This One's For Syd

This entry is for my friend Syd in her recent post she mentioned making a list of traits she was looking for in a partner but wasn't sure she was ready to do it. Above is just such a list, made by me in 2001. I don't know how or why love works but somehow writing these words on those bits of paper so long ago helped me to get clear about what I had been lacking and what I wanted in a partner. Mark is all these things and more, he's a perfect fit for me and I think I am a pretty good match for him. I used to think I had conjured Mark up, created him from wishes. I see now that getting what we need is possible in all aspects of our lives. We can choose what we want and we can make it happen but the first step is being able to visualize it in concrete terms. Make the list Syd, take the first step. A good relationship of your own creation is just down the road.

Walk of Life

It's hard for me not to sing the Dire Straits song "Walk of Life", I am not even sure what that song is about, baseball maybe but I like the refrain, "Do the walk of life". It's up beat and it describes well how I felt when I set out last Saturday. It was a perfect morning, the air was cool when I left at 5:30am, walking up out of my place to the road, the first of many roads I would encounter over the next five and a half hours. The sky was blue and clear and there was a single jet trail heading south above me, the vapor trail fanning out, dispersing into the atmosphere. I consciously slowed my speed from my normal get it done pace. I wanted to savor every step of this walk.

After an hour I arrived in my little town of Everson. It takes me about 7 minutes to drive this distance and it was hard not to see the obvious absurdity of this rather slow mode of transportation but after a short break I soldiered on. My route took me over the Nooksack River and along a sadly short section of the Bay to Baker Trail next to the Mission Rd between Everson and Strandell. I encountered an abandoned mountain bike which got me thinking about the events leading up to it's being left on it's side. I thouhgt maybe someone was in the bushes, perhaps living or merely relieving themselves, but there was no one to be seen and I put it down to mischief. I saw several shoelaces in the road posing as snakes, I saw no snakes. Another hour passed and I really had to pee. This is the worst part of walking the roads, there are no shops to go into and not enough woods either. I noted an abandoned house with overgrown shrubs and positioned myself for a quick whiz. I laughed about it for the next half an hour. I stopped in at a friends house and had a proper clean up, added to my water supply, took a tylenol and carried on. I had been walking for 2 and half hours at this point and it felt strange to be suddenly inside talking to people, my eyes had a hard time adjusting to the small space. On I went along the Central Road up a big hill, I passed a woman running, many cows and a grounded electric fence that snapped at me as I walked along it. I spotted a port-a-potty and made a mental note of it for the future. I bet it was grim inside, port-a-potties always are. I went west for awhile and then turned south again on the Noon Road. I passed the farm where my horse was born. The sun was shining on my left side, I turned my cap a little to shade my cheek. I passed a flat piece of leather with paws, once a possum. Small creatures scampered in the tall grass and I thought about being careful not to stumble into the deep ditches that line the roads. At the corner of Hemmi and Noon I emailed Mark. My left hip was starting to hurt. I kept going, it was about 9, but felt like noon. MT Baker and the Sisters followed me along, shining spectacularly in the sun.

I dropped down into a great curve on the Noon Rd, past a golf course and sat down in a little driveway to doctor my right index toe that seemed to have grown an inch in my runner. I drank more water and thought about taking notes but didn't. I pulled out one of my hard boiled eggs and got back to walking, peeling it as I went. A few cars passed by, but not many. I worried a little about being vulnerable but thought I could easily dissapear into the woods at the edge of the road if I heard one of these cars slow and then come back to trouble me. I had my rape whistle and my pepper spray. By the time I got to the Smith Road I realized my hip was really hurting too much and I felt unsure of the route I could take to get to Pearl's dads house. I emailed Mark again and suggested he look for me on the MT Baker HWY. I was 2 miles away and 4 hours into the walk.

I made it to the Highway and a little beyond before Mark caught up to me in the big red car. I hadn't anticipated how hard it would be to walk the last few miles on the edge of the highway. The shoulder is narrow and I tried to make my self small, keeping my elbows in and my head down. It was nerve wracking as I felt pretty wobbly after 5 hours of moving I focused on not stumbling.

I didn't make it to the Boundary Bay Brewery for a beer as originally envisioned. But, as Mark pointed out it was only 11am. We picked up Pearl and went and sat downtown, had a coffee and watched the world pass by. It felt good to sit still and collect my thoughts about what I had just accomplished.

There was a point during the walk where I just felt I could go on forever, step after step. Take one and then take one more and who knows where you might end up. We figured I had walked almost 18 miles which I felt quite pleased by.

Not Quite the Wandering Jew

Tomorrow is the big day. I am making my epic trek to Bellingham from my place in Everson. It's 20 miles so I am not quite the wandering Jew, my trek will end, hopefully at my desired destination and not a moment sooner. Why I am doing it? Good question. Because I can I suppose. Because I want to feel what it feels like to walk 20 miles. How long will it take? 7 hours maybe. I am leaving early. What do I hope to gain from it? I am not sure, we'll see I guess. I think the answer will be revealed to me as I walk, and I will report it back to you when I get home. What am I taking with me? Tylenol, water, Gatorade, nuts, raisins, salmon sandwiches and moleskin. People walk long distances for many reasons, survival, redemption, punishment. Earlier this year I was not in a good place and when I had begun to feel better this notion of walking the 20 miles to town struck me as a goal that might keep me on track for awhile, and it has. So off I will go to join the legions of long distance walkers, moving slowly across the landscape, feeling time and distance brush past me. Maybe it's the last symbolic act of shedding my past and walking into my future. See you on the flipside.

I Heart the Interweb

So I am sitting here this morning in my office in Podunk Washington, the dog asleep on the couch. It's rainy, it's grey. I am designing some 4th O'July ads for the Bellingham Farmers Market that are due today. I like to leave things until the last moment. It heightens the excitement level in my life. In between designing the ads I am reading an interview by my friend Maria McLeod with Poet Lucia Parillo and I am struck by it. I stop and draft a quick poem to be refined later for a little series I am working on which I hope will mark the final chapter in a rather confounding period in my development. I go back to the ads and notice that an email has come in from Etsy. It is from a writer inquiring about one of my wrapping paper images. He is writing a Design reference book for Rockport publishers who I am coincidentally designing a book for at the moment. I call him up, we have a nice chat about letterpress, not being a designer he has just discovered it and all it's wonders. I hang up the phone and send off the ads and just feel really good about the world and how connected we all are.

The image for today is of a map of the US, maybe a nice embroidered one on a souvenir scarf and there are red ex's on Everson, Phoenix, Olympia, Sedro Woolley and Boston with red embroidered lines connecting them all. (Happy sigh).

Work Flow

Things are not moving as fast as they might here in the office now that school is out. I refuse to dump Pearl into daycamp, instead choosing to keep her home and share these nice slow summer days with her. My productivity slumps and I have to work like hell at the end of the week to catch up, but so be it. I did design this little poster in a hurry on Monday, the book I am working on is half done and will get sent off today, and I will finish the book cover comps I started on Monday with the help of my lovely neighbor Emily. She has graciously lent me all her blue ribbons to photograph for the background. Now if I could just get my website redesigned.

Random Access Memory

I am experiencing a wave of memory lately. I have been taking some longish walks in preparation for my big 20 mile walk to town. I walked for over 2 hours the other day and my mind really wanders in the process. I may have been approaching a hypoglycemic state but being a dedicated seeker of excitement I went with it. I had been walking for about an hour and forty five minutes, I was getting sweaty. I ran my hand into my t-shirt along my breast bone and I could feel the sweat. Suddenly, it was the early to mid-late-80s and I was back in LA in the basement of the Park Plaza Hotel at the MacArthur Park YMCA. I swam there with the old men from the neighborhood who never really seemed to get used to seeing a young, pale co-ed like myself in the pool. I also worked out there with a friend and looking back, I don't entirely remember the details of how this all transpired, but my friend Rebecca and I hooked up with a big black guy named Buddy who, offered to work us out. He was big enough that he could lift me up, his hands on my waist, to the chin-up bar where I would hang on, squirm a bit, pull myself up once and drop to the floor. My arms were always my weakest body part, pathetic for my size. Now in hindsight, who knows what weird fantasy we were fulfilling for this probable ex-con, 2 luscious redheads, but at the time it seemed innocent enough. He had a little routine he would run us through and when we would begin to sweat he would push us harder and proclaim " I see the holy water coming, there it is, the holy water". We began to refer to these work out sessions as "Buddy's Body Church". Time and memory are compressed and I have no idea how many of these sessions we actually had, but as this is my blog specifics need not enter into it. It was summer and we were under employed. My father was supporting me, I am not sure how Rebecca paid the rent on her small bungalow. When Buddy was nowhere to be found we would wander down 6th street in the relentless LA sun to Al's Diner at Rampart and eat a big breakfast, the obvious alternative to exercise. I think Buddy just dissappeared from the brethren of the Y and we got on with our studies when fall came.

I haven't thought about the past much for various reasons, too many other things on my mind, but walking around on these long pre-soltice evenings seems to open all these old pathways. I can see 6th street early in the morning as I walk past the tiny Guatamalan woman with her fleet of tiny children in tow, collecting cardboard, packing it on her back. Past Lim's Chinese Restaurant with it's grimy decor, I wonder where his small boys are now, 20 plus years later. Past the dank liquor store where I discovered the true difference between Sprite and 7-Up. Past long-armed Frankie, the ex-jockey who ran the parking lot behind the Park Plaza and gave us free Lucky Stikes to smoke and oaid for our specials at Lim's. This was my life. Car alarms going constantly and the whole scene sunbleached and barren, wide open as my future was in those days.

Walking these long north west county roads under the bright high overcast of June, my blood sugar lagging, I have been feeling that same open expanse of possibilty.

Charm and Good Looks

We wake Eddy up early on Fridays. He goes out on a bus to an adult daycare place where he mixes with other old codgers, he gets a bath while he is there too. Often when we wake him up he is a bit confused and often thinks he is dreaming. Today he said he was just lying there and while he was willing to accept where he was he had no recollection of what he had done to get here. I told him he had done it based on charm and good looks. He said he was willing to accept that too.

This Week In Design

Meant to post this poster last week but I was preoccupied with designing the matching newspaper insert and various other things. (Basically I am really grateful to have lots of work at the moment.) This piece was inspired by the Hatch Show Print exhibit and Sustainable Connections' Michelle Grandy. I saw the show a little bit ago in Seattle, all that "Live in Person" stuff really got to me. I had the big lino cut sun in my arsenal of images and added to it a bit. For some reason the original cut did not have a perfect circle at the center, what was I thinking. I was happy to get out my ancient compass, draw the circle and re-cut the little dahling. I like cutting lino blocks, it enables me to be super obsessive which I kind of dig. I go at it so hard sometimes it makes my hands ache. The concept for the poster was Michelle's idea, the Ring the Bell game one might find on a Fair midway. I have been a long time fan of anything remotely circus inspired. I always love Michelle's ideas, she has good eye and we work well together. I devised the copy to fit the concept. Devised the copy, I hesitate to say wrote. I often write a little headline for these pieces based on the direction I get, it all comes together seemingly out of the ether. I proofed the elements on the press and then scanned them. Am pretty pleased with the results.