letting heart strings grow long

today i found myself doing the backstroke in the pond.  i closed my eyes, felt my body float in the top, warm layer of the water, and watched the light of the setting sun fill my world with light.  i thought about my life.

in a little over a month, i’ll be 25 – a quarter of a century – and, now that i think about it, i’m excited for the next year.  i guess that i’m excited about what all will happen in my life.  there was a time that i didn’t have a whole lot of faith that i was getting to where i needed to be – there are times that i still feel that way.  but mostly, my life has move in the direction of damn-near overwhelming for everything that is to come.  i think about the moment in american beauty (sorry, another movie quote – deal with it) where ricky is talking about the plastic bag video:

“it was one of those days when it’s a minute away from snowing and there’s this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. and this bag was, like, dancing with me. like a little kid begging me to play with it. for fifteen minutes. and that’s the day i knew there was this entire life behind things, and… this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. video’s a poor excuse, i know. but it helps me remember… and i need to remember… sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world i feel like i can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.”

that’s how i feel – like there is so much and my body can barely contain it.  there is so much out there and i can relax about wanting it all right now – it will all come right when it’s suppose to.  this 24th year has been very interesting.  i’ve mostly come to appreciate the randomness and the perfection in life.  i thought about the beginning of my relationships and where they are presently while i felt my toes dip below the thermocline of the pond.  i had no idea that the people  i love (if you’re reading this, most likely this includes you) would be what they are today when i first met them.  there are those that i loved, lost, and learned to love again.  there are those that i’ve always loved.  there are those that i’ve let to learn to love.  then i thought about where it would go from here and smiled as the flowers from the trees along the ponds blew in to the water and floated quietly past me.

blackberries, burning man, south pole frustrations, and sadness

blackberries

yesterday i did something that i haven’t done for a long time.  i walked the railroad tracks.  with each step i remembered how much i love abandoned rail lines and thought about building a handcar again – if only the plans weren’t $75.  besides the presence of beautiful flowers that are slowly breaking down the construction of man and the dry creek bed filled with amazing rocks, the tracks are lined with some of the most thick patches of blackberries.  and they are perfect this time of year.  so as i walked to the pub to read my book, i took about 15 minutes to sit quietly and eat berries until my hands were stained purple and my legs were bleeding from the thorns.  each time i thought i’d found the best berry, i’d see one just a bit further back.  as i felt the thorns cut my leg, i had to weigh how delicious i thought that berry would be versus how much pain i was willing to tolerate.  like i said, my hands were stained purple.

burning man

well, i think i’m going (august 24th/my birthday – september 2nd) for work.  so i get paid but don’t have to do that much.  i’m kind of excited to celebrate my quarter century birthday in the desert with a bunch of strange friends and friendly strangers.  you should come too – it’ll be fun. 

south pole frustrations

so with each day, i’m feeling less interested in going to antarctica.  this is mostly because i really like where i am now.  it truly is a once in a lifetime experience to have this job and live where i live.  antartica (despite the hangups that i’ve mentioned in previous posts) will be hiring the same number of people next year and i’ll be more qualified to do something that i actually enjoy doing/helps me learn.  but my growing disinterest is related to all the bullshit that they make you do in order to go.  peeing in cups, filling out lots of forms, taking online courses on information security, having to drive two hours round trip to do medical check-ups, and just putting up with pushy people.  right now i’m at about 85% sure i’m not going.  i’ll probably end up jumping through hoops so that i can still have the option to leave here when october comes.  but my life is really great right now – i’m very, very happy.  i guess it’s hard to understand if you’re not here. 

sadness

i had a feeling that it was inevitable – tonight i got a call that one of my guys that lived on my floor when i was an r.a. had died.  i’ve been thinking about it a lot.  another guy from the floor called as i was walking the train tracks again tonight (more berries and more reading at the pub) and told me.  we talked for awhile about all the good things we could remember (listening to boys 2 men, the same ratty t-shirt mike wore all the time, etc.) and i thought about people dying.  i realized that it’s only going to become more frequent as we get older – people die and that’s how it is.  i was sad – i still am.  but i realized that not only does the passing of time mean the passing of people, but it also means that you lose all the bad memories that you have of a person.  all i can remember are good things about mike and i hope that i can hang onto that for the rest of my life.  i suppose that is being successful – finding your happiness while leaving positive memories behind.  i thought about the part in waking ned divine where they are having the funeral for ned/michael.  most of it doesn’t apply to the michael i knew – we only knew each other for a couple semesters, but i think it’s still a great part. 

“michael o’sullivan was my great friend. but i don’t ever remember telling him that. the words that are spoken at a funeral are spoken too late for the man who is dead.  what a wonderful thing it would be to visit your own funeral. to sit at the front and hear what was said, maybe say a few things yourself. michael and i grew old together. but at times, when we laughed, we grew young. if he was here now, if he could hear what i say, i’d congratulate him on being a great man, and thank him for being a friend.”

luna moth

i’m back in indiana for my brother’s wedding.  i’ve been here since tuesday morning and i’ll be here until july 3rd.  so far, it’s been strange.  good – but strange.

i’ve found that i recently have had moments of profound disorientation.  normally i wouldn’t notice these, but i also have recently had moments of profound inspiration and clarity.  it’s hard to know what sparks the former.  sometimes it’s just thinking about it all too much – how much has changed is such a short amount of time – the people that i’ve lost and/or met along the way – the sense of having so much out there but not knowing where any one path will lead.  i suppose life and it’s purpose isn’t meant to be fully grasped by a mind.  it’s somewhat like thinking about the universe – how there is no edge, yet there is also no center.  it is always expanding while deepening it’s connections to itself.  to try to understand these connections and make patterns of them would be futile and maddening.  hence the mantra of living in the moment and seeking happiness in being present.  i’m working on this, but it’s hard.

as for the latter, those sparks are easy to identify  – the way that the mendocino hills look at sunset (with the golden grass holding the sunlight like prisms on the coastal ranges) – the smell of an indiana summer night after a day of rain – the incredible opportunities that i experience each day – the humble appreciation for the simple things, like becoming really good at making my niece laugh hard and for teaching her to say my name – the luna moth that floated like a ghost around the work light tonight as i helped kevin upholster a seat for the wedding.

i’m assuming that these opposite experiences of connection and disconnection are normal.  but it’s certainly hard to have the latter these days of so much change – it makes you question a lot.  but i suppose the benefit is appreciating that we really don’t know anything about the world, about all which it contains, and about our role within it.  this is all most likely dreadfully boring – it was on my mind because i was feeling that disconnect.  but now it’s time for tea and bed.

the milk-eyed mender

so here i am, listening to joanna newsom, trying to think of something to write about.  normally, i don’t just write a post to write a post.  there has to be some thought that i want to convey or bring people up to speed on.  i guess i’ll just do it bullet point by bullet point.

*  mostly, i’ve been working a lot.  this is kinda good because i really like where i work and work isn’t really work.  it’s some computer work, but mostly it doing fun stuff like working in the garden and the mini-farm, hanging out with the bees in the hive, helping with the natural building project or reading.  but it’s also a lot of time that i’m not doing non-work stuff.  there is a huge difference between working all the time while liking your job and not working so much while liking your job.  i guess i’ve noticed recently that the little things that normally keep me busy after work (cooking food, taking walks, building shit, reading, etc.) have been replaced with all things solar living institute.  i’m not sure how i feel about this – i like to learn so maybe i’m just trading old little things for new little things to keep me busy.  the simple fact is that now my work is my home.  the people i hang out with are who i’m technically in charge of.  it’s strange and it’s hard to connect with people on that level.  at least connect to a point that i’m happy.  i think that even if i weren’t their “boss,” i’d have a hard time connecting.  i was thinking about this the other day.  there are people in my life that i know and love tremendously.  these people are those that i want to hang out with all the time because i believe that they “get” me – even if it’s just a small amount.  although most of the people who read thing blog fall into this category (thus need no explaining), the most recent example is my new friend noah.  we first hung out at the permaculture first responder workshop at the SLI.  noah is best described as a bike-kid, anarcho-primitivist, heart-of-gold from oakland.  we got to talking about the impending collapse of our civilization and how excited we were to shed all the bullshit of our lives in the face of this human evolution.  it was nice because the conversation flowed really well – we hung out all weekend.  it’s funny that i am listening to joanna newsom because noah and i were talking about music after dinner and i told him that i wanted to play joanna for him just as he told me he wanted to show me her cd.  we actually said “joanna newsom” at the same time.  creeeeeepy.   the remainder of people are perfectly nice and lovely, but i always end up not really connecting with them.  so rather than think of things to talk about, i pretty much do my own thing.  that’s how most of my life is here.  i just haven’t connected with anyone.  it’s the only part that makes where i am not feel like home.

*  i almost bought a truck, but then didn’t.  since i’ve been here, my life has been contained within the 12 miles that connect the towns of hopland and ukiah.  i have no car and i hope it stays that way because cars are the figurehead of the sinking ship that is our current way of living.  i’ll call them a necessary evil because i am a product of this culture.  therefore, i’m drawn to travel.  i wanted a car to see what lies on the other side of of the mountain ranges to my east and my west.  i know the answer – some of the most beautiful mountains in the country and the pacific coast – but i want to see them and touch them.  also, it’s more to escape for a time.  i sent an e-mail to all of my co-workers to announce that i was in the market for an early-80s diesel truck, preferably small.  we have 100% biodiesel here so i thought it would be the less of the necessary evil.  enter jack into my life.  jack is crazy – medically.  he called the office about 3 days after my e-mail (he never read it) – his message spoke of sensing energy there that matched the energy of his truck.  he said he “had” to call.  so i give him a ring and experienced one of the craziest phone calls of my life – i wish i would have recorded the whole thing.  at the end of the conversation – jack decided that he was just going to bring the truck up to me to look at.  i wanted to be not talking to jack and hearing all about his plan to buy a kayak, equip it with solar panels, and paddle around the world.  jack shows up two days later and scares nearly everyone on site with crazy babble and i eventually meet him on the other side of the highway at his request.  the truck is awesome and i want to buy it.  but it’s too expensive.  jack is fully tweaking out as i look the bent rear bumper over.  he’s talking about how he’s off his meds and about to snap.  he has to get the truck off the trailer he drove it up on.  i don’t argue because i don’t want jack to try to stab me.  he told me he’d only sell it for $4500 – then he said he’s pay me $500 if i’d just take it – finally he told me that he’d take $4500 but give me $2000 back after i paid him.  it make no sense.  i find myself standing next to the truck, filled with jack’s shit, keys in hand as he speeds away.  my instructions are to drive the truck as much as i want – sell it if i wanted to – and wait for jack to call me about how much i could pay and when i wanted to go out for the steak dinner that he insisted we arrange (again, no talk of veganism for fear of being shanked).  i drive it – i like it – jack calls and accepts $1500 (d0wn from $4500) for the truck.  i think i have a nice little truck with a sleeper cab to adventure in.  two days again, while i was working on the oyster mushroom installation (bioremediation for the biodiesel pump), jack shows up – i assume to take my money for his solar powered kayak.  no.  he’s hitched up from 25 miles south .  he sold the car to someone else and asks for the keys.  i just give them to him and count myself lucky for getting rid of him from my life for time.  he tells me that he’s shown me the secret of my energy power (i had to promise not to tell anyone) and that he’ll remember me when he makes billions from reworking the interstates with a chain driven cable system (think rollercoaster being pulled up a hill, but for cars).  then he and the truck are gone.  so i almost bought a truck.

i’m sick of typing.  i’ll write more later when i’m not so impatient to read my new books on fruit trees.

making good on good promises.

as my garbanzo beans softly simmer and run d.m.c. bounces in my headphones, i once again appreciate the gmail notifier. it chimes that i have a new e-mail – and not just any e-mail: a BLOG comment! from who? eli – even better! as my counter nears 3,000 he reminded me about a practice that i tried to get started for each time my blogcounter rolled over the thousand mark. the deal was this: if you’re the 1000th person, i’d write an entire post about you and how great you were. the only requirement was that you let me know who YOU are. at 1,000 – the winner must of missed the counter because i didn’t get an e-mail. at 2,000, it was my dear friend ashley schaeffer that hit the nail on the head. so, even though i was planning on reading tonight, this post is for you ashley.

where oh where do i start with a person like ashley? this should be relatively easy considering that we only met in august. despite those short seven months (in which we’ve only been face-to-face friends for around seven weeks), ashley has become a spectacular and close friend. for all intensive purposes, she is a personification of northern california, which made me a little barfy at first and continues to do so to this day (insert vomit face and a smile here). she’s always talking about crystals, moon cycles, and yoga while eating something organic and green. being from the midwest, this is both hilarious and very interesting. i have learned an immense amount from ashley by just “living open”: that i like bikram yoga; what a green drink tastes like; how to eat more kale than is socially appropriate; that my bare feet are the best way to see the world; how to be more connected to those whom i love; and, most importantly, how to let go and be present in life. mostly, she’s been working hard to make me into a goddamn hippy (impossible i say). i still have to laugh at how she matches all the notions of a northern californian. but each laugh is out of appreciation for someone that is so new and interesting. i have never been pushed (in a good way) by a person before to cut the bullshit and drop the walls that surround me. for this i will be forever grateful for being allowed to know ashley. even when we weren’t sure what we were suppose to be to each other, i feel that we knew whatever it was would be around for a long, long time.

you can read about our swim across walden pond in a past post (All Along the Jamaican Plain i think). since then it was has been a tumbling of adventures that have spanned from indiana to northern california. there has been a lot of bread baking, kombucha drinking, and increasingly better snuggling. it’s hard to write a post about someone that has been such an awesome friend. so i guess i’ll just express it in the simpliest terms. she is one of the reasons the world is a radiant and beautiful place and i love her dearly. i know that no post can properly sum up a friendship, but i hope that this one came close. thank you ashley, for being such an amazing presence in my life. here’s to our friendship and my future adventure into the your world.

as for eli’s question about what happens for the 3,000th person, here’s the scoop. the person who is the 3,000th and claims it will be allowed to choose from the following options: a flattering post all about them a la this one; a snail mail surprise (contents at my discretion); or something i bake (raw crackers, granola bars, bread) that can be mailed. sounds tempting, yeah? and this is all on the honor system, so don’t be a jerk and just keep reloading the page until you hit 3,000 – it takes the fun out of the whole thing.

TREBUCHET!

so there was a point in my life where i was, well, a gamer.  i’ve drifted away from that in the past several years, but i still look back fondly on the hours upon hours i spent inside the game.  mostly i played games that would let me nerd out on history while entertaining myself.  to this end, age of empires II rocked.  i colonized the shit out of the ancient world and learned all about waging historic warfare.  one of my favorite aspects of this was the trebuchet.  this machine is akin to a catapult – long arm that throws large, heavy things a long distance.  but the key to a trebuchet is that it uses a counterweight for all of its force.  the weight is attached to one end of the throwing arm and whatever you want to throw is attached to the other end via a long rope and sling.  you then simply lift the weight by pulling the arm back, loading the sling, and let go.  the result, a large piece of something thrown very far.

so since playing with these machines in game form, i’ve been bent on making one in real life.  there are various designs on the internet for various sizes ranging from tabletop to massive.  they are deceptively simple.  basically, it’s physics.  i don’t know about you, but i only got about 60% of my high school physics class.  if it wasn’t for tyler beem, i probably would have gotten much less.  in that the weather was nice and my brothers were around, we set about building one this weekend.  yesterday, eric and i printed off some directions and then promptly ignored them for our own approach.  the result:  a five and a half foot trebuchet with an 8 foot throwing arm of cedar logs and 200lb+ counter weight of old bulldozer gears/brake rotors.  kevin help with the final touches.  it looks pretty much awesome, but needs some work.  last night it didn’t throw all that far (i could throw farther) and today we put so much weight on it that the metal support beams bent.

i’ll keep you up on the medieval mass destruction as it develops (including pictures).  what’s next?  maybe a cannon.  fingers crossed!

poop

it’s nice to have an opportunity to do something new. today i changed my first dirty diaper in history. not a big deal to some, but a big deal to me. wednesdays are yoga night for my mom and kelly, so – if eric is out of town – it’s up to my dad and i to occupy dorothy for two hours. d day is the first baby i’ve ever really interacted with and i’ve been happy to find myself excited to hang out with her more and more each wednesday. today we had a bit of a melt down. the words “bye-bye mommy” came out of our mouths when d day asked about kelly. for the record, those words were the wrong answer to a twelve month old. it was about the most pitiful crying while leaning on the front door you could imagine. so we took evasive action. we played the tape player and danced – we got out the juice bottle – we even tried the old banana cookie/flashlight double whammy. nothing. when i picked d day up for a little uncle comfort, i realized that my worst fear had come true – a wet diaper on a crying child with only myself to look to for a solution. so i went for it and it was gross. but i was proud that i only slightly gagged at baby poo and i was impressed that d day actually stopped crying and started laughing, presumably at my bumblings with a hippy cloth diaper. i was also way impressed by kids clothes and wondered why we wear what we wear. i’ve had to put on enough dress shirts to want to swear them off forever. so i’m proposing a reversion to kid style clothes. for example, dorothy had a sleep suit (ya know – with the feet built in) and had a zipper that ran from just above the right ankle, up the leg, up the chest and ended at the neck with a snap. all i’m saying is that such ideas shouldn’t be limited to people, like babies, who can’t really appreciate the convenience of the all-in-one garment – shoes, pants, and a shirt all together with one zipper. anywho, back to the point. dirty diapers weren’t all that bad and the whole experience made me feel like i could actually have children and not kill them.

p.s. so do you think they’re going to find a bunch of gas on the island for hurley’s van to run on? that whole part of the story was crap. i mean, a van…c’mon. poor episode.

he has all these souls, but he has not my number…

the last post got me thinking: i have a lot of recipes that are just floating around. some are in books that i have – others are scribbled on notecards – the rest are lost forever. in an effort to get more organized, as well as cut down on what i am hauling west, i downloaded a program for mac called measuring cup and have begun the painstaking process of organizing my recipes. it seems pretty straightforward and easy to use (freeware to boot!). you can search, categorize, and print/PDF recipes for others. let’s see how it pans out.

so as i go into this culinary masochism, i ask that you post up your best of the best recipes as comments. i would love to pack your favorite foods into my collection and give them a whirl. not veggie or vegan? no worries – i’m pretty good at subbing animal products out of a recipe. no fooling on this one – i wanna see your stuff! i hope to keep a running list of my recipes on here so that you can browse – i’m happy to share what i got.

walkie walkie talkie talkie

ehhh – yeah. well this last weekend i went to bloomington. i worked all week and then woke up on saturday to two inches of fresh snow and an hour drive ahead of me. i was planning to go to ari’s street medic training course but found myself laking motivation to commit. but i sucked i up and drove down with the understanding that i could turn around at any time without judging myself the lesser.

i got there about 45 minutes late, but right on time. everyone was late so i didn’t miss a thing. all and all, it was an awesome experience. sure it was 10 hours on saturday and sunday – all sitting in wooden chairs in a harmony classroom. i had to get over a couple things. first was my stereotypes of the punk culture. i have no problem with punk kids, just as i have no problem with any other scene. i just get a little hung up on how serious people take their persona in any scene. this is especially true for punk kids geeking out on protest street cred. there were more than enough “action” names thrown around with corresponding bandannas covering faces and radical jargon. i guess i would have probably felt the same at a FFA training with everyone trying to be the coolest farmer in the circle. but i managed to remember that i was there to learn and not judge people. it’s instinctual, but it still bothers me when i catch myself doing it (by the end we all dropped our efforts to impress – myself included – and i appreciated everyone there) second, i had to get over the whole fear of learning a new thing that i’m not immediately good with. there is a lot of memorizing involved with medicine. each illness or injury has a different set of symptoms and treatments. i think i took about 4o pages of handwritten notes and i plan on adding more. finally, i had to just get over being there for both of my days off. it sucks to go without a day of relaxing.

but i learned a heap and feel inspired to actually be a street medic. on sunday, we did some great role plays (with fake rubber bullets, padded batons, “pepper” spray, “tear” gas, and arresting officers) to put it all together. my running buddy and i sucked really hard. all of our protesters were pepper sprayed and then we were pepper sprayed while trying to help them. i have to say that i wanted to punch the teacher who were being the police. but i learned from my mistakes. another awesome result of the weekend was my comitment to get my CPR, wilderness first responder, and wilderness EMT certifications. it will be a serious investment of money, but i see it as valuable and there are more than enough courses available in norcal. i’d love to be able to handle any situation that comes to me.

i also got my kombucha up and running again thanks to bergs. it’s brewing away right now in the kitchen. i also heard an awesome band called catfish haven and found out that neil hamburger will be at rhino’s this coming sunday. i know that some people love neil, but i’m not quite sold so i don’t know if i’ll be there. until next time, boo yah.

don’t think twice – it’s alright…

it’s nice to be back on the blog horse after so long on the ground.  i guess i feel that it connects me with people – for the last two months i’ve been pretty bad about being in touch.  i just didn’t want to be in touch.  i can’t explain why.  i simply knew that i needed to not call, not write, not share.  this wasn’t the rule across the board – in fact i feel that i used that time to grow closer to people that i was present with, some old and some new.  but i think that i’m done with whatever i needed.  i feel better for taking that time to appreciate what it was to be silent and build one connection at a time.  i’m glad to be back here with what i can only assume to be a group of friends that care enough to take the time to read my thoughts.

while i was in berkeley ashley and i watched a positively wretched cinematic adaptation of james redfield’s celestine prophecy.  i originally read the book when i was about thirteen and remember bits and pieces of it.  overall, i remember it being a very powerful book though i wasn’t really at a point in my life where i could appreciate the deeper meaning.  despite the terrible acting, i remembered more and more about the book – specifically the idea that everything exists within a larger flow.  according to the book, we can choose to step into this flow or choose to fight the connection.  if we choose to “go with the flow” we will start to see that everything is moving us toward where we need to be – patterns emerge, help presents itself, coincidences start to seem anything but.  i started thinking this in relation to moving to california.  i tried to explain it to ashley as a completely effortless experience.  by coincidence, i read about the solar living institute in a late 90’s real goods catalogue and decided to apply after college.  by coincidence, i meet ashley (her dad started real goods and the institute).  by coincidence, i am fired at a time in my life when i needed to break away from feeling that my life was following a path i didn’t want to be on.  by coincidence i am able to travel to california, visit the institute, and be offered a seven month opportunity.  by “coincidence” fails to do justice.  it was effortless – i just flowed to where i felt i needed to be.  stemming from this has been the feeling that so much is falling into place.  eerie.

this was part of setup that took waaaay too long to explain.  to the matter at hand.  i recently blogged about my options for travelling west.  i’m pretty much not interested in flying.  no adventure.  horrible for the environment. completely impersonal.  i rang eli for a positively lovely chat last night.  we always talk for a lot longer than i expect to – that’s a good thing.  but the topic turned to my thoughts on moving my body west.  greasel was discussed, as was flying and training.  but the focus was on hitching or finding a rideshare most of that portion of the phone call.  eli suggested craig’s list as a place to start for a rideshare.  i had, up to that point, completely forgotten about craig’s list.  even more, i didn’t even know they did rideshare posts.  so after the conversation, i posted a ride needed listing for early april in indy, chi, and cincin.  this was around 12:30am.  i check my e-mail at work today around 11:00am and BOOM – i have a potential ride.  a fella my age is leaving from indy at the end of march to drive slowly toward montana.  he has plenty of room and would like some company.  he’s heading to live at an intentional community and is driving through denver around the time that i need to be there for the antarctica job fair!  he wants to drive back roads and take several days to get there.  awesome right.  so hopefully i can ride with him and possibly talk him into taking me to montana to check out this community.  then i’ll have to find a ride to california somehow.  coincidence…hmmmm.  (editing note:  i misspelled coincidence every time in this post – except for this one).

so i will probably need to find someone to stay with in denver for a bit.  if you know anyone let me know and i’ll probably really like you for the rest of my life.   until then, go with the flow.  me?  i’m going to play some chess.