreciate how valuable the census records are for family research.

But I can't just follow the tracks blindly. And so far, I'm refusing to put pen to paper to contribute to an inaccurate assessment. Not until we can start a pathway toward a mode of thinking that takes into consideration the fact that we all fall into the category of "some other race" and shouldn't have to itemize it in boxes anymore.

(Trax train path - Salt Lake City, Utah)

I think it's important to reevaluate the lines established in the past and tear them up when they need updating.

But time will only change as fast as it does.

I will be leaving for South Florida to attend John Pisz's memorial service on Saturday, finding myself back in my Florida home much sooner than expected.

(Mizner Park - Boca Raton, FL)

South Florida is full of memories that are now beginning to merge with my connection to my new sense of place, cementing unanticipated parallels between two places that are becoming the same to me. Not in separate boxes or categories, just home.

(The road to Sundance - Utah)

whimsy

2010-04-16T00:07:00.018-07:00

There are times when whimsy is as close as you can get to feeling sane.

When you look at things from the same perspective for too long, you start to get tunnel vision. It's times like these when the world just makes more sense if you change direction and follow the white rabbit.

(Starbucks lid - much needed whimsy in 2006)

My birthday landed on the day after Easter this year, and I found myself craving a bit of whimsy. I like that my birthday could one day line up with a major holiday. They may have aligned once before, and it may happen again in my lifetime, but so far I am refusing to search the wide world of data to find out for sure. I like to know that the possibility may be teetering somewhere on the balance of human-measured space and time.

(Teapot sculpture - Boca Raton Museum of Art, Mizner Park)

I am one who happens to like the Hallmark part of holidays. The fanciful things that we associate with historical occasions. It's the bit of storybook sparkle that we get to keep as we get older. The commercial force that encourages goodwill for a few hours out of every year. And I think that's fair. Not everyone finds it easy to embrace the idea of the powers that be, if you will.

So, on Easter I found myself with dye and no eggs. I went out and got some eggs, only to come home and find that I had no vinegar - a necessary part of the dyeing process. I canned that idea and we went off to the park. An empty Easter Sunday park in Pleasant Grove. With a sign nearby in pleasant font with pleasant pastoral scenery that pleasantly cited, "Recreation Department." And the only set of people to happen upon the place, a lone female dogwalker and couple with a toddler, were unsmiling and seemed a bit scared. Or maybe just lonely. And it only added to the sort of day where I find my thoughts trapped in pockets of melancholy suspension that hang on the air. And I moved through the overcast afternoon zooming in on the parallel pieces of moments that others left behind.

(someone else's birthday past)

Along with a fondness for whimsy, I am also afflicted with capricious indecision, never knowing whether the plans I have made will ever come through and present themselves during the time I have planned for them. So I was rather glad to find that on my birthday evening I did in fact go to an Indian restaurant and see Alice in Wonderland.

Now I've come to expect a lot from the Tim Burton brand of magic, and it just hasn't delivered in the last few films. But I had to see it anyway. It was a nice change for the Alice story, but this version had potential for...well, for just a lot more.

It was kind of hollow, like a picture painted in the air with no canvas to back it up. Although I have to admit that the Mad Hatter is still resonating in my head at the moment. The Indian food on the other hand was just grand. I carefully memorized the mostly unfamiliar multisyllabic name of the dessert from the menu, so that I could order it confidently at the end of our meal, when menus would have long since left the table. And it was delicious.

After the movie, we found that the world had been covered in white. Perhaps the last heavy snow of the season. And I saw that a sign at the curb had turned into the loveliest little man:

I rather like seeing things. I once saw a giraffe for no reason. A small one. Standing so delicately on the side of the road. Of course you could argue that it wasn't really there. That I was dealing in figments.

(the Babbitt rabbit)

But then you see a cloud in the shape of a rabbit floating above a sign for a company called Babbitt, and you get to wondering. I mean, it is a rabbit, floating in midair. You start thinking odd thoughts, like am I a little batty or does that man have a seriously good marketing director? Rhyming counterparts have a notorious tendency to stick the consumer.

Am I just pulling this stuff out of thin air?

Everything in life is connected like an enormous dot-to-dot. Why not draw a couple extra lines?

Yes, I suppose whimsy has a proper time and place. And I say, take me down the rabbit hole. Any day.

(rabbit roots in Pleasant Grove, Utah)

dear john

2010-04-10T19:12:00.011-07:00

(John Pisz at The Grainary Cafe - Deerfield Beach, Florida 1998)

Dear John,

I am sorry that you had to leave us this morning. You will be sorely missed.

But I'm happy that you are no longer suffering the physical pain of your last months here.

You knew so much of the earth, from jumping out of planes in the sky to swimming in the depths of the ocean, from melding together sparking steel to making it sing sweetly beneath your fingertips. And I am certain that you now know secrets that the rest of us won't find out for a long time. And that you must be in that place reserved for those who work so hard to be good here, or maybe for those who find that it just comes naturally. I hope that both kinds end up in the same place because then perhaps we'll meet again.

(John and Yvonne with family and friends at our wedding - June 19, 2009)

Thirteen years ago, you welcomed me into your family, into your circle of abounding love. And you became a permanent part of mine, a literal catalyst that helped move the pieces of the past toward the life I have today.

You made yourself a happy part of so many lives here. Your words and music and kindness will remain with us always.

Love,
Sacha

"May the circle be unbroken..."

copy

2010-04-02T17:23:00.065-07:00

In the space that one bird leaves behind, another may land and copy his song.

The wind left my sails a bit after finding out that my short story would not be placed within the binding that I'd hoped for, but then I received notice today that we're going to be booked to play music at the upcoming Timpanogos Storytelling Festival. And boy does that make my heart sing.

(view of Mount Timpanogos from entrance to Utah Lake State Park)

We all seem to want to put a mark on something. Me in pen, photo, print, and musicmaking, others in video and dance and politics, and still others want to leave one right smack dab on the earth.

(note the Y, slightly right of center)

Granted it's a new affair for me, but I am in love with several mountains. They surround this valley like a wide nest, each providing a soaring shield of rolling slopes, coarse cliffs, and jutting peaks...one set even seems to resemble the pale shell structure of the Sydney Opera House. Well, to two of us here in Orem, anyway.

(a natural Sydney Opera House, to us)

When the snow began to melt away, I saw that two of my favorites had a large branding of a letter on their sides. One a Y from college kids in 1906, and one a G from Pleasant Grove high schoolers back in 1921.

(the G)

Okay, I'd been told about the Y. Fair warning. Locals talked about it. One source of a university's pride. A point to hike to even. But I'd hoped that it would be small and low to the ground, and, well, invisible. Now, I'll be the first to say that I've been a junkie for letters since the day my parents cut their angular shapes from cardboard and colored each one in a different color of the rainbow as a border just beneath my bedroom ceiling. And I, too, worshipped The Letter People in my little Houston, Texas kindergarten class, and loved them even more as new kindergarteners went marching in their own Letter People parade through the halls of my new Florida school in 4th grade, making me feel right at home. And I've even dabbled in linguistics as a bit of a hobby interest. I love text, copy, words, letters, whatever you want to call them - they're all fantastic. And as far as images next to nature, signs, sidewalk chalk, billboards, and even spray paint on the side of an overpass - have at it. But the side of a mountain? Oof.

I guess I'll just take comfort in the fact that you can't see the letters at night.

So, in my defense of mountains? I can't figure out what to feel about it. I'd prefer not to see a mountain with a letter slapped on its side like an unsightly cattlebrand, but I imagine that there are many who find comfort in the very thing that I find shocking.

I don't know what it is that makes us want so badly to leave something behind. And so much of what we create is just a copy, worse or better, of what has come before. 4/4 time was around long before I decided to write to it. And if someone else hadn't written the first novel, it surely wouldn't have been me who would have come up with the idea. So very little is more than a reinvention of an existing form. Every time someone proclaims the death of a genre, it's simply an announcement that we have been exposed to so many copies that now we're bored with it. We deal in copying copies. All of us. It just might be dressed up a little fancier. Or a little simpler. And I don't think that's bad.

I once sketched a copy of an original sketch that Andy Warhol made of Russell Means, a Native American activist. Someone whose influence came long before I could even understand the politics behind the changes he was trying to effect. And though he was an artist I wasn't that fond of, Warhol represented an image in a mode that he's not most famous for, and it became one of my favorite pieces of art. That mere copy of a face, a simple uncolored line drawing, captured generations of worries and transported it to an otherwise unlikely audience. Even now, in my sketch of a sketch of the man, I see an essence carried in the roughly drawn face that I'm certain I could never have placed there myself. In this way, I think we can carry something beyond it's origins.

And really the nature of a copy is simply a matter of semantics. Like Magritte's painting of a pipe above the neatly scripted "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." C'est vrai. Mais, la pipe a beaucoup de formes. N'est-ce pas?

So as we sing and dance and mark our mountains, I hope that we all try to do it with meaning, and put just enough of ourselves into the copies we create so that on a day however far in the future, something newly beautiful can emerge in the copies of us.

a shape

2010-03-21T17:44:00.013-07:00

There is value beyond spit and polish and a fancy shape.

I saw this display at a local rock and gem show today, and I couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable with the final product. It was like a timeline of the terrifying outcome of a lovely rock in the hands of an artist with a grinder. I had to remind myself that the first hunk of rock was still fairly close to its found shape, and that as long as they kept this exhibit intact, it wouldn't suffer the same fate of the little sphere at the end of the line.

In eleven days, I will know the fate of one short story. Just one small set of words, piled together in a shape that happens to suit me. It's not my first set of words, or my first submission, nor is it my last of either, but it is one that I finally had a brief moment to mold into something publicly palatable. I think.

(Timpanogos Gem and Mineral Show - Spanish Fork, Utah)

I have a habit of hacking off chunks of thought and scratching them in inelegant script across lined pages. Only the lines give it any semblance of order. Then I try to bring it onto clean white pages and add and whittle until I've got something that's a little more sturdy, slightly cleaner, but still the essence of the original. But I'm not sure how close to polished my latest effort has become.

I know that Chris mentions, to people who haven't even noticed, that his stained glass doesn't form a perfect circle because he doesn't use templates. And I've felt inclined to explain, to the non-folk-listening ear, exactly why the music we write and perform sounds the un-studio-produced way that it does. We seem to want to justify what others might perceive as imperfection, even when the rawness of what we create is the intended outcome.

(Three Fish - by Chris)

My taste in other people's art, books, and music is much the same. Sometimes I want to hear vocals stray from pitch, or hear a finger slip and mute a string, and sometimes I like to see a wrinkle in the stiff fabric of a pretty skirt, or even lint on a camera lens. I prefer for things to be in-between, not entirely rough, but hewn into a shape that shows some degree of care, intent, and interest while still maintaining that raw surface. I'm not one for polished. It prioritizes appearance, rather than the nature of a thing.

Although I have been known to contradict myself... As with geodes, a nice crack and polish can reveal colors and substance that you'd never have known were there otherwise. Still, I'll take a handful of dirty rocks over a bucket of polished ones any day.

So I wait, half-cleaved, half-polished, and wholly hoping that my scrappy little pages of words eventually find a well-bound home.

winter

2010-03-01T22:11:00.006-07:00

The grace of winter is as fair as any other season of the year.

One month ago, a groundhog predicted a long winter for us. Now for an animal who has been forced into the business of meteorology, you have to have a sympathetic heart and try not to fault him for being wrong more times than he is accurate. So every year, I hope that the outcome lands in his favor, and this year, I'm happy that it's for a long winter.

As a native Floridian, winter to me was nothing more than a chance to wear a cute sweater, or to not have ghoulish makeup run down my face with sweat while trick-or-treating on Halloween. And it would never cease to amaze me that a cold snap would disappear just in time for a sunny Christmas Day. Luckily, we had the ever popular Mele Kalikimaka as a soothing sunny Christmas sympathizer. Thanks, Bing.

I traveled up north during winter months on several occasions, and all I ever thought was how sad and desolate it looked that all the trees were dead in those places. I didn't realize that they were really only hibernating in their own way, and that there were months when they had their leafy green prime. In Florida, the foliage is scrappy and rugged, and it changes in small ways with the seasons, but for the most part, aside from subtleties clear to the native, everything appears to remain the same all year long. And I'm not sure what that does to the mind. For me, I think it's important to experience more drastic changes, to remember that things can be shaken up, comfort pulled out from under you, and then restored in other ways.

Now I like the look of trees without leaves - I think they're striking.

(pony - provo, utah)

Winter here has presented many lovely things.

The snow has a gorgeous way of muting sound. It cleans the ruckus of the landscape and the air. And what is left standing is amplified by the silence that surrounds it.

(view of the mountains from a pay telescope - Provo Towne Center Mall)

Before we left, our family called us, rightfully concerned for their Florida babies about to set adrift on winter's snowy roads. One family member even warned us that it would look like the face of the moon out here, and I think somehow that was supposed to be a bad thing. We like science fiction far too much for that to be a deterrent.

I think we all forget that once you're immersed in something from day to day, it ceases to surprise, and you find your own comfort in it - or at least this is true for us - we adapt.

49 degrees has become a mighty warm day for us. And we like it.

This winter was kind to us - it opened a temporary window for our journey across the states, and blanketed our trail with snow the moment we arrived at our new home, causing the very same roads we had just traveled to close for days.

(old Ford truck - Vineyard, Utah)

Today, as I noticed that the snow has been steadily melting over the last couple of days, and I saw the grass here for the first time, I know that I will miss winter when it goes.

a gift

2010-02-26T23:43:00.008-07:00

The greatest love can be found in the smallest things.

logistics

2010-02-25T17:15:00.010-07:00

The difference between the clouds and a carwash is simply a matter of logistics.

Now that we're falling into some sort of routine here, it's coming down to a series of wrapping up loose ends and waiting around for all the miscellaneous pieces of life to settle into place.

And to me, that means I'm home.

(library parking lot)

It's taken a couple weeks to get things to fall into place. We finally figured out that our dishwasher works without pre-washing everything (huge score that called it even on both sides of a long-standing battle), we got the car registered in Utah, we bought a washing machine after sitting for a couple of rounds at the local laundromat, and in the meantime we had to wait around a lot while attending to all the little details.

(laundromat)

Some say the devil is in the details. I've never agreed.

(mall parking lot)

We've grown accustomed to waiting around in parking lots - for each other to finish with work, for a movie to start, for us to figure out whether or not we want something hot to drink before or after dinner, or maybe even just to watch whatever is transpiring on the pavement in front of us.

(state bird, dirty snow, movie theatre parking lot)

I like hanging out where the lines of the concrete meet the dirt and grass...or these days, snow. And I usually don't mind which side I'm sitting on, nature-made or otherwise.

A car wash can present as lovely an appearance as the sky.

(car wash)

a past

2010-02-07T23:55:00.023-07:00

I always feel more grounded when dealing with things from the past.

There is something so hasty about the present. It's as though it could all shift at any moment and then produce something so different, so completely opposite, that the moment could result in being of no consequence at all.

(Apalachicola, Florida)

I remember six years ago, when I was starting my new relationship and having trouble dealing with the concept of memory. I thought that it was such a dangerously fleeting task to try to get to know someone for what could potentially be a very short time. That until we were really rooted in each other's minds, we probably didn't exist for each other at all. It could all disappear, like a film where the fated heroine knocks her head and can't recall her own true love. Sappy? Sure. But sincerely driven out of a fear that the moment wouldn't become part of a permanent past.

And sometimes I feel like old things carry that sort of melancholy with them.

(Winter Park, Florida)

I feel a fondness for rusted heaps of junk, broken silos, old buildings, abandoned cars... With a reliable longing, I try to think of the time when they were useful and appreciated. I try to start a new memory for them, one that I have somehow become a part of.

(Vineyard, Utah)

Maybe it sounds like some sort of rudimentary animism, but it's really only a bit of fanciful daydreaming. I like to indulge.

Still, I think that these things endure for a reason.

(Charleston, South Carolina)

They're like old memories anchored to our present because of what they meant to us in the past.

here

2010-01-09T20:27:00.012-07:00

It is good to finally find myself living in the present, here.

I'm beginning to feel as though I've been dropped into the middle of a surreal dream.

While taking a drive through Provo Canyon today, I had to catch my breath more than once as my eye caught yet another striking glimpse of this beautiful land. There was an array of different animal tracks pressed into clean snow. People that seemed to be about the size of Lego men were ice fishing on the frozen water alongside the highway. And the sun played off of clouds and mountain tops in a display that I don't think I've ever seen a painting or photograph capture.

It's a bit hard to believe I'm here.

(UVU CS building)

It was a seriously long emotional battle with Tallahassee - all three years of it. I thought that I should be able to find a home in the place where I'd lived from birth until I was five years old. On a technicality, it could even be considered my "hometown." I looked high and low and at last found a slight haven among some last-minute friendships. But it always felt like I was just visiting.

But now that I'm here, I feel that I'm finally in a place where I can enjoy the odd spaces I find. There is a puzzle-like appendage here that fits me just right. Both the land and the man-made pieces stir my guts in wondrous ways...however crass that sounds. And I've been new in many places before, but never have I felt quite as content with other places as I do here. I believe that in this place, the creative itch may find a stronger scratch, and I hope that there will be room for my contributions as well, for however long.

I missed my first earthquake the other night - the movie theatre has amazing sound, picture quality too, and it drowned it all out. I can only be thankful for the fact that after three years of bad theatres, I can indulge in one of my favorite pasttimes again in the best way possible.

I feel much like I have been transported into another time, where I can find a space of my own.

A second earthquake arrived several hours later. I missed that one too. I thought it was a train.

a connection

2010-01-06T23:00:00.002-07:00

It can be surprising to find a connection in a place where none was expected to exist.

I've lived near the shining seas. And when I left them, I had certain expectations not unlike the lyrics of one of our patriotic songs. I knew I would see spacious skies. Granted, with the winter months coming on, I knew better than to fool myself into thinking I'd see any amber waves of grain among the purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain.

But, what I could not anticipate was the shear grandness of our country's land.

(Wyoming)

And Man's path through it carries a beauty of it's own - relatively immediate exploits, carved into the landscape that time works its slow wonders upon.

(Near Two Buttes)

It is striking.

I am thankful for those who first paved a way across this land, giving the rest of us the chance to see that our country is great, and positively beautiful.

transition

2009-12-16T23:41:00.015-07:00

No matter how prepared you are for it, a transition always prompts some unexpected reaction.

After spending an entire weekend sorting and packing, I found myself far from ready to leave on the last day of my lease. The obstacle wasn't the leaving part - it was the fact that my house was still in random, as yet unsorted, piles. I'll spare you the entirety of the horrifying tale of 17 grueling hours of dragging tons of stuff in boxes and garbage bags to our local charity, the dumpster, and eventually the truck. In fact, we had not even planned to take a truck...

We were originally going to ship everything to ourselves at our new address, but when my sister received the package of books I mailed to her using the same method of shipment we were planning to use for our own, she found that it had been opened, repackaged into two boxes without my return address, and the graphic novel, Maus, had been removed (with Charles Schwab's Guide to Financial Independence and an IRS tax manual mysteriously added to the lot). Now this particular shipper does have a specific "no comic books" stipulation for the rate that I chose, however, this rule is based on advertisements, and graphic novels are permitted if there are no ads inside - Maus contains none. Although I hope it was in error, rather than some odd form of censorship prompted by Maus' provocative cover, it still doesn't account for the books that were added to the shipment, and I am certainly not willing to have my library scattered across the United States...at least not yet, and not that way.

So now, after eating for the last time at the sushi restaurant near our apartment and visiting a couple of old haunts, we have a truck parked outside of our hotel room, and we've spent the end of our last night in Tallahassee just basking in the freedom of being able to lounge for a bit, our muscles still offering up new areas of pain as each hour passes.

You know, Tallahassee was an interesting place to live. There were little things I never got used to, like confederate flag stickers (in memoriam? or shameless promotion of a desire to secede from the nation?) and saying "y'all", and then there were things that grew on me, like studying the constant push of the modern world on a southern-leaning town, and enjoying the easy pace of a small town that tries really hard to live up to the title of state capital. But even though it's a city that never fit me quite right, I appreciate the space it made for me during the time I spent here.

I felt a little pull of something as we drove out of the neighborhood last night...maybe it was because I was delirious from sheer exhaution, but I think a little of it was that I was leaving the home that I'd lived in the longest since high school.

(hotel key)

But it's funny, I like living nowhere right now. I feel positively unburdened.

a drive

2009-12-09T20:57:00.014-07:00

There are times when only a drive can cure it.

In South Florida, I used to take a long ribbon of beachfront road and ride across it until whatever the world had twisted up into knots was slowly unraveled by lengths alongside stretches of condos, yachts, palm trees, bridges...

With the weight of transition beginning to bear down on me, I needed a similar catharsis, and I found it on a two-hour drive to St. George Island...

and back.

The distance between home and a destination as yet unseen, seems to cause the suspension of time, focusing favorable attention on details that might be altogether small if witnessed everyday.

Some of the most beautiful things I've ever seen have been experienced from behind a windshield.

simplicity

2009-11-22T15:24:00.006-07:00

An unexpected series of the simplest of things can build the happiest of times.

A random ice cream cone...

an impromptu night of bowling after dinner...

and staring out of a breezy window, listening to Hoss just being Hoss....

Sometimes you just have to steal a slow weekend, and relish it for as long as it will last.

a deal

2009-11-09T20:18:00.015-07:00

When it looks this good, you just can't pass up a deal.

Just when we thought we'd exit Florida with nary a hurricane this season, Hurricane Ida made her way through the Gulf and readied herself at our door. With a hurricane on the way, I asked around at work to find out what the protocol was for impending hurricanes and got the impression that they don't really concern themselves with hurricanes around here. No school closures. No continuous weather feeds on the local stations. No eerie horror movie-looking empty shelves in the water aisles of the grocery store, wiped out by concerned soccer moms during their eight hours of free time from 9:00 to 5:00.

(aftermath of Hurricane Frances - part of the 2004 triple threat: Frances, Ivan, Jeanne)

Is Tallahassee, our state capital, really part of Florida, when its inhabitants don't know the feeling of putting their computers in garbage bags and unplugging their fax machines before leaving work the night before a storm? When they don't know what it's like to take freezing showers during a cold front in October when the power's been out for three days due to downed powerlines? When they haven't had to turn off their cars while waiting in a mile-long line for gas at one of only two open stations in town? Or watched five feisty old women race toward the little flame of their boyfriend's lighter in the hopes that they might score a good loaf as they pick through the last stack of bread in a grocery store with no electricity?

Well, as the locals like to say, hurricanes don't come here.

And as Ida was downgraded to a tropical storm (if that's all she brings, we'll take it!), I skipped the bottled water expedition and, in true Tallahassee fashion, I ignored the rain and wind and stuck with the plans that I'd made at the start of the day - selling some records and clothes to add to our "lighten the load and pay for the road" Utah preparedness plan. Okay, nobody's actually calling it that. But it rhymed.

And in a flash of whimsy, I decided to treat myself to a $6.00 spree:

$3.00 gently used scarf
$1.99 lightly scratched Lily Tomlin record
$0.99 as yet uneaten chocolate chip cookie

I don't really need an excuse do I? Everyone needs a treat sometimes. And it will give me something to do tomorrow if work is called on account of rain.

walls

2009-11-07T12:22:00.010-07:00

(Momo's)

When these walls talk, they say nice things about their owners.

Let's just say that I've had more than a little trouble finding places that I like to eat in Tallahassee. It's a place that frequently nominates major restaurant chains for non-fast food categories in the annual Best of Tallahassee issue of Tallahassee Magazine. Now I don't know if I was just spoiled on the array of cuisine available from the collected culinary prowess of South Florida's multinational residents, or if I've just become some kind of food snob within the last three years as some of my local friends have suggested, but it's pretty hard to find an eatery that I love here.

A local student chef I met a couple of years ago suggested that Tallahassee's palate just isn't ready for better food, but I have trouble with blanket statements like that, especially when this is the state capital and we have a pretty steady flow of out-of-towners, particularly during legislative sessions. And rather than panning local businesses who I assume are working their hardest to try to produce a quality product, I'll just tell you who I'm starting to love.

(Fusion)

Momo's has arguably Tallahassee's best New York style pizza. The available toppings are numerous and fresh. You can buy slices the size of baby goats, and a party-sized pie that refuses to fit in a family sedan without some serious maneuvering. The stories are true, they have even been seen riding down the street across the heads of college students in compact cars.

Fusion Cafe is what it sounds like, a slightly higher end restaurant that tries to blend a little of everything, and it does so successfully. From a rolling menu of standards like large side salads with savory dressing, nicely flavored cajun crabcakes, hand cut sweet potato fries, huge rib racks, and well-constructed sushi rolls to other niche items like crab bisque, three-mushroom potstickers, duck with fruit compote, and tofu cashew stir fry, it's a whole world of both vegetarian and meat-laden delights.

Piggy's is the new kid on the block, and after three years of complaints from the peanut gallery, yours truly, I have to say that Tallahassee may begin to hold it's own in my expectations for Southern barbecue. Once you get used to the downhome seat-yourself presentation with the tin buckets of sauce on each table, the chalkboard menu, and the hard plastic dishes lined in a red-and-white print wax paper, you can settle in and eat the heartiest little pile of barbecue and side dishes that the Big Bend ever offered up beyond the backyard. If you don't try anything else, it's all about the broccoli casserole.

(Piggy's)

And the parallel I have found across all three is interestingly, the women's restrooms. Okay, I know that no one really wants to think of restaurants and restrooms at the same time, but what it provides is a sort of continuity, so I don't feel like I've just traveled outside of the ambiance of the restaurant into some unrelated fluorescent island with a subsequent gasp for fresh air and sigh of relief when I return to the mainland to finish my lunch... Each of these rooms, with its old LP's, murals, or license plates, represents to me an attention to detail. It makes me feel like there isn't a corner of the place that doesn't have some effort put into it, and to me that translates into good food.

And when it's time to pack the car and aim for the valley, I have to say that I'll miss these restaurants most.

a spirit

2009-10-31T18:46:00.016-07:00

The Halloween spirit can move you to undertake ghoulish enterprises.

We really got into the spirit of Halloween this year. We started our pumpkin hunting as soon as the pumpkin patch opened for the season, making sure that we got four perfect pumpkins, so as not be short this year...

Chris didn't have the annual pumpkin carving tradition in his house, and after beginning our own last year, he found that one pumpkin per person simply doesn't suffice. After an embarrassing post-Halloween 2008 pumpkin run and subsequent late night carving session, we made sure to stock up on four early.

Our local blood bank was offering free New Moon-themed t-shirts for donating a pint of blood, and I couldn't resist. Okay, admittedly, I haven't read any of the Twilight series, and I haven't seen the first movie yet, but it's been a few years since my last donation, and it was a little added motivation to help with the local blood shortage. And I must say, it's the most attractive shirt I've ever seen handed out at a blood bank!

When the phlebotomist gave me the options of watching, or looking away, the photographer in me decided to ask if I could take a picture. As I stared down the barrel of the ridiculously large needle, I had second thoughts, realizing that I had no idea if I would pass out or not if I stared so intently at the process. My hand trembled a little as I started taking pictures, and I began to wonder if my camera would survive a fall to the linoleum floor, and just how clean could the floor possibly be at a blood bank anyway...

But as it turns out, I managed to watch the whole thing - I'll spare you the more graphic images...

I received mixed responses after putting these on the dessert table at my office Halloween party. Some were scared to try them because they looked gross (really?) and even went so far as to ask what they were made of. A friend of mine who hates nuts was not thrilled with the flavor of almond extract. Other co-workers loved them, and one even said that it was her favorite kind of cookie (although I'm sure she was referencing the dough, not the finger).

The consistency is a bit like shortbread, and they are not super sweet like some might expect a cookie to be, so as with anything else, you have to know your audience before plopping these down in front of them. But either way, the overall effect was in keeping with the season, so whether anyone likes them or not, they're fantastic table decor!

Meanwhile, Chris loved them, and managed to eat several hands worth. This, from the man whose response to seeing a gourmet dish is that it looks like they played with it too much before handing it to him.

If you'd like to make them yourself, here's how:

Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup confectioners' (powdered) sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup whole almonds
1 small tube of red food decorating gel

Directions
1. Combine butter, sugar, egg, almond extract, and vanilla extract in a large
bowl. Stir together until even.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.
3. Gradually add the dry mixture (2.) to the wet mixture (1.), stirring
continuously.
4. Refrigerate dough, for 20 to 30 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F, and lightly grease baking sheets.
6. Remove from the refrigerator only as much dough as you will need for your first
round of cookies (one or two cookie sheets worth, depending on the size of your
oven!). Roll one heaping teaspoon of the dough into thin spindly finger shapes,
and then pinch the dough on either size of an estimated "knuckle" at the
center. Use a butter knife to press lines into the knuckle, and press a whole
almond onto one end for the fingernail.
7. Bake until the cookies are a very light golden color, approximately 20 to 25
minutes.
8. While still warm, remove the almond from each finger, and squeeze a baby
pea-sized amount into the "nail bed," allowing it to ooze out from under the
almond.

Yum!

(Happy Halloween)

transference

2009-10-10T20:46:00.000-07:00

When you can't take it with you, a transference becomes necessary.

It's strange to see so many of our things spread across two tables, available for the taking. We are notorious pack rats. For that reason we have found it necessary to drag all of this along with us for years - from our bedrooms in our parents' houses to our own apartments.

And we've had many apartments. As the housing bubble grew to a ridiculous size during the early 2000s, we found ourselves bouncing from one South Florida apartment to the next as they were converted to condos with price tags that we couldn't even begin to wrap our incomes around.

And all this stuff came with us. We thought we needed it somehow. We would try to pare down, but we always seemed to find a way to attach memories to everything; they would stick to the thing well enough for us to hang onto it that much longer. Well this time, we can't take it all with us.

So our solution to help us part with our trinkets and superfluous books and jewelry of seasons past is to spend a few weekends over the next several months, selling it all at our local flea market - the idea is that we will be able to raise money for our move and lighten our load. And it's working.

The experience has been surprisingly satisfying. We have found that running our two little tables (a steal at about $22.00 for the all-day rental) is incredibly relaxing and feels a lot like spending the day at the ocean. We're not sure if it's the time we've spent working in retail or if it's just sitting in the Florida heat that does it, but we like sitting out there in our lawn chairs and waiting for the waves of customers to rise and fall as the sun makes it's way from one side of the flea market to the other, and we enjoy talking to the interesting vendors and customers we've met - Greta selling her saddles and country antiques with her daughter, Kathy and her rabbit companion (Wilma 2), and the nice woman with the stall across the way who bought our Kalimba with the one sour note ("it says I can play it any way I want").

(some of Greta's things)

When we get home, both our car and spirits are lighter. And we can't help but wonder why we've spent all these years carrying all this stuff with us.

a line

2009-09-29T19:40:00.002-07:00

A line provides provoking contrast, no matter what stress may have been the cause of it.

We have decided to travel to our local points of interest before leaving North Florida.

On Monday, on a lark, we ventured across the state line about 30 minutes north into Thomasville, Georgia. We hoped to stumble upon something there that might hold our interest for the day. We drove up Thomasville Road until it became West Jackson Street, and then parked alongside the street as we got our bearings.

With no directions to guide us, and finding the place rather empty for a Monday afternoon, we just picked a road and headed west until we saw one sign that said Psychic Readings...

and another that said Museum of History. We chose the museum.

We walked up and saw a sign that said "Ring the Bell." We can follow instructions - and so we did. A dark-haired and unusually-pale-for-summer gentleman, who we later discovered was the museum curator, unlocked the door and asked us to sign in, eyeing us carefully as we were the only guests and he was the only one in the old, empty house. Leaving us to watch a fifteen minute video that explored the building and demolition of historical Thomasville homes and plantations, we sat among an old cash register and wilted hats and restored paintings in front of a flat-panel television set in the well air-conditioned room with only a fine line of time and technology separating the present from the past.

The curator took us on a tour of the houses that had all been placed in their final resting spots on the museum grounds. In one of the houses, I noticed there was a crack in the wall, making it's way down to the gilded picture frame holding this painting of a little girl. When I pointed it out to the curator, he appeared to be duly shocked, although I'm not sure that he didn't know that it had been there all along. His explanation chalked it up to the house expanding and settling - a sad but fair trade for the comfort of air conditioning, he implied. It felt a little like we were being led around by a friendly realtor who had our best interests at heart, and just wanted us to like the place. I had a snarky comment about it being a "fixer-upper" on the tip of my tongue, but somehow, it didn't feel quite appropriate...

The curator told us the tales of the women who owned some of the houses, women who ran them, children who slept on the floor while the quilts rested on frames, men who hunted or went to war, and the man who stopped by while we were there who could sing the praises of the "mammy" who suckled him while simultaneously praising the benefits of segregation.

It's a funny place, Georgia...resting quietly, cautiously nestled in the South, caught up somewhere in the middle of two centuries.

conveyances

2009-09-15T19:34:00.001-07:00

Conveyances come in all forms.

On Saturday, my husband packed up one of his accordions, and sent it off to its new owner.

Granted, I had been warned a week in advance - "It will help us move," he said.

It's not the first time either. His first accordion was sold to move us clear across the state...or maybe I should say straight up the state and around the corner - Florida is a peninsula after all - and it moved us from South Florida to the Big Bend.

Thinking it my compulsory duty as a musician's wife and friend to encourage the man to keep his instruments (however many he has), I suggested that it wouldn't be necessary to sell it. But still, I managed to feel fairly detached from the issue, and I was largely unconcerned when he started posting his ads.

He even found a good home for it, an old music major who wants to start playing Scandinavian music and who once had a Ural that shared my name...spelling variations aside. And all of this sounded just fantastic.

That is, until he put the accordion in the case on the day he planned to ship it. Then, I cried.

See, I didn't really understand my attachment for it until I realized that I would no longer hear its voice - the dramatic tones that always started off hesitant, sometimes clipped even, during a new melody, until it rounded out over days and weeks into the full resonant capability of its reeds and bellows in the hands of an owner who knows that if practice doesn't make perfect, well it sure makes a whole lot of things wonderful.

So I made him take it out of the case and play Soptippen for me on it one more time.

And while he will soon have another, as this replaced the last one, I won't likely hear that same voice again.

This one is helping us move 3/4ths of the way across the country.

I wonder what accordions sound like in the mountains.

a scope

2009-09-11T21:40:00.001-07:00

There is an advantage to having a scope.

It always seems easier to view life from a hidden space, maintaining a distance, however small, from what we observe. How often do we peer beyond safe walls to see what is passing us by? There is far too much to let in, so we can only observe and hope that we do not find regrets toward those for whom we have opened the door.

polysemy

2009-08-12T18:29:00.001-07:00

Everything we see is polysemous.

When I was a child, I would seek out these V shapes in the tall grass... if I could find one, I would sit down behind it and close my hand around the stalks until they became parallel in my palm...

then, sliding them between my fingers, I would pull the black dust from the stalks

and watch the wind set each speck dancing in rhythms across my hand, like strange friendly insects, purple-black in the sunlight.

To some, this plant is a weed. To me, it is still a source of wonder.

a leader

2009-08-10T18:11:00.002-07:00

Although we lead, our hands may be tethered behind us.

pixels

2009-08-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

Through a screen door, life is divided into pixels.

The scope of our sight is encapsulated in neat boxes, within which we can see each piece that composes the image before us, as on an artist's grid; colors, light, lines, and perspective are pixelated, broken down into clean definable parts.

But what is in the space behind the lines?

a well

2009-05-21T19:46:00.000-07:00

I believe that within each one of us, a well is hiding.

The people we embrace, the ones we ignore, even those we try to avoid, hold something more valuable than our fears of profane denigrations, covert manipulations, or defensive reactions. I think that something worth more than the body's salt lies within each pulsing force that is given a name upon its arrival here. Some may be nearly dry and, misguided, search greedily for any drop it can usurp. In others, the well floods into its surrounding rivers and shares all it contains in a perpetual ebb and flow. But whatever it contains, a loamy sediment or an ocean's source, in each of us, a well is hiding.

aisles

2009-05-19T20:53:00.001-07:00

We find ourselves perpetually passing through aisles.

It is official. In one month's time, I will be walking down the aisle for my wedding. I have walked down many aisles in my recent past: on the floor of an auditorium surrounded by anticipatory fellow future graduates still one month away from receiving their diplomas in hand, in a packed to the gills movie theatre full of secret Trekkies who certainly longed for this latest blast from the future past as much as I did, and in the grocery store last night, picking up unsalted grocery store-brand rice cakes to place next to my half a dozen donuts and soymilk on the conveyor belt at the register.

One of the aisles I remember most is the one of the movie theatre during the first release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Walking in late, led by a parent's hand between the two track-lit edges of carpet, and seeing him move toward me with glowing heart, skyscraper high through my toddler eyes, only added an additional spectre to my already vivid supply of middle of the night visitors - including my lion that was always waiting for me at the far end of the hall that separated my room from my parents'.

But I am looking forward to this upcoming aisle. As much as I never expected it - never really spent much time obsessing over it the same way that girls say they do - I am excited to walk down this one, petaled or not, to begin my new life that starts at the end of it.