Spending a day at the Museum

It's Friday morning. After some serious contemplation and a ride on public transportation across town, I decided to play hooky and spend the day alone. I haven't had much time alone here in Philly. It's almost impossible in fact, for me to spend any time by myself here except when I'm in the bathroom. Needless to say, I really enjoy being in the bathroom.
Bear with me, I'm attempting to begin writing again, and having not done so in such a long time, everything is scattered and lackluster. My apologies.
I moved to West Philadelphia a week or so ago at the invitation of my friends Pam and Kellzo, a married couple who inspire me a great deal in many ways. Their house (our house) looks like some sort of esoteric art museum and is decorated almost haphazardly with their combined artwork (many mediums), random furniture, plants, plants and more plants of all varieties, self designed light fixtures, books, cassette tapes, records and various audio equipment, a plethora of spices and culinary oddities in jars,clothing and gems that Pam seems to find on her wanderings around. The house is seemingly endless, with so many rooms, each dedicated to different function and purpose, each with their own creative flair. Kellzo has a room for audio recording and creation, There is a shared room for the making of just about anything with catalogued materials including filing cabinets labeled-"adhesives, markers, pens and paint, paper, fabric, etc. There are tools for carprentry and building, screen printing supplies, a sewing machine and needles and threads and yarns, a dummy for tailoring, wood stamps used for printing on fabric, rulers, a paper cutter and a collection of various kinds of tape. You get the idea. Pam and kellzo share a spacious bedroom which is comfortable and homey and wholly embodies the characteristics of both of them. There is a bathroom on that floor which is sparse and has a hose attatched in the bathtub to clean up any artistic processes necessary. On that same floor is a door to the attic. Up the creaky steps and illuminated by christmas lights you will find a lounge of sorts. An old table and high stools overlooks the city out of two windows on either side of the cavernous room, which is musty and has exposed insulation. Old projects of theirs rest up there as well and sit about in little heaps that seem to converse with one another about times when they were created, in use and maybe on display. Kellzo also used this room to spray paint cds he'd made and so the design still remains imprinted on the floor. It's surprisingly cozy up there and it easily feels as though you've escaped the world and entered into a portal to another time and space. Downstairs on the first floor is the kitchen-the warm epicenter of this big old body. Spices, dry goods, sauces and seasonings are all in a makeshift order on giant shelves. A variety of cookware hangs from the shelves as well. There seems to be an endless supply of anything and everything needed to make whatever you can dream of. Photographs line the walls and homemade light fixtures create a soft ambiance over top the table and chairs. There is a collection of things both old and new and it feels as though I could take days trying to catalogue everything that is in that kitchen. It is inviting and comfortable. There is a bathroom-with all of our varying natural toiletries, herb tinctures, historic looking grooming devices, a small shelf of books for reading while on the crapper or in the bath and of course-plants. At night, white christmas lights softly illuminate the space, making it calm and comfy even though it tends to be so cold most of the time.
The living room is one of my favorite rooms in the house. I think it's also one of the warmer places. It's large and holds the most organized part fo the Pam-Kellzo collection. More homemade light fixtures light up the living room in a warm tungsten glow. Plants take over the front bay windows-some viney and draping all about. Pam has a keen interest in amateur botany and she will if you inqure, tell you about each plant and how it came about to be in her garden of sorts. Vintage furniture makes for comfrtable sitting and or sleeping. Pam recently built the library and all of their books collected over the years are catalogued and in alphabetical order. Paintings cover the walls and thier record and cassette collection is somewhat organized on shelves under two giant mirrors which give the room even more depth. The sun comes up in this room in the mornings, making it a melted buttery orange-yellow and creating a quiet peacefulness I haven't much felt in a city environment. My room is at the end of the hall. It's often very cold in there, but inviting nonetheless and like the rest of the house, museum-like. It was Pam's old sewing room. It's furnished with her furniture and some remaining belongings and so I feel as though I am staying at some historic hotel run by mad artists as opposed to having my own room, which in fact, is a blessing considering that I own next to nothing and am a severe minimalist as far as decor goes. It already felt lived in before I moved in with my meager belongings. There is a giant bed complete with many giant warm blankets, two desks, three giant windows, and a massive closet adorned with mirrors taller than my body. Some of Pam's collected paintings and photographs adorn the walls, and then of course, there are the neat piles of the only things I own=Camping gear, my clothing in a suitcase, boxes of negatives, prints and film and my cameras. The house is an old West Philly structure. It sits at the edge of the very distinct West Philly Activist/Artist/Hippie/University/Ghetto/Alternative area of the city. Bordering it, is the straight ghetto-which is blighted and dilapidated. It's certainly an interesting mix of culture, history and environment. It feels wholly more spacious and less congested than anywhere else I seem to spend time in the direct metropolis. Their house, our house, in a sense-is an oasis in an overcrowded, over-burdended, over depressed city. I feel like it's a proper place to unravel and untangle all of the massive knots I've accumulated and developed in my brain over time. It's a resting place for now. A much needed much anticipated resting place.
It's also a place where my own creative juices seem to flow. Pam and Kellzo promote that kind of lava river inside of oneself-and they do it both collectively and independently. They, unlike most people that I know in life-do not force their way into your inner space, rather-they invite you in when they feel comfortable and gradually and slowly come into you as you yourself invite them. It is symbiosis at it's best. No bossing around, or pushing or pulling, just, being. They are inquisitive and informative, intimate yet distant. The give a closeness that requires almost no maintainance. They are a rare find. Wonderful curators both of themselves and their abode. I'm lucky to have been asked into this residency. I'm sincerely hoping that I have to the time to properly assess things I've been storing inside of this broken vessel of a body over the years. I'm hoping to take some of their behaviors with me to aid me in my anxious frenzy of too much thought and feeling.
I'm sitting here now at 11:12 am, smoking a cigarette, drinking a Yards Thomas Jefferson Ale listening to the traffic outside, not worrying about the things that normally plague my brain and thinking about how lucky I am to have this place and this time to just r-e-l-a-x.
I woke up at 7am on Jude and Erin's couch-worrying about heading off to Chestnut Hill to go to work. Looking at the dreary gray day out there. Jude held both of my hands for a minute and massaged them..as he softly talked to me and told me I had to get up. I happily arose, knowing I'd get to spend some time with him. I rubbed the crusties out of my eyes (all brown from the endless wood dust of sanding at work), put on my glasses and went into the kitchen to drink coffee with him and listen to the sing song sound of his voice. I spent the next hour and a half quizzing him on blood and the heart for his midterm and then dashed out the door to begin my own day-walking through south philly and hopping the subway to get to the trolley to come back home to the museum with all intentions of going to work. I carried Jude with me and felt too tired around all of those people on the train. Watching West Philly come into view I knew I had to take a day off, to sit here in the museum alone, think, lay low and just put everything into focus.
Home isn't so bad sometimes. Sometimes, home is a necessary thing. And you can bet your sweet ass I'd like to be skiing in Alta with my friends, or up at the cabin in Maine with Nate, or out on my farm in Kauai listening to the chickens yelling and the bees swarming above my tent and the mountains welcoming me in the new morning light. But shit-I'm here in Philly-so why not just drink a Philly beer and listen to the sounds of the city and digest all that I've been eating over all this time.

Let the Circle Be Unbroken

I'm a piece of shit. What can I really say but that. I haven't maintained this or kept up or even attempted to write in so long. At least not electronically. I keep journals of some sort. Of course, so much has happened since my last entry. Actually, an entire year happened. And there have been places and faces and things that have happened that would take me quite some time to actually describe. After Alta, I spent some time on the road, and then I spent a month in San Francisco and Berkeley and then, well, I moved to Kauai. I became a farmer in the most beautiful remote wilderness I've ever seen, I made friends I still can't stop thinking about and i moved back to Philadelphia to hopefully be there for and help my sister, who was diagnosed with breast cancer and has been beating the shit out of it for the better part of half a year. One of these days I'd like to rehash the Kauai experience, and even explain properly what happened to me exactly after the first few weeks of 2011. For now, I'll try to properly ground myself, for right now, in Philadelphia, so that maybe I can make some sort of documentary sense out of the crazy light picture show that has been my my life over the past year, and maybe I can make room for what is about to happen as exciting and uncertain as it is. All I can really say is that I wound up back in my home town of Philadelphia on December 8th, freezing my ass off after a nice long time in Kauai, still stained with the red dirt of farming, still in the country mentality I had grown accustomed to, to exit the airplane into a cold and wet city, full of things that were both familiar and foreign to me.
I'm still having a hard time adjusting, but still find that most things have been pre-programmed. I found this journal entry from the 11th of December and wanted to share it in hope that I could at the very least start from somewhere and then retrace my steps to fill in the gaps of 2011 so that I can, at some point, catch up to 2012, which is rapidly unfolding. As per usual, my life hasn't stopped. In fact, it seems to be moving faster and faster all the time. And I do suppose, that's what the old folks always said would happen.
This entry was written my first weekend back in the city. I guess without the back round of how I was living in Kauai it might not be that big of a deal, but fuck it, it's the internet...I just wanted to share this..again...to have some sort of a starting point. I guess I'm hoping that if I begin to tell the story, I'll continue to write it. It's not really like anyone is reading this anyhow, so here goes nothing.
December 11. 2011
-Riding the subway to to connect to the Frankford-Market El-to take a bus-to walk. I need this time to just pay attention. I'm hung over, smell like 5 packs of smokes and full of Millet, banana and mango. Folgers coffee is turning my belly inside out. It's funny that the interchange from the subway to the el is still so simple, second nature I guess from high school days-weird to not think of moving from one filthy tunnel to another amongst so many bodies-lost in thought like all of them-all organisms in the same shitty tube. It smelled like vomit and cheap cleaning products in that dirty linoleum and tiled passageway onto the el platform. Train grumbles along like an old broken worm-the black people on the platform wait for the black people to exit the train and then push in past the white people who are trying to exit. The opposite happens in other neighborhoods (northeast). Everyone rushes in to claim a seat. Every man for himself. Maybe they're tired from living so much and need a rest as we're carried through the intestines of this beast we must be parasites of. My city, my Home. I can hear snippets of their murmer(ing) conversation. They all mesh together in a strange hummmmmmmmmmmmm. I feel guilty drinking in all of these faces varying so much in color, style, expression-like I'm getting drunk, intoxicated. Too many smells. I've left my garden to troll the metropolis. Like a tart-I'm committed to no one or no place or no beast.
When we emerge into the sunlight out of the tunnel-above the city instead of deep inside-i feel like I'm being pushed out of the womb. And it's bright. And it hurts my eyes for a second. But I can't stop looking around in wonder, like it's the first time I've seen this grid of broken crayons-broken buildings-new shitty pre-fab facades amongst broken old men who were glorious in their day. Streets, like extended bony fingers filled with discard. The river right beside us, trying to drown us-it's all gritty and it's all beautiful. I've been gone so long I don't know how to understand everything.
It's so beautiful that I can't take it some times. But it's only beautiful because it's real-and harsh-and because I choose to perceive it that way. Sometimes all of this decay and rot is just too much and it's easy to get swallowed up in it's trash mouth full of broken teeth and slimy saliva and bad smells. Sometimes it's easy to feel loved and embraced and held in this place that is just so real and so true and just as ugly as you.
But it is alive nonetheless. And my garden back in Kauai was alive, and the ocean was alive. But it's far away and almost like a fairy tale I wrote at some point. This is no fairy tale. This is life. And I can fly if I want to. I can make all of these shelled out buildings museums inside of my brain. This place can be one massive exploratorium. But I can't escape the truth on this earthworm moving slowly through the dirt that is North Philly. I'm inside of it-and it's inside of me-and we're all regurgitating the same shit-and everything starts all over again. I'm Home.

The End of an Era. The Beginning of the Unknown.

On New Year's Eve a good friend of mine scoffed at the celebratory screams and hoots ringing in the New Year. He made the argument that time is irrelevant, that people stupidly use time as a marker to make things perhaps more important than they are. That basically, we have invented time, and that our existence, measured in time almost loses it's meaning. While i understand this deeper philosophical standpoint, I also enjoy the frames of time by which I can monitor my adventures, the changing of my ideas, my emotions, my interactions; my progress, so to speak, as a human being. Life is quite the time frame (for some). It feels indeed long, and at times, I suppose it feels short. All around it seems to be changing, speeding up and slowing down, and just p.a.s.s.i.n.g. Days move in and out. For insomniacs like myself, the night crawls through me like a slow parasite, taking it's time to suck from me. Whether or not we like to admit it, time, or life, or whatever it is, moves on, taking us with it, changing our bodies, our metabolisms, our ideals, our hearts, our guts. Everything keeps on keeping on. What a lovely and comforting thought. I digress.

On New Year's Eve, yet another calendar year was exhausted, evaporated into thin air, gone. And we all, drunken with hope and fear and excitement and relief, opened our arms, whooped it up and kissed someone (what a silly tradition), to out with the old in with the new. And our sins, and guilt and shortcomings from the previous year, all washed away into the vault, with all of the previous years. All of our wonderful adventures, and flings, and progression and advances put into the box of things to be cherished and romanticized and compared to for this new year. This new era. We made resolutions and promises and felt the seemingly eternal re-birth making it's way into our bellies. We drank to keep the flame of all of our new beginning burning so bright. We drank to try as hard as we could, to just hold on a little tighter to what we thought we knew in 2010. We made it into the morning of 2011, feeling haggard and tired and still intoxicated with all of that extinguished campfire of last year, still figuratively speaking, smelling of the smoky glow of that fire. Did it feel like an entirely new year? Well, I suppose for some of us, it did. For me, I felt as though I had let go of some of everything. I liked to utilize that year as a mile marker. For me, it was the end of a decade. I turned thirty one this year. Just before the New Year. I spent quite a bit of time contemplating the last ten years of my life. And shit, I have really done quite a bit in those ten years. I suppose though, most of us have. All of us measure our lives in time. Through the grand time frame, we can measure all that we have or have not accomplished. Although it is wholly a made up concept (or so in the way that we human beings utilize it), it is a great measuring stick.

The one year of 2010 may have been my most productive and travelled year. I changed so very drastically within that year. I compiled a list of the places I visited and lived and almost blew my own mind. I was lucky enough to have roughly four months off. In those four months I was productively traveling, learning, spending time with friends and family, losing my mind, thinking about suicide, being so grateful to live and genuinely having the time to think about time and utilizing my time and understanding my freedom, and making and breaking goals and so fourth and so on. My occupations over the past year were a joke for the most part. I have not had a serious job since I was a social worker a few years ago. I have been a seasonal worker for an entire year consecutively (on feb 1) and it certainly has had it's ups and downs. I've met more people in the course of a year than perhaps a few years combined. I visited more National Parks, National Forests and National Monuments than I ever have in my lifetime, all in this one year. I became more comfortable with my body and my mind this year. My intimate relations this year surprised me as well. As I shouldn't mention them, for reasons of respect, I can simply say that I was all over the board. (no pun intended). At the end of 2010, I was in fact, in the same place emotionally as I was at the beginning, free. I was on the road a great amount of time and for the first time felt road weary. I lived in the desert, glacial mountains, the piney woods, the thriving, throbbing metropolis, the snowy canyon of a ski resort, the dry but green hill country and all of the in between of the road. I rode a train cross country for the first time in my life, watching America slip by and letting all of my dreams run out of my greasy head like spoiled paint. I fell in love with the lives and thoughts and guts of all of the people I met along the way and tried unsuccessfully to catalogue them inside of myself in some way or another.

I stopped being a photographer. I stopped being a writer. I stopped being so self absorbed and tried to ABSORB everything around me. I lost myself and found myself and found you and you found me. I gave up on luck and quit making decisions and became ok with riding the horse that was dragging me around. I don't want to sound new age-y, but I feel as thought 2010 was symbolic. My decade went out with an incredible fucking BANG. I watched the last sparkle of my blazing firework die out in the sky and promised myself that I would in fact, attempt to take the reigns in 2011. That I would let go of all of the shitty parts of my wild wild life and try to be at peace with myself, instead of burning the candle at both ends. Hopefully I can do so. It's hard to re-learn when one is so set in their ways. I have to go slide into my penguin suit and serve the upper class expensive food in a minute, so I'll spare you all of the bullshit. It's snowing gently outside, the mountains are all fogged over. (like my brain, I've had a concussion for the past week and I secretly enjoy the white noise it creates in my head to an extent). Life does indeed feel a little different. I feel different. Perhaps it's because it's 2011. Perhaps it's because I have agreed to the allusion that a New Year has in fact begun. I'll take it. I'll fill myself with hope and desire and all of the goals I've always believed in. I'll wonder if I can make this next year and this next decade as amazing and adventurous and full of life and wonder as the last. Can I really have both insanity and control? I guess I'll have to find out. Or make it so.

For now, I'll leave you with the list of 2010. I'll post a blog of only photos from 2010 later. Enjoy your New Year. Hopefully I'll be lucky enough to see some of you this year. That's one of my resolutions. I'll find you, or for a change, you come find me.

THE YEAR OF 2010- Places wandered

National Parks, National Monuments, National Forests

Caddo Lake, Texas

Big Bend National Park, Texas

Big Bend State Park, Texas

Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico

Guadalupe National Park, Texas

Lincoln National Forest, New Mexico

White Sands National Monument, New Mexico

Gila National Forest, New Mexico

Gila Wilderness Area, New Mexico

Apache National Forest, New Mexico/Arizona

Coconino National Forest, Arizona

Navajo Bridge National Monument, Arizona

Vermillion Cliffs National Monument, Arizona

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

Kaibab National Forest, Arizona

Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

Escalante National Monument, Utah

Dixie National Forest, Utah

Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah

Natural Bridge National Monument, Utah

Arches National Park, Utah

Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, Utah/Wyoming

Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Gallatin National Forest, Montana

Glacier National Park, Montana

Waterton National Park, Alberta Canada

Stehekin, Northern Cascades National Park, Washington

Lake Chelan, Washington

White Mountains National Forest, New Hampshire

Acadia National Park, Maine

Zion National Park, Utah

Wasatch National Forest, Utah

States 2010

Texas

New Mexico

Arizona

Utah

Wyoming

Montana

Washington

New Hampshire

Vermont

Maine

Massachusetts

Pennsylvania

New Jersey

Delaware

Other Places

Canada

Puerto Rico

Towns that seemed to have some bearing

Uncertain, TX

Marshall, TX

Midland, TX

Odessa, TX

Marathon, TX

Alpine, TX

Fort Davis, TX

Presidio, TX

Pecos, TX

Terlingua, TX

Study Butte, TX

Lajitas, TX

Carlsbad, NM

San Juan, PR

Rincon, PR

Van Horn, TX

White’s City, NM

Artesia, NM

Elk/Hope/Dunkel, NM

Alamagordo, NM

Silver City, NM

Sanders, AZ

Winslow, AZ

Flagstaff, AZ

Kanab, UT

Boulder, UT

Torrey, UT

Bicknell, UT

Moab, UT

Jackson Hole ,WY

Livingston, MT

Missoula, MT

Babb, MT

Whitefish, MT

Kalispell, MT

Cardston, Canada

Lethbridge, Canada

Las Vegas, NV

St. George, UT

Hungry Horse, MT

Essex, MT

Columbia Falls, MT

East Glacier, MT

Browning, MT

Wenatchee, WA

Chicago, IL

Springfield, MA

Brattleboro, VT

Townshend, VT

Conway, NH

Denmark, ME

Fryeburg, ME

Bridgeton, ME

Portland, ME

Bar Harbor, ME

Boston, MA

Philadelphia, PA

Cherry Hill, NJ

Austin, TX

New Braunfels, TX

Llano, TX

Vineland, NJ

Claymont, DE

Waymart, PA

Salt Lake City, UT

Alta, UT

Sandy, UT

8500 Ft.

I'm in Alta, Utah. I live in the Little Cottonwood Canyon and work in the most expensive and high end resort in this very small ski town. Alta is renown for it's amazing snow. I'm sitting in the lodge now, watching it dump down out there. It's been snowing all night and it's not supposed to stop until Monday. When it snows, everyone is in an excellent mood. When it doesn't snow, people are on edge. I have never in my life, seen this much snow. I'm told I've seen nothing yet. We have already had about 166 inches of snow and by the beginning of the week, we will hopefully have 2 more feet. I'm learning about yet another sub culture here. Skiers, are really and genuinely a different type of human being. This year, I've covered much terrain and have had six different mailing addresses, living in the desert, glacial mountains, the New England woods, Metropolitan cities and now here, at 8500 ft elevation in a veritable winter wonderland. I am as far removed from any world I've ever known. I came to a skiers paradise, never having strapped sticks to my feet, and having an unusually low tolerance for the cold. I came to spend more time with my good friend Jason Weber, I came for an adventure and I came to challenge myself as much as I possibly could. And here I am.

When I first arrived, I was unsettled and more scared and socially awkward than I ever have been. Truth be told I had a really hard time emotionally this year. Traveling and living so hard takes it's toll on the body and brain. Honestly, something happened inside of me that closed me up, created a darkness I've not known and made me feel almost every day for a while, that I did not want to wake up anymore. This was a conflicting mess inside my warped and weathered brain, as I was, for the most part, seeing the most beautiful and breath taking parts of the country. I was making some really genuine friends who continued to love and to teach me. I pushed my body-hiking long distances through some of the most unbelievable landscape in the country, summiting mountains, wandering through the desert, and just GOING most of the time Full-Tilt. So I should have been grateful and excited for my life. I live a life most people dream about. I've been told often how "lucky" I am. And I wanted to feel lucky. I wanted to feel as amazed and impressed with my life as others seem to be. I would have spurts of that realization, but truthfully-I felt more like a failure than anything else. I couldn't seem to maintain a relationship with anyone more than friendship and if I was going to be "close" to someone, I could only relate in a physical way. It was almost as if my brain and all of the experiences and information I was taking in were just too much. Leaving no space for any sort of actual connection. My only constant-seemed to be my family, who I have become so incredibly close to and my ex boyfriend, who I have an odd reciprocity with. Living so rigorously with no close partner is hard. And without someone to "share" all of the beauty, intensity, wanderlust, non-stop moving, going, living, and escapading- well...I became a cluttered, panicked, tense and tired mess. I kept looking around me at everyone else-who seemed as though they had it figured out, and then I looked at myself...an open book, constantly willing to move, adapt and change, fleeting, unstable, and ready for anything because truthfully, i know nothing. I watched my already meager bank account dwindle and let myself become upset about being a monetary failure. I tried too hard to connect with ALL of my friends when I went home and found that I just couldn't hack it and in the process alienated myself. I ruined a couple of great relationships this year. I ruined a lot of my brain this year. I broke myself down and beat myself up. And that darkness kept growing and growing inside of me. I came, a few times, to the point of almost just-letting go. I was hoping that coming here, would in fact open some new doors in my head, and let all of the nasty, dirty things I can't seem to deal with bleed out. A word to the wise, if you already feel hopeless and lost and you are unwilling to fight the good fight, do not go about overcoming your own idiotic shortcomings by completely moving to a place you do not understand by any means.

When I flew out of Philadelphia, A knot worked it's way into my stomach. My head hurt terribly and I had a lump in my throat. I watched the city I know best drift away and let the black hole in my head, my heart and my gut suck me in. I wanted to jump out of the plane. I just didn't feel READY to deal. I kept questioning myself-Why hadn't I checked myself into a hospital somewhere? Why hadn't I just started taking medicine again? Why didn't I just stay in Philadelphia and let everyone know that I was so depressed and scared? Why didn't I go to Missoula and visit the one person not related to me that not only knows me so well, but also has gone through what I was going through? Why the FUCK did I not just take the easy path. GODDAMNIT....my head...it hurt. And so I slept, and dreamt awful dreams, and prayed as i woke up occasionally, that my plane would crash into the squares so neat and organized down below, so I wouldn't be a coward...I would and could just not be.

When the plane landed, it was snowing hard. I couldn't see Salt Lake at all really. My friend Zak picked me up and even though I was excited to see him, I felt at odds. I was wondering if he could see that darkness. The white out conditions in Utah were almost symbolic in a sense. I had entered a numb void that would not really become comforting until a few days ago. Zak drove me up the canyon. The snow was really coming down and driving was entirely unsafe. I could feel Zak's own fear radiating off of him. I clenched my hands as we skidded up the windy mountain road. Crescent nail marks were embedded in my palms. I couldn't see any of my new home by any means, visibility was low and everything looked ominous. The trip to this new world was as peculiar and unmatched as the new world in and of itself. I arrived, nonetheless, confused, exhausted, empty, lonely and completely and utterly socially awkward. Jason received me well. And we hugged and I felt grateful for his graciousness. In reality, I wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep off the past few months. We trudged through the snow my first night here, walking down the hill to a lodge bar, to sit by a fire and catch up. The light at night is queer here, bizarre. It feels almost as though you are on the moon. The reflective nature of the all encompassing snow makes the land look and feel preternatural. The mountains are silhouetted even in the darkest of nights. There is a glow that does not feel warm, but does in fact, glow. As the snow crunched under my feet and I looked around, i felt dizzy and overwhelmed, and I decided to just do as I always have, suck it up, suck it in, ride the wave of uncertainty.

I don't think I had any idea what I was really getting myself into. I've been doing seasonal work for awhile now, so I sincerely believed I would just fall into place. There are always rites of passage, adaptations and simple sociological rules and regulations. There is a natural groove that becomes more obvious, and a placement of one in certain circles and rank takes place. And then, you settle and then of course, with all of us being naturally or for the most part transient, it all changes, over and over and over in the course of the season. This place...is like none other. Ski culture is incomparable to anything I have attempted to understand. Skiers are intense people, with their own vocabulary, their own style, and their own way of thinking. I'm still learning, so it's hard to accurately describe it. But it is intimidating, overwhelming and just generally physically and mentally challenging. Girls here find the opposite sex more attractive as their skill level as a skier is higher. People certainly pay the better skiers more respect. If one does not go out on a "powder" day, they are looked down upon. If one does not get a "few runs" in a day, they are wasting their time here. The gear is astounding, the variety unending and the culture confounding entirely. Throwing myself into this band of privileged snow warriors was jolting. It may have been the hardest thing I have ever attempted. And I hadn't even strapped into skis yet.

Most of the people who work here are returners. Few of us are newbies. This was certainly alienating at first. I think I was actually the ONLY person who had never in my life, skied. People are generally kind here, and want you to ski, they want skiing to be a positive thing. They certainly want to share their enthusiasm for skiing. Ski bums are obsessed with, well, skiing. They constantly look up the weather report and are constantly concerned with the snow, the consistency of the snow and what the fuck the snow is doing. Business and service revolves around snow. I have seen snowflake every thing here, ranging from snowflake tattoos to snowflake jewelry, snowflake pipes, snow is all it's about. Actually BEING in the snow, in a pair of skis and flying down a mountain, well shit, that's another story. It took me a few days of PAINFUL and defeating falling, crashing, smashing, splitting, cursing, cold wet sadness, but after my first real run, I got it. It made sense. I began dreaming about skiing. I skied powder vs hard packed down icy groomers and understood the difference. My gear isn't cool, I look like a retard, I'm what Alta locals call a beater, but I did find love in skiing. It is an ever changing challenge to wake up and go through the labor of putting on all of that gear, telling myself over and over that I can actually-do it, deal with the self defeating voices that remind me how shitty of a skier I am, and just GET OUT THERE. As soon as I click in, and hit the first hill at the ski exit of the lodge, I'm fucking stoked. Riding the lift is almost like going to church (for religious folks). It gives you time to reflect, to look around at the astounding beauty, to feel the cold wet air in your lungs, to let the excitement build in your belly and think about the run at hand. Once you go, there's no turning back, and once you put your skis to the snow, there's no where to go but down. Watching a good skier really is wonderful, the body moves like a machine, but with so much fluidity it's awe inspiring. It's almost like watching the wand in a conductor's hand. I often sit in the lodge and watch the tiny bodies dotting the pure white landscape, carving fresh lines like veins into the mountain. It is almost calming, but it creates a feeling in my tummy, a longing to at some point move with such agility and ease. I have had similar relationships with summiting mountains. I hope to become one with the snow so to speak.

I received a letter from my other yesterday and her handwriting, looping and swirling like the tracks on the mountains outside said "Things run full circle". Knowing how much has changed over the past few weeks since I've been here (tomorrow will be three weeks), and feeling that darkness sliding away, and becoming more comfortable with myself and my new world makes me feel that she is in fact correct. I have always found so much comfort in change. At this moment, I am feeling comfort in the moment. At 8500 feet, the air is thinner, my brain seems to work slower, I am almost forced, to just fucking take it slow. And upon doing so, I can stop and see the scenery, I can actually hear my thoughts, feel my feelings. Everything seems to just "flow" here. Time does not really actually exist. Nothing really actually matters but the snow. There is no consequence except injury. Life is fleeting and it doesn't matter. The pines, wearing their winter sweaters of fluffy white down, sit peacefully in clusters all over the mountains, and those bodies glide swiftly between them, such a beautiful symbiotic relationship. Everything talks differently here. I'm listening and I suppose, the more I listen, the more I'll understand. Nothing is the same now as it was. But I guess, really, it never is. Time to strap in and fly as well as I can on land.

Adios Brah.

"Vacationland"

October 19, 2010

It’s easy to lose track of time without the outside world. It’s easy to lose track of time without a routine of personal hygiene. I stood outside tonight as the moon bellied up, naked and cold, shivering as I washed my filthy body with water warmed by the stove, a washcloth and some good old Dr. Bronners and realized that I hadn’t washed up since Saturday. My hair was unbearably greasy, I had become fairly odorous as I spent almost the entire day working outside and damn, it’s been quite cold, so I haven’t found the desire to change my clothing. Needless to say, my socks could have marched from my body themselves. Anyone who knows me well knows I normally shower every day, twice a day sometimes. I wash my hair daily and brush my teeth three times a day. I certainly change my clothes every day, and almost every night slip into pajamas. Somehow, out here, with the lack of running water, I have developed a pleasure in being dirty. And I have developed even more of a pleasure in standing outside in the moonlight, completely nude, using a washcloth and hot water to cleanse my body. I never thought dipping my head into too-hot water after lathering it with soap could be so refreshing. Towel drying, in the frigid autumn evening might be one of the most invigorating feelings to be felt. Showers are for babies. I suppose I began to describe my bathing situation because it did in fact remind me that I had lost track of time. It is Tuesday evening. To me it could have been any day of the week. I didn’t know the date until I figured I should at some point today. I have been here just about three weeks now. I have accomplished very few things, but have seen and done countless.

I am flawed in many ways. Once a social butterfly, I have become a social retard. Once worldly and a multi-tasking perfectionist, I am now slow, and enjoy watching ants carry leaves, I squeal with delight while listening to the trees groaning in the wind, alone, I enjoy walking through the woods, with no conversation, like watching the light move over the valley of arbors, exploding with the colors of the season. I lose track of hours, days and I guess, weeks. Sometimes I can come out of my own brain and not remember for a second, where I am. I’ve been living in a daydream since I left Montana. It’s been beautiful for the most part. My heart feels like it is on fire. Once again, I’ve fallen in love with a geographic location and put aside human beings in the process. I have been communicating for the most part via written correspondence. The only person I really have to verbally communicate with is Nate, and his father Pete, and the postmaster and the gal who works at the convenience store. Most of the time I am living in my head…and my head, well, it’s like a child. My imagination is seemingly never tired. I still cannot believe all that I’ve seen here.

I’ve been infatuated with Maine since Nate kidnapped me ten years ago and brought me here after school one afternoon. He took me to a jetty and we climbed into an abandoned lighthouse on the coast and drank beer and talked about life. The ocean crashed angrily beneath our hanging feet. The gulls squalled and screamed and the fresh salt air washed over me as I half listened to Nate, feeling so excited I could have peed my pants. He took me on a country road and for the first time in my life, I saw the sky exploding with stars. I remember the way it smelled here. I remember the way my belly felt all full up with such excitement. I was lucky enough to come and visit him and my friend Justin many more times over the years. The more time I spent up here, the more I dreamt of it. The more I longed to be here. My friend Justin took me on many adventures, and seeing my delight, fed me, more and more each time. Having an entire month, to sit and exist here, has been more in some ways than I thought it could be. It has been much quieter than I would have guessed.

For the most part I wake with the sun and fall asleep not too long after it sinks down below the White Mountains. We seem to follow a sort of schedule that feels nothing like a schedule. As I mentioned, the days and nights blend over and over and over again. Some days we work from the time we awake (Nate is always awake and outside working before I crawl out of my sleeping bag). He gives me tasks to complete and I work often beside him mostly doing grunt work, as I am unskilled. I’ve been shoveling, moving, piling, pulling, tilling, ripping and hauling. The pitchfork, mccloud, axe, rake, shovel and wheelbarrow have become an extension of me. I learned to use a come-along the other day to move a one-ton rock with my own sheer strength, simple physics, a chain and Nate. I helped to install the wood-burning stove that we use to keep us warm. I chop the wood that we burn. I wash dishes with rainwater heated on the stove. Hopefully I’ll plant grass seed in the yard before I leave on Tuesday. My back is sore, my body bruised and my clothes covered in a fine layer of dirt and mud. My fingernails seem to contain their own constant soil sample. Being here in Maine, in the country so to speak, Nate and I do not look out of place when we walk into the Paris Farmers Union to pick up supplies, in the state of dirt and grime that we are in. I do not feel embarrassed or dirty while sporting my ripped up dusty jeans or giving money to a cashier with grimy, cracked hands. I actually feel quite proud and productive. Nate made a good point to me, that this is a novelty to others in the outside world, mainly to our friends living the city life in Philly, New York and LA. He is unfortunately correct. But what he is doing takes courage. It takes strength and patience. It takes craftsmanship, it take sacrifice above all. I have not felt this free in such a long time…and ironically I am working physically harder than I ever have. The constraints of the world “out there” mean nothing here. With the lack of tapping into constant electronic communication, I have time to think, and feel and see for myself entirely. I have virtually no money, but don’t need it. The cost of living here is radically different, the quality of life almost immeasurable. It takes a certain type to live this way. You must be self -sustaining and self-aware. It amazes me to think that most people I know would not like this lifestyle, that they’d have a hard time without non-stop internet, that they would not look forward to long days of physical labor, that the entertainment you may have would primarily be watching a movie, listening to your own thoughts, sharing conversation with your friend or the local folks. No coffee shops, no movie theaters, no bar to wander into, not here in Denmark. Everything is a drive away. And I suppose- the closest place to find city folk who share a certain taste for fashion, culture and metropolis inspired ways of living within the living breathing concrete and steel beast that is a city would be in Portland Maine. Extroverts rely on a city to validate them, give them opportunity, find companionship, congregate and bounce their thoughts, wishes and ideas off of others. Here, the only validation you have is your own productivity. The company you keep tends to be the trees, the mountains, and the land. The folks you have to socialize with are your family, local neighbors, your postman, your convenience store clerk and your friends in other towns around the area…in season; you have tourists to change up the dynamic. The only opportunity seemingly, is the one you make for yourself. There is certainly something to be said about city life…the feeling and the excitement of feeling like one cell moving around in a massive body of other living, pulsing cells. There is an excitement that comes from the formula of many different minds all melded into one place times the endless possibility of place and commerce and interaction within a city. Out here, the excitement, at least for me, comes from just existing. Just noting my breathing and body actually working.

My time is nearing an end here. And I seem to go through a familiar pattern when I have spent time in a “place”. I try to mentally catalogue all I have learned. All I’ve seen. I like to find the characteristics that make the place I have been significant, individual, and extraordinary. Maine easily has it’s own presence. It’s own way of being. It has been called “vacationland” and I can honestly see why. The trees around me have changed every day. Winter (or what I am used to associating with winter-like weather) has moved in. Frost is now on the ground in the morning, and the nighttime air makes my cheeks rosy. I can hear hunters in the woods, and now when I hike I have to wear Blaze Orange so I don’t get shot. The lakes look less calm and often they have a fine layer of whitecaps all pushing about. Whether the sky is grey or bright blue-everything looks like it is on fire. I’ve had a time here. Oh it’s been a time. I am almost positive I’ll be back again in the spring to see how far Nate has come along in his endeavors. Knowing him, everything will look entirely different. And knowing me, I’ll have seen too many things and been too many places and be entirely different myself. I’m sleepy. The weather is not necessarily forgiving. I’m sitting by the stove, keeping warm. I’m wondering how life in Philly will be. I’ll miss it here…but I know in my gut…it’s time to move on once again. Thank ya Maine. It’s been swell.

From the woods in Maine...

Life at the Camp

October 7, 2010

Most mornings I wake up to Nate getting out of bed. He slinks out, walks to the kitchen area of the cabin, starts a pot of coffee and turns on the old radio. NPR streams into my half dreaming brain and I instinctively nestle deeper into the cocoon of comfortable blankets, not wanting to quite wake up just yet. I usually allow myself to remain in semi sleep until I feel my dreams sizzling away and then I remove myself from the nest of down and enter into the waking world.

We are only a few miles from the actual “town” of Denmark, Maine, but it doesn’t feel that way. Surrounded by trees of all kind it feels remote and removed from civilization out here at Camp Chase. My view is that of the White Mountains out in the distance and of course…trees, trees and more trees. It’s quite heavenly. I landed in New England at just the right time, autumn. A time of year when folks come from all over the coast to catch a glimpse of the seasonal fireworks display the dying leaves prepare. Bursts of bright yellow, orange and red are beginning to explode all around. Still premature I am only catching a sample of what’s around the bend, but still, it’s beautiful, and it’s something I haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing in quite some time having spent my autumns in Texas for the past few years. The air is brisk, the wind sends the brightly colored leaves wind floating to the ground and all I can smell is the smoke from the wood burning stove and the damp foliage on the ground, becoming compost. At night, when the sky is clear, thousands of stars twinkle, and I can hear coyotes howling to one another across the valley. No one else is around save Nate’s pop Pete when he’s down from Bar Harbor logging, and our somewhat neighbor, Jimbo, who comes up from Massachusetts on the weekend to enjoy his cabin down the road. There are other residents about a mile away, but they feel miles and miles away out here. I’ve lived in remote places, Yellowstone National Park, Big Bend National Park, and Glacier National Park, but in those places I was surrounded by people. Here, it is just Nate and I…waking each morning and falling asleep at night.

I am continually amazed at all that Nate has accomplished in only a few short months and primarily, alone. He’s managed to build himself quite a cabin. Where a thicket of forest used to be, a sustainable, comfortable structure now stands. There are two open rooms, a loft space and a mudroom. Since he has no running water, he’s built himself an outhouse that is surprisingly more pleasant than most bathrooms I’ve been in. he has a kitchen area, a stove, a large bed, a teak armoire, shelving, space for the massive amount of tools, a stainless steel Fridgedare and a woodstove to heat the interior. His kitchen is stocked with a variety of spices, and there are books and various artwork about. Once inside it’s hard to tell you are in the middle of nowhere. Eclectic music from Nate’s Itunes shuffle plays when the NPR is tuned out and well, you are in an actual living part of Nathan Scot Chase’s brain created full scale into a living environment. It’s lovely to say the very least, and I am honored to spend a month not only existing here with him, but helping him build, create and make this place more what he wants it to be.

Work is never done. There are endless errands to run to sustain living, and of course countless projects to be worked on. The trash goes to the town dump; the bottles and cans go tot the redemption center. We have to fill gallon jugs with drinkable water and water to cook with and clean ourselves with. Wood must be chopped, the space must be cleaned, and I have to go to town once a week to fulfill the requirements to receive unemployment. The cabin needs work as well, insulating for winter, building more shelves, clearing the yard to plant shrubs, finishing work on the roof, finishing the floor in one part of the structure, moving, improving, working, working, working. Nate always seems to have a list each morning. I have my own list in my head. I am here to help him but also to help myself . I have much clutter up in the old attic, too many memories, experiences and thoughts to sort through. Much changing to work on. I’ve spent my time roaming the States, not answering to any responsibility, for the most part doing as I wish and not necessarily working on anything creative or fundamental. I’m attempting to utilize this time to relax, be quiet, and listen to what it is I think my somewhat purpose is at this time in my life. I am getting older, my wants and needs are changing, and I am realizing that I do in fact, want some kind of stability in the near future. Of course this realization goes to battle with my inssesant want to travel, experience, enjoy not being tied down to a relationship and to fight the ever present challenge of adaption, What it comes down to frankly, is that I’m either getting too fucking old for this shit, or I need a rest. Camp Chase is a good test.

I’m sitting at the library. About to post this retarded blog. I promise…when I actually have time…and when I’m not freezing my ass off, I’ll write something better. It’s been a fucking time…I’m not sure whether to romanticize the hell out of my life anymore or feel like I’m just ignoring the obvious. Might as well have a blast. From the woods…catch you later dude.

First attempt in awhile...Be Patient..I lost my brain in the Nature...and in too much bumping around!

I’m heading eastbound to Maine. I’m rocking back and fourth on the Amtrak Empire Builder train, pushing on through Montana like a slithery snake. It’s obviously autumn, and the yellow land rolls on and on, endlessly. Pale purple mountains make the backdrop. Clouds move lazily across the sky. I can see for what seems like millions of miles. The sky is like a massive blue blanket of hopeful something or other. Tiny farmhouses, black cattle, spotted horses with shiny coats and power lines lazily dot the landscape. I am small and unnecessary yet I feel huge and monumental. I have a lump in my throat. A dull pain in my heart. I hate to see Montana become another memory but once again…it’s time to move on. Move on.

Like a childish lover I want to cling to the intimacy I’ve had here in this state. In this place. I want to hold it and I want it to hold me. I feel in my belly that I belong here. Just not now. Not yet. The old familiar need to push and go and look and see is there…still burning…not as bright but the embers refuse to die out. I feel at home in transport. I feel somehow correct. When I am floating past the world around me in a pod of some sort, I have no place to be but there. Here. Watching, moving and going.

It feels like hands are washing over me right now. It’s only noon, but it feels much later and the autumnal light makes me remember things from my childhood. It makes me feel nostalgic. Montana is soothing. And I feel sad to know that in a few short hours, North Dakota will take precedence. Hopefully I can sleep to erase the pain of letting go of Montana and all that I associate with it.

It was one hell of a summer. One of the most lively chapters in my ridiculous life. I feel fairly changed from my four months in Glacier. I feel exhausted. Somehow my entire life caught up with me up there in the Ether. I feel tired. And older. And maybe more confused. And currently, less full of the intense burning I’ve usually had. I’m quieter, and I need quiet. I need a rest. I’m ready for Maine. I’m ready for no one. No intimacy, no real correspondence save for what I give to the postal service and what they return to me. I plan on getting my head on straight. Sifting through the last ten years of life and editing what I need to hold onto and what I need to let go of. This sounds fairly intense I’m sure. I just feel as though it is necessary.

I made so many wonderful friends in Glacier. I met people who changed my perspective a great deal. I laughed harder than I have in a long time. I watched the sun come up many a day and came down from the mountain as it was setting. A 20 year old woke me up from a slumber I never even realized I was in. He showed me adventures and reminded me that I can do anything that is alive and well in my imagination. An 18-year wrangler sat with me by a fire he built for me, sippin on whiskey and beer and spitting chew, and in a thick Kentucky Appalachian accent unfolded a life an 87 year old should have lived, painful, and intense and full of fire. He reminded me to never be scared, and to always be aware of every emotion and feeling and not to back down. He had some heart. A 32 year old made me feel more loved and more in tune with my surroundings. I met a circle of folks who became my family. Holly Bertram changed my path; Hannah Gietl and Jake Upchurch may have changed my future. Jason Weber altered my immediate present. Sam Tatum reminded me to not give a fuck and to enjoy whatever the hell I want. Cody Bryant made me almost pee my pants. So many people affected me. A young worker for the Forest service spent a few days with me…and made my brain work in the funniest of ways. I felt surreal with him. He made me appreciate the simplicity of most things. He shared himself with me and asked nothing of me…and we had quite an adventure together. I was sad to see him go, but he felt like a messenger of some sort. A helpful transition, a reminder to keep going and not look back and not get hung up on unnecessary skewed things in my mind and in my heart. Glacier was intense.

I climbed and submitted mountains I never thought I could conquer. I was lucky to hike with avid hikers who not only were patient with me, but also showed me the way and taught me more than I could have asked for. I learned so much about the land I was lucky enough to live in and call home. It really is an overwhelming place, and while walking throughout the forest, or along a ridge, you are constantly reminded of the sheer magnitude of the landscape. It is rugged, and unforgiving, and ever changing. It does not request anything, it demands. The weather changes at whim and its unpredictable nature makes one HAVE to adapt. Yet it is beautiful. It fills you with an indescribable feeling. It’s overpowering. I’ve been brought to tears many times there, almost against my will. I suppose religious folks feel a similar way when they are close to “god”. Being able to explore and wander and utilize my surroundings in the way that I did was an amazing experience. I sat and watched Grinnell point change every day, many times throughout the course of the day. Gould and Wilbur became an obsession. The Garden Wall and the Ptarmigan wall met the sky and greeted me and sent me off to sleep. Nothing ever looks the same there. Nothing ever tells you the same thing. Swiftcurrent and Josephine and Grinnell, Sherburne and Cracker and Iceberg and Nataki and Fishercap and Ptarmigan…all changing, all different all the time. The foliage, like a lush soft carpet of green at times turned to a vibrant golden yellow in most spots. Those jagged mountains lost their snowy beards throughout the season and grew them back as the autumn storm clouds moved in and refused to leave, dumping buckets of cold rain and snow. I watched the wildflowers bloom and cover the valleys in exploding fireworks of blossom. I sat by Swiftcurrent Lake as it lay still, making the most beautiful mirror for the mountains to reflect upon, and watched a few hours later as whitecaps crested on the surface as the winds came in through the valley. The lake turning into a violent and tumultuous bastard. Everything is alive there, everything has a life of it’s own. Including the hotel. You can feel it in the employees too; you can see us all affected by it, by our surroundings, and by our home. It is altering. Relationships sparked up and began anew there, some of them died out. Nothing ever stayed the same. Friendships changed daily. Realities changed daily. Life plans changed weekly. The hotel and the dorms inhaled and exhaled us. Seemingly we were making our choices and decisions, in reality, we were just a byproduct of another season. Another summer. And now...I'm tired...and need to re-group. I need some sleep. and I need to shut down my brain...imagine the sound of a machine shutting down...or the power going out...for now...more later...Adios.