But enough about me

Here's what I've been learning about for the past week or so.

Tuzigoot:

Montezuma Castle:

and Montezuma Well:

If you follow the text links to the National Park Service pages, you can learn TONS, take virtual tours, and pretend I'm standing next to you telling you all about it.  This illusion would be best served if you turn on all the brightest lights, aim a heat lamp (or two) at yourself, and paint the ceiling the brightest blue you can find.  Occasionally, tickle your own ankles and wonder if that could be a Mojave rattlesnake, a black widow spider, a scorpion or just a stray cactus thorn.  Dust your socks with red-brown powdery soil, give yourself a slight sunburn, overextend your muscles juuust enough so your calves feel tight when you wake up in the morning.  Dress entirely in khaki, brown, gray or green and associate only with people wearing these colors.  Maintain a near-constant state of amazed, exhausted disbelief.

POOF!  You're in Arizona.

Dear everyone:

Hello again, all! 

I am now firmly ensconced in Arizona, and really loving it.  I’ve had two days of training for my position, really like the folks I’m working with, really like the job I’ll be expected to do, and sort of wish I could stop training and just get on with doing it! 

But the learning is fun, and there is a lot to learn, from plant identification to register procedures to local geography and geology.  And then there’s everyone’s names.  It doesn’t help that one third of my coworkers are similarly salt-and-pepper bearded older men.  I’ve diagrammed the shapes of their facial hair for easier identification in the wild, so hopefully that will help.  It’s a good thing everyone here is required to wear nametags.  Best cheat ever.

I do have a new address, as expected and as promised.  It is:

Me
PO Box 1337
Rimrock, AZ 86335

Please send me many lovely things, keeping in mind always that I only have one small car to carry things back in, and a tendency to keep just about everything.

Other recent highlights: today I was mere feet from petroglyphs pounded into a cliff by stone tools hundreds of years before Gutenberg ever strung two letters together.  The designs at the V-V (say “vee bar vee” for some reason) Heritage Site were intricate, beautiful, and even scientific.  There were patterns believed to represent the solstice, and the time when corn should be planted, and even a depiction of a mountain lion taking down a deer.  And a labyrinthine spiral, my favorite shape.  I do so love those Jungian constants between cultures.

I’ve been living in my own apartment temporarily while the SCAs who’ve been here over the summer end their terms, pack and vacate my more permanent housing.  It’s been rather wonderful to play house and keep an immaculate kitchen and cook tiny dinners for myself with the sparest of tools and ingredients.  I realized yesterday after making myself some beans, rice, fried egg and bananas (try it if you don’t believe me – with lots of cumin), that I didn’t have any salt to cook with.  It made for some boring beans, but an interesting realization – that the ancient Sinagua (the folks who built the prehistoric cliff dwellings that now necessitate my interpretation) had mined salt from an area four miles away to use and trade, and were clearly living it up better than I in this area.  Nevertheless, it’s been interestingly satisfying living a pared-down life.  Granted, it’s only pared down because I’m too lazy to fully unpack my car only to have to repack it later (enough of that nonsense).  And I know it won’t last, because Halloween is coming and I am already finding myself wishing I hadn’t donated away that ugly, green, inexplicably combined leather-and-sweater garment, because it could so perfectly have been amended into a Peter Pan costume.  Sigh.  Oh, well.  I’ll make do with what I have, and long for what I don’t.  A-ha!  A theme!  A repeated theme!

PS: My solitary apartment has no internet access, so occasionally I make a pilgrimage to the local Burger King (true) to use their free wireless.  This means a longer wait time for any e-responses from me, bigger gaps between blarg posts, an apparent inability to post pictures of my adventures and a slightly greasy keyboard.  However, your call is important to us and once I hunker down in my shared place, I’ll only have to steal my boss/next-door neighbor’s wireless.  Then, pictures aplenty.

Fear and Leaving in... where am I again?

I know, everybody, I know!  I'm sorry.  In the great halls of Where the Heck Are Yas, it goes:

1. Carmen Sandiego
2. D.B. Cooper
3. Waldo
4. me

But don't think I wasn't paying attention this whole time.  Here's my life of late (so very late):

Chapter 1 - Oceanside (Portland to Arcata, CA)


Leaving the morning of the 14th was harder than I thought it would be.  Details to be attended to, all packed in (back window still visible from driver's seat - bonus!), making doubly sure everything was accounted for and in the car.  Minus the cat - that was a tough goodbye, to say nothing of the protracted farewells of good friends the night before, or the brutal 5am wakeup call to kiss my parents before they started their day.


I drove I-5, dull but straightforward.  Catnapped in the Safeway parking lot in Florence for about seven minutes before I thought better of it and bought two bottled Starbucks mochas.  After that, the drive and my music were much peppier.  I traveled farther than I had planned that day, and ended up passing through some familiar territory - the mighty redwoods, which I have twice traveled by the ghosts of roadtrips past.


At sunset, just south of the Elk Meadow campground, I pulled off the road and walked a beach that I had been to seven years and one month before (give or take a week).  That bygone day, the sun was a pomegranate stain in the gray sky - forest fires raged somewhere nearby, but far enough away that neither us nor the elk were that worried.  My friends and I had sat in the sand passing around a pita bread torn into the shape of a man.  We each named our distant fears and then (I believe) tore up the bread man, buried him, burned him - I don't remember which.  Now is not the venue to name those fears again, but I remember I was surprised by the truth of it, which stayed with me for a long while.  Standing on that beach again, more or less by accident, watching an orange disc sink through the cloud bank, I was struck by how I now had an entirely new population of fears - these much more mundane but all the more salient.  That night in a soulless Super 8 (they are designed that way, are they not?) those hobgoblins danced about while I made a sandwich, watched some TV, tried to ignore their hair-pulling, arm-pinching ways.  I slept through their ruckus, but the next morning was a sluggish one, and I blame them.



Chapter 2 - California 1 (Arcata to Berkeley, CA)


The car ride was interesting by myself.  There were times when the music couldn't be loud enough, times when all I wanted was to bury myself in Harry's feelings towards Ginny, times when I had a nice chat with myself, and most surprisingly - times when I just drove in silence.  All these happened in turn on this day, as I discovered just how disappointingly highway-y 101 is in California.  Craving better scenery, I cut back over to the coast by way of a curvy, hilly, winding road.  I mean really.  Along this narrow-laned carnival ride, I pointedly thanked my mom and dad for teaching me how to accelerate out of curves and not to ride the brake downhill.  I never felt more immediately imperiled on this trip than when I saw a sign here saying "One lane road ahead."


But it ended up being worth it.  I found a beautiful beach with little caves, a thin layer of mist, and surprisingly warm shallow surf.  I could've stayed all day, but a great city and good friends beckoned.  I went on through Eureka, CA- another place I could see myself in an alternate universe, replete as it is with herb/natural health store, tattoo shops and Alternative Recycling Center.


Then I was at Mandy's, watching The Phantom Tollbooth (appropriately trippy for San Francisco), thinking about Chuck Jones and the Terrible Trivium.  I so dig the personification of concepts in that work (book/movie) - if you can truly call these creatures persons.  A spectre whose pleasant suggestions that you dig a hole through a mountain with a pin, move a sand dune grain by grain with a pair of tweezers, just so you don't have to deal with anything more pressing?  Achingly, embarrassingly familiar.


Chapter 3 - If You're Going to San Francisco (circa SF and Berkeley, CA)

A wonderful, filling, touristy, catch-uppy day that still left me feeling strangely unsatisfied.  Like I cheated myself somehow by choosing what I did from my LONG list of possible awesome things to do.  A necessary evil, but I remained a bit out-of-sorts with myself all day, grumptastic until I decided with Mandy's help thatthat feeling just meant I'd have a full visit planned for when I stop by on my way back.


I didn't see any Mythbusters waltzing down a hilly SF street, *sigh*, but I did see some beautiful murals (and Murials), a foggy, backlit but very famous bridge, some prison on an island (on a Rock, some might say), the real-life inside of the Exploratorium, innumerable interesting folk and a bar with a sign over the front that read, "Itching to get away from Portland, Ore".

I also didn't: see Castro, go to City Lights, raid the People's Park Free Box, eat any Ghiradelli's, have nearly enough time with my friends.  Next time.  Oh, next time!

Chapter 4 - Hotel California (Berkeley to Mitchell Caverns, Mojave Desert, CA)



I woke to a very foggy morning then drove through to a very hot and sunny inland day.  I kept passing signs proclaiming "Congress Created Dustbowl!" and did, indeed pass some fallow fields and one very skeletonized orchard.  I got thirstier and thirstier, watched spiky and spindly plants begin to populate the vista, the trees dwindle and disappear and the heat haze grow from a puddle on the distant blacktop to a whole mirage sea off in the distance (this really happened - I now understand those Loony Tunes 'desert hallucination' scenes so much better.  No one I saw turned into a ham shank, though).  I ended up on part of Historic Route 66.  This happened when the GPS decided that it would make more sense to send me to the office headquarters of the Mojave National Preserve (on Main Street in a tiny town) rather than the Preserve itself.  No thanks.  The part of 66 I was on this time was very like a sine wave and I was not into rollercoasters that late in the day.  Back on the main highway I went. 


I arrived at Mitchell Caverns as the sun was sinking behind the large mountain my campsite was at the base of.  Still plenty of light for me to pitch my new tent, eat my leftover dinner, marvel at the tenacity of my old car and watch the shadows lengthen across the dry valley.  A sunset painted with the softest, palest brush led to a spectacular night sky, complete withgossamer Milky Way stripe, satellites and two shooting stars.


Chapter 5 - This is Not my Beautiful House (Mojave to Montezuma Castle, Camp Verde, AZ)

Bright sun at 7:30am in a totally stifling tent = worst part.  Opening said tent to aforementioned desert vistas = not so bad.  I walked a brief path (after being told repeatedly by the tour guide/maintenance guy to watch out for snakes) to peek in Mitchell Caverns - a defunct silver mine.  It was gated, and underwhelming, but the cool underground breeze was pleasant.  I couldn't stick around for the 1:30 tour, though: today was The Day!


I rejoined Harry and Dumbledore in the pensieve and we three got back on the road.  Gradually the trees came back, and to quite a height and verdancy.  Opening the window, I was happy to discover that the wind wasn't stiflingly hot, as it had been the day before.  Enchanting though hardcore desert is, I think it would've been difficult for me to call it home for the next few months.  No worries - the country here was green and inviting, and some thunderheads gave a token sprinkle of water just to prove it wasn't as desolate as I thought.

...And then suddenly, I was here.  Dazed and dizzy and not quite sure I had my land legs back, I met my boss (jovial, kind, laughs at all my jokes.  Surprised he doesn't have a beard.) who gave me keys to my temporary housing (huge! apartment all to myself), a government-issue notepad and pen and bid me call if I had questions.  Since my only pressing thought was not quite a question but a four-letter  exclamation of general disbelief, I said I'd get back to him.


And what did I do, dear readers, at the end of such a long and storied journey?  I cleaned.  I poked about for a while, opened all the drawers, looked in the bedroom-- where I immediately found the dried carapace of a scorpion on my floor.  Hence, I cleaned!  Swept down all the cobwebs and vacuumed up any other carapaces that might be about (I hope, I hope).  A good ritual, even if the apartment was certainly livable before I took the hoover to it.  Though now I wish I would've kept that first rude symbol of welcome from AZ, I'm sure there will be more where he came from, and I will once again find myself crouching on the bed poking at some crunchy shape with a wire hanger.


I walked the visitor's path along Montezuma Castle after the park was closed for the day.  I saw some kind of cat with a very bushy tail, lots of birds, some lizards, and really excellent prehistoric architecture - all of which I will come to know very well soon enough.  When I got back, a brand-new coworker(!) was knocking on my door inviting me out to dinner and drinks.  There, my instant community discussed bad concert experiences, where to go for good Mexican food nearby, new slogans for the state of New Hampshire, Serenity, and which movies we would watch to celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  Nerds!  I've found nerds in the desert!  God bless 'em.


Before, when I imagined this place, I was excited about the job part.  I know this work will be fun and engaging for me, and I'm looking forward to starting on Sunday.  But I feel reassured by the people I've met so far, and can now think that the day to day business of living here might not suck, either.


I think... I'll be all right here.  I'm willing to wait and see.

Bon voyage?

((It's like before a big sneeze, if you truly believed that part about your heart stopping.))

Deep breath in.

(eep)

Deep breath out.

(eep)

Wish me something, folks, because I need it.

"Love is the stuff that keeps things moving so they stay together.  
Fear is the stuff that makes things hold so still they fall apart."
- from  Books of Magic (graphic novel), book 1

And away we go. (!?)

The lowdown, the rundown, the shakedown, the letdown

Okay, lads, here's the plan:

This afternoon I'm off to Seattle to hang with DiDi, Lauren and Kristi. New houses to explore, new guest beds to sleep in, new gossip to be traded. Nice.

Bright and early Sunday I'm taking the train(!) back to Portland. I have all these romantic notions in my head of how that could be, but it's unlikely any of them will pan out. For one, I don't have a floppy hat. And two, I don't think the steam really billows about like that. You better believe I'll be squeezing my eyes shut and pretending it does, though. Chug chug puff puff.

Grandma Lois and Grandpa Bob are coming up on Sunday for Mom's birthday (and for lemon meringue round two, I bet you pesos to pork chops). And to see me, obvs. Originally, this put a bit of a kink in my plans, since they were my excuse to travel the Oregon Coast highway (101) down to California in order to visit them on the way. Now they're bringing the road show to me, I get to make up a bit of time by going on the more direct and more dismal I-5. However! I persevere: after a bit of I-5, I'll cut over to 101 so I get to do the parts I've never done before, down into CA.

I get to visit Berkeley and San Francisco for the first time ever! I can't even believe this. And from there, my plan is to angle SE through the Mojave desert, where I'd like to camp for a night if I don't chicken out. Could you even believe it? Way back when the closest I had ever gotten to a freewheelin' roadtrip was this song (hey, remember that?) and brief snatches of weekend-TV-edited Thelma and Louise percolated through a kid's mind, I always pictured a deserted, desert road to be integral to the whole experience. Sun shimmering slick on the pavement, wind hushing dust against the fenders. Chills just to think!

And from there, Tuzigoot... and glory.

Pi(e)!

I've been rather domestic the past few days. I feel like Swamp Thing in hibernation - sedentary long enough that tendrils and vines creep from my toes and begin to twine themselves in the loam. I can't let myself gather moss here, though. I'm off in T-minus 5 days to my next destination.

In the meantime, however, let's try on the floppy chef's hat that would make this a food blog: I made pies.

I know, right?!

There was a lemon meringue in honor of Mom's ##th birthday (she's aging backwards now, so the numbers are irrelevant) and a Katie B.-inspired ginger-peach pie with cornmeal crumb topping in honor of me not really liking lemon meringue. There was also a roasted veggie/corn salad which I'm quite pleased with, but didn't photograph well.

The scientist and the lady-perfectionist in me are already compiling notes and data for the next iteration of this experiment (more solid lemon layer; waiting longer before making the meringue; something else in the peach pie -- nuts? cayenne? Can you tell I'm homesick for cast-iron-cooked goodness?) but all in all, it wasn't too bad. Mom liked it:and that's what's important.


I just (well, about a day ago, but it feels like I just now) figured out my leaving Portland timetable. And the big rubber band that is my heart has twanged in the opposite direction so suddenly that it knocked me off balance. I reached down to find this concave shape, so recently convex, and warm to the touch from the friction of stretching against itself.

I kind of don't want to go. It was so great to be enveloped by my family, and I've had some lovely, quintessentially Portland days of late. And every once in a while, the rain hits some early leaves and it smells like fall should. At least, what it has smelled like for so long. Through this process, I've alternately been: scared, frustrated, unsure, excited, impatient, optimistic, etc., etc.
But now I'm just a bit sad. Still those other things, but the flavor that comes through the most is that last.There's a lot of precious cargo I can't take with me in a readily-accessible fashion. And I know, I'll buck up and be strong and take these things into my heart and carry them with me. And I'll be fine. I know. But in this moment, in my old room with Mishu snoring softly behind me, I just need to sit with it for a while. 'S a right shame, that.

Jumping on the Labor Day bandwagon

(isn't that kind of what it's about, anyway?)

I am about to start a new "job," believe it or not, and I've been overlooking that aspect in the face of the larger adventure of moving to a new place. I don't think it'll go so poorly (high praise) *knock on wood*, and I already have some ideas for the interpretive programs I'm supposed to create. Quandary: does an interpretive program on ethnobotany of the region fall under Cultural History or Natural History?

I've recently been talking to a friend (who is embarking on his own adventure soon) about pursuing things for yourself or for the Greater Good. I think often they're one and the same. Living a right life (however you define that) is important - it makes you a better person, better able to interact with others honestly and productively. Of course, I've been running on 70% pure selfishness juice for a while now, so that's the area I emphasize in this argument. In my own life, doing things for myself and nobody else (or when my desires are at odds with someone else's) has historically gotten swept under the rug. Philosophically, I believe balance is important, though. I don't think either of those aims (betterment of Self or G.G.) should fall victim to the other on a regular basis. Apples and pears, dog and bone - the Middle Way, that's what I say. As an educator who loves educating, I don't really have to separate these things - as long as I stay good at what I do, I'm sparking something in me AND in others. Sweet gig.

I am looking forward to this internship (work schedule, "days off" and all), and I realize how damn lucky I am to be able to pursue it with the reckless abandon I have. I've got so many people supporting me in so many ways. Even if I do fail spectacularly (look for that post later on), I feel relatively safe. If I am escaping from prison on my bedsheet rope, there's a fair number of compatriots underneath me holding a firefighter's net. Thanks, fellow conspirators.

Seize the day!