Across the Miles

 There is something in the light today that keeps drawing me back to my hometown of Mayfield, NY. More specifically, Dennie Loop and my grandmother's house. Perhaps it's the hazy quality of the light today, or a quiet Sunday afternoon in late August enkindling this bout of homesickness.  This yearning is always triggered by clouds, the light, a breeze, the color of trees in autumn, the smell of water or roasting chicken...whatever the catalyst, I intuit that it is not some random misfiring of my grey matter. It is a message across time and space, a commandment to slow down, tune in, remember or re-member, an invitation to rejoin the core and essential part of who I am and who I hope to be. A celebration of what I am made of.  Allowing all of it to wash over me sure does feel good and quenches an existential thirst-a thirst I wasn't aware of until had a drink. A  bittersweet and restorative tonic.

Darrin Stephens, Michael Stedman, Brian Kinney and Mike Baxter.  What do these four fictional TV characters have in common? Bonus points if you can name the shows they were a part of.

I have always been enamored with advertising, especially print. And mostly lifestyle and fashion.  It is one of my dirty little secrets. For me it is the visual storytelling; not so much the emotional manipulation and gross augmentation of consumerism. 

The common theme is advertising. The shows: Bewitched, Thirty Something, Queer As Folk, and Last Man Standing.

This is Criminal

 I listen to a wide array of podcasts, and a few are about spies and espionage. On a recent episode the story was about the terrorist threat that launched the liquids rule for air travel.  The narrator was sharing a situation where a suspected terrorist was being watched as he would go into a wooded area of a public park in the wee hours of the morning. Eventually, it was discovered that he was burying supplies to make bombs.  Seems on brand, right. Not as much was the struggle the guy seemed to have in figuring out the digging of the hole: after he and his cronies were busted the investigators, discovered he had gone into the forest and poured water on the ground believing that would magically make the dirt disappear and they uncovered on his computer searches for how to dig a hole.

Imagine...the actions of this mastermind have dictated how much shampoo, toothpaste, sunscreen, etc. you can carry with you on vacation.  If only the nefarious would use their powers for good instead of evil.

Shaken and Stirred

 Admittedly, I am coming late to the table of the last installment of 007 and Daniel Craig as James Bond. Somehow, I had avoided any spoilers of a two-year-old movie. However, I watched it today.  And I was gob smacked.  I watch Bond movies regularly as I find them aspirational and a heck of a lot of fun. Somehow, I had never seen No Time to Die. I watched it today because it was free on Prime.  I was blissfully unaware this was the last in the Craig tenure. He has been my favorite and it is always bittersweet when a new actor takes on the role. Suffice it to say (and not give it away entirely if someone hasn't seen or heard about it) I was a few degrees beyond verklempt at the ending. 

In thinking about the franchise moving forward I can think of a few storylines: the female 007 takes over; the agent that assisted him in Cuba moves into the spot; Madeleine or Mathilde (with some creative time jumping) fill the void or Madeleine is pregnant with James' son-James and James Bond returns.

Damn you, James.

Anthropocene* Totem Pole

 Historically totem poles have been created by several indigenous cultures as an expression of honoring their leaders and to convey the experiences of the people who erect them. 

What story are we telling?

*The Anthropocene is defined as the era of human influence and impacts on the earths systems and biodiversity.

Quantum Entanglement with Karen Carpenter

 

It was 1971. Most likely a Saturday afternoon when I walked into my grandmother's living room.  The TV was on and Karen Carpenter was singing Superstar.  I was transfixed. A truly pivotal moment in my 8 years of living. Fittingly, it was also my grandmother who called twelve years later to tell me Karen Carpenter had died. 

I was a groupie before I even knew what a groupie was. I was a member of the fan club, saw them perform multiple times at SPAC and listened to their albums an unfathomable number of hours. Luckily, my best friend was also a mega- fan.  We even lip-synced to Jambalaya at an elementary school talent show.

Maisie, my 15-year-old, has an incredible ear and wildly eclectic musical tastes.  So, when a group discourse began about what we should listen to at "game night, someone asked Maisie what she listened to, and the Carpenters were part of the itinerary.   Everybody, ages mid-sixties to teen, in unison, chimed in about their appreciation for the Carpenters and the tragedy of Karen's death. While the Carpenters were streaming, I experienced a surreal moment. I looked at the people assembled and thought "50 years ago would you have ever predicted you would be here now, with this assortment of people listening to the Carpenters"?!

Cockroach Poker snapped me from my space/time warp, and I was pressed to ascertain whether my colleague was lying or telling the truth, as is the crux of the game. Unsure, I recruited the aid of Karen Carpenter from the beyond. And smooth as ever she was right.

                                                                                                     

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJmmaIGiGBg

Old Fat Lady Seeks Sponsors

 

I was thinking about how I wanted a Half-Dome The North Face tee-shirt like Jimmy Chin's.  This led to fanning my desire for new trail running shoes (looking at you Altra), some climbing shoes (Evolve, La Sportiva?) for me and Maisie and our developing love of bouldering for which we could use a rock gym membership (Salt Pump, Evo). Of course, I could use a new bike (Norco Bigfoot, Cannondale, Mongoose) to get to the gym. These thoughts gravitate to camping and more and more gear and culminate in capital T trips-Alaska, Africa, Scandinavia, Everglades, The Keys (which leads to fishing and boats), the desert southwest, the PNW, the Rockies, polar bears in Canada- you get the drift. That's when it dawned on me, I need a sponsor! As I am currently unemployed, I would have the time to employ the merch and travel to the locales to use it. All the career gurus encourage aiming for the job you want!

Ostensibly I would slim down and metamorphose into Mature Athletic Woman Seeks to Keep Sponsors.

 

 More Badass Than I Look

     My hero Yvon Chouinard has written and talked about intentionally using one fly with Tenkara exclusively for over a year.  He would change size and pattern, but always a pheasant tail and partridge. 

     Unintendedly, I have fished most of my life exclusively with Rapala floating gold or silver lures-also in various sizes. The one deviation from this color pattern is a mackerel one for stripper fishing in the Atlantic.

     My memories of fishing really have no beginning...they just are.  We fished ALOT and OFTEN when I was growing up. We went as an extended family every Saturday night. We would pack up sandwiches and assorted snacks or cook hot dogs over a beach fire. I started out using a cane or bamboo pole and a nightcrawler. One of my earliest memories is of going with my father to his boss's farm and fishing from a rowboat on the farm pond.  I caught a bull head/hornpout and as it was swinging on the line in the boat waiting for my father to take it off the hook one of the barbs stuck me in the knee. I fondly remember fishing at Lake Algonquin also for bull head with my grandmother, parents, uncle and cousin. I graduated to an open face spinning reel- one of which took a swim in the Sacandaga after a humongous carp tore it from the shore, my fully clothed and shod father, madly running in after it until the water got too deep.  We regularly fished Abenaki, Lewey, Northville Lake, Nancy Pond and the Mohawk River.  We spent time on the lake in our boat drift fishing with crawlers and red and white spinners for walleyes. In those halcyon days things were cheap, you could buy cans of soda for ten cents apiece or twelve for a dollar. When the can was empty you simply sank it to the bottom of the lake-we weren't yet woke to what we were doing to ourselves and the environment. Eventually the old and temperamental Johnson Sea Horse had more bad days than good and was retired. 

 It was around this time that my father and I started fishing by the bridge that separates the little lake from the big lake in Mayfield (NY). The genesis of my decades long dance with the Rap. We would go after supper, him on one side of the causeway and me on the other (usually the left). We caught small mouth, largemouth bass, pumpkinseed, chub, pickerel and crappie; all catch and release. It was so gratifying to start with a fresh out of the box lure.  By the end of the evening that lure would have teeth marks and scrapes all over it. This is where I bested my phobia of bats.  At sundown was the best fishing.  It is also when the dinner bell rings for bats to start their nightly mosquito banquet. They cruised with mercurial precision around my ankles, so close and so fast I could feel their wing beats.

I would steel myself and coach myself through with the age-old angler affirmation "Just one more cast".  Eventually, darkness would require us to relent. Depending on the veracity of the fishing, I forgot about the leathery wings at my ankles.

Decades hence I continued to fish with Rapala. A catch and release enthusiast, I bend the barbs back and remove one of the treble hooks. I play around with the depth by cadence of retrieval and entice hits by twitches and jerks of the line. It's not often that I am skunked.  My catches are not record- setting, although I did simultaneously catch two small bass on the same lure at the same time once! I endured an ice fishing trip with a guy who stated he would rather fish all day and experience a single catch as long as it was superb versus a busy day of flags with "junk fish" on the hook.  I will attest that begets an undoubted tiresome day.

The joy is in the process not the outcome. Rapala Forever!

In progress

 This blog has been woefully neglected. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since I began this endeavor. I have been busy dipping my toes into that river and many others (including the Yellowstone this past summer).

Our baby is now 15, a freshman in high school, learning to drive and testing her own waters.  I am no longer working for Beacon after nearly two decades.  Friendships have gotten richer and poorer. We've all experienced life during a pandemic.  Climate change cannot be denied any longer.  I have thrown my hat into local government as a member of the conservation commission for South Portland. HE and I have been together over 21 years.  I will be 60 this year... time to get back to work.  The type of work that writing this blog gifts me.

And I am hard worker.

Blue Collar, but Not a Blue Hair

 

 The past few months have been interesting.  In July we went out West, fulfilling a long-time dream. Returning to my professional job of nearly 19 years I was notified that my role (along with several hundred others) was being "RIF"ed- a victim of a reduction in force. 

At my next birthday I will be sixty years old. I don't picture myself as a senior and am taken aback and slightly amused when someone in the general public treats me as such. There may be a factor of ageism as I continue my job search. It's hard to tell since I haven't had to look for nearly two decades and I am keen on changing my field.  

Within days of leaving my professional job I returned to work as a long-term high school substitute teacher.  The director of the school, who is a friend, told me she thought I would do well with the students because I was "like a laid-back gray-haired dude". Translation: I wouldn't get into power struggles with them. The work was similar to a lot of the education and support work I have done, enjoy and am good at offering.  I didn't walk away from that job kicking myself because I had finally found my life's calling after 40 years. 

My next money-making effort was with UPS as a seasonal personal vehicle delivery driver. I am proud of this one because I proved to myself I am suitable for labor involving heavy lifting, physical activity and exposure to the elements.  Activities I'm adept at romanticizing.

These forays required learning new skills and routines, using new technology and forging relationships outside of my comfort zone. Evidence of my resilient, adaptable and curious nature.

I may be adrift, but I am not floundering. 

Creative Blockage

Someone in our house recently had a colonoscopy and that has got me thinking about my own chronic mental constipation.  There is so much I want to be doing, but NEVER get to...and it's not like I don't have the time.  If anything I probably have more free time, in small bits at least, now that the kinder is getting older.  So, as I used to say to the eating disordered patients I worked with, "It really doesn't matter why, we may never know why, so let's focus our energies on moving ahead- toward what it is we want".

So, substituting sienna for Senna, I am going to paint, write, or work on a print daily.

A Random Olio of Things Occupying Space in My Bean

Declaration of Cultural Revolutionaries
multipotentialates
creating a better band aid vs. applying them
winter
Simplicity Parenting
the failure of public education
fiddle playing
art making
writing as a life's purpose
how much I love that little dog asleep downstairs
being youthful is about changing with the times-call Rachel Rae-a for cripe's sake
don't be a Debbie Downer
strive for hardiness and resilience
crossfit
love and embracing it
art
Canada

They Don't Call It Planet Fitness For Nothing

A new piece of equipment showed up at the gym the other day.

We all reacted to it like the hominins to the monolith in 2001 A Space Odyssey. Fortunately, nobody was clubbed to death-this time.

Existential Chafe

E.O. Wilson in his book Letters to a Young Scientist suggests that if you are not good at math, all is not lost, if your desire is to be a scientist  He coaches the importance of finding a field of science that supports your level of math competency while you continue to strengthen your skills. Oh, how I wished I had this guidance when I was in my early college years. While never the top of my class in my high school Regents chemistry and physics classes, I was able to hold my own. In college I withdrew from freshman chemistry with an average of about 19 the first go around.  I took it again and failed it. Third time, a night class after I had graduated, I nailed it with a B average, but by then my confidence and self image had been annihilated. This required a total revamping of my two year college plan and precluded me from advancing in the medical technology program I was in.  The problem was not the "science" but the math.

Helping Maisie ( who is quite skilled ) with her math has been exciting as I am finally getting some of the concepts and seeing patterns that I did not during my own education. Math is beautiful and extraordinary. I love reading and thinking about theoretical topics in physics and new ideas and advances in mechanics, computers,electronics, solar, energy, natural sciences. and yes, even math. This is more about the language and art of science.

Dr. Wilson also suggests one find what one was meant to do and pursue it-doggedly. If only knowing what I was meant to do was clearly defined and I could be passionately devoted and dedicated to it! I have made my career(s) in the social sciences and often try to think of myself as a social scientist. I know I have done some good and helped a few people and I hope that I have not caused any harm or suffering to those I have tried to help in my work (and in life for that matter). There have been times when my work has been exciting and felt noble and rewarding and many times when it has not;  when it has been a total soul suck.

What if what I am good at is something that I don't like?

When I worked in an eating disorders program years ago, we often had group discussions around ethical, moral and existential dilemmas ala Scruples. I recall one question being along the lines of if you had to choose between keeping your physical health or your cognitive/mental abilities which would you choose.  Without hesitation I chose my physical, corporal abilities. There was much surprise among the group as I had always positioned myself as a strong proponent of cognitive, rational thought and inquiry. I remember reasoning at the time that if one is able to move and function in day-to day living, they could always do things to improve their mental short comings. Like in the Star Trek episode with Jeffery Hunter who played Captain Kirk's mentor, Captain Pike... He had been badly injured.  He was mentally alert and sharp, but physically diminished to a "talking head" as his atrophied body was housed in a machine in order to keep him alive, but it was dead. To me, this seemed intolerable. A cruel fate.

At 51, I am experiencing arthritic changes in my knees that at times limit my activity. It is the fruition of a warning given to me by a nurse who completed one of my required sports physicals in college.  She foretold of my joint pains and advised me to eat fewer french fries.

Today, I stood on the back porch and watched two dynamic and wholly magnificent dogs chase and wrestle one another. They are in the prime of their youths muscles rippling, bodies freely bending this way  and that way-alive. I stood behind a porch pillar to protect my most recently inflamed knee (Meniscus tear). Made me think of Mary Oliver's multiple poems about her dog Percy.

I live with a 7 year old who embraces the wonders of her body and fully inhabits it and all it can do.  Youth in dog years or human years is truly amazing from a vantage point of 60 decades on the planet.

I feel old. I do not think myself old as I do believe 50 is the new 40, but it is still a shock when my body does not do what it seems to me it ought. So, I try to be mindful and grateful for what it does manage and I work at cultivating more mobility, strength and pain free days-and especially nights.

Here's to many more years of life-french fries and all!

This is How We Do Winter-Well, One Way Anyhow

Stand on the bulk head

Forgo a sled-use your back instead

Do some American Gothic s'more eating

use the buddy system to eat more s'mores

enjoy said s'mores

have a fire

invite the dog

so she can guard your s'mores

Some of the Things That Have Distracted Me From Attending to This Blog or How My Pagan Ways Brought Snow to Maine

As Spring approaches I get melancholy and suffer in the throes of my self-diagnosed  SAD (seasonal affective disorder) Atypical. I LOVE Winter. This winter started off extremely promising with measurable snow on the ground at Thanksgiving, but by Christmas-nada. On 12/27/14 I predicted in a month's time the ground would be covered. It wasn't, but I was only off by a week or so. After a long ski weekend back home to the Adirondacks it began to snow. 

 And snow. 

And then snow some more. 

love the fish bones pattern on the snow from the picket fence and the winter sun

 I attribute this great fortune to my purchase of lapel pins at Lapland Lake XC Center

 and my hanging snow altar.

 

You're welcome to my "snow mates".  For all the others, I encourage you to embrace Winter.

Exhibit A

she's from Georgia

but still gets her kicks from the white stuff

C'mon, get out and play.

Thanksgiving

This has always been my favorite holiday.  This year is somewhat reminiscent of when I was 5 or 6 years old (circa 1969) and there was a significant snow in upstate NY.  As I remember it, we went into my Grammy Grunt's, ate, came out to get in the car to go home, when we discovered over a foot of snow had fallen!
This year (2014) it is Thanksgiving eve and we are in the midst of a snow storm that is expected to dump between 6 and 10 inches of the white stuff. For this I am thankful. I am thankful for my family and friends, without whom I would be lost and hollow and my furry loved ones, past and present. The past few days have been emotionally challenging and unsettling for me but has offered up an opportunity for me to truly recognize and appreciate the value of sincere, reciprocal and deeply meaningful friendships and to jettison others that come up lacking.

Peace and plenty be with you and yours this holiday season.

It's The Wood That Makes It Good

I have had a life long love affair with wood. I am reborn being in the woods, especially hardwoods (add snow and I am floating on air), I love the smell of it-burning, being chopped, sawed,,standing, the sound of it, the feel of it. Splitting wood, since I was a teenager, is therapeutic to me. I recovered from a broken heart in high school while splitting more wood than my folks could use-thank goodness there was plenty needing splitting as I am rather morose and dramatic when it comes to love loss.
There was a national television show about wood in Norway a few winters back and a book about it that was quite popular in Scandanavia; I can relate.

So this weekend, we went from this

to this

It was a very good weekend.

Reading is FUNdamental

I have never self-identified as a reader of books. Although, in retrospect, there are a number of books from my youth I remember-  The Children's Pictorial Dictionary ( originally my father's, and I still continue to count it among my possessions), books about animals, outdoor survival skills, horror movies, dogs, science...Golden Books, various field guides.  During summer vacation a trip to the Book Mobile at the fire station was a highlight of the week.  I read a wide array magazines, usually cover to cover.  I enjoy puns and semantics, scored high on the verbal sections of the SAT, GRE and MAT and abysmally low in the math portions. Perhaps, it is best to say I am not a reader of fiction. I have thought about pursuing a degree in creative writing, but am always turned off by the required reading.

Maisie, my six year old, is at the age when reading is truly fundamental to her scholastic success (and beyond).  In an effort to model the joys of literacy to her, I began, this summer, to make an orchestrated effort to read books. Non-fiction. I read Adrift by Steven Callahan,  Yossi Ghinsberg's  Jungle,  Barbara Ehrenreich's Living with a Wild God and Curious Minds; How a Child Becomes a Scientists.  These last two have steered me toward a return to more science -related material-I just finished Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Sean B. Carroll. Tonight I picked up Melissa Coleman's This Life is in Your Hands and ordered a book about Alaskan prostitutes during the gold rush by Lael Morgan, a former employer, Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush: Secret History of the Far North.

May we both reap the rewards and benefits of a lifetime of reading and learning.