Monday, April 30, 2012

I haven't been blogging because I've been knitting in all my free time...and after a Portlandia episode I started watching Battlestar Gallactica so I've been really consumed with activities that do nothing to better the lives of others or contribute to the good of humanity in any way. I felt off balance and realized that my intellectual life was suffering. I had to cancel my New Yorker subscription on my kindle as I couldn't figure out how to knit and read...and I was starting to feel like one of those people I'd always judged harshly: spending lots of time sitting on my ass watching tv series after tv series on streaming Netflix while I maniacally knitted sweaters. I was possessed with my new craft - it filled the hole previously filled with painting, traveling and Antarctica. Being able to watch tv series a zillion episodes at a time is amazingly fun. I haven't had a tv in 20 years so the streaming deal has been an amazing bargain. And the knitting was so satisfying and deeply fulfilling that I couldn't say no to it, even though it's a hobby loaded with meaning that goes against  badass self that I had been growing. And I even started cooking - something I never thought I'd do. I became a vegan because, well, my new hobby is so sedentary that I can't eat sugar and meat and french fries. I went on a one month odyssey to Texas and New Mexico, and managed to crank out 4 fully knitted items. I actually can't wait to stop typing this so I can cast on a new project...

Living in a place that is cold is so good for my soul it is ridiculous. I have already had some mini panics over the springtime and longer days...but I have to remind myself that it is consistently 30 degrees cooler here than in Austin on any given day. I still think about the Ice and the wild times at McMurdo and it seems like that seven years happend in just the blink of an eye...time is really speeding up here now that I'm in my fifties. I am absolutely clueless about what kind of job I'd want here or if my heart could be in it. I haven't closed the door on the Ice, so I haven't completely embraced stateside life. What I have embraced and have fallen in love with is Oregon. Not necessary Portland, though it is a great city, but the whole state of Oregon...there's a lot of things that bug me about this place (super slow speed limit, pedestrian entitledness, fear of putting a receipt in a bag with purchases), but after visiting a few places in the state, I am just pleased as punch that I live someplace with so much natural beauty. Unlike Taos, every time I am on Mt. Hood I am filled with euphoria. I finally know the feeling of being in the "great outdoors." Mt. Hood is my mountain....it takes my breath away to see the low hanging clouds and feel the super crisp air. Something happens to me on the quiet ski lift gliding to the top that never happens to me in Taos: the gleefulness I've always felt when in my climate happy spot. And that spot is getting more extreme. Over 60F makes me nervous now. I am looking at spending summers in Alaska, or once Fergus is gone, Reykjavik. I don't have to make a big deal out of if anymore and complain about the perpetual sun (that only I seem to observe) here in Portland...I'll just quietly keep looking for  my weather happy spot. In a month I'll be in Viking lands. I am really spoiled.