The Year of Living Questions

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

--Rainer Maria Rilke

Green Vibrations

I am thinking over a phrase of Annie Dillard's this morning, encountered in her collection of meditations on writing, appropriately titled The Writing Life. "There is no shortage of good days," she writes. "It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading -- that is a good life."

It's an uncomfortably wise insight. Although I have never confused sensation-seeking with writerly preparation, it has nevertheless been an underlying motivator in many things I have done. I always feel an anxiety about missing things, or allowing experiences to remain undiscovered. In Jackson, it is some mythical canyon that haunts me: somehow obscure and crystalline; a field of wildflowers where no one is walking; a view from so high, that as I wrote once, "I can feel the cold on my eyes." Other places, it is about the potential of art, the potential of hitting just the right point of intoxication on food or wine, the potential that some person hides behind one of many turned shoulders, and that person has keys to unlock any number of things. It's what leaves me hungrily scanning the walls of cathedrals, looking for the original, homely paintwork, obsessed with even the humblest joints of the ceilings. I'd hate to think I missed it.

I think my assumption has always been that these moments of beauty will accrete, one layer of sand to the next, to make my soul altogether something fine and glittering, honed carefully and curated as I go. And yet, I often write so little of it. Why, I wonder.

Summer is upon us now, with its exquisite songbirds and trails, cleared at last of snow. In mid-May, it seemed that all the aspens and cottonwoods turned green at once. I thought of it as a susurration of some kind, completely undetectable to human ears, but nevertheless communicating spring through the groves, vibrating the landscape into a new incarnation of being. The green was so new; the operation itself so delicate. A miracle was gifted in a day, but a quotidian miracle, too, happening each May in a sudden sweep. And then summer. And then the sun and the obstinate eggshell blue.

It is a time of golden water in the evenings, and green trees etched in gold around it. The yellow of balsamroot flowers and the sentinels of violet lupine and monk's hood. Baby elk, tremulous on newly-jointed legs; a rather fat and pleased-with-himself marmot, like a caricature of an English friar; a miniscule duck who fed at the edge of a quiet stream, buoyantly bobbing up after each quarry.

A hard thing it is, to revise, when all of this is happening outside. The outdoors are a constant imprecation to leave the room and abandon the work. That mythical canyon taunts like a mirage. But ho hum,  another chance to gather strength and plug along anyway. To remember the life of the spirit. So many moments of muster, and then finally, I write about this color of green at last, and let go of that last nagging sensation, returning concentration to where it ought to be.

Endings and New Beginnings

This morning, I couldn't sleep, so once more, I pulled out the warm slab of my laptop, and let its screen keep me company in that early hour (early for me, anyway), as the light of a new day spread across the walls and the floors.

Ten minutes ago, my wonderful sister and her wonderful boyfriend Sam brought me a mimosa and breakfast in bed (woot!) . Their timing couldn't have been better, because just moments before, I wrote the last sentence of my novel draft. Time to celebrate the next step, a new year, and a new decade.

It feels a little surreal and emotional. Soon, we will be packing up and heading for two days of relaxation in Montana. I'm bringing books, but not my book. Of course, there is still work to do. Hello, revision and rewrites! But for now, I'm settled in with the happiness of being done and leaving behind this stage for a new one, just as my character did an hour ago, crossing into her imagined future and spinning out into the ether of narrative possibility.

I want to toast my beautiful, supportive family and my wonderful friends and cheerleaders. I am so lucky to have you along on this ride. Your love, even from afar, gives me faith in myself and humankind in general. See, I told you this was the year of feeling feelings!

Okay, it's party time. Raising a glass to all of you!

Marking Time With Words

Spring is a brown time in Wyoming. I noticed this anew as my plane flew low over the hills two days ago. Each time, I can pick out the road that curves against the bluffs south of town, and then we fly over one of the low hills that marks my own neighborhood, over the entirety of the town grid, and touch down--spectacularly--at the base of the snowcapped Tetons. That's what I noticed, however, as we flew over: a neverending swath of brown, and all the mountains still encased in snow. Bison welcomed me back, as did an intrepid weasel that somehow snuck into our suburban home, crept into my room, and, in illustration of every possible rodent horror story, hopped right onto the bed. This is the west, after all.

I was flying back from Seattle, my home of seven years, and where I had spent two luxurious weeks visiting with friends, celebrating a wedding, and remembering the riot of spring. Cherry blossoms, dogwoods, tulips, magnolias. Spring in Seattle is a time of carpet petals and palm-sized camellia flowers that fall, often unblemished, directly to the grass. It is a time of chill winds and spitting rain and oddly timed sunbreaks, too, but I couldn't help but feel that I'd picked an almost tropical locale as snow continued to drift in my hometown and the thermometer dropped back down to winter temperatures.

What does it feel like to be back in Seattle? It's an odd disjunction--more familiar to me in many senses than my life in Jackson, and yet the tugs of loyalty to Wyoming were there, too, as if, in choosing to spend these months in the mountains, I must swear fealty again to my vision, even as the warmth of my friends and the verdant scenery were things I could slip back into so naturally. I caught up with my friend Jessica, who now makes her home in the Bay Area after years spent in Seattle as well, and she remarked that visiting the city now feels like it once did to visit her hometown. This seems about right: the instant, comforting embrace of the known, not tinged by nostalgia, but rather by a deep sense of recognition. A marvel over what has changed, and yet an ease with what has not been forgotten: the buses I take, where we should choose a restaurant, where I should buy a book of poetry.

It's been months since I've ridden buses, and while I sat on one reading, I realized that the city had created a mode of thought for me in the rhythm of how I got from place to place; in the cadence of my walking, in my notation of businesses I passed, in my constant state of being around others in public spaces, and yet often burrowed into my own solitude. It was the same as I rode the bus from Portland to Seattle on a Sunday evening, a continuing drama of glowering clouds, rainbows, and sun outside the windows. I tried to take a picture of the clouds out of the glass, but I ended up taking one with the strip of setting sun from the opposite aisle smeared along the bottom of the frame. Like a double exposure or two counterpanes, tissue-thin, existing side by side. This was the feeling of being in Seattle. My old life close enough to taste and easy enough to resume, my new one waiting anxiously, afraid of being abandoned.

And yet. Part of living in Jackson feels like coming back to the beginning in the best way. Here, I have found new ways to think, too. In cars, playing my music and singing along like a banshee. On long, aimless walks while our dog Iris bounds unbidden into fields to chase the birds. In the feeling of electricity whenever a coyote howl pierces the dead of night or yes, even when a weasel sneaks into the house and brings everything that is outside, inside. I know the big question hangs there, swollen with the accumulation of months: Where will you go? And the truth is, I still don't know. I suppose I am still living the questions. I suppose my journey is meant to go a little further. At least the scenery will not disappoint. And at least I am reminded of the dear friends who support me and mean so much to me and whose much-needed company will no doubt buoy me through the rest of this month and beyond.

I am also turning 30 a week from today. It's a milestone that I want to meet with a marker. This week, I will complete my book. So, when I say I am marking time with words, I mean it very explicitly. This is the week. I will be holing myself up for as long as it takes so that I can emerge on the dawning day of my next decade and know that one thing I did in my twenties was finish my book. I will put the dot at the bottom of that question mark. I will move to the next sentence. And then, it will be time to move onto living another question, to finding another path in the trees.

Backward Glance

As I pondered what my theme would be for 2013, a friend told me about her own goal-making for the upcoming year, which is based around aiming for desired feelings rather than achievement-oriented goals.  I did some poking around, and liked what I saw.  Happiness is never the sum of things we check off our list, but rather the product  of how situations make us feel.  It's not that accomplishing our goals does not bring happiness, but goals are not just a phrase.  For instance, goals of my past like "finish my thesis" were not happy-making in and of themselves -- the attendant emotions of pride and accomplishment were.  Not to mention, there are plenty of accomplishments or things we have finished that haven't made us happy at all.  (Hmmm...actually, completing my thesis may be among those).

I know I have a lot to decide this year, especially when the book is finished.  Where will I live?  How will I construct that life?  What are things going to look like, wherever that may be?  If I stated it to myself flatly as "Figure out where to live and how to do that," I know I would instantly feel panicked and destined to fail.  Instead, I want to take a page from Rilke's book and live the questions themselves.  I want to pay attention to how things make me feel, and no rationalizing, no neurotic mental backbends -- I want to go from there.  The past, as ever, provides a fruitful place to mine.  As I drove home on what has become my Rumination Road two days ago, I listened to this song, and thought back over the past year and the moments where I felt truly happy and at    peace...or one, or both.  I got choked up and turned down a side road, and kept thinking.  I listened to the song again.  And then, lighter, I drove home.  In order to start thinking about what I want to embrace this year, here are the memories that embraced me first.  In no particular order, my Greatest Hits of 2012:

1.  Standing in bare feet in a 1960's cocktail dress on my 29th birthday, eating cake with a spoon straight out of the pan with so many Seattle friends around me.

2.  Skiing in the first 10k ski race I had done in 10 years (thanks, Becky!).

3.  Singing mournful country ballads in a two-person karaoke room with Elizabeth on Valentine's Day.  Also, the surreal moment of singing "Ring of Fire" a couple of octaves higher in the room by myself, all full of ghostly reverberation.

4.  Running in bare feet around the Cal Anderson Park baseball diamond on the night of Michelle's bachelorette party.  That was springy, yo!

5.  Camping with my Dad in Idaho on the shores of Lake Coeur d'Alene the night I left Seattle.

6.  My mom and sister and I getting serious about Easter Brunch in Yosemite.  I had seven mini-desserts.  Dinner and conversation with one of my oldest friends in Oakland a couple of nights before.

7.  Running on the beach in La Push during one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen.

8.  Maggie and I taking the ferry to Bainbridge Island, walking ourselves to a sunny pub, and then treating ourselves to a wine tasting before ferrying back.

9.  Sitting on a crinkly tarp in the middle of the woods, quieted down like middle schoolers, as we listened to a midnight troubadour at Doe Bay.  (Trixie!)

10. Going on an 8-mile hike by myself and standing absolutely alone at a trail crossroads as the late afternoon light flared from behind Mount Moran.  True gratitude.

11.  Being whipped by the wind at the top of Jackson Peak with the whole valley spread out below, and good company.

12.  Sitting on a sunny patio, post-Pride parade.

13.  Fresh tomatoes and green beans and a glass of wine with my parents on our back deck.

14.  Knowing that my family loved me during a hard time.  Probably the most important one of all.

15.  Holding my Grandaddy's hand and seeing my family in Ohio.

16.  Dancing wildly with my college friends at my friends' Erin & Mike's wedding, with my best friend and her husband there, too.  All staying in a hotel room together.

17.  Every time I turn a corner and see the Tetons.

18.  Rambling, long phone conversations while out for walks.  You know who you are, ladies!

19.  Bluebird skiing with my brother.

20.  The aspens turning colors in the fall. Driving the curve of Oxbow Bend.

21.  Treat Yoself days.

22.  Leisurely Cinco de Mayo tastiness and conversation at the Owlery.

23.  Shivasana, and in a similar vein of peacefulness, W.G. Sebald and compline at St. Mark's.

24.  Cracking ice on the Snake River at the first hint of winter.  Watching the fish dart past even in the cold.

25.  Picnicking at Gasworks with dear friends on one of my last evenings in the Northwest.

Honestly, I could go on and on...which begins to feel self-indulgent. I mean we're already up to 25 here!  And I've probably forgotten some, too.  Lucky to have gathered so many special times together, like picking up smooth stones and sea glass. Common themes to all of this slip-slide through memories of the last year?  Friends. Family. Connectedness. Meditation.  Nature. Silence. Love.  Those are the feelings I need to seek out again, no matter where I go.  Here's to finding the way.

Brushstrokes

One more day left in the Year of Being Brave.  Yesterday, I got out of bed and looked out the window and was shocked into full consciousness by the sight of a little red-breasted bird sitting on one of the crystalline branches right in front of me.  That little streak of red on an otherwise white, glittering world reminded me that so much of winter in Wyoming lies in brushstrokes: the planar snow, the dusky shadows of the trees, the days that lack dimension as layer of layer of snow fold down vs. the days that  are etched in true bluebird blue.  Those days dawn with an almost shocking clarity.  When I lived in Seattle, those skies -- so full of pigment -- were one of the main things I missed about home.  The dense, mysterious snowstorms have their own beauty, however, not least being the anticipation of skiing fresh powder...

It's time to set a goal for next year, but I'm not sure what it will be yet.  Last year, it came to me on a wan, sunny morning as I sat on a bench on Orcas Island, facing the water.  That's when The Year of Being Brave declared itself as the goal and the mission for 2012.  Like anything, the grandiose title was truly a product of incremental changes and decisions, as well as setbacks, because, well, that's life, isn't it?  This year has tested me in ways that I couldn't have imagined: some of it has led me to immense happiness and pride, and some to sadness and discouragement.  One of the oddest things that occurred was that life began to imitate art, the very art I'd set out to create.  It's a bit eerie.  Someday I'd love to share that story, but first things first: the book.

I tabulated today, and the first draft is very close to done.  Of course, after that there will be days and weeks and months (??!?) of polishing and reconfiguring and quilting together the two narratives.  But the actual writing part is definitely on the wane.  At this point, I am happy to report that I am as comfortable in the skin of my second character as I was with my first.  If anything, she has become my virtual stand-in -- the more neutral, dispassionate voice.  I wrote a love scene for her today and felt almost suspicious of myself.  Was I subconsciously writing it for myself?  Hard to say.  I have learned through this process that spending so much time with one work is often glorious rather than limiting.  So much expansion is possible, so many tangents (even if I need to edit them out later).  Overall, the process is more freeing than expected.  So, yay!  Onwards...

Friends, so many of you have accomplished amazing feats this year.  What are your goals and purposes for the coming year?  I'd love to hear.  In the meantime, I'll wait for that stroke of clarity that will hopefully arrive on the morning of January 1.  

The Ugly Truth About Writing, and Thank You

 
I am currently backing up my hard drive.  You mean, you've had a novel on your laptop, 6 years' worth of writing, photographs, music...and your laptop is from 2006 and incredibly slow...and you've never once backed it up?  Nope.  Haven't.  Stop looking at me weird.  Although, the novel has been living in Dropbox since the spring, and I have used one of those online back-up thingamabobs.  I remain a technology neophyte in many ways.

A task such as backing up one's laptop always leads to the most delightful writerly navel-gazing.  In succession, I opened languishing Word documents entitled "Dream Transcripts," "The Savage Dentist," and "Even the sound of cars driving by is hurtful after the end of a relationship."  Raw. Ouch.  Like the true hoarder I am, I suddenly felt pained to even transfer these long-forgotten and yet obviously beloved documents to the external hard drive in order to delete them from the laptop and thus free up much-needed memory.  I suppose, at heart, every hoarder feels a sense of psychological ease in knowing that something will stay and live where it has always lived, instead of the "banishment" of storage, deletion, or (unspeakable!) actually throwing it away.  This exact drama had a preview as I felt pangs thinking of storing even one box of books or papers in my parents' garage, despite the fact that I haven't yet scratched the surface of unpacking them.  I had bought that used copy of W.H. Auden's Selected Poems, and now, in the dead of winter, on CHRISTMAS DAY, a rat was probably going to chew through its center, and then I would have never really read Auden, and his Modernist words would be masticated and forever lost to me.  This line of thinking would occur with each book.

Another thing I save with a hoarders' obsession are the drafts of stories that I wrote in grad school and submitted to workshops.  I save every single copy that was annotated by professors and fellow students: many covered with loopy script, and even personal, page-long comments sheets addressed as letters.  Same thing goes for the comments my writers' group of 3 years in Seattle was kind enough to bestow upon me.  The last time I really looked at some of these comments--some dating from the very first quarter of grad school--it struck me that in that period of my life, I received the most validation and well-wishing and good old-fashioned understanding of my writing than at any other time before or since.  I am aware of the flurry of critiques that surround MFA programs, and I have found myself on both sides of the debate.  Still, it is a special time: when you are a serious person in a serious city, writing late into the night, printing out multiple copies, receiving engaged attention, even when it is salted liberally with criticism.  For me, it was a time that made sense.  Not in every way.  But in one important way.  Each day, I do the thing I am best at doing.  Each day, others witness it.  Others care.  I cared about them, too.  Some of the writers I worked with at the University of Washington became my dearest friends (holla!) and through its hive of networking, I connected with the three fabulously talented women who traded work informally with me for several years.  Some of my colleagues wrote indelible stories and poems that I still think about, even if it has been years since I've seen them.

When I speak of the "ugly truth," what I mean is that, as any writer knows, the image of Hemingway and Fitzgerald drinking gin fizzes at a cafe table in Paris while also casually writing masterpieces on their napkins and/or moleskin journals is simply not a real thing that occurs.  Take me, for example--maybe not writing a masterpiece, but plugging away nevertheless.  Mostly, I am unglamorously dressed.  (The nice thing about living in a cold place is that you can wear a hat all the time).  I write on a Saturday night.  My dog seems confused by what I am doing.  I dream about my characters more than real people I know.  I set aside a day of unfettered writing and end up reading a book about the history of marriage until noon.  I queue up the novel and then hear the opening score to Downtown Abbey downstairs and spring from my bed in a second.  Truly Pavlovian.  I write.  And also, I don't write.  Or I write content for jobs, which are not novel-related.  The secret shame about working on a big project is that you've said "Goodbye!  I am off to make my fortune!" and you have been waved off and embraced and supported. And every day is a litmus test as to your commitment to the goal.  Some are banner days, and some are struggles--especially that old, beastly struggle of the will.

So, this is where I get to the "thank you" part.  Sometimes, I barely recognize myself.  Like an adolescent in limbo, I no longer live on my own (aka with the best roommate in the history of the world, ever); I no longer go out much; I no longer dress up (although I wear waaayyyy more hats); my evening calendar is often bare; I watch more television than I have in almost 10 years (unfortunate confession, but the fact that a show called "Duck Dynasty" exists has sadly not escaped my notice); I read about the same amount, but with a sense of guilt that I really ought to be writing my own words; I no longer report to the same office at the same time every day (give or take an hour); I no longer see the majority of the people that have provided my everything-or-close-to-it for the past seven years.  It's hard to know, without enough perspective, if all of these changes are bad or good, although certainly none of them have to be permanent.  I am not unhappy.  Sometimes, I feel happier than ever.  But, still.  Often I am confused and discouraged and demoralized, traded off equally with being ecstatic and purposeful and hopeful. I suppose there is no way to know what this time has meant until it is over, and the novel is done.  And even then, so much is uncertain.

So, thank you, friends from near and far.  And family, too (of course).  Every time you ask me how my novel is going, or we talk novel-shop, you comment on my blog, or you tell me that what I am doing is inspiring to you, it adds one more drop to the bucket of this is a time that makes sense.  Every time we talk in general, whatever it's about, my heart is gladdened and lightened.  The work is made real.  It seems less like the undertaking of an underemployed 29-year-old woman in her pajamas, and more like a valid project, and a dream that is worthwhile to pursue.  Obviously I wouldn't have come to Jackson if I didn't already believe that, but as obstacles rear themselves along the way, it is still heartening to remember.  I am so fortunate to have this time, to have the support to make it happen, and to have all of you.  Thank you.  Even though I am thousands of miles away, I could not do this without you.

P.S.  Miss you.  Love living vicariously through all of your news and adventures!

Rounding the Seasons

A couple of days ago, I found myself longing for a specific poem about autumn.  I knew I had read it before, and that it was a well-known, oft-anthologized work.  I riffled through my memory, recalling that the poem was infused with a sense of drowsiness, the sharp smell of a cider press, the subtle-sweet scent of autumn's glorious decay.  Was it Yeats?  Something about gold, or another poem about the beloved "quiet one"?  Was it Dylan's young boy, singing in his chains by the sea?

But no, the poem I sought was Keats' "To Autumn."  "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" it begins, full of praise and exhortation.  There is a cider press, and a winnowing wind, and the long locks of autumn, golden in the sun.  The poem is infused with a honeyed sense of time, with languour, with, really, all those lovely -our words that signify leisure and slow time.   It sounds a bit like the autumn I am inhabiting right now--one I have not experienced in this specific setting for eleven years.  And oh, how worthy of an ode it is.

I smelled the first intimations weeks ago as I hiked into the Teton Range with my family on a very hot and sunny day.  The soft, sweet smell of the yellowing heart-shaped aspen leaves immediately conjured the first signs of an autumn I had completely forgotten.  I thought of all of the poets who have dedicated their work to each of the four seasons, and I listened to Vivaldi's "Four Seasons"--the alternating frenzy and light strings of a year's passage.  In all the years of living elsewhere, autumn was always the season I had missed.  And how could I really say I had come home again until I experienced its return--right here?  I realize now that we can never truly love--or know--a place until we have experienced it in its roundness.  Every day is a gradation in color, every day adds a new, delicate tine to the comb of the chilling breeze.  Every day is a revelation.

This morning, I drove the curve of the highway, returning home towards town, and saw the crest of the Grand Teton peeking out over mellow, pastoral hills and fields, its crags just rinsed in snow.  My soundtrack for the drive--Prokofiev's "Romeo & Juliette"--swelled with grandeur during my favorite portion of the score, which I will unashamedly admit is the ultra-romantic balcony love theme.  (So beautiful!)  Ah, yes, there loomed my beloved.  Sighted with full orchestra accompaniment.  There have been so many moments like this for me in the past month that startle me into feeling vibrantly alive and full of an intense, heart-pressing gratitude for being here at this moment in time.  For seeing this place that has been relegated into memory for eleven years through a newly-discovered season, and a newly-discovered me breathing within it.

***

(I realize all of these blogs from Jackson have ended on somewhat of a heart-swelling note of effusion so far, but what can I say?  Effusive seems to be the name of the game for me right now...  As Modest Mouse would say, Blame It On the Tetons.)

(

Close Encounters of the Moose Kind

I took the above video in order to illustrate the peacefulness of the swaying aspens outside of our living room window, but what ended up coming through more ominously was the seemingly amplified ticking of the living room clock.  This winsomeness doth tend towards time-wasting, the clock seemed to declare, and I have to admit, it had a point.  I am under the gun, so to speak.  The Year of Being Brave has a timeline that can run out: it is a finite goal, and when I am tempted to treat my time here as just one long lollygagging vacation, the truth is that time looms large.  And so, I have responded with internal deadlines of my own: setting dates that characters' arcs will be completed and a date when I want to be done drafting and headed into revising (around December).

Two nights ago, I made the ill-advised decision to climb the small butte behind our house in the waning twilight.  I was treated to some spectacular sunset views at the top:

However, on the way down, I quickly realized my error in attempting to dismount in the encroaching darkness on a switchbacking trail wearing flimsy Tom's (total non-local move).  Using my phone as a flashlight, I stumbled down, taking twice as long as it would normally take, and set off on the bike path that curves through most of the valley and provides a beloved trail for bikers, dog walkers, and foolish pedestrians walking home in neighborhoods with no streetlights.  Relying on my familiarity with the path, I entered a section with a church parking lot and bushes to one side and homes on the other.  My phone died and all went dark.  At that exact moment, I heard the crashing of brush and twigs and one gigantic shape loomed ahead of me in the darkness, followed by another, slightly less tall dark shape.  I did the smart thing, and completely froze.  I knew a huge moose was standing just yards from me, and that the smaller shape was most definitely a moose calf.

Now, one thing about moose--they do not crash out spastically from the brush like deer and run every which way, alerting you to their presence while also revealing their fear of you.  Moose just stand there and stare at you, either aggressively or nonchalantly, and it's up to you to give them a wide berth, especially if they have young whom they'll want to protect...with their hooves.  So, locked into a staredown, I backed up, and up, and crashed through some underbrush of my own in order to cut across lawns and parking lots and come back to the trail far from where I'd encountered them.  And, just for good measure, I started to run.

The next morning, our dog Bodhi bayed and alerted us to the presence of not two, but three moose grazing on our neighbors' yard shrubbery.  Mama in actuality has two calves!  In another classic non-local move, I retrieved my camera and crept closer.  I stared at the two calves (probably up to my shoulders in height) and they stared back, unblinking, arranged identically side by side.  And then, once more, the cow--that huge, looming shape from the night before--lurched out and raised herself to full height.  Daylight staredown: engaged.  I knew my cue and hightailed it away, scampering on the driveway in bare feet.  As I fell asleep last night, I'm almost certain I heard the same moose crossing over our back deck during the witching hour.  Neither patron saints or goblins, the moose family are placidly going about their existence, and their neighborhood just happens to be mine.  I feel pretty lucky.

Second calf is hidden in the brush to the right.

I leave you with a few images from my last week about and around:

Home Again, Home Again: First Dispatch From the Year of Being Brave

This summer, I left my job and life in Seattle to move back to Jackson, Wyoming and finish my novel.

I woke up the morning after leaving Seattle in a tent 30 miles from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho to the sound of thunder and droplets of rain hitting my nose.  The previous evening had been so mild that my Dad and I had opted not to cover my brother's tent with a rainfly, and after sitting around the fire and drinking a glass or two of wine, I fell asleep looking up through the transparent netting towards the tops of Ponderosa pines.  The campsite was one of only two indicated on our indispensable road atlas, and after driving two country routes past "towns" with atmospheric names like Rose Lake, we found ourselves up high, flushing deer from their hidden hedgerow posts and passing old barns and cabins crumbling in on themselves.  (A note: decaying barns in fields are like my favorite thing, ever).  The next day, I listened to an interview with the author Deborah Magpie Earling, whose grandfather drowned in that very lake.  His son always remembered the sweat-stained hat that lay--abandoned--after he vanished beneath the glassy surface.  Oh, yes, I thought, it's totemic details like this that make us write in the first place.

Sleeping in a Forest Service campground after a long drive, partially on dirt road, seemed like exactly the right thing.  Even though I was still hundreds of miles from Jackson, my hometown, those kinds of woods are home, and so are the little outposts within them.  The campsite attendant camping there for the summer with his thick Northeastern accent; the little wooden port-o-potty and well structures; the process of walking out the flattest section of the ground and strategically pitching the tent to face the morning sun.  Those steps have been with me since I was very, very young.  

Of course, the thunderstorm and whipping winds dashed all attempts to rise with the sun or eat oatmeal cooked on the campstove, so off we drove as the sun rose (something I rarely see, being so much a night owl).  All of I-90, the route we'd taken straight from Seattle and eventually into Montana, proved to be a rich vein of memory.  As childhood memories tend to do, various family camping caravans and passings had collapsed in on themselves, but as the names of towns rose on green highway signs, the distinct places came back.  Wallace, ID where we had once visited a defunct brothel and seen a list of "acts" and prices taped unceremoniously over the light switch; "Anaconda Opportunity," surely one of the most delightful road signs in America; Deer Lodge, MT, home of the old territorial prison and an old car museum and a preserved rancher baron's property.  As a child, I'd keened towards every hint of History with a capital "H" and had probably driven the whole family crazy by insisting that we stop at all ghost towns and gravesites.  Sometimes, I was disappointed to find that my excavations of cross-beam cabins produced nothing more than beer cans and the remnants of campfires.  But nevertheless, a sense of struggle and effort underlies even lonely highways like I-90 and the empty fields and thick forests that mainly surround it.

My first glimpse of Jackson itself was through a haze of forest fire smoke, but the joyous greetings of our dogs remained the same.  And so now I'm here.  My trappings of Seattle life lie in a clutter of boxes and bags in my brother's borrowed room (the little kid's room, it still seems, even though Ben is 25 years old now).  In the morning, I wake to the sound of my parents going to work and the dogs' nails clicking back and forth along the tiled highway.  At night, I go to bed to the sound of coyotes wailing somewhere in the fields, and Canadian geese land and take off from the same fields all day long, honking and stitching together their ragged V-shape.  The aspens pattern our drawn shades like static, ticking and shivering.

Wyoming.  A place where you can go home again and ride around with one of your oldest friends in an old Ford Lariat pick-up truck and go to look at your old house on Angus Drive.  It looks the same from the street, but the well-worn trail you used to trudge into the willow thicket has been swallowed by a new house on the corner lot.  The trees are much taller.  Oddly, everything seems bigger rather than smaller.  And so you can go home again, but someone will have built a house over some part of your memory; a new generation of kids are leaving their inner tubes to dry in your old yard; the late-night diner is long-closed.  The landscape, however, neither remembers nor forgets you.  And this has always been the comfort of home.

(P.S. My friend Jessica Day is one of the people who inspired me with her own brave, astounding writing journey this year.  She gave me the excellent advice that blogging is like the warm-up run for the writing ahead, and keeps you accountable to your goals.  Her own blogging on the subject is so rich and lovely that I really must urge you to go here immediately and read it.  My first entree is just a pale copy in comparison!)

Holiday Writing News

November and December have been good months for writing news. This evening I will be reading at the Release Party for HOARSE Quarterly, a locally produced literary magazine in Seattle. The theme is "Professor," and I will be reading a very short piece, plumbing the term, while wearing the most professory get-up I can assemble from the contents of my closet. My short piece, "I Am the Professor," will be featured in Issue 5 of the magazine. You can check out HOARSE and order a copy here. It's a beautifully produced magazine.

Another short piece of mine, "Praying," has recently been accepted by Wigleaf, a journal that publishes very short fiction. "Praying" is probably the first true short short I ever wrote, and I have remained fond of it. I'm quite excited that it is finally finding a home somewhere, especially among the fine company of so many other dynamic short shorts. I will keep you posted when "Praying" is up on their site.

Happy Holidays, blog readers! Stay tuned for more big writing news in the 2012...

(image: http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/h/holly-28.html)

On Deadlines and Resisting the Hot Dog

I recently challenged myself to write a page per day of my novel-in-progress. I finished most of the beginning almost a year ago before being distracted by other projects, other calamities, other beers, and other vacations. But no more! I am pleased to say that I have stayed true to my goal since I made it...a few days ago. (7 pages must be the gross product of a week; make-up pages can be turned in on Sundays by midnight). It's really amazing how well I work under a deadline or artificial mandate. That's why I've often preferred to write short pieces: I generally finish them in one sitting, and the sense of the finite time around the act of writing itself tends to make the stories sharper, leaner, and better. So far, I've been rather pleased with how I've kept to this fledgling goal. The only problem is when my one page go-get-'em attitude kicks into gear, it is almost invariably 1:30 in the morning. This work ethic was slightly more okay in college and grad school, when I had occasional mornings off from work, class, and teaching, or only had to fill a seat rather than engage. It doesn't work as well with a lifestyle that includes an every day job. It's not even that I'm not sitting in front of the computer before the 1:30 mark. Not at all.

Allow me to illustrate for you: let's say I am baseball player with a decent hit (no idea why I would choose a sports metaphor given my lack of knowledge about sports, but bear with me). I head to the field, or, erm, the batting cages to practice my swing. Except, I don't practice my swing at first. Even thought it's afternoon and there are other people around practicing their swings and catching and pitching and waving my way, I'm not ready yet. I think about getting a hot dog and then I DO get a hot dog. While there, I do a bit of a condiment taste test. Oh, yeah, sauerkraut is disgusting. Now I remember! How hilarious. I find someone to talk about condiments with. Actually, you know, the more I think about it (alone now with just my thoughts and the hot dog), there's something so relatable about a hot dog; something that taps into a shared experience of America, ya know? Hot dogs. They tie together the tipsy person on the street corner at 2 a.m., the weekend weenie roaster, and anyone with a functioning microwave. I even made a hot dog solar cooker when I was eight years old using tinfoil! At this thought, I tear up. And, suddenly, I am filled with the conviction that HOT DOGS are where the meaning really lies. Why have I wasted my time on something so comparably esoteric? My pastime is neither delicious nor sandwiched by an oblong bun. It's a fool's pastime. You know what? Maybe I should get into hot dogs. I've always liked them, after all. Almost as much as hitting.

(time passes...like, maybe, five minutes of time)

Anywhere, where was I? Oh, hot dogs? Yeah, I'm not going to finish this one. They are soooo unhealthy. I can't wait to hit a perfect ball. THAT'S what I really want to do. But first I need to have this conversation about why astroturf is weird. Yes, I know, I've said it before, but this is an essential conversation, and it clearly needs to be had. I have different points than yesterday. Like, maybe one slightly less rehashed point about the qualities of fluorescent greens as illuminated by floodlights. So, I chat about astroturf with whomever happens to be handy. Odd how that guy that sweeps the edges of the field always seems to be on the other side of the field whenever I'm in the mood to have this discussion.

(time passes)

Man, where has the time gone? I am EXHAUSTED! It must be all those fine motor skills I used wiping that ketchup off my shirt. Wait, was that five hours ago?! I guess that astroturf conversation was pretty gripping. Or maybe when I was wandering around trying to find the bathroom....? Regardless, I don't even know if I have the energy to hit today. I mean, I hit a few yesterday, right? Some people have never even been to a major league game before! Hitters like me are rare, after all. I can probably pat myself on the back just for, you know, dreaming of hitting a homer now and again. Or you know what? Even driving here. I mean, I put my bag in a car and I drove here. That's pretty good, right?

So, I start getting my gear together and start heading off the field. I notice that all my other teammates are gone; even the guy that sweeps the edges of the field is gone. Someone is turning off the floodlights, one by one, and darkness whooshes into each portion of the field where the lights have been shining. Finally, there's just one lone floodlight still going--perhaps they've left it on for me and are even now waiting for me to get the hell off the field.

Except I'm not. Suddenly, I'm ready. Drop my bag to the ground. Get my bat out, and magically, a ball pops my way from somewhere off in the darkness (don't think too much on the details) and I swing and swing, the cracks of wood meeting canvas echoing throughout the stadium. And one or two of those hits might even be good (I'm not totally sure, since they're flying off into unlit stadium stands, but whatevs). It feels good, though. It feels really good, like--

--and the last floodlight is switched off. Crap. And I had a really good metaphor for that feeling, too.

That, in short, is my writing work ethic if I were actually a baseball player. You might not want to pick me for your team, but I am still going to finish this novel. One page, one day at time.

I'll Take That

Free Will Astrology for the Week of January 14
by Rob Brezsny

"The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous," wrote W. Somerset Maugham. "On the contrary, it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind." I think the trajectory of your journey during the last 12 months tends to confirm this theory, Taurus. According to my analysis, you set new benchmarks for your personal best in 2009, while at the same time becoming a wiser, riper human being. Congrats! Now get out there and capitalize on the grace you've earned. Be as organized as possible as you share the fruits of your progress."

2009 was a happy year, and I hope I have made gains to be wiser and better and more magnanimous. I feel like I want to grow those aspects of myself even more, and continue to reach outward in whatever ways I can over the next year (reaching inward, too, to further probe my values and assumptions). And yes, the admonishment to be organized does not go amiss!

Not normally a fan of horoscopes, but this one made me feel like one of those chocolates with drippy caramel inside. Mmmmm...caramel.