All This Useless Beauty

Twelve years later in Taos...the same view from the same window from the painting studio in the stupendously wonderful adobe lodge that butts up against the Taos Pueblo. And always a little washcloth, dry as a bone in the high desert air, hanging from a curiously placed clothesline. It only took  about 48 hours for the joy from our gathering to wear off. I changed my ticket to blow off my Austin trip to come back to Portland early, as I wanted to get to winter as soon as possible. It did not disappoint - we went straight from hot and sunny to pure winter. I had an even more difficult summer this year than last year - I have no air conditioning, and was even more depressed than I can ever remember being. I don't understand why I can't just roll with it - I'm looking to move to Alaska next summer, it seems to be the only reasonable option left.

I have not looked at facebook in a while as I don't want to see what I'm missing at McMurdo. No matter how many awesome things are going on right in front of me, I am still grief-stricken that I am not there. I keep trying to distract myself from the grief with a variety of activities and spectacular trips, and even grueling jobs help, but the hole in my soul is there, and I don't know what to do with it. Sometimes I feel very childish and embarrassed that I feel this way - I mean, aren't there a million other wonderful things I could be doing? A friend of mine who just found out I painted couldn't believe that I would rather be driving a loader in Antarctica than having art shows. How do I explain to him that going to the Ice was the fulfillment of every dream I ever had and some I didn't even know I had. Today, I went on a job interview at the airport regarding cargo and airplanes and it all sounded very exciting and with this cold weather even might be a little reminiscent of my old life, and while I was putting on my steel toed boot this morning, I looked over at my little dog, who was looking at me cuz he always wants to go with me, and I thought, I could just toss this eight pound shoe onto this 7 pound dog and could it all be over with  - but what kind of sociopath thinks that way? To be so relentlessly enmeshed with my memories of this place, to re-visit in my mind over and over again with euphoric recall the tiny details of deployment and redeployment, to remember running to the CDC with my luggage on that wobbly cart to dump all my ECW and be free again! And then to start the cycle over 6 months later. Do I love my Ice career more than my dog? Absolutely. But I still stick to the plan of taking care of him til he's gone.

What I miss most is that cycle: 6 months on, 6 months off...no time to get into a rut, no time to get into a toxic relationship, everything has an end date, everything can be fresh, new and exciting again. I no longer thing anything is wrong with me when I feel this urgent need for excitement. I honor it. It is who I am. More Excitement Please.

I just read several stunningly good books in a row: Both of Cheryl Strayed's books, and Philip Roth's American Pastoral. Still reeling from all that good writing. There is so much talent in the world. So many beautiful things being gestured and created every moment - and at the same time dear friends losing beloved pets and parents, and the world keeps turning. Impersonal. Gracious. Full of mystery.

It is dawning on me that maybe it's time for a new dream. This idea just hit me today. It is terrifying in the sense that I already KNOW what is best for me...or do I?...I've been digging my heels in so bratty and tight-jawed, clinging to the past, that I haven't even considered that there could be anything else out there...could there? Could the universe be so full and bursting with fruit that something as wonderful, maybe...even...as..exciting as the Ice could come into my life if I'd just consider it? Well I have to consider it - because I've had my tantrums long enough and I'm sick of myself. It is time to see the world with present day eyes and kick the king baby crybaby to the curb.

My friends in Taos kept seeing me sneak off to my room when I was supposed to be painting. I was sneaking off to knit...I approach knitting with the slobbering glee I used to approach the mirror piled with powdery goods...and I heard myself tell this friend "knitting solves everything"...and it felt really true. When I am engaged in it there is nothing else going on in the world and my brain is silenced. Knitting solves everything...and for some reason I took my first year's worth of knitting to Taos, and sold every bit of it.  That was really great!

There is another hole in my soul that is filled by my parents love. I was with them for 10 days and didn't have to make any decisions and we just ate packaged dinners and watch shows on a massive flatscreen. It doesn't sound like a big adventure, but being with them after moving so far away is really precious to me. A lot of my friends don't have parents anymore. I feel very grateful that I have mine.

Again With the Making Me Cry

The "Grey Thatch"

I awoke to an e-mail from a dear friend (who is probably the only subscriber to this pitifully neglected blog) whose title is also the title of this posting. This was followed by a giddy Skype session, and now my ego is puffed, as it sometimes is, from that rare occasion that these shameless ramblings may touch someone. Inspired enough to write another posting just one day later! I know at least one person is reading now, and many others who google "under the sea floats"....wtf??? And I'm re-using photos from previous postings...

The ecstasy of having no estrogen left in my body! My soul is singing at never having to use birth control again (why are we fertile for 30 freakin' years!). I always knew I would love the crone. I was yearning for the crone when I was a 21 year old punk. I was a "get offa my lawn" kind of gal when I was ripe with ova. I don't hate kids. I just never wanted any. And I really like it when I don't have to be around them very much. Those shortys behind me in the photo are emperor penguins, by the way.

Summer in Portland is only slightly less hellish than summer in Austin. At least in Austin I expect the weather to suck 10 months out of the year. But for 4 months without break here is is white hot sun and boiling temps. I can say it cools off at night here, which is a relief. But I am not doing another summer here-I've already decided that.

required Antarctic paragraph:

The thing about Home is it not always bliss. But people who've been through hell together report the same sorts of feelings I've felt on the Ice. A lot of id comes out on down there...I always tell people: whatever it is in you that you are hiding from, or think you can control and not act upon, or are not even aware of, that Thing will roar up and take over in that remote station bubble. I always am surprised which character defect will get activated, which ancient cathects will emerge, which uber inappropriate man I'll be attracted to. It's shocking, but I go with it.

For G, the only other person I know who grocs this dirty south thing the way I do: I love you!

Home

Ugh - I'm finally letting myself look at photos from my last season on Ice two years ago. I chose the shots that hurt my heart the most because I just had to let myself go there. I like the stormy, dark days of winfly and the overcast days in general, and the top photo is sentimental in too many ways to have to explain. I have an alternate contract, as I did last year, but I didn't get called up last year and may not this year. I still have the doggie to take care of, but I'd give anything for everything to line up in place and have a dog sitter so I could go back. This is the time of year that feels particularly sharp, as this in when the first batch of folks are about to deploy. There was talk of a winfly only deployment, which would have been perfect: I had a dog sitter for the six weeks and wouldn't have to move out of my apt - but I wasn't far enough along in my PQ process to be a contender. There is a chance I will get all the medical appts. done before last winfly flight, and the job that was being talked about would have been  (like everything having to do with the past 8 years and the Ice), like wow, like really, I get to do THAT.

Missing one season is hard. I've done it before and I feel like I'm missing out on so much. I am emotionally crippled stateside as I cannot recreate the social and tribe like intensity that exists there. I was just on one of the more fun trips I have every been on: tweaky busy travel to a different gorgeous Scandinavian port every day, and in the midst of this heady and uberfun time, I would lay in my private cozy stateroom watching the craggy coastline go by, thinking it doesn't get any better than this, but also aware of a deeper, more honest feeling hiding under the lid I have so tightly placed over it: it does get better than this. And not just better but edgier and weirder and so much more badass and wonderful and just more fun than I could have ever dreamed life could be. Somehow, a permission to be this realized, solid me just happens after my first day of station life. I have tried every way I know how to feel that me that is there, here, and I cannot do it. When those wheels of that cargo plane touch down on the Ice, the self that I'd been waiting all my life to meet blasts onto me with icy air. I am home. The Ice, and especially McMurdo, have given me everything. The only way I can pay her back is to just keep going and doing my best to do what is asked of me. I have and will continue to feel like an orphan until I can go back.

Looking at these photos has a profound impact on me...things had gotten better and better over the seasons and and sitting here next to me is the only reason I can't go back: a 15 year old dog who wants all of me all of the time. It is an odd situation to be in, and I guess my only option is to wait.

I have surrendered to the fact that I have to go back to be happy. I've tried everything to try and make myself feel otherwise. The pearl at any price has been found, and I won't ever let it go.

Visual Journey of Norway-Denmark-Scotland Trip

I love being on the ocean

Copenhagen - my favorite city so far

Oslo

Sunset on the North Sea

Bergen Norway

Bergen

Bergen

Skjolden Norway

Skjolden

Alesund, Norway

top of Mt. Alesund

Geiranger - pics cannot do justice to this magnificent place

Mt. Dalsnibba

Lerwick, Shetland Islds

Lerwick

Edinburgh

Harmony and Me

Hallo, I said hello-o-o...starts the song at the end of the Yellow Brick Road album. We (my sister and me) were so obsessed with Elton John in junior high that we spoke, dreamed and talked of nothing else. He was our god. As we begged for and received each new album we touched & treasured them (and played them compulsively) as if they were objects d'art  and centered our lives around this man's music. Even though a lot of the lyrics seem insipid today..I can still belt out every word to every song of his 70's oeuvre. Listening to his music provided me my first experiences of euphoria...I had not had any joy in my young life, and now it had arrived, and I yearned and pined to meet this man in the twisted and programmed belief that this inner intimacy I felt in communion with his music had something to do with some ideal of romantic love. My next Yellow Brick Road was Born to Run, then in 1979 I fell into the local new punk rock scene and the euphoria exploded upon the first notes of a song at the club and the endless river of booze. I loved drinking, punk rock and freedom. And I had all of that in 1979.

But the Harmony I intended to write about here was Harmony Korine. As I pack for a my first trip to Norway, I was looking for some films shot there to get some visual markers. Norway is not really on the American radar. But last night was I was surfing streaming Netflix (weird) I found a doco on the Black Metal scene in Norway. Score! Lots of cinema verite footage of Oslo and Bergen, but more interesting, the incredible intelligence and thoughtfulness of some of the musicians. I was enlighten to a whole genre of music I had previously written off and am now quite interested in. They have Bill Maher's political leanings and look like their wearing Halloween goth costumes, speak perfectly unaccented English, and have a soulfulness that has made me redirect how I am going to spend some of my time in Norway (less yarn, more metal).

As a film geek, I have always loved auteurs, but have problems with some of the really dark, dada and Dogme 95 stuff. Lars von Trier's work is beautiful and heavy (Dancer in the Dark, Breaking the Waves) but I thought Melancholia was uninspired crap. It reminded me of my least favorite female director, Sofia Coppola, whose stuff is so cold and characters so brain dead you hope they all kill themselves...contrary to the uber warmth and love I feel for someone like Miranda July. I should like Harmony Korine. He is a real artist and does not compromise his work, was part of Dogme 95 then wrote his own manifesto, and his films receive a lot of praise. I know a beautiful suburban housewife who watches "Gummo" as her Christmas Day ritual (!). I have never been able to sit through Gummo. I guess I have an un open-mindedness to some types of art - I feel Harmony will take me someplace (dark, white-trash, filthy) I can't come back from. I watched Julien Donkey-Boy with a whole tiny Antarctic Station and that was doable because I wasn't alone, which is how I usually view films (something about seeing this sort of film alone terrifies me)...but it was expectedly revolting, (starring Werner Herzog, who is a big fan) and I guess I need to be moved by art, not just repulsed. I have a strong reaction to fictionalized brutality towards humans and animals...and when it is forced upon me, I want to run. I don't feel Harmony is revealing anything interesting to me about life or humans or the universe.

So Harmony showed up in this doco I saw last night (Until the Light Takes Us) that was beautiful and touching and very well made. He loves this music and this black metal scene and grocs what is all about. The guys who started it were basically acting out in anger what intellectuals write about when they are writing about the tyrannical spread of Christianity (or any religion). People thought they were Satanists  -they burned down some churches, they were anarchists. But they truly felt major religion had killed the Viking soul, and decided to be a bit terroristic about it while plugging away at their art.

I want to examine my resistance to even sitting through an entire Harmony Korine film. I have disliked certain revered filmmakers before. I walked out of The Tin Drum, and flunked the test over it in college, but I just wasn't going to force myself to watch it. I sat through Effie Briest, and after that decide life is too short to sit through directors' mental masturbation movies. Maybe I'm a not a purist. I didn't like Tree of Life or Lost in Translation, but have watched Rumblefish 100 times. I always loved Woody Allen, especially after his "funny period" when he got serious and fans jettisoned. Crimes and Misdemeanors is a masterpiece. He is the greatest American auteur.

People keep asking me if I'm excited about my "vacation" as I start the journey to Norway/Denmark/Scotland. I say yes but don't say that I don't see this as a vacation in the traditional way people think about that sort of thing. I'm not vacating anything. I'm traveling, which is what I do now as sort of a part time gig. It's time to travel again...my soul requires it...I worked hard to realize the childhood dream and now have to keep honoring it.

Finally, I remembered my point! I just read this, a quote by Harmony:  "to me, the most beautiful thing in the world is an abandoned parking lot and a soiled sofa on the edge… with a street lamp off to the side. America seems like a series of abandoned parking lots, streetlights and abandoned sofas."  Ahh, now I know why I love his aesthetic but not his finished artworks. To me, the most beautiful thing is a dark overcast sky over a dirty factory glittering at dusk, alit; pumping out black smoke, above dirty rumbling railcars littering a rail yard. And that: repulsive to most people I'm sure. The ugly underbelly of American, we both love it, Harmony and me. 

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.

SouthBy 2012

Feeling homesick during the holidays I booked a trip to Texas during SXSW. I flew to Houston with my dog, dropped him off at my parents house & drove to Austin. As soon as I pulled into the city of my birth and saw the hot boiling streets  and nitemare traffic, I wanted to turn back around and go back to my cold and cozy house near Portland. I tried to do the deal as best I could but found myself mostly slogging around by myself, trudging through the masses on 6th street and SoCo, occasionally running into friends and hearing some great unexpected bands. There was magic: riding my scooter across the bridge with the large moon illuminating the water, while the glittering downtown pulled at me like it had 30 years ago, driving me into the dark places that my soul craved, but that were ultimatley destructive, looking for some phantom magic that I found in chemical euphoria. I love having all that behind me now and being the cranky old-timer squawking about how much my feet hurt, and who can feel euphoric by logging onto Ravelry.

Just being around Weird Austin is worth it's weight in gold. I love living in Portland, but that city has NOTHING on Austin as far as Weird. Austin is so much edgier and Out There, so much bolder and riskier and far out. The freaks less afraid of falling through the cracks, so much more daring and courageous and not afraid of looking like utter fools. The yuppie factor during this time is always startling. Expensive blonde highlighted ironed hair and fake tans while still trying to look like Austin hipsters. I feel like saying to these poseur Californians: no matter how hard you try we can tell you are not an Austinite so stop trying so hard. I can see your nose job scars from across the street. I was always feeling slightly off kilter here this week. My best day was when I got in my car and went north of the insanity of the festival and walked around the Drag and shopped at the Co-op. No more hippies and weirdos on the drag - it's clean and shiny now. UT is no longer for slacker students like me-I probably wouldn't even be able to get in now, but now that I've had a degree for almost 30 years, I am more astonished of this fact than ever, and have more UT and longhorn shirts and hats than I ever did when I was in school and lived here. Now that I am leaving tomorrow I am seeing all the good of this place again. Mostly these days, I just want to sit in a 60 degree room and knit...here are some images from the week:

I love being older, and the carefreeness that comes with that. I saw so many young girls who'd spent so much time perfecting their outfits and hair and felt such relief that I don't do that anymore. Some days I wore out what I'd slept in, my gigantic  new black Prada bi-focals the only indication that maybe I had been in some sort of scene at some point in my life. I can't totally disappear from this place: my identity is tied up in several different circles here and it really is "home" in so many ways. I guess I'm kind of a poseur too - I try to look cool, too, by dressing sloppy and having anti-fashion That Harley is not mine: I was just sitting

on it. But just like those pix from that German band seen here, this festival is all about having fun by sticking out. In a city with so many creative and uber unusual people doing so much exciting stuff, it's okay to try and look cool or weird or sexy or whatever you want. Back in the punk scene we were all real judgemental about "posers" or kids who wore "outfits" that looked punk rock. But we were doing the same thing - just the opposite, try real hard to look like we weren't trying at all. There were some real punks, but us college kids whose parents were paying their tuition were just enjoying rocking the lifestyle of it: we had apts. to go back to and books to study. I will leave glad I came, but can't wait to get back to Oregon. This festival always reminds me that people can do anything they want creatively, and that the fans are just as important as the artists, and that is is actually all right just to have a good time. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

Double Headed F Monster

winter wonderland

After settling in to my new digs and job I am surprised at how content I am with my situation. I did go through an intense homesickness for McMurdo and even Texas during the holidays, but after a few weeks of struggling with my intense fight or flight (FOF) response to situational discomfort, I am happily plugging away in my outwardly conventional life. A good friend once told my I had an extreme case of "fomo": Fear Of Missing Out. She was right. During the week of Christmas and New Years I was sunk in a dark slot that wasn't really despression or despair, but more like Extreme Fomo Gone Wild. I was missing the Mactown Christmas Party! and Icestock! And all the creative and exciting projects people do on Ice. I sound like a five year old whose not getting what they want. During a period of fomo, I will often make decisions that feel very important and necessary: I'm done with Portland, I need to move back to Texas where I know more people and how to get around easier, and mostly, deliberately keep my eye on the prize and don't settle in to any situation that does not lead back to my seasonal lifestyle. This lasted about two weeks. After a flurry of e-mails was sent trying to secure different arrangements in a variety of cities, barely disguising the FOF mania, something happened that put a stop to this crazy cycle that has driven my as long as I've been alive: Winter. As my faithful readers know, weather seems to be the one factor that seriously affects my mood. I've been disappointed in general with Portland: too sunny in general, too warm in the summer, and really not  as cloudy as I'd hoped. But winter right now is wonderful...and as soon as it dipped below 35 and started snowing and raining, I've been very happy to be right here. I am still agog with knitting, and bestly, I went skiing for two days at Mt. Hood and had a blast. I knew I had to accept my situation (taking care of my dog until I can go back to the Ice), but I didn't really think I could thrive in it. All this quiet and solitude (I spend so much time alone and not talking to anyone compared to my life before) has made me see how the fomo and fof have worked together like hysterical screeching toddlers in my psyche to drive me to make rash decisions and sign up for a bunch of stuff that I don't go to, all because I don't want to be reminded of  the time in my life when I had no activities to choose from except sitting in a room by myself. Now I sit in a room by myself a lot and it's really fun because I'm working on all sorts of complicated knitting projects. And when I ignore the double headed F monster I see that I am really free. And despite what popular culture would have one believe, being a middle aged single woman is about the most rockin'est situation to be in. I love having no estrogen and not having to wear cute clothes. It saddens me that so many believe the lie that one has to have a family of one's own to be happy...there is so much freaking fun stuff to do out there!

 In my fierce attempts to retain my antarctic persona I have inadvertently become suburban. Suddenly I find myself in a sweet little townhouse in a beautiful old farm community with jaw dropping fall foliage, ancient and funky strip malls, and millions of acres of exploding Intel factories. It is how I got a job here and why this former rolling farm country is filled with giant brand new houses and spotlessly clean streets. I thought I would miss downtown Portland and I do in some regards...but I love being able to hop in my car and drive anywhere and I want to go. I find the mass transit here limited and slow, and don't use it unless I have several hours to spare. I started knitting and have fallen in love with it and am somewhat obsessed. I've finished one sweater and one set of mitts, and am working on my second sweater. I did a vegan diet for two months and lost some pudge I'd put on when I moved here...and now I lust for legumes and veggies. Ech...I thought I had something profound to say and it turns out I don't. I had Thanksgiving dinner with one of the painters I'd known from a season on the Ice. He just deployed for a short stint and his helper dropped out last minute so I e-mailed the big boss and said hey I'm a pq'd warm body ready to go down for  a short stint! I was excited for a moment, but also realizing that I was kind of digging my little life I'd created here in Oregon. Things are happening very fast...I haven't spent holidays in the states in a while so I am bracing myself for missing the exquisite holiday times at McMurdo. I was at a store selling X-mas decorations and the idea of buying any of that junk seemed totally repellent to me. As I've pared down my possessions more and more I see everything I purchase as something that I'll have to drag with me on my next move or bag for Goodwill. When I moved to Hillsboro it was the first time I'd rented a truck. Every other move was done with my car...and I have this bigger space with only a bed and a loveseat. I had originally planned on acquiring dining furniture and  stuff for the porch - but after a week of living here I decided I was not going to buy any more stuff - this house is going to be bare. I'm sure I won't start cooking here, or becoming more homey - I just turned 51 and despite how the world and culture tells me a middle aged woman is supposed to be, my desires are moving towards a future even more nomadic and unconventional. I meet people here every day who have never travelled outside this state. I used to be shocked by that sort of thing, by people who didn't crave getting as far away as possible from everything they've ever known and going towards something so different and so unknown as to be unimaginable. I am content and happy right now, having new everything around me and exploring a beautiful green landscape...but underneath I am waiting for the day I can be free again.

Way Down Under

Pine Island Glacier, December 2010

Mr. Spock said having is not the same thing as wanting...and pining for something can be even sweeter. To yearn for something and work to make it happen is the great joy of life in my experience. And for some unknown and random reason, what I got was so much more epically grand than anything I had envisioned for myself. When I look at this photo that I took at the end of last year it doesn't even seem real that I was there. That I drove there. On the back side of pining and yearning is memory. I love how time sweetens...everything. And it almost seems that the tougher and more stressful a situation is the more deeply satisfying the memories of it are, as if doing something hard is really worth doing on a level we don't appreciate at the time. I'm so glad there is a maniacal child inside of me who wants things and will keep me up nights on end trying to get my attention. Sometimes my life slows down, as it has now, stateside, but the Hungry One does not slow down. I can keep it entertained and distracted, but eventually it wants me to keep churning forth with ambitious plans that keep me never really able to settle down. I was always very curious about people who wanted to have a family, and it seems that most everyone wants to do it, but I never for one single second wanted that because the daemon spoke to me very early and very clearly. It knew what I was cut out for and having children and a home was not a part of the Plan. It has been very difficult adjusting to "regular life" after driving a farm tractor across Western Antarctica (I can't even believe my fingers are typing those words!). It sounds so unbelievably glamorous and it wasn't, but it was such hard physical and emotional work that it was worth every minute of the grim parts. My biggest hope is that this time of homespun simplicity is just a surface act and that the next big thing is brewing in the loamy depth of my being where there seems to be some sort of perpetual chaos. No wonder I used to self-medicate. Self-medicating is intelligent if you're trying to fit into the straight world. Right in front of me, there is an interesting milieu, a different game to play...but I have to be on guard for settling for something as cheap and easy as pleasure, when the rewards for working for your deepest heart's desire are pretty much indescribable. There is no going backwards.

Missing DFW

mid-day, end of September

Eastward, from my apt. window

The blinding Portland summer is over and the glorious fog and rain have returned. I have a job. I have a bright new yellow Fiesta. My little ancient dog is curled up next to me on the bed and I'm brewing some mint tea to sip while I knit a sweater. A year ago I was driving tractors in Antarctica and would have poo-poo'd the above scenario. I am not sure if I'm happy but I am content [deleted: long, insufferably rambling post about the horrors of going off of medication one needs to be on and thrashing around for months before going back on it, the whole time not realizing that all the horrors and psychosis are from a chemical imbalance and not, in fact, from the notion that life is "over." Also, a very long paragraph about the epiphanies gained in Taos, while being soothed, like a newborn baby, in the arms of forty women in the crone portion of their lives, sort of birthing (felt more like C-sectioning) me into that same humbling period that I was quite ungracefully moving towards. Ramblings about David Foster Wallace, about how sad I still am that he is not alive, while reading his words transcribed from a road trip into a novel. A few sentences about discovering how, when, at the end of thrashing about from self induced misery there is nothing left to do but write poems. Some stuff about atheism, stand-up forklifts, hormone replacement therapy and the consolation of winter. Some questions I was pondering: can one have adventure without getting on an airplane, can the top of one's values list be "excitement", can one be really attracted to someone and sort of repulsed by them at the same time]. So not much to write about at present...will check back in when inspiration kicks in.

The Rest of It

For several years now I've been writing about my Antarctic and travel life and not the "rest of it" so much, but lately I've been doing the rest of it...living the stateside life of what people consider to be "real life." I didn't like it before I went to the Ice and I'm not liking it much now. I've been struggling a lot lately with depression and despair as I feel like I'm going back to a lifestyle that didn't suit me then and really feels awkward now. I don't know why I'm having such a hard time adjusting...I mean I live in a gorgeous apartment in a cool city downtown, have a job starting next week and delish fall weather to look forward to, but the despair is hanging over me like a wool cloak. I have been thrashing around emotionally, screeching about not being able to go back to the Ice, feeling like my whole world, my joy and my tribe are there. I've never felt so at home and so alive, and so thoroughly happy with work. Antarctica is where I belong and where I want to be, but I have to take a season off, and I am not doing well emotionally around it. It seems so strange to pay for all these things that are free down there: apartments, food, gas, movies, clothes. I am trying not to resent my little dog, who is the reason I am staying stateside, and I'm embarrassed sometimes that I feel that way. What if I was to look at this another way, and see all the good things that can come from taking a season off - hmm, I'm thinking...oh yeah, I get to experience fall and winter with darkening skies in the late afternoon. I get to ski on my days off on Mt. Hood. I get to live by myself and not have to deal with roommate issues. I get to be with Fergus. I have a notion in my head that I cannot be happy off Ice...I know I was deliriously happy in Taos this past week, and when I'm on any sort of trip or even just in an airport or on a plane going anywhere. It is the daily routine of driving to work, having to think about every meal, and just being isolated so much that really gets to me. No matter how badly things may be going on Ice I am always glad I'm there...I am not able to fall into the pit of despair that I can fall into here. I thought moving from Texas to Oregon would help that, and it did help my reverse SAD symptoms a lot, but at the end of day I have returned to the rut lifestyle I had before I found the Ice in the first place. I am so sick of my bitching and complaining about not being able to go back. I just need to get over it and deal. There is a lot of cool stuff going on here, I have some great craft projects going on, and with my new job I will have alternating 3 day and 4 day weekends...I really need to overhaul my thinking on this or I'm just gonna drive myself crazy. I have been feeling completely insane with grief lately. I will be able to go back someday. It now seems surreal and unbelievable that I even got to do that...like it was some epic miniseries that I was watching...mabye that is what is missing: the gratitude that I have found my place. I just have to learn to wait. Wait gracefully and not kicking and screaming the way I have been.

I have too much time on my hands and there's not enough time for all the mulling it over I have to do. Two friends I've known for over 30 years visited me in the past two weeks and it made me realize that I'm not young anymore. Been hobbling around with plantar fasciitis and had to get orthotics. Have always taken if for granted that I could walk all day forever...many, many friends are deploying to the Ice and I'm trying not to fall into a rat-hole of gloom over it. I can go back someday. Went off of a sleeping medication I'd been on  for 7 years and now am free from any type of pharmaceuticals. I am trying to prove to myself that I can be happy off Ice...I don't really believe it yet but I am going to try and find out if it's possible. I am taking time off to take care of my dog. I'm taking a writing workshop at Powell's bookstore and it is fun. I have too much free time, but a job the job my temp job as a meter reader starts in a week. Summer in Portland is still summer but it doesn't suck as badly as summer in Austin. I have come to the realization lately that if my life is not exciting and jam packed with exciting events, I tend to want to jump off a bridge. A month ago my biggest fear was boredom, two weeks ago not sleeping, and now: not being able to walk. The cycle of life seems slow right now and I like things to go quickly. I accept my situation but I don't like it. There is am amazing homeless lady in the park in front of my house who has very long and exhausting conversations with the air all day. I've been watching her for weeks, and today she was in a long, smiling embrace with a homeless man whose beens sitting on a bench a block away. I felt emotional when I saw them, and wanted to watch more but walked on. There are so many things I could do but I am hardly doing any of them. I am doing so many things but have nothing to show for it. Be careful what you wish for cuz you might get it and then wish you could go back in to the time you were the poorest...but happiest...supposedly. supposebly. I have lived in Portland 4 months and have had three jobs, three roadtrips and three visitors. I hope, that it is true, like Michele said, that there is a benevolent force guiding the universe. The sunset from my 22nd floor window is magnificent. The lights are coming on on all the downtown buildings and I am freed from the day, allowed to fall into the anonymous limbo of night.

McBridin'

I saw this cartoon last night a lecture at Portland State University about Mel Blanc and his years in Portland, where he went to high school and began his radio career. The lecture was long and tedious at times, but full of incredibly interesting information about Mel, the early days of radio, and the immigrant community here in the 20's and 30's. They showed this cartoon (though Blanc was none of the voices) and I was amazed that I'd never seen it before, but the reason I posted it was because it was so profoundly delightful to me that I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. Being on a college campus in a historic building (the one Mr. Blanc went to high school in), listening to some radio-history nerd experts gush about their topic in a geeked-out crowd took me back to those heady college days of getting to see this kind of stuff every day in class. It was amazing taking radio-tv-film classes (though the great master Ozu was never mentioned!) and the older I get the more I realize what an incredible time those four years were.

I just got let go from my truck plant job. I had done it for 3 weeks and had hated every minute of it. It was so stupid and boring and I was trying to decide which day I was going to let them know it wasn't working for me when my dog got sick and I had to take him to the vet. I was in a probationary period where I couldn't miss any work for 45 days, so they fired me for taking that time off. The dog was very sick, and the job stunk, so it was a win/win situation. It was an intersting 3 weeks though: I was really trying to wrap my head around the idea of what it would be like to stay there the 4 years I'd have to stay to get the full teamster salary, and no matter how many different ways I tried to convince myself that I should do it deep down I knew I just couldn't. I felt like my happy time in Portland was Over - the men around me seemed institutionalized and suffered from very limited thinking. I had left my dock-worker job, which seemed overwhelming and dangerous, to do this material handler job which was mind numbing and crippling to my body. I stood in one spot all day and couldn't walk after work. My knees were killing me.  I couldn't get used to the schedule of having to go to bed by 9:00pm to get up at 4:30 - it just felt so wrong....I know this from the past: it is very hard to stay at a job when I don't really need a job...especially one that I don't get anything out of. I also know what's it like to not be able to quit working because I can't. I've just been pretty fortunate this past decade. I'm trying to decide whether I'm retired or not...it's starting to sound like a good idea, except for the fact that I have no health insurance. I really like hunting for jobs and interviewing for jobs, and being called and told I have the job...but actually doing the job, not so much (exception: Antarctica).

Apologies for the boring missive...I didn't even go into the complicated dealings between the two teamster unions for the two different jobs (short story: spent a lot of money, only got the t-shirt). I have two alternate contracts in my back pocket for the Ice, just because I'm not ready to close the door on it for this upcoming season. As for the title of this post, only one person knows what it refers to. I'm getting better at McBridin', and hopefully someday will be able to do it with perfection - muah! I wanna singa!

Whose Your City?

I've been in Portland now for about six weeks and it has been an incredibly satisfying time. I just assumed there would be various mini-traumas of adjusting to life in a brand new city but it just feels like I'm finally home - home to that part of me that craved and Irish climate. I will always be a Texan at heart but Portland has shone like a bright star in every way. The climate has been a dream: usually about 30-40 degrees colder than Austin, cloudy most of the time, and just downright cold here in late May. I've never loved living anywhere as much as I do this tiny luxurious studio on the 22nd floor. I could be a weatherman up here as I see the storms rolling in from the coast followed by the bright patch followed by the storm..etc...and there could be no exaggeration of how the weather here has positively affected my mood. It is if I gave my soul the cold it needed so my self could start thriving again.

Living downtown is great in ways I'm sure the reader understands, and I've had fun applying for jobs and going on interviews. I came to Portland armed with three "facts" that people told me that I have found to be UNtrue: it is impossible to find a job here, people are unfriendly, and there is no diversity. All of these things have not been true for me AT ALL. I am seem to have a desirable skillset for the timing of the expanding of industrial jobs. People here are extremely friendly...a quiet sort of friendly. Not boisterous friendly like Texans on a DFW-HOU Southwest Airlines flight (those are usually a hootenanny), or practical and helpful like New Yorkers. But everyone I have met here is gracious & accomodting. Surprisingly, the teamsters I work with are the most helpful of the bunch. When I first started my dock job unloading truck trailers I was the only girl on the dock and saw a bunch of blank faces zipping around in the forklifts. This dock is a giant slab on slick concrete with dozens of lifts buzzing around at full speed in total chaos. It can be a very dangerous environment and we blaze in and out of the trailers at ridiculous speeds. We are supposed to do a certain number of bills per hour so we are all sort of racing to see who can do the most trailers on their shift. I am ridiculously slow - but I don't make mistakes or break stuff so they haven't given me the boot yet. I started out needing to ask questions about everything so I asked whatever crusty old teamster was nearest me and no matter how sour-pussed they seemed,  once they realized how grateful I was for their help, then every time we passed each other on our lifts there would be a wave or a smile. I was shocked. During training I was worried we "casuals" would be resented as taking away some of their shifts, but they were all in our position in the begining of their career, and I know how good it feels to show someboday how much you know. Unlike the traverse that I just did in Antarctica (where my teammates wanted to see me go down!), these guys are helping me to succeed. It has been astonishing to be a part of this brotherhood. I've only worked 4 shifts and sometimes it just seems like the job is too macho and dangerous and confusing, and then a couple of 20 year veterans will take time out of their tasking to really help me in a really committed and focussed way. And they are NOT flirting with me. At first I thought there is no way I can do this full time...but I see it is doable. And right when I started thinking I could do this full time I got a call to say I was hired for another teamster job at a different company. So now I have two jobs, and I'll see which one I like better at one is full time and the other I can do on the occasional evening.

I've been doing volunteer work with the homeless with my boyfriend and we are having a great time. I met him in Antarctica and he was the icing on the cake of me moving to Portland. He has been my rock of support since I've been here. I found this city so confusing when I got here...I don't know why but I never knew were NE or SE was and my usual sense of direction had abandoned me. My dependency on my tomtom and Ipad for driving almost needed a 12 step program...but I've weaned off trying to look at both when I drive and just aim towards the tall buildings and know I will get home somehow. I mean, for 25 years of my life I've been driving with a paper map. Now I wonder how I ever got anywhere without these amazing devices.

As for diversity, I don't know if the people who kept telling me it was "too white" here for them to live here were basing that on data they read or on personal observations, but I know more black folks here than I ever did in Austin. My building is very diverse, as is my workplace. I haven't seem many women dock workers but there are a lot of black and brown ones.

My new job, which starts next week, will have a start time of 6:00 am, so I'll get to miss rush hour. I'm ready for full time work, and the chance to go "on the board" and get that big union paycheck. My boyfriend recently commented "it's amazing that you are having such a good time here..." and I realized he was right. No homesickness of Austin (I actually feel relieved to not be living there anymore - I could never say the word "Austin" without the word "hate" in the same sentence!), no second thoughts, no feeling of the other shoe dropping or thinking I was just running away from something. I feel like I've come home. That I live in paradise. That I've found my city.

Visual Journey of Austin-Portland Road Trip

in Llano, a hour outside Austin

Daniel having some Texas BBQ! The best!

Fergus digging the drive from atop the loaded backseat

around Moab

I was doing some scrambling and Fergus decided to follow me

sliding down the rock

our route was almost all scenic byways

all day snowstorm driving day in Utah/Idaho

no wonder people ski here, the snow is amazing

all of Oregon was beautiful

home!