Feeling as bland as the weather

I've been sick for the last week or so. It's been no fun at all. On the good side though, it's given me a lot of time to think. It's funny how when an illusion shifts, there's really no going back. Once you see something, it's hard to pretend you never did.

So, while sick in bed, watching old episodes of The Office and (of course) House and coughing up a lung, it kinda became clear to me that my current life isn't really working for me the way I wish it was. I'm not really happy with where I'm at. It's a sobering realization.

As I posted about a lot here, last fall I was planning on going back to school this year, and then this winter, I decided against it. It seemed too much too soon, especially financially. My decision took a big turn when I got a huge raise at work. For the first time possibly ever, I felt financially secure, and I didn't want to jeopardize that by putting myself in heaps of debt. I couldn't imagine how I would afford living expenses. Right now I live in low-income housing and my rent is really low, so low it almost seems criminal. Anyway so I figured it might be wiser to take advantage of the big raise and low rent and save up lots of $ and also work on my writing in the meantime, try to get a publishing deal. I felt a little iffy about going back to school anyway, and was thoroughly enjoying myself here on Orcas, making and strengthening good friendships, feeling like I really, really didn't want to leave the island anytime soon.


And it's been great. I had a really awesome winter this past year. I got to spend more time with lots of people who I really value. I had a great trip to Hawaii and a great time at that writing residency last month. It really fed my soul. Now that I'm in the usual rush of the year though (which here is basically March-October), I'm feeling pretty unhappy, and definitely like I want something more. I mean, in a lot of ways, my job is great, I'm getting paid well, I love my apartment, I'm just sort of...bored with it all somehow. I'm intellectually frustrated. I feel directionless. Much as I like my job, it's not deeply satisfying, and I don't want to be doing it forever. I want to be chasing some dream, full of goals and ambitions and passion, and I feel lacking in all of those. I kinda wish I'd stuck with the whole school thing, though I still think that it's too soon, especially when it comes to the $ issue. Plus there's a part of me that's just not 100% sure that's what I want to do.

Now I'm looking at my time now and in the coming months as soul-searching time, time to really think about my next move, figure out some direction, save money, build credit (that was a huge concern for me with school also, b/c if I take out loans, I don't have anyone to co-sign and had no credit to speak of, but I've been working on that one, and it's been paying off) and get my ducks in a row.

In numerology, I'm in a 7 year, which is actually all about all this stuff. It's a quiet, soul-searching, kind of withdrawn year, and I'm really feeling that now. It's not exactly fun. A month or so ago I was really feeling pretty happy and like everything in my life was working and now that's shifted and I can't quite go back. I know I want something more. I feel kind of listless and lost, kind of bummed out, but I think it's fertile soil for something new to grow. So, I'm just trying to let myself marinate in the whole feeling of uncertainty for awhile, hoping that unconsciously, there's some real composting going on, and I will emerge with a clearer idea of where I want to go and what I want to do.


Currently listening:
"Mary Jane" - Alanis Morissette - Wow, I got chills when this came on, because it's sooo appropriate. I have a long history with this song. When Jagged Little Pill first came out, it was the one song I couldn't get into, but as I got older it became my favorite. In college, this song always gave me chills, because I could relate so intensely, especially to the line, "So please be honest Mary Jane, are you happy? Please, don't censor your tears," and "All that matters Mary Jane is your freedom..." In those days, I was pretty passionately unhappy with my life and felt like a caged bird. Now I don't relate nearly as intensely, which is nice, but still, to some extent I do, and the song just fits.

"Ribbons Undone" - Tori Amos (Chapter One)

I'll just preface this by saying that there are two sections of my book. The first is called Eclipses, with four chapters about childhood and adolescence before I left for college. These are not named after songs. The next section, Waxing Crescent, is the main body of the book, and I still think of the first chapter in this section as chapter 1. This section (the bulk of the book) is where lyric-as-title comes into play.

In this post I decided to go through my chapters that are named after song lyrics and say why I picked the lyric with the chapter, because I picked them all for such varied reasons.

Chapter One is titled "She's A Girl Rising From A Shell" from the song "Ribbons Undone" by Tori Amos.

Some songs I picked because that's what I was listening to at the time I'm writing about. This was not the case this time. I titled this chapter about leaving for college with a line from a song that I didn't hear until six years after the fact.

Yet this is one of the chapter titles that to me is so perfect it gives me shivers. I thought the whole idea of a girl rising from a shell was such an apt image for my own transition to college from home. In fact, if I could design my own book cover, it would have some image of an albino girl rising from a shell, probably with some bluey ocean color in the background. And moon imagery, of course.

And why I love this song and chapter matching soooo much is partly because to me, the whole song really fits - not so much the song title or the album title, which is the case with other selections - but if I could name the chapter after the whole song, I would, because it just fits seamlessly.

Tori wrote "Ribbons Undone" for her daughter. And just as a side story, I heard this song in spring of 2005, when her album The Beekeeper came out. I was going through another kind of big transition at the time, and I was writing this chapter, and this song was always on my mind. Then that April, I went with a friend of mine to my first Tori concert, in Seattle. She played songs from her whole career, though it seemed namely from Boys For Pele, and I kept hoping she'd play this song. I did that thing where I was trying to send silent mental messages, thinking, "Tori, play it, play it, play it," over and over. The first set ends and she comes back out onstage for the encore and said something like her daughter had asked her to play "her song" for the people of Seattle, so she did. Seeing it live actually made me cry, and was one of those moments where it seems like everything converges. A gorgeous and profound moment just layered with meaning.

Anyway here are the words to the song:

She's a girl
Rising from a shell
Running to spring
It is her time it is her time
Watch her run with ribbons undone

She's a rose in a lily's cloak
She can hide her charms
It is her right there will be time
To chase the sun with ribbons undone

She runs like a fire does
Just picking up daises
Comes in for a landing
A pure flash of lightening
Past alice blue blossoms
You follow her laughter
And then she'll surprise you
Arms filled with lavender

Yes my little pony is growing up fast
She corrects me and says
"You mean a thoroughbred"
A look in her eyes says the battle's beginning
From school she comes home and cries
I don't want to grow up Mom at last not tonight

You're a girl
Rising from a shell
Running through spring
With summer's hand in reach now
It is your time
It is your time
So just run with ribbons undone
It is your time yes my angel
It is your time
So just run with ribbons undone

Run run darlin'
Ribbons undone


So the song is obviously for a much younger girl than I was leaving for school, but still it grabbed me, the whole sense of a girl going from one phase to another, spring to summer, coming into her own, rising, growing. It just encompasses a lot of the feelings I have when I look back at myself at that time. This part particularly tugs hard at my heartstrings:

"Yes my little pony is growing up fast
She corrects me and says
"You mean a thoroughbred"
A look in her eyes says the battle's beginning
From school she comes home and cries
I don't want to grow up Mom at last not tonight"

I still have a hard time hearing that part of the song without tearing up. I find it so poignant. I guess what I relate to is the innocence of it, looking back. It's hard for me to put it into words. That whole idea that the battle is beginning, I have this feeling of looking at her daughter, or any mother looking at their daughter as a little kid, as the battle called life starts up, and I feel the same way, at my age now, looking back at the younger me who left for college - ready as hell to leave, scared out of my mind, that whole push and pull of wanting to grow up and also not wanting to.

I also get a little lump in my throat just thinking of how fragile innocence is. I had NO idea what I was getting into when I left for college, no idea where the journey would take me and what roads I would travel down. It's like I could look at myself leaving for college and just say to her, "You have no idea what you're in for, no idea how fucking hard it will be at times, no idea what heights of heartache and happiness you'll have along the way." I feel that way looking back at a lot of beginnings, anything I started without really knowing the path (and I mean that in an internal and external way) it would take or where it would lead. There's something really precious about that setting out without knowing. Something that just kind of kills me, like, "if only you knew...but thank god you don't." I think sometimes, that it's the only way we start anything or embark on any adventure, is by the grace of not actually knowing what it will entail. Because I know for myself anyway, if I did sometimes know the real cost or impact or meaning of something ahead of time, I wouldn't be able to take that first step, and then there would be no great meaning or impact or experience. I have a lot of tender feelings around that whole concept, remembering innocence and not knowing. It's a blessing sometimes.

Says the tarot reader.

Another little story about this song and my book: This was one of the first chapters I named, and it was written in stone for me, cemented immediately. At one point, about two years ago, I was thinking of self-publishing rather than seeking traditional publishing, and so I tried to obtain permission to use some of the lyrics that are in my book, and mailed a request to use the line from this song to Tori's publishing company. Well maybe a week or two later, I woke up with a ringing phone at 6am or something, and it was someone who called himself "Dr Amos" wanting to talk to me about the copyright permission. I had been in a dead sleep and tried to get my wits about me, while at the same time wondering, Dr. Amos? Am I talking to Tori's father or something? I did get the permission (and he even gave me some advice on changing the title of my book, lol). He was on the east coast, which was the reason for the earliness of the call. Anyway, I thought that was cool.

Know what else is kind of cool? It's snowing.

My Table of Contents Looks More Like the Song List on a Soundtrack...or Something

So, all my chapters (except for the first four that cover childhood), are named after song lyrics. In fact, I'll just put the list of songs on here, to give an idea, and then I want to talk about the general motivations. I'll just give song title and artist.

"Ribbons Undone" - Tori Amos
"Until the Ocean..." - Malfunkshun
"Down in a Hole" - Alice in Chains
"Moonchild" - Chris Cornell
"Miss World" - Hole
"Paper Bag" - Fiona Apple
"Call Me a Dog" - Temple of the Dog
"Coming Down" - Eleven
"Zero Chance" - Soundgarden
"Moonchild" - Chris Cornell
"Moonchild" - Chris Cornell
"A Murder of One" - Counting Crows
"Jimmy" - Tool
"Unforgiving Hours" - Drain S.T.H.
"Colorblind" - Counting Crows
"I Wish I Was Here" - Dog's Eye View
"Sunshower" - Chris Cornell
"Crazy Baby" - Joan Osborn
"Now Is Mine" - K's Choice
"Prison Sex" - Tool
"Hallelujah" - Jeff Buckley
"Toast" - Tori Amos
"Rain King" - Counting Crows
"Moonchild" - Chris Cornell


Some of them, I'm not crazy about. The one I'm least crazy about is Hallelujah. I mean, I LOVE the song, it's just the one that I feel least sure that it fits right.

I had a strong urge to go with songs that really, to me, symbolized that time, like songs I listened to a lot at the time, or the song from a particular artist that I like best, or feel most deeply about, and sometimes that just didn't work out.

For example, to go back to Mr. JB, I would have LOVED to use "Lover, You Should've Comoe Over" or "Mojo Pin," because those are the songs of his that get me on the deepest level. "Mojo Pin" espeically reminds me of that time in my life. The way Jeff sings the "ooohs" at hte beginning and the opening notes, it just does something to me, and that part in particular really seems to symbolize a sort of pulling out of myself that happened during the sprign of that year, but I'm just not sure there's any line in that song that fits with any particular chapter I have.

I also wanted to use the song "Breakable" by Fisher, from the Great Expectations Soundtrack, because that too was a song I listened to a lot back then, and it reminds me of that time, but again it didnt' quite fit, I don't think.

Likewise, I might've preferred a different K's Choice song, and at a different place (chronologically). And as for Temple of the Dog, I'd prefer to use the song "All Night Thing," because that's a song I write about in the text of the chapter, and one that I just love. Since it comes up in the text, I'd love to use it as the chapter heading, but there's just no lines in it that fit, at all.

And I actually split what was once one chapter to make room for the Joan Osborn song, because that song was so symbolic at the time, and the lyrics SO fit my life and what I wrote about.

Actually, writing this, I'm struck again how I sometimes feel like the table of contents woudl more deeply fit the book, or feel more right, somehow, to me, if I DID use the songs I really want to and maybe I can rethink that some. Maybe I should try harder to see if there's a way to make those songs fit as I go through the manuscript again.

On the other hand, there was one chapter that I completely discarded (I think of it as a B-side, since I think of everything in music terms) that I thought had a freakin' perfect lyrical title. It was a chapter about in which I talked with some friends during that first year of college about a breakup the year before, and was really searching for the reason WHY the relationship ended, since I really had no idea, and looking back now, I kind of think that at that time, as a freshman in college, I perhaps drew some wrong conclusions, or at least, conclusions that I carried with me for years afterwards, whether they were accurate or not, that really affected the way I saw myself. I eventually decided the chapter itself wasn't really necessary to the story, but I loved the title. It was a Soundgarden lyric - "Looking for a paradigm so I can pass it on," because in a way, that's exactly what I was doing, and the other reason I loved it was that the name of the song that line is from is called "Searching With My Good Eye Closed," which I thought was just soooo appropriate. Plus it could sort of relate to the whole legal blindness thing. So, I was sorry to let that chapter go.

So, what I'm thinking now is that I really want to write more about how I arrived at lyrics as chapter titles, because they're all so different. Some I picked for the meaning of the whole song, some for a snippet, some because the song and album names also enhance the meanings. Some have layers of meaning, and others are simpler. Some have things no one else would probably ever pick up on without listening to the whole song, and in other cases, the rest of the song aside from chosen lyric is totally irrelevant and even inappropriate to the chapter. So I think what I'll do is write a post about each one, because the process is so different for each one.

Word.


Currently listening:
"Kingdom of Rain" - The The (with Sinead O'Connor) - This is such a sad and poignant song, about a relationship gone stale and passionless. I think it's a song that's really full of aching, and probably (sadly) a feeling or circumstance that's not that uncommon. I remember being very affected by the words the first time I heard it, even though I'd hardly been in any relationships or experienced this sort of thing. Here's a lyrical snippet, I like the imagery, even though the song itself is so sad: "And as silent as the car lights that move across this room/And as cold as our bodies silhoutted by the moon/And I would lie awake and wonder, is it just me/Or is this the way that love's supposed to be?"

Pausing to Say...

Before I get into the subject at hand, I just want to say that I know my posts here have been pretty sporadic. Sadly, that's probably going to continue for awhile, possibly through October. This is the busy season at work, and I'm working full-time, and working on my book (reading it through again), polishing the manuscript and the proposal in preparation to send to agents, taking a yoga class, going to a writers group, going to therapy, and oh yeah, having fun.

I feel like I'm enjoying a better social life than I have in ages, possibly ever. Not having that dog makes a huge difference (though I do miss her). I'm having a visitor this weekend, and another in May, and then in June my friend Leo's coming out here. In a week and a half I'm going to Seattle with a friend on my days off. I've been going out to karaoke nights, having movie dates with a good friend of mine, lunch dates with others, tons of tarot appointments. In a way, I feel like I'm coming out of my shell. I don't even know what precipitated this change exactly, but it's like all of a sudden at work, I can't shut up. That's not exactly new, I can never shut up, but my more twisted, sarcastic, sometimes dirty mind is coming out a lot more, and I find myself talking more to people I don't know so well and just generally being a lot more open. It's awesome. I love it. I'm enjoying it all to the max, and only wish that I could also include making out in that list of activities, lol.

There is SO much I want to blog about. I want to write about movies I've seen recently. I want to write a post about the book The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, which is probably one of my favorite books ever written. I reread it on my trip to Hawaii and have been meaning to write about it ever since. I want to do a full length blog post in response to Tara's response to my post about living in the dispensary. I want to post about the politics of comedy, and other social/political topics that interest me. I want to write about songs. I want to post about other books I'm reading. I want to post about writing. I want to finish my "Why I Love House" series because there are a few more installments coming. I want to write in detail about the writing residency I went to a month ago. And it goes on and on and on.

I just find it hard to keep up. In most cases, I'm months behind even on emails. I'm trying to work out a schedule that allows time for EVERYTHING because I want to be able to do everything, but it's hard, I'm working on it, and still tweaking it all. So my posts may be sparser than usual, but I am trying to get in a rhythm somehow or other. ONe part that makes it hard is that by my nature, I say a lot (kinda what I meant by not being able to shut up, and good lord, lol) so my posts always come out long. I can't help it.

I've never been a woman of few words, just ask any guy I've ever loved, or anyone who's ever seen me really drunk.

But anyway, I just wanted to say I'm not intentionally ignoring the blog or anything, I'll keep writing, I promise (threaten?)

And now back to your regularly scheduled blogging...


Currently listening:

"Pet" - A Perfect Circle - one of my favorite songs by this group, headed by Maynard from Tool. I just melt at that first line, when he sings, "Don't fret precious I'm here," in this ominous and incredibly sexy way. I'm a pretty big fan of dry humor and sarcasm (as a fan of H ouse, that's probably already apparent) and Maynard does sarcasm so intelligently and well. I've always thought of Tool's song "Opiate" (one of my absolute favorites) as kind of playing an evil religious leader ("Choices always were a problem for you/What you need is someone strong to guide you...deaf and blind and dumb and born to follow...) which sort of points out the dangers of it all. And APC's Pet I think of in a similar vein, but playing an evil new world order type of leader ("Safe from pain, and truth, and choice and other poison devils...just stay with me, safe and ignorant, go back to sleep...I'll be the one to protect you from, a will to survive and a voice of reason). Ah, the song is just brilliant. I know I'm not doing it justice.

Published Again! In Shark Reef!

When I got home from Hawaii, I had a message about this acceptance on my machine. Trying to figure out which was better was a total toss-up - tropical paradise or publication is always a tough call.

Shark Reef is a local online literary journal, part of the Writers Guild on Lopez Island. I was especially excited that my piece made it in for two reasons.

The first is, I've heard that Shark Reef is difficult to get into, that they're pretty choosy with what they publish, so it felt pretty good to get in.

The second reason is, this piece is in some ways, highly inappropriate. I'm still sort of stunned anyone agreed to publish it, lol, in a good way. I was at that artist residency a few weeks ago, and during the last night there, we all shared something with the group, and I read parts of this chapter and laughed so hard tears were pouring down my face, but other parts of it are pretty sad. I like mixing the two.

Anyway, less talk, more rock.

Here it is:
Shark Reef

All the pieces are listed on the right-hand side. Mine is first under non-fiction.

I'd also highly recommend checking out the previous issue (scroll down on that list of pieces and you'll see the linkey link for that), and especially the pieces by Agnes Vadas and Janet Thomas.

Happy Reading!


Currently Listening:

"What I Know Now" - Dog's Eye View - from the album Happy Nowhere, an album I absolutely adore. It has sentimental meaning to me. The first time I met my friend BlueShine, almost 8 years ago, she wanted me to get this album so she gave me this thing she had typed up with a list of all the songs, and some commentary on each of them and what they meant to her, and snippets of her favorite lyrical passages. I always thought of that as one of the COOLEST gifts anyone ever gave me, a little roadmap of how an album touched her. It doesn't hurt that there are some really great lyrics on this CD, so there were a lot of lines and turns of phrases just waiting to be written about.

If You Write It, It Will Come

Alluding to Field of Dreams there, if that wasn't already obvious.

I actually meant to write this post before my trip to Hawaii, but didn't have enough time, and this post definitely would have been more timely if I had.

So, maybe because I'm a writer, I believe in the power of written words, but not necessarily in the typical way, like that people can read something and be affected by it. Yeah, that's a huge thing, but I also think there's a much more invisible power, something ethereal and unseen, subtle.

Alice Sebold (author of novels The Lovely Bones and The Almost Moon) talks about this in her book Lucky, a memoir which is essentially about being raped at the end of her freshman year of college, and how it all changes her life irrevocably.

I want to detour a second here to say this book is sooo excellent. I think it's hard sometimes to write well about something so violent and devastating, and somehow Alice Sebold does it. This book is raw, so candid, so deep. There were times reading it, and actually more in parts about the aftermath, that I just wanted to cringe, or cry, because I was so there, the writing was so vivid, so insightful, so wise, and though my life has had different tragic experiences, I could relate to a lot of what she said. There are parts where the book is so poignant it's crushing. There are other parts that made me laugh out loud. The book is very intelligent, in the regular smart way, but also emotionally intelligent. Mostly, it's just so honest. She writes about how the attack changed her, affected friendships, relationships, her interactions with her family, especially her sister. She writes about post-traumatic stress, hyper-alertness. She writes about doing heroin in NYC after dropping out of grad school. She writes about the power of telling her story. It's a great book.

So, back to my original train of thought here, in the book, Alice goes back to college the semester after she's raped, and at this point, the guy hasn't been caught, she hasn't seen him again, she has no name, nothing. She's taking a poetry class with Tess Gallagher, who gives her thee assignment to write a poem starting with the line, "If they caught you..." and Alice writes the poem, and exactly a week later, she sees the guy on the street, and he's talking to a cop, so by the end of that night, she (and the police) know his name, and thus begins the arrest and trial. It could be coincidence, of course, but I think it's just as possible that hte writing of that poem started a ripple in the universe somehow.


I've experienced a similar thing in my own writing at times, where I'll write about something and it'll sort of come to life. There was a time, a long time ago, that whenever I wrote about a particular person, I would somehow hear from them. It got to be almost funny, like clockwork. I wasn't trying to conjure this person, in fact I think if I ever sat down to write simply in the hopes of doing so, it wouldn't work. Still, it was totally uncanny. I stopped writing about them after awhile, because it was freaky. Another time, after writing about this girl I knew and liked very much during my last semester of college, she emailed me. We hadn't spoken in years, and the email came literally the day after writing about her, and revisiting that time in my life. Again, freaky. And again, I don't think it would have happened if I had sat down and said, "I miss Liz, maybe if I write about her, I'll hear from her." I think intention has to be pure in a way, if that makes any sense. I feel I'm treading some real esoteric territory here. I just really do believe there is a silent, invisible power in putting something down in writing. Something different than the typical powers - storytelling, catharsis, connecting to other humans through the writing - I believe there's soemthing almost psychic in it.

And recently, it happened again. Remember when I wrote on here about living in the dispensary at camp and how magical it was in this post? Well, three days later I was supposed to meet some girls after work, and it never worked out, but in looking for them, this guy I work with told me he thought they were in the dispensary. This other guy who I work with was going to give me a ride home if I didn't find the girls, but had to go do some stuff at his place first, so he said he'd meet me on the road behind the dispensary. So for the first time in almost three years, I walked to that building I love so much. The path there isn't lit, and it was dark, dark, dark, so I walked along the path, using the patches of bare sky up above as a guide to know where the trees parted and to follow the path, which is something I had also written about in that blog entry.

No one was in the dispensary when I got there, which was disappointing because I never met up with the girls, but in a way, was kind of nice. I knew my ride guy would be a bit, so I just walked around inside and soaked up the niceness of being in there, the particular smell that house has. I peaked into my old room, watched the way the yellowy light landed on the wooden walls and floor, enjoyed the house. I also walked past a locked closet which I suddenly remembered was full of medical supplies, which only made me love the place even more, lol, because I am, at present, soooo fascinated by that shit.

I went outside and waited for my ride. In the dark. In the woods. Listening to the soft rumble of the Sound. Watching the waxing moon among the trees and branches. Feeling so deeply, serenely happy, inspired, full, in touch and joyous for the moment


Currently Listening:
"In My Life" - The Beatles - Oh, how I have loved this song for so many years. I think it's hands down my favorite Beatles song, though, oddly enough (embarrassingly enough?) I first heard this song performed by Bette Midler! Way before I discovered rock music, I used to listen to my dad's copy of Experience The Divine in our living room, while everyone else was somewhere else, in the dark, and croon along to every word, and her cover of this song always vied for the position fo favorite. It was the last song on the album, and it always made me think of Camp Marcella, which was the blind camp I went to growing up. I know the song itself is more about a person, but I often love places as much as I love people.

Another strange coincidence is that the same day that I had my visit to the dispensary, this song (the Beatles version) came on the radio at work, and it's maybe the only time I've heard it ever at work, at least it's definitely the only time I've heard it since last March when I returned to working at camp, I'm sure of that. You notice when your favorite songs are played. So hearing it that day is what prompted me to download it, and thus how it came up randomly on iTunes just now. All these "currently listening" are random iTunes picks, by the way.

Anyway, I think the song is more than apropos.

Moonbeams Over Paradise

So here is my totally unconventional Hawaiian vacation. I'm calling it that b/c when I think of Hawaiian vacations I think of big resorts or scenes from MTV's Maui Fever, and thankfully, this was nothing like that.

Tallie and I left the island super early last Wednesday morning and talked the whole ferry ride and the whole drive down to the Seattle airport. We'd both had kind of shitty/crazy weeks, so we got it all out of our systems as much as possible. We flew to Oakland first, which surprisingly wasn't that warm. Then we flew to Lihue. The eclipse took place when we were on the plane and so I didn't see it at all. They had us fill out questionnaires on the plane, mostly about whether we were carrying any fruit, plants, amoebas, bacteria, viruses, etc. I guess sometimes they actually will come on and spray the planes with pesticides, freaky!

So we landed and got out at Lihue and the airport there is sooooo open. Way before we walked to baggage claim there were large open windows and the air wafting through. It was in the low seventies, and it was about ten at night. It was so nice to be outside at night and warm. We rode through the island of Kauai out to Molawa'a to where Emily was staying. She was house and car-sitting for her boss, who lives in a little structure out on a farm out there. It was interesting, b/c on the ride I kept thinking (and continued to think throughout the trip) that Kauai is more like mainland America than Orcas Island is. It surprised me a bit how built up it was, but then again, it's a pretty big island.

As we got closer to Molawa'a, it got way less populated, nicer, woodsier. The moon was out and the wind was blowing through our hair, it was awesome. We met up with Emily, smoked some Hawaiian grown pot, and hung out at the wooden structure, which had no electricity or running water. We had lanterns for light and stayed up talking and being happy to see each other. We went to sleep hearing the sound of the ocean in the distance. I'd forgotten how loud it is b/c here on Orcas, it's the Sound, not the unadultered ocean, so here the waves are much smaller and quieter. Out there, they were a distant rumble at all times.

I will never forget that first night. Some nearby rooster started crowing in the middle of the night, hours before sunrise. It was soooo fucking loud. Then, the minute the sun rose, all these songbirds started. It was awesome. I don't think I have ever heard so many birds at once. It was really pleasant to wake up to. As the sun rose higher, there was about a half hour where everything around us had a golden glow, kind of like autumn, but then after the sun got higher, everything was its nomral green. It was so lush. The structure was nestled in trees and then there was this huge field. We had to walk across it to use the composting toilet in the morning (mostly we just went in the trees though, lol). I have to say that was my first time using a composting toilet and it was glorious, lol. It was in this grove of banana trees, letting some mottled light through, and it was like sitting in this gorgeous jungle or something.

So then we drove all over the island, and a lot of the roads we drove on made tree tunnels, meaning the trees kinda covered the road, so we couldn't exactly see a sky gap between the trees on the right side and left. There are a few spots where it gets close to that on Orcas but not quite. I loved driving around. Kauai is really beautiful. There were fruit trees, fields, valleys and sooo much green. The sky was cloudless. We drove to Hanalei Bay because Emily had to work there. She wokrs at this natural food store called Papaya's and apparently, she's seen Anthony Kiedis there a bunch of times. So while Emily worked, Tallie and I hung out at the beach, just reading and sleeping in the sunshine. I went in the water. I wanted to go swimming but I had forgotten how rough real ocean can be. The waves were big and fierce, and this wasn't even at a real roughwater spot on the island. Still I got knocked over a few times (and loved it). I'm kind of scratched up from it, but it was just soooo awesome to be in warm saltwater, flowing with the waves. I smiled anytime I saw a huge one coming on, like bring it on baby. I fucking love the ocean.

Then we decided to drive around some more, see other parts of the island. We got out, walked around on other beaches and explored some caves, which was really cool. It's pretty awesome to see caves and think about the history of it all. Tallie majored in ecology so she was an amazing wealth of information about everything we saw. One interesting thing about the trip in general was that it felt in some ways like a blast from the past, things kept reminding me of other things for some strange reason, and this part reminded me of the time I went to the Oregon coast with my friend Kelly seven years ago, probably because of the similarity in the beaches, and because there was cave exploration in both places. Walking around Hanalei sort of reminded me of Northern Arizona, because of the way there were big mountains in the distance.

I ended up getting sunburned. I wore sunscreen but I guess I missed a few places, like right behind my right knee, which got burned pretty badly from laying out in the sun. My lower back was also burned, as well as the place where my watch was when I put on sunscreen, lol, a vaguely watch-shaped sunburn.

So we met Emily after she got off of work, hung out, went back to the structure Emily was staying at and stayed up talking again. We were pretty zonked by that point.

The next day, Emily's boss was returning and so we were going to have to return the car and also move our stuff over to where Emily was moving, to another structure, this one at an organic farm where she was going to start doing a work-trade to live there, so a lot of Friday was spent moving our stuff. The farm Emily moved to is really cool. The woman who owns it is awesome. She's about sixty, and partially disabled (kind of wild, she actually got her injury while doing yoga), and she runs this whole farm year-round, mostly by herself, a very strong woman. She's also a very key person in starting a seed exchange that was happening on Kauai later this week, a way for farmers and others to exchange seeds so they don't go extinct. It's funny b/c a few days before the trip I was talking with the guys I work with about that same issue, the loss of biodiversity in seeds b/c of huge corporations and all that.

So anyway, Marie gave us some fresh fruit to try, guavas and something else that sort of looked like a seedless grape with a big pit in the middle, and she collected the seeds from the fruits we ate. Then she also told us where we could pick some Aloe plants for our burns. That was cool, squeezing a leaf onto my skin, it was like the aloe gel you can get at stores but more potent. I never felt my sunburn after that (though it still looks nasty).

We also spent part of that day trying to rent a car. Emily and Tallie are both 24 and since I can't drive, my age didn't help. We went around forever until we found someone who'd rent a car without "young driver" fees, so that kind of killed part of the day, but gave us a way to get around.

We decided to have a picnic on the beach for dinner. It was awesome, no one was there, and we got all kinds of fresh food, so we were just sitting there in the sand eating avocados (one of my all time favorite foods), peppers, cucumbers, oranges, etc smothered onto baguette bread with goat cheese, and drinking wine. The water was calmer here, and it was just after sunset, and this part actually reminded me of early childhood, when I lived in CT, right by Long Island Sound. I'm not sure exactly what the connection was, it was a strange feeling, like it reminded me of something I couldn't quite remember, something maybe before language. It was a good strange feeling. I had to walk in the water, kinda frolic around a little bit. I can't stand seeing the ocean and not going in somehow. So then we went back to Emily's new structure on the organic farm, got high and stayed up doing tarot readings and having really deep discussions about our lives, our struggles, and so on.

We only had candlelight to see by and so when I was doing a reading, I pulled the Queen of Cups and Emily wanted to see it clearer, so she put the candle right by it and accidentally dripped wax on the card. I didn't really mind, but it was kind of funny. Emily said, "At least there's a story for why it looks so disheveled now," and now I can never forget that particular reading.

On Saturday morning we drove around some more, went to a tiny Farmer's Market. I drank coconut water straight from a coconut there, and they gave me the rest of the edible part of the coconut to take with me. It was really cool, very different. Emily had to go to work again, so Tallie and I explored some more. We went to the Botanic Gardens, where we learned about the different kinds of plants, and which are native and which aren't, saw low hanging palms and visited a lotus pond. Then we went to this place called Spouting Horn, which was this natural rock thing where when waves crashed into it, water came spouting up out of the rocks. It was cool.

We went back to Emily's work, and she gave us all this food - chili, all these salads, smoothies, etc, so we sat outside and ate it. I felt like I ate soooo well in Hawaii. One of my goals was to try new things, and I totally did, especially fruits. Along with the guavas and the things that looked like seedless grapes and the coconut, I also ate papaya, fresh mango, apple bananas, a burrito made with fresh ahi fish, and also a brazilian style dish called pancaqua (or something like that, I don't think I spelled that right) which was rich with squashes, purple potatoes (soooo fucking good, I've had those before too, excellent), and a pumpkin stuffed crepe.

Night was pretty much the same as others, we went back to Emily's structure, drank, got high, talked. There was this cat there, manakitty, who was the most annoying cat ever, constantly whining and following us everywhere, every second. In the mornings, the moment she heard us moving, she was there, rubbing up on us, trying to be let in. When we walked she wound herself around our feet. She literally almost got peed on many times. It got to the point where if one of uf had to go pee in the woods, the others would keep the cat inside the structure. We thought the cat was in heat but Marie said she's always like that. The roosters at Marie's place also crowed all night long. In fact this one rooster there was louder than the one at the other place. It was like it was trying to hit some note but kept failing, so it was pretty funny to listen to but also like shut up already, lol. We were joking that if the cat went and hunted the rooster we'd like the cat again, lol, but we were just kidding around obviously.

On Sunday we went to Waimea Canyon. We were having trouble finding the trailhead and there were these rangers, Native Hawaiians, who told us where to go, and asked us if we wanted to get high with them before we started out. We declined, which was good, b/c the hiking definitely took some concentration. We hiked for hours on different trails. The Canyon was amazing to look at, and the hiking was invigorating. It was elevated by a few thousand feet so the air was cooler, and felt so fresh and good. We actually saw some trees and plant life that reminded me of Flagstaff. We got to this lookout over the Kallalao (sp?) valley, which is twelve miles of undisturbed wilderness that people can hike into. Apparently people live in that Valley too. I wish we could have done that, but I hear its really treacherous, like people die out there. Anyway so we were hoping to at least look at it, and instead came upon a complete wall of fog, the only we ever saw on Kauai. It was still awesome. We hiked some more, did another trail, saw the Canyon some more.

After that we opted for a bit of civilization and went into town for some pizza and then saw a movie, which none of us had done in ages. Then afterward, we went to this super long bike path along the shore and walked it. It started out in a town called Kapa'a, and there was a lot of light pollution there, but as we got further out, we were just walking along the shore, listening to the ocean, watching it at night. It reminded me of this time I was with my friend Tara in late summer 02, when she invited me to go with her family on a trip to Wildwood, NJ. We walked all the way back from the boardwalk to the hotel late at night, walking by the ocean the whole while.

On the bike path, we saw the moon coming up behind some clouds, so Tallie, Emily and I sat down on the edge of the bike path and waited until the moon emerged from the clouds and shone over the water. We saw the moon every night we were there, through the trees by Emily's structure, streaming through the screened sections of the structure, reflecting on the water.

THe next day, we helped Marie harvest lettuce, kale and cilantro, mostly lettuce. Some of it had gotten infected by some bug, so we spent a few hours kneeling in the soil, harvesting and sorting through it all. Then we washed it, bagged it and labeled it then drove it to Papaya's where Emily works, b/c Marie delivers produce to them regularly. Then Emily had to work and so Tallie and I went back to the beach for our last day in Hawaii. We mostly just read on the shore, but me being me, I decided to take a super long walk by the waves and ended up getting completely soaked. It was awesome.

Then we went and helped Emily clean up at work, did dishes so she could get out of there sooner. Then we went out to eat, dropped Emily off at her structure, said goodbye and drove out to Lihue to get on our late flight. It was insane about the fruit stuff at the airport. I mean, it's so spacious and open in that small airport, so you'd think it'd be all chill and relaxed, but before you even check in and get boarding passes, they have to scan the baggage you're checking in some x-ray thing, checking for any fruit or plants. Then we checked in and Tallie realized she had an avocado in her carry-on so we had to eat that (and some more food from Papaya's that Emily had made for us) before going through regular security. So we did that and then we had to put our carry-ons through ANOHTER x-ray machine for the US Dept of Agriculture. It was nuts. So our flight left close to midnight, and we flew to Phoenix (sooooo out of the way), waited there for hours for our flight back to Seattle, got Tallie's car and drove up to the ferry and came home.

I had an awesome time in Hawaii, and I was extremely glad to be home. It was a great place to visit, but I could never live there. I think the sunshine would get to me, lol. I would miss the rain, the dreariness, the clouds, the winter, the fog (though we did see that the one time). Also Emily said a lot of the people she runs into are just kind of either too stoned to care about anything, or just kind of shallow. When she first saw us, she was like, "You don't know how glad I am to see people of substance," which felt really awesome. After spending some time there, I could see what she meant. So yeah, I was really glad to get home.

I came home exhausted, filthy, burnt, bug-bitten, scratched up from getting knocked over by waves, with aching sore muscles from the hiking, and sand and soil in and on all my clothes and god knows what else, and it was soooo worth it. I also felt like my headspace completely changed from when I left. I always do a lot of thinking and reflecting when I'm away, and I did tons, which was really good and necessary. Somehow, being away really clarifies things at home, at least it always does for me, and this time was no different.

I thought a lot about how in some ways I've gotten away from what really matters to me in the last while, which is something I've thought and blogged about lately, and this trip gave me more time to reflect on that. I definitely want to get back into actually writing, generating new stuff, and my thought was that I need to get up early to do that, because otherwise too much of the day gets away from me. I felt inspired to write again. I also felt more vibrantly into music. I go through ebbs and flows with that. There were so many times I wanted to just burst into song. I also gave a lot of thought to how much fucking time I spend doing things that kind of take away from my writing life, or my deep feeling self, mainly watching TV and spending too much time chatting online, two habits I really fell into big time after Mr O left, I think mainly b/c I was lonely. Well that was April, it's getting close to a year now since that point, and I feel ready to let those habits fall away. I think I went through a really long process with that whole thing, and I think it's fading, I'm getting over it.

I also felt like my trip totally affirmed how glad I am to have that relationship out of my life, because in hindsight, and especially in the company of awesome good friends, it's really clear to me how destructive it all was. Spending time with Emily and Tallie made me also realize how important good friends are, and also that in some ways, I missed out on getting to know some great people who worked at camp this past year. Some of that was totally out of my control, being in the kitchen and working part-time and all, and always having that dog to come home to, and I just started thinking that I definitely want to make more of an effort this coming season when the new staff arrive in the next week or so. Really, one thing I thought about so much during my trip is the preciousness of good friends, and not at all in the acquaintance type way, but in the way where you can really share your soul and say anything to someone, appreciating the differences and just totally be who you are without worry. I haven't had that too often with people my age, and that made this trip pretty special.

Eating all that excellent, healthy, natural food also affirmed something I had already decided about a month ago, which is that I want to do a CSA this summer. I also feel so in love with where I live, which is funny because in the fall, I wasn't feeling that way at all, but it's been a great winter here, and somehow being away just made me love Orcas even more. I kinda feeling like I'm getting unstuck in a way, and it all feels really good. Earlier tonight I was sitting in my apartment eating dinner, just looking around and thinking how much I love my place.

Basically, to sum up, internally, I feel like my trip confirmed and deepened a lot of what I was thinking and feeling before I left, like I was already turning in a certain direction, and this was just another push in the right direction.

I have to say that during all that hype about security and fruits/amoebas/virus, I was sooo tempted to say some smartass answer like, "You mean I can't take my vial of anthrax/aids/avian flu with me?" I had all kinds of phrases like that running through my mind, waiting to spill out of my mouth, but somehow I don't think they would have appreciated the sarcasm. I guess next time if I want to shock people on airplanes, I'll bring my portable DVD player and start watching porn or something, just kidding. Speaking of, Tallie told me that there is some woman who's famous for trying to unionize sex workers who lives on Orcas, cool.


Currently Listening:
"I Miss You" - Bjork - I love her voice. It's funny, I am such a rock girl at heart, and yet lately I've found myself listening to music with a bit more of a hip-hop type bent to it, probably because of my undying love for Fiona Apple and her geniusness, because seh sometimes leans that way. Anyway I've just found myself attracted to that style more, and Bjork, and this song, definitely fit in with that, at least this version I have, Bjork with Rodney P. This song also reminds me of these sisters Karla and Cristina, who I hung out with a lot in the beginning of my last year of college, because they LOVED this song and first introduced me to it.