Let's Go! (but where?)

I told myself I would start out this blog with some pep. Some uumhff! A spunky jumpstart to help put me in a better mood. But I'm losing energy. This place has a way of sucking it out of you like a big straw in a coke flavored slurpee. And then you're left with a sour grimace on your face and sharp pain on one side of your head. (ok, so the sharp pain is the result of my pigtails being too tight. As for the grimace, I think I just really look like that.) I guess I'm just letting the lack of Bethel sunshine get the best of me. (And I hate it when my eyelashes freeze on the way home from work EVERYDAY.) Although the days are getting noticeably longer every week. By five minutes actually. The sun seems to be rising between 8:30am and 9:00am, and setting around 8:00pm. When I first arrived in Bethel last April, the sun went down around 11:00pm. So the days get long pretty quick.

(the view from my porch. Bethel looks so pretty when everything is white.)

(The start of the K300 Race back in January. Probably one of the five days where the sun has come out lately.)

Today it is snowing sideways. Again. It's about 30 degrees warmer than it was yesterday, (bringing us up to 18.) I was supposed to fly out to Quinhagak (a nearby village, pronounced Quin-uh-hawk) which is about an hour away by plane. I'm teaching a class on improving customer service skills, something much needed in this area. This is the second time this week one of my trips has been canceled due to the blizards that keep coming our way. The wind is crazy here. But with no mountains or tall buildings anywhere close to shield us, it's no wonder. It makes for a longer walk to and from work everyday. And I have a boss who loves walking in them and being smacked in the face with snow. So pity from him is completely out of the question. My friend in Juneau sent me some cross-country skies to use while I'm here. I attempted to ski to work one day (key word: attempt.) I wasn't very graceful moving ten feet from my house. So I just bagged the whole idea. There aren't really good skiing spots here. The roads are so uneven, and even the lakes and river aren't very ski-friendly. So I just hop on an eliptical machine with my eyes closed and pretend that I'm really skiiing.

Well, it's the first of March. Which means I have 50 more days to go, until my Bush, Alaska Adventure comes to an end. Not that I'm counting down the days, or anything. Ok, maybe a little bit. I'm just excited about moving on. I'm excited to make it back to the lower 48. I'm excited to see the family. Super stoked about going to concerts and comedy clubs with my friends. And I can't wait to spend time with Nick, the boyfriend. Nick and I started dating a few months before I left for my adventure in Bethel. The move was a bit too much stress for our relationship to handle and we split shortly after Valentine's Day. Things ended rather harsh, and it made for an uncomfortable feeling in my gut for the longest time. I didn't see or talk to Nick much until I was in Richmond over the holidays. It had been ten months. It was good to see him again. I missed his hugs. I missed his cute, city apartment with his own photography work on the wall. I didn't realize just how much I missed him until I saw his face. We only spent one day together, talking and catching up.

Shortly after I made it back to Bethel, we were on a normal routine of talking everyday and feeling completely giddy and happy everytime we heard eachother's voice. As much as I typically enjoy being single and independent, I realized how crazy in love with Nick I still was, and we decided to try doing the long distance thing, until I return in April. So far so good. But it's so hard to love someone when you have no idea if your future plans are able to include them. He has his life in Richmond, complete with job and family. He has his own photography business that seems to be starting out well. He knows I love to travel. He would rather take a vacation and then come home. I would rather pack up my life on my back and see where I end up. Ok, so maybe a little more organized than that, but you get the idea. I know that things will either work out, or they won't. And I try not to make it more complicated than that. Is that approach too naive?

I change my mind a lot about my next adventure after being a VISTA. A few weeks ago I was deadset on grad school in Chicago. Then it was getting a work visa in Australia. This week it's teaching English in Korea. Which is the same as last week, so we'll see if I can make it three weeks in a row with the same plan. There was a point where I considered moving back to Richmond long term. Mainly to be with Nick, but also to be closer to my family and friends, too. I feel a lot of pressure from my mom about ending up close to home. I've always had a feeling that it wasn't in the cards for me to end up in Richmond, so it's frustrating everytime I think about it. I know if I moved back it wouldn't be for the right reasons. And it's not an option anymore. I've come that far. So now I just have to figure out which option I want to stick with. Sometimes I don't feel as grounded as I should at 25. Not that I'm seriously worried about fitting in some cookie-cutter slot entitled "Where One Should Be at 25." I guess I'm just having my annual breakdown of stressing over the unnecessary. Sometimes I wish I had at least one friend who was at the exact same place as me at the exact same time. I would love to travel the globe with someone other than myself. But waiting around is NOT an option. (I sound assertive there, huh! :)

So who knows what will happen with Nick and I. The subject is complete overkill, and both of us get sick of talking about it. Especially since I still have nearly eight more weeks left of being 4,000 miles away. But I must say that this past Valentine's Day was probably my favorite of all my other favorites. I think I'm one of the only people I know who loves Valentine's Day. I'm a total freak for most holidays, but I like making presents for all of my other single friends on Valentine's Day so they don't feel so sour towards it. But here's why this year was my favorite:

Nick found a way of getting flowers sent to me here in Bethel, which doesn't sound like a big deal. But when you live in a place where most companies won't ship to, and there are no flourists, and only one grocery store carries flowers that are usually not looking so great, it's a huge deal. He did lots of research, and after an entire week of phonecalls and web searches, he ended up on the phone with some random lady who works at the hospital here. He begged her to help him. She recommended calling AC, which is our main grocery store here (there are 2 smaller stores.) He ended up having luck with them, and arranged for someone to bring them to my office in City Hall. Awwwww!! It was definitely the stress-relief that I desperately needed.

(ok, so i'm re-enacting. but the original reaction was very similar :)

Winter Blahs

When is a blog not a blog? When you don't get around to writing one. When you don't feel especially inspired about anything in your environment at the moment.

I'm in the winter blahs. Ever experienced it? It's that period of time that teases you with hints of spring,? longer daylight hours, crocuses in bloom and daffodils bending over after a late chill. In Seattle, it's the gray of the day that it punctuated by a glimpse of color on the hill or in a tree. It's the simple thought that beyond that fog layer and gray lies a mountain range worth hiking ? if it ever warms up and clears off.

It's been difficult to realize how much I?m not a winter person. Watching the Olympics on TV is fascinating to me and yet I hide under a blanket just thinking of that cold and exposure. The ballet of snowboarding is enthralling; the speed of the bobsled frightening ? but these folks are doing it ? living life out loud on the edge.

So it's off to the Volunteer Park Conservatory of Flowers for me today in search of something warm and bright to photograph. I've also been told the butterfly exhibit at the Pacific Science Center is helpful in connecting with nature and then there's the good ol' walk down Lake Washington to see the eagles and hear the robins calling.

Bring on those tulip fields and irises and mustard blossoms that ring true of the brilliance of pure warmth. I want to relish in the saturated greens of new grass and the delicate fingertips of young growth on the firs. Taunt me with a columbine and a trillium that makes my heart soar with birth.

But for now ? I need to really see and enjoy the present and not live in the future?.(In more ways than one.)

Here's a glimpse at what a little exploring in the neighborhood and at the conservatory has brought me.

Coming Unglued

Putah Creek, the nearest thing I have to a home watercourse, can sometimes be rather more than a creek. With headwaters in the hills north of Napa--the Las Vegas of grapes--the creek emerges from the Coast Range and flows down into the Sacramento Valley not far from where I live, in Davis, California. The foothills from which it flows are covered by oak woodland, where blue oak and gray pine, sometimes called ghost pine, join to make up one of the characteristic landscapes of California. The hills are mostly undeveloped, and covered nearly everywhere, between the trees, by grasses that are green as I write this, but will very soon be brown like the wheat in a Van Gogh painting. It can all be lovely--depending on my mood. Putah Creek is named, supposedly, for a native village that existed here when the first Spanish colonists arrived.

I haven't been over there in a while, but after the heavy rainfall over the New Year holiday, the creek became a river. At the end of last summer, in its narrow reaches, one could jump across it; after the rainfall, it was as wide as a football field is long. It was, happily, less scary and impressive when I visited it last, before the cold weather set in.

It was almost a trickle, except for a stretch near town where the water makes a short jump, dropping about two feet, then spreading to make a wide pool that extends some distance downstream. Up in the hills the creek may move with some energy, but here on the dead-flat valley floor, it just kind of mosies along. The creek is lined by dense vegetation, willow and oak and eucalyptus nearly everywhere so thick that a person on foot literally cannot push through it. There are a few breaks, and I headed for the first of these, at the spot where the little waterfall livened things up. I was here to fish for largemouth bass, a nonnative species that does rather well here; the largest bass I have ever caught or even seen was one I caught here at the waterfall late last autumn. Fish cluster here in quantities, and hide among obstacles just below the fall. A few salmon would pass through in future weeks.

I fished here with some success, then moved downstream from one break in the vegetation to the next, catching and releasing as I went (I haven't kept a fish in years. I like them in an anthropomorphic way, as friends, and talk to them sometimes, although I glance over my shoulder first). I scared up a drake mallard and a few egrets; neither are rare here. Nor are the red-tailed hawks that spun overhead, or the vultures that are as much a part of the Sacramento Valley landscape and sky-scape as anything. I came upon the little clearing that I think of as the beaver bistro. In a space about the size of a suburban front lawn, a gang of ruthless beavers had sawed down and chewed up every tree. Mountain lions have been known to pass through here, if very rarely; they do so because they've taken a wrong turn up in the hills. Bears wouldn't be impossible, and I once saw, to my utter astonishment, a fox.

I had finally decided that I like it here, at Putah Creek, and maybe even like this part of the state. I came here more or less by accident, simply because the University of California was here, and had hated everything except the university for a very long time. That had been tough to deal with, because I had ended my years working in Yellowstone National Park not long before, and it felt strange to be totally alienated from my physical surroundings, not the normal emotion in Yellowstone. Further, everyone around me was caught up in an intellectual movement called bioregionalism, the proponents of which try to know all they can about the natural region in which they live, usually defining the region by river drainage. One of our landscape architecture professors, Rob Thayer, explains how it works: "Do you know where you are? How much do you know about the region where you live? In today's global economy, with electronic communication and mass consumer culture, it is easy to lose sight of our surroundings. Knowing and identifying with one's watershed offers a new glimpse of how to be a community citizen of the natural world. Much as we might like to, it is impossible to take care of the entire earth all at once. We have to start somewhere, and that somewhere is likely to be in our home bioregion, or 'life-place'--the unique assemblage of geology, landform, watershed, climate, and communities of plants, animals and humans." Putah Creek, among other things, had me feeling like I might at last be fitting in.

Until I hung the spinnerbait on a submerged log and decided to go wading after it. The last time I had done this was in the Gardner River in Yellowstone, a few months earlier. The Gardner is a fair-sized watercourse; it roars down a canyon lined by sagebrush to join the Yellowstone River near the north entrance to the park. On bare legs, the water in the Gardner is fiery cold, breathtakingly cold, although you get used to it fast.

I stepped into Putah Creek. The water was kind of warm, like the water for the ramen noodles I used to make when I was a graduate student (when I was in a hurry, which was always, I used warm tap water). I hit bottom, and through the soles of my water shoes felt not Montana gravel, but Sacramento Valley mud. It felt like ramen noodles, and a plume of brown engulfed my leg, swirling like cream dumped hastily into coffee. It did not smell like coffee. The odor was more like the sum of all swamps. And then I began to sink, and not very slowly.

Oh, this was a mistake.

With my knee still awkwardly propped on the bank, I hoisted myself upward, or tried to. The mud held me, would not let go until I had pulled hard enough to loosen the shoe. It finally gave, and I kind of slurped upward--and immediately got tangled in a mass of fishing line someone had dumped here, about a hundred yards of the stuff. I managed to avoid the hook, but my mood was gone.

Because this was not exactly the first of the garbage I had seen. I walked back toward the car, my arms scratched by exotic star thistles, one of the worst exotic weeds available, and in plentiful supply here. I stopped at the waterfall, which actually makes its drop over a concrete wall that houses, I believe, a fuel pipeline. The obstacles that the fish like to hide among are actually old tires and a dead refrigerator that someone tossed off a nearby, graffiti-covered highway bridge. There's even a whole tractor engine further downstream. And I wouldn't keep those fish under any circumstances, because a recent study showed that they're full of mercury. That's what this part of California is like, too.

It all depends, of course, on how you look at it--but I believe I've been trying too hard to think good thoughts. I cannot help but feel stuck this time of year, every year (and bioregionalism has not to my knowledge developed a way to deal with the problem). But summer is not so far off that I can't feel its presence, and summer means trips to Yosemite and Yellowstone.

When I first moved here, I thought I was turning my back on Yellowstone for good. I thought I would just have to make do with Putah Creek, that settling down and getting a "real job" meant just such sacrifices. Instead, I have found myself spending more time in Yellowstone than I do at that creek. Somehow, settling down--all the way down, into marriage, and kids--made it possible to escape. Getting stuck turned out to be liberating.

In future blog entries, starting next time, I want to explore how that happened. The time of year has nearly arrived to say goodbye to the Sacramento Valley for a while, for more than just a weekend. It's time to start thinking about the high mountains.

And by the way, the name "Putah" is also more or less identical to the Spanish word for "prostitute." A popular local theory states that there was a bordello along its shores, during the Spanish colonial period. History is not necessarily G-rated, any more than the California countryside is necessarily lovely.

Good Enough to Fly?

For a ridiculously long time now I have been chipping away at a goal. What the goal is, is non important. I will not disclose it. But to help you understand how important this goal is to me, I will tell you that I have joined a sort of support group. Within this group we talk about ways to meet our goals and how to deal with challenges that can thwart our earnest attempts and best intentions. I have been struggling to meet this goal for over a year now, and I can tell you one thing:

Goals suck.

Now Queen Hypocrite here, (call me QH) takes goals fairly seriously. In the freshman seminar class that I teach for undeclared majors, I require my students to write down some of their short term and long term goals, because I believe in the accountability of writing the goal down. When you can see that goal on paper, when you have a record of it, somehow it becomes more real. So why don?t I write it down and tell you, right? Nice try.

My goal has been written down. It has been hanging over my head. It has been a thorn in my side. It has been many other clichés that make me feel as though I have failed even though I have yet to give up or quite striving toward my goal. I am currently toying with that idea. This past week at my weekly meeting, my group leader asked me if I would like to change my goal.

Come again?

Well, she said, we could refine it to help you get there.

Huh?

It might help you; give you that little jumpstart you need.

Lessen my goal?

You do not have to decide today, think about it, and let me know next week.

And I stood in front of this woman, this leader, jaw seemingly unhinged in dismay, head tilted and eyebrows raised in puzzlement, and then the internal Q and A ran rampant and everything else did one of those movie fade out thingies.

I have been working on this goal for a year. A goal that seems so close, yet so friggin far away. I mean I am so over it. I hate this goal. I hate the work of it. I just want it over. But, I can just change it? Never thought of that. Changing my goal. Sheer madness, genius really. I mean why cant I change it? Perhaps I need to take another look at it. I am so tired of looking at this goal. Why not just let it go? Guilt. You wouldnt really make it, would you? And then you have gone on like this for a year and then nothing would have really come out of it except for settling, except for deciding that something else was good enough. Sigh.

I am not sure if I want to change my goal, I said.

Well, I would still think about it . . .

And as she kept talking I quit listening to her because instead of questioning the goal concept in my mind, I began questioning myself . . . She does not think I can make it. She has no faith in me. She thinks I have no faith in myself. She thinks I will just keep floundering here not letting myself get to my endpoint. Oh, God, she?s shrinking me; she thinks I can not let myself be happy because then what will I do? Isn?t she supposed to my cheerleader? Who said she should get realistic?

I do not want to settle, yet I am no longer sure I can make it. People have goals and dreams both big and small that they never realize. Will amending my goal equal giving up? The harsh reality of life is that we really can not meet all of our dreams. Do I face the reality here that maybe I will not make it?

Now seems like an appropriate time to blame the media for some of this unwillingness to face reality. The irony is that what I blame are the reality TV shows. Shows where people face (big air quotes on this one) real life challenges, you know like having to eat cockroaches on a tropical island to keep you from getting booted off the island, or having a nanny come in to train you how to be a parent, and of course we can not overlook your realistic chances to win a recording contract and become discovered as America?s next big thing. I know these shows are staged, and for every dream realized, for every fix-it that happens courtesy of promotional consideration, there are millions of us out here trying to wade through our true realities. I have a theory here, too.

Sometimes reality sucks.

But what are you going to do about it? You can give up or modify or compromise, but to what avail? Should one fail magnificently or just almost get there? I do not think I want to almost get there. When I think of almost getting there, I think of William Hung, the unlikely pop icon. Maybe William didn?t win on Idol, and maybe he is still making money from his singing, but do you think he feels like he really achieved his goal, when in spisite of his money and pseudo fame, America is laughing at him while they sing along. Yet he keeps awkwardly dancing, putting his engineering career on hold( anyone ever question the thought behind that?). On his latest album, William has some inspirational words (available for download on iTunes). He has covered the R. Kelly song I Believe I Can Fly . Knowing this song was written by an alleged sex offender highlight more great American irony and faulty thinking! And yet, William has not given up. William believes he can fly. He believes he can shake his bob bon. He believes that if he can see it, then he can do it.

Right now, I can only say Bull$h*t, Willy.

the honeybucket hover

It's been a crazy month. February is almost over, and the countdown has begun for my final weeks as a VISTA volunteer here in Bethel. I have ten weeks left to accomplish the rest of my goals that were given to me, in hopes of jumpstarting tourism on the YK Delta. I feel really good about everything I've accomplished so far. I've coordinated several small business workshops to help people get business licenses, so we can have more to offer in the way of tourism (ie. boat rentals, snow machine rentals, adventure travel companies.) I became an instructor of Alaska Host, a customer service training program that helps enhance good customer service skills in individuals in the visitor industry. It's an easy class for me to teach. Waiting tables for five years has enabled me to experience every scenario possible, good and bad. Of course I leave out any scenario involving me spilling food on someone. Another accomplishment: I created a preliminary brochure for "What to See and Do in Bethel." Every city has a brochure. Well, almost every city. We don't. So I've been trying to create one. I did read a list of 58 things to do while visiting Bethel, Alaska that someone wrote a few years ago. Coming in at number 30, was "Help a musher clean up a dog yard." Even the most pessimistic people in Bethel can think of something better for tourists to do than scrape poop off the ground. That list definitely won't be sparking any cruise ship interest in the Bethel area anytime soon. So hopefully I can tighten things up a bit in that department. And I'm currently working on getting visitor information in our main airport. If anyone reading this has ever been to Bethel, I'm sure you can agree this is a much needed attribute and long overdue project. As of right now, there is one brochure rack hanging on the wall at the airport. There are probably three different brochures in the rack, although they take up nine of the twelve slots, that way it appears full. I'm assuming that is why. But there is no sign, or easy-to-read brochure that quickly provides numbers of hotels, restaurants and phone numbers for cab companies. And that is what I hope to change before I leave.

Promoting Bethel is a hard task to have in the harsh winter months. It can have a way of slapping you around a bit. You can't drive out of Bethel. You can't go see a movie. You can't go the mall. There's no happy hour. No Taco Bell or Starbucks. I could go on and on. But if I did I wouldn't be doing a very good job at this whole Tourism VISTA thing. And I care about Bethel. I really do. It's just harder than I thought it would be to stay motivated and optimistic. Especially when the end of my year is nearing, and I'm so excited about seeing my friends and family. And I'm even more excited to figure out my next adventure. So it's been hard getting back into the swing of things these past few weeks. Since I got back from visiting Richmond for Christmas, I have had the hardest time focusing on my VISTA project. The first few weeks were the worst. In my mind I was still in Richmond. Still dancing in my favorite 80's bar with my best friends, and still playing Cranium with my two nephews. My two best friends here in Bethel were both gone on their vacations, and I was getting moved into my fourth and final home in Bethel. The weather was colder than I had imagined, and pipes all over town were freezing. The sewer pipe at my house was frozen and then ended up bursting. What does that equal? That equals two weeks of using a five gallon bucket, or as we call it, a "honey-bucket." A honey-bucket without a seat, at that! So we had to do a little something I like to call "the honey-bucket hover!" It was funny the first two days. My roommate, Mandy, and I figured that surely a plumber would rush over and save the day. But little did we know we were near the end of a long list of temporary honey-bucket subscribers. So for a little over two weeks, we tried to keep our spirits up as well walked down the street with bags of Bethel goodness to toss in the trash. I told my roommate she should just use her cat's litter box. And her cat might even cover it up for her. Haha, I don't think she found it as funny as I did.