Circular

I told my daughter tonight that if she wanted to know what sort of mood I was in to check the state of the kitchen sink. If the sink is clean I am feeling good. If there is chaos in the sink I am not in a good place. I think it's important to give kids these clues, to help them navigate the emotional landscape of the people they live with. My mother was not an open book. There were certain things she communicated clearly but teenagers are naturally self absorbed which makes picking up subtle cues challenging, if not entirely off their radar. I don't want to burden my kid with the process I find myself in currently, this period of hormonal readjustment, this life as a creative, self employed, slightly fragile human. This drying up. It's complicated and sometimes scary.

So far, the fall has been good. My daughter has been busy which means I am busy supporting her, in her multiple activities. In many ways being in service to another human makes your own life very simple and directed. It's easy to suppress your own feelings when someone else needs your support. I wake early, make breakfast, make lunch, drive her to the bus or to school, have my day, attend school related functions revolving around sports and music, make supper, plan lunch, sleep. Strangely, I feel the opposite of put upon. I feel like we are this team. I signed up for this and she is working really hard. It's my job to help her be her best. The structure of her life dictates the structure of my life and this holds me together while the rest of me fluctuates wildly. There is no chaos when I look at her. I see the course we are on, I know what to do. I am grateful for her.

I stopped over at the urban farm today, the home of my friend who I have been helping in exchange for fruit and vegetables, since the spring. We picked tomatoes and she gave me the low-down on making sauce, which I will do tomorrow. We weeded a bit, social weeding while catching up pulling out bind weed, that stuff that just spirals around everything. She dug me up a perennial to take home. An Echinops; globe thistle, to be planted in full sun. I made a note on my phone, my memory is poor for these things, these days. The garden is moving along, into a new phase, there is still so much life there.

Wellness

I had a migraine on Tuesday brought on by whatever causes these things. I felt horrendous for about 18 hours and then after the pain subsided I was left with rising anxiety and severe heart palpitations accompanied by acute self awareness spiked with massive dread. These feelings rise up in me and I get thrown off, I feel lost and afraid to be alone. And then as quickly as they arrive the feelings disappear and the intense despair is replaced by my normal happy outlook, keen to embrace the day in all it's mundane wonder and I am left wondering if any of it really happened. 2 versions of the same picture sliding apart and then back together overlapping each other calmly. Fortunately for me I have an extraordinary partner and friends who have known way more misery than I ever will and they are always nearby when I need them most. My work is busy again and to counterbalance the stress of being creative for a living I have been helping my good friend in her garden. I am going once a week. We have a little visit and discuss this and that and then I help her with a few tasks. On my way home last week I felt an overwhelming sense of well-being. I am well. Well I am.

Fuel

All summer long I meant to get firewood but then some other item would come up that needed resources thrown at it and here I am in the final days of November with no firewood. Not no firewood, but challenging firewood and I am in desperate need of uncomplicated firewood. I used to spend a lot of time cutting and splitting firewood and I was stronger 18yrs ago than I am today, this is the truth. I looked online for sellers and scoured the local boards at the grocery and feed-store. Nothing. I put a plea on Facebook and got nothing. My brother who lives in a similar way to me noted in the comments that he was working on next years firewood. He is the Ant to my Grasshopper. Inspired, I went out and chopped some wood I had had laying out in the open. It's wet but a few weeks under cover and it might be burnable. The cedar rounds were very dry after the long rainless summer we had. It's beautiful wood.

The work is hard. Swinging the maul overhead, letting it fall. Sometimes it pierces the wood exposing a clean fault and other times it bounces off in a spray of water. I worked for under an hour and noted how weak I felt. Certainly if I did this more often I would get stronger. After I had split a few wheelbarrow loads I went back to my desk and I must say the physical exertion really cleared my head. Later in the afternoon I walked to the back of the property and eye-balled some fallen trees that I could easily buck up, I also picked up an armload of twigs to burn. Big or small, it's all fuel. I spoke to my neighbor and he'll sell me some bucked up wood. Maple, I think he said. Hardwood. It won't be a pretty year for firewood but I think I will make it through.

Falling in

September 5th. I feel a bit contracted but I also feel kind of stoked. I'm worried about money but I also feel like there is endless potential work if I just flip the switch. My mood is up but I feel nervous about that too because it changes so quickly but mostly I have been trending up into that good place where I feel both happy and calm, if I can battle the anxiety I will have achieved a trifecta of sorts. The days are shortening at both ends but it's most noticeable in the morning when I awake in the darkness. My mid morning walks have been refreshing and warm once I get out to the road where there is more sun. There are spider's webs everywhere and yesterday I picked an albino woolley bear off my car tire in an effort not to squash it. The edges of the road are dry and crunchy and when I go to feed the hens there are more leaves down, they are mostly green but getting yellower by the day. Have finally begun to sleep better after a long stint of not being able to achieve that deep state of unconsciousness. It wears me down so and weakens my mind, I feel frayed and bare after a while. As you can see by the start date of this post I have been a bit slack. On the other hand I have been working and the kid is back at school and the routine has been good despite the first day when I felt like I was falling into a big pit of sameness. A week or so has passed and my happy state seems to be taking hold. I can honestly say I am looking forward to fall.

Missed connections.

The annual back to school BBQ and re-orientation event happened today at the high school. We're new there, new to High School. I barely know my way around the building. I am not in the minority of parents who actually attended this high school ahead of their kids. The place is new but the faces are all the same, the moms mostly, some dads come to the event that is sort of informal and awkward. The students are instructed to sit up front in the auditorium while the adults are scattered everywhere in little clumps mostly close to the edges of the rows for quick exiting. We arrive late and sit smack in the middle of a row. The lights are bright and it feels like we have wandered into a grocery store at midnight after being out in a bar. I feel out of place as usual but try to listen to what the tan man who must be the principal is saying. He's funny and direct with the kids and that feels good and my discomfort momentarily subsides. Then, it's over and it is time to go outside to have a free hamburger on a white bun that I know I will regret eating later. I lose Mark immediately upon getting up to leave and I try to make eye contact with a few of the other moms. We don't have much to say to each other, at least I feel at a loss to say much beyond spewing something about how strange it all is but I stop myself, those are not the lines for this particular skit and we're all having slightly different experiences. I smile to the left I smile to the right and slowly move toward the smoke of the BBQ that is now filling the entry hall.

Outside, I decide to sit down and let the hamburger line die down while another mom moves past me. She looked a little lost so I said "Hi" and she came over. I think she would have sat there and said absolutely nothing if I had not asked a few questions and even then she did not inquire about my summer, my plans for fall, my garden. At these times I feel like I am in a haze, the twighlight zone where everything is stretchy and perspectives are angled. I move away and get in the food line near my kid who wants to act like I am not there but I give her the "don't even begin to give me any of that; I can act completely different at school bullshit" look and then I begin chatting with another mom who attended the high school and is having the strange experience of being there as an adult. She's maybe 31. I take it she wasn't the best student back then. Oh well I think, I got the hell out of my own little town and have missed out on that fate. We have a positive but brief exchange about time and remembering to breathe and I feel like that might have been the most real exchange I have had the entire time I have interacted with all these mom types. I get my burger, Mark has a second and we eat and leave.

I come away feeling conflicted. I don't really want anything from them, not friendship, I don't need to be invited to their homes, I am happy to be invisible but something tells me I am not entirely. I am helpful when I can be, I engage when I must, I am aware of what is happening within the little community but it's my choice to stay outside the circle of familiarity so maybe I should just be grateful to them for respecting my privacy. Although, I do know I am a good listener and a pretty good friend and so it's sad that none of them ever tried to buddy up with me, but then again I probably haven't been putting out the right signals and my dance-card is pretty full. Next.

Press proofs

Saw the first proofs of the 100 Years book yesterday and they looked great. Only made a few little adjustments here and there which is to be expected. I am incredibly grateful to our rep Tegan Cutler. She is so thorough and extremely conscientious about every aspect of the project. We met for about two hours and on my way out I ran into my good friend Katrina and her boys. I have not seen her enough lately. I got home around 5:30 and was happy to get a phone call from Pearl and one from Mark before settling in for a nice evening of wine and cheese with my friend Kate. The weather was perfect finally and we sat outside until almost 9 getting up a few times to corral chickens, we are after all just a couple of farm girls from Everson. All things considered it was a pretty nice day.

No News

http://www.anemia.org/images/anemia/blood-donor-bags.jpg

As I lay on the portable gurney staring at the ceiling the attendant asks me in a routine way, what's new. I search my now blank mind. It's 4 in the afternoon, I am hungrier than I should be. What is new? Nothing. My days seem indistinguishable and I can't say if this is good or bad. Nicky, who is prepping me to donate recognizes this too, how little things change in the two month span between blood drives. Life goes on fairly unchanged. Pearl is with me, waiting on the other side of the room, away from the needles and bags of blood. I tell Nicky when you have a child, predictability is the goal and change is not really sought except quietly to yourself.

I lose track of time as the pint drains out of me. It doesn't feel like anything, I won't miss it, I focus on breathing deeply in order not to feel anxious. I am not afraid of the needles or the bags of blood but I always feel vaguely ill at ease in the process, the scrutiny of my stats, will I be allowed to donate. I was turned away the first time I went, unbeknown to me I had a low fever. I had stepped into a wasps nest the day before and my ankles were badly stung, I was undeterred and went back the next time and have been going every two months ever since. When it's over I am instructed to take a moment and get up slowly and go to the table where another volunteer has a little display of cans of juice and cookies. She is saving the pull tabs from the cans for a friend who needs dialysis. Each pull tab is worth one minute on the machine. I choose Cranberry juice and a chocolate chip cookie, Pearl has Apple juice and a Molasses cookie. We sit there while I try to gauge how I am feeling.

As we leave the volunteers thank me, genuinely for coming. I am blood type O-negative which means everyone can use my blood. This makes me a useful commodity to them and they are grateful which makes me feel good because it's no sweat off my back to do this good deed. When I had given a gallon they gave me a little metal stick pin. Last time I went the blood supply was very low and they gave me a little gold key stick pin to acknowledge my part in donating my universally useful blood on that day. I was on the fence about going yesterday as I am up to my eyeballs in work but I find the whole thing so satisfying that I hate to miss it. I feel like I would be letting down the cheerful volunteers, Sarah and Beth now that I have made this commitment to be a regular blood donor. Maybe in July I will have something new to share with Nicky.

My Little Town

The image of the small town is ubiquitous in songs and literature, they are fodder for nostalgia of things real and imagined. Bruce Springsteen wrote about his Hometown, John Mellencamp wrote of his Small Town, of living in it and even dying in it. Even Paul Simon sang about his (my) Little Town.

I have had the good fortune of living in 2 small towns, the one I was raised in and the one I live in now. I spent 15 years in cities in between and maybe that is why I can appreciate the small town experience, because it is familiar to me and I have something else to compare it to.

My car broke down the other day in the post office parking lot in Everson, my little town. I was on my way home from a glorious walk along edge of the Nooksack with the dog and my dear friend Rio. I didn’t panic or fret even for a second. I called my mechanic, Brandon and told him what had happened and he said he’d be right over. Only five minutes passed before he arrived and we got the car started in short order. We drove back to his shop where he lent me the shop truck so I could get home and back to work. I often wave at this same truck when I pass it on the road, never sure who’s driving it as it’s sort of become the community truck.

Growing up I experienced a sort of celebrity being the youngest of four children of one of the only doctors in town and was well known and liked. People knew us, all of us and in some respects that can be a burden but in other ways it’s comforting. You never need to tell your story, everyone already knows it. We had a reputation to live up to as the offspring of a respected member of the community. It kept us on the straight and narrow to some extent, respectful of the delicate social order of small town life.

Coming to a small town as an adult is a different experience. I have had to get to know people and find the places where I fit in. For me it has happened naturally over time in light conversations that get struck up at the grocery store check out. Time passes and you realize that you suddenly know a lot about the cashiers and then you realize how you look forward to those little interactions, there is warmth to them. The same goes for the library, feed store, dentist office. I was in the library recently siphoning off the high speed internet connection feeling a bit overwhelmed because I thought my state taxes were over due. I felt a tap on my shoulder and there stood my affable accountant. He asked if I was going to stop over and see him soon and I said I thought I had missed the date and spewed some expletives. He reassured me I still had time. This could only happen in a small town.

I have lived in my little town for 15 years now. It’s the most time I have lived anywhere in my life and I am feeling the results of the roots that I have put down. When I drive the roads between my house and town I relish the familiarity of the physical landscape and it’s population, we share the same experiences. They have seen Pearl grow up from a baby being pushed in her red jogger to a tween riding her bike along the road as I walk my daily circuit. The people we encounter in the grocery store, library, and at school functions are our friends and we share their sadness and joy as if it were our own because in a way they are.

I think Paul Simon was wrong when he said “nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town”. In my little town there is an abundance of life, there are the old and the young, some of us are building a strong foundation to head out into the bigger world, some of us have come home from years away to settle down and start new lives. It’s the authenticity of it that I cherish the most.

Spring! Spring?

Pictured here is a fragrant Honeysuckle, a gift from my good friend Binda Colebrook. It lives along the path between my studio and the house. It's one of the first plants in the garden to bloom in the early spring and it's fragrance is out of this world. I find it hard not to stop and sniff the air as I pass by. The Hellebores are up too but somehow they are not as significant this year. Normally, in cooler winters when the weather is more extreme the Hellebores appear in spite of the snow and declare the promise of spring. This year, spring just seems to have arrived on it's own before my yearning for it even began. I ate my lunch outside in the full sun today soaking up the natural vitamin D. The morning was cooler and we had a good frost in the night but it wasn't enough to arrest the force of spring now that it has a foothold. I imagine the rain will come again, it usually does but until then I will enjoy this sun and all the life that is bursting forth around me. How lucky we are to be alive and experience spring once again and the renewal it brings with it.

The Story of My Press

The press from it's original owners manual.

I found this site the other day while searching for information on the year my press was born. I had learned that each Vandercook press bears a serial number which indicates the year it rolled out of the factory. While on this same site I also noticed a Census section. This intrigued me, so I clicked over and filled out the appropriate form and sent it. Later that day I received an email from the sites webmaster asking a few more questions about the press, whether it was a recent acquisition and directing me to another mark that would let me know who gave the final press inspection before it left Vanderson's so many years ago. Read more...

Promise of Prosperity

I tend toward feeling that the universe will take care of me. It has thus far and I have no reason to think that it won't continue in this same manner. I am not passive in this though, I am not just lying around eating bon-bons and thinking happy positive thoughts. I am actively paying attention to what's happening around me.

It was windy when I sat down on New Years day to collect my thoughts and drink a little celebratory champagne. The sound I heard next was a combination of deep cracking, some scraping, maybe a woosh of wind but that's hard to say in retrospect. One sound I can verify with certainty was the sound metal roofing makes as it's being peeled off a roof in a high wind. I expected to see the garage destroyed when I went out but was met instead by something else altogether. A huge limb had broken off a big Maple tree adjacent to the carport falling across the driveway and clipping the the edge of the metal roofed carport and Mark's car and settling hard on the gravel drive.

And so this is how my year started. Now some might see this as big negative but not me. I got dressed and went out with my newly tuned chainsaw and systematically turned trouble into treasure. I plan to stay on this tact, so bring it on there is nothing in this world that I can't make work. I look forward to the warmth those Maple logs will bring me and my little family next winter.

The Annual Tree

Not sure what kind it is this year but it fit the bill. We made our annual trek next door to my neighbor Neil's micro tree lot. I called him ahead to make sure he was still in the mood to sell his little trees. He is a good guy Neil and he answered my query in the affirmative. As a bonus when we stopped off at his house to pay him the princely sum of $20 he gave us a big piece of smoked salmon. Where, I ask can you procure a really fresh tree (we cut it ourselves) and get a piece of home smoked fish thrown in for twenty measly dollars? Mana from heaven is what I say. We cut the little tree and carried it home stopping to check out Neil's frozen pond. I long to skate outdoors when the temperature dips below freezing. I did not venture out on the ice, instead we went home and decorated the tree. It started snowing at bedtime and all at once it felt like Christmas.

Dogbite Debriefing

Diagram of Potentially Dangerous Dog

I am closing the dogbite chapter of this life in the country. Wednesday September 1oth, 2008 whilst walking my fine dog Luna, I suffered a surprise attack from a poorly socialized mutt who lives on my road. The little sneak came around the back of Luna who, had swung out in front of me on her leash. In a split second the marauding dog leaped toward the hind side of my right leg, made a big chomp, and then raced off. Feeling a bit victorious I am sure. I was deeply appalled and more than vaguely shaken.

I called Animal Control to follow up last week. As it turns out, this dog has a long-standing bad habit, of going out and terrorizing people as they pass on the road, or stop to check their mailboxes which are situated directly across from the dog's driveway. Animal control has deemed the dog potentially dangerous and so it needs to be:

1. Kenneled in a 5 sided kennel on a slab, kennel must be locked at all times.
2. When on leash dog must be muzzled. Leash holder must be 15 or older.
3. Dog must wear an orange collar to indicate potential danger.

Last but not least I sent a letter to the owners of the dog requesting reimbursement for medical expenses. I am not a suer, it was just an unfortunate accident. They have been keeping up their end of deal in containing the dog. I acknowledged this in my letter to them.

The good news is am back to my precious walks. I have a semi gross purple scar on my leg which will fade over time. There is a knot under the skin, I wonder if it's a lump of compressed fat or something. When the dog bit me, all it felt like was a little snap. I think the snap came from my skin popping open under the pressure of the dog's jaws.

I have not yet bought any pepper spray as I boasted I would and I regularly forget to carry my anti-dog-stick with me, instead I carry milkbones. When Luna and I walk up the road I can hear the dog barking at us and it's sad to think that it would have been a whole different dog if someone had just taken the time to walk it everyday, but there it sits locked in it's kennel, barking at the world.

Firewood, finally.

I've been sort of silently freaking out about my lack of firewood now that fall seems to be fast approaching. It's way past the time that I generally find a few reasonably priced cords and coerce Mark into completely straining himself by chopping it all up in one go. With gas prices on the rise cord prices were going crazy too and a few of the local wood connections I had dried up. I have plenty of wood on my place but that takes time and a fair amount of effort. I need about 3 cords to keep the place comfortable through the winter. My sisters partner cut at least a cord in the winter, I helped by splitting and stacking it. I look at that little wood pile very proudly but it was also a reminder that I needed to get serious about getting some more. I felled 3 trees earlier in the spring, thinking I would limb them and buck them myself. I never got around to it. Last week an industrious neighbor stopped by and offered up wood cutting services. Thank the universe that watches over me.

He cut up the trees, making neat piles of the limbs and bucked rounds. I collected them up in our little trailer pulled by the rider mower. I split and stacked the lot and I think I have another cord. The wood is a bit wet and will need some time to dry, which it will do under our sweet carport. I feel a huge sense of accomplishment, I got my wood further along and helped out a member of my neighborhood community. In total my neighbor cut up the 3 trees I cut down plus 3 more that were too big for me to tackle with my saw. Additionally, he brush-hogged the whole area where the pigs were last year and also cut the blackberries off my manure pile. It was heavenly.

I have a cord each of alder and cedar and now I just need a load of fir. Dry fir if possible.

Living With Dial-Up

The book is finished, for now. I had to FTP the three fairly huge PDF files to the client today. As the internet knows (because it sees my computer like an x-ray machine) I am on dial-up here at Rowanville. This is a topic of great discussion for me and anybody I encounter who has any understanding of what I do for a living, or anyone who lives near me and suffers the same digital disadvantage. Living with dial-up is like living with impotence, only they have Viagra. I have nothing, no options, just resignation that anytime I need to send a few large files or receive the same, I have to pack up my laptop and hit the road. I can handle things under about 10megs but it still takes forever. If the files are under 50megs I go to Pearl's school and sit in the library on small chairs. If the files are larger like 100megs, I have discovered the library in my town of Everson is best.

So off I went to the library after dropping Pearl at school. I arrived at 9:07am to discover that the library didn't open until 10:00. I sent a few emails from the car and then went over to the coffee place which is owned by one of the moms from school. While I was inside I ran into a woman who used to babysit Pearl now and then. She works in one of the local bank branches, the same one that DoubleMRanch did work for a few years back. We had an enlightening discussion, it was good to see her looking so well. I got my Tea and headed back to the library. I let the dog out for a quick pee in the empty lot next to the library. Two dogs barked at us while Luna sniffed at their fence, hackles up. I strolled around the lot a bit and looked at the bushes by the library. There was some sweet looking rhody I might have to ask my friend Binda about.

At 10:00am they opened the library doors and in I went along with several other people who had been slowly gathering in the parking lot. I picked my spot, back of the library but facing forward, enabling me to key an eye on everything. Happily I had conversations with several people I know from my community. My neighbor who is a retired art teacher and I discussed the problems we have on the road with unlicensed 4 wheelers ridden by high school boys, and... wait for it...dial-up!. I also spoke to a couple of the women who work at the library, both artists. Another photographer friend stopped over and told me about a show of his work in Bellingham. I spoke with 3 strangers briefly. I ended up working for about 3 hours on the final section of the book while the first two sent. I downloaded some other job materials and finally sent the last book files.

To some the inconvenience of not having hi-speed is daunting, an annoyance, something that must be fixed. It is almost a point of shame and embarrassment to me at times. But today, it felt like an irresistible opportunity for enrichment and connection with my community.