Wilderness Song

This poem by Everett Ruess just about sums it up for me:

Wilderness Song

by Everett Ruess

I have been one who loved the wilderness

Swaggered and softly crept among the mountain peaks

I have listened long to the sea’s brave music,

I have sung my songs above the shriek of desert winds. 

On canyon trails when warm nights winds were blowing,

Blowing and sighing through the star tipped pines,

Musing, I walked behind my placid burro,

While water rushed and broke on pointed rocks below.

  I have known green seas heaving,

I have loved red rocks and twisted trees and cloudless turquoise skies,

Slow sunny clouds and red sand blowing.

I have felt the rain and slept behind the waterfall. 

In cool sweet grasses I have lain and heard the ghostly murmur of regretful winds,

In aspen glades where rustling silver leaves whisper wild sorrows to the green gold solitudes,

I have watched the shadowed clouds pile high. 

Singing, I rode to meet the splendid shouting storm,

And fought its fury until the hidden sun foundered in darkness,

And the lightning heard my song. 

Say that I was tired and weary,

Burned and blinded by the desert sun,

Footsore, thirsty sick with strange diseases, lonely

And wet and cold,

But that I kept my dream.

Always I shall be one who loves the wilderness.

Swaggers and softly creeps among the mountain peaks.

I shall listen long to the sea’s brave music.

I shall sing my songs above the shriek of desert winds.

From "Everett Ruess: Vagabond for Beauty" by W.L.  Rusho

'I have loved red rocks and twisted trees and cloudless turquoise skies' 
Photo by DL Newbold, 2013.

Eleven Years In, or Why I'm a NaNoWriMo Addict

I just signed up to participate in National Novel Writing Month this November. 2013 marks my eleventh consecutive year as a participant. 

NaNoWriMo - which I shorten further, to Wrimo - began in the Bay Area in the late 90s as a challenge among a few friends. They dared each other to write a novel in the short space of a month. It could be any genre. It could be the worst writing ever set to paper, or the best thing since Shakespeare. Quality was immaterial. The main thing was quantity: each person had to write fifty thousand words of new, original material during that thirty day period.

Using that premise, Wrimo has since snowballed into a worldwide phenomenon. The creative folks who run NaNoWriMo keep the excitement of writing alive throughout the year with a variety of challenges for participants, including Script Frenzy (writing a script or a play in a month) and a summer camp-themed event in August where participants are assigned 'cabin mates' to act as mutual prompters and cheerleaders, urging each other on to their individual goals. 

The Wrimo website is supported by sales of Wrimo related merchandise and participant donations. Proceeds go to keeping their servers from crashing, yes, but the biggest chunk of their annual intake goes to programs that support literacy and writers, particularly young writers.

I've only 'won' - crossed the 50K word mark before 11:59pm November 30th - one time. I've come oh-so-very-close on several other occasions, most notably 2012, when the clock ran out and left me about four thousand words short. The 46,000 words I did get in were written over the course of about ten scattered, frantic days, so I felt like a winner regardless. 

I've never approached November noveling the same way twice. There have been years when I've meticulously outlined what I planned to write in advance, only to abandon the plan and go an entirely different direction come 12:01am on November 1st. There have been years when the word count was the only thing worth keeping: the words themselves added up to incoherent nothingness. Other times I've started the month with no idea what to write and ended up with some pretty decent material.

Some years I swore I wouldn’t participate. Not enough time. No desire to put myself through it again. Always, though, like an addict falling off the wagon, I find myself signing up at the last minute and scribbling frantically to make up for lost time. 

Why can’t I give it up and have a normal, quiet November, a November that's free of stress over whether I’m writing 1,667 words per day? There are two main reasons:

1) Wrimo has been one of the few constants. My life has been unpredictable and unsettled over the past decade. I haven't always known where I'll be living, what I'll be doing, or what transformation/transition I’ll be in the midst of at any given time. Yet I always know that wherever I am come November, I can unpack my laptop, dive into the lives of my characters, and immerse myself in their worlds for a while.  

2) The characters I write about won’t let me stop. I’ve been writing about the same basic group of characters for almost the entire time I’ve been participating in Wrimo (a couple of them even pre-date Wrimo). Every time I think I’ve started a new project with an entirely new cast, one of them eventually rounds a corner and runs into, or ends up being related to, a character from one of the other novels. At this point they’re more intertwined than the characters in a long-running soap opera. Unraveling ten years’ worth of entanglements, carving out story lines that are coherent and easy to follow - these tasks I keep pushing off, telling myself ‘next year’ every year. 

I do think about and work on these novels throughout the rest of the year, largely because the characters refuse to stay silent. They poke and prod their way into my consciousness at odd hours, arguing with decisions I’ve made on their behalf or whispering suggestions in my ear, options to get them into or out of the situations they’re in. They get progressively louder as the first of November rolls around. So I have to write about them, or they’ll never let me rest.

Poster from 2005. Courtesy of nanowrimo.org.

Ultimately, I liken the writing I do during National Novel Writing Month to my love of travel for travel’s sake. It isn't about surpassing milestones or rushing to a destination just to say I've been there. Making the time focus so intently on writing, each November, is like going for a ramble through the woods or setting off on an impromptu road trip, with plenty of stops along the way to take in the scenery and examine the flora and fauna. I have a destination in mind, yes. I’ll get there, someday. In the meantime, there is the pleasure of banishing my inner critic for a month every year, and the joyous process of seeing where my muses - and my characters - take me.  

The Ganesha Tree

A few days ago, Tanner and I struck out for our usual evening walk. We strolled downtown till we came to the steps of the beautiful Mission San Rafael, then turned west.

For no reason I can name, whenever we take this route I usually walk on the north side of the street. Perhaps it’s because Tanner is trained to walk at my left side, and there are fewer distractions for him nearest the curb. On this evening, however, I decided to shake things up and walk on the south side of the street. 

We crossed over at the library and continued west, falling in behind two women on a walk with their children. The willowy blond was pushing a stroller. The shorter brunette had a small girl by the hand. The girl was maybe two and a half, with a tiara sparkling from her dark wavy hair. She was wearing a shiny pale blue satin princess dress and tennis shoes with some sort of bling that glinted in the street lights. Unable to pass them on the narrow sidewalk, I slowed my pace.

The street dipped down a slight grade. Near the bottom of the hill, a tall sixty-ish man with white hair and beard was doing something in front of his house that involved a ladder. The ladder partially blocked the sidewalk. As we approached, he greeted the women and stepped over to move his ladder. 

I held back so the women could maneuver stroller and toddler through the gap he created. That gave me an opportunity to look up, and notice that the tree under which he’d place his ladder appeared to be shaped like - no, it couldn’t be - an elephant. 

But yes, it was shaped like an elephant.

The tree stood in the front corner of the man's front yard. Perhaps once upon a time the branches of the tree had reached across the sidewalk, almost to the curb. Now, the main part of the tree was sculpted to resemble the body and head of an elephant. A single long branch was trained in such a way that it stretched out overhead, curling upwards at the end. A silver ornament was placed near the end of the long branch, to give the impression that the elephant was holding the ornament with its trunk. On the tree itself, the man had placed a random assortment of hubcaps and old clocks, all silver, along with other shiny round metallic objects.

Once the group ahead of me passed by, I stopped to complement the man on his topiary art. He thanked me, pleased I’d noticed, and told me that that day was Ganesha’s birthday. ‘See the arm?’ he asked. Sure enough, a mannequin arm was sticking out of the tree from a place that roughly equated to where an elephant’s ear would be. I was thoroughly delighted and told him so.

Lord Ganesha is a Hindu god known for having a human body and the head of an elephant. In each of his four hands he holds a different object, each object symbolizing an aspect of his domain as remover of obstacles from the lives of his devotees. This Ganesha presides over a shop in downtown San Rafael.

After this brief exchange I continued my walk with Tanner. Later, headed home, I backtracked and went past the Ganesha Tree again. I saw the man had placed red and white garlands along the shrubs at the front gate as final touches.

Returning home, I quickly searched online for Ganesha’s birthday and found that it was, indeed, the date attributed to the birth of the deity. The beginning of September also marks the advent of a ten-day holiday, called Ganesh Chaturthi, that is celebrated by Hindus around the world, particularly in India. The celebration features colorful clay models of Ganesha, prayers, chanting, and singing. Tributes are made, special sweets consumed. The festival culminates with dancing and a procession to a local body of water or to the sea, where Ganesha statues are immersed as a way of sending him home. Ganesha is said to take all the misfortunes of man along with him when he leaves.    

Photo of a Ganesh Chaturthi procession, courtesy of celebrateindia.com

One of the best things about my passage through this life has been the exposure I’ve had to all types of people, cultures, ethnicities and religions. Seeing how others, like the creator of the Ganesha Tree, express their lives and beliefs brings me a joy I am hard pressed to describe, one that deepens my own connection to the life and beliefs I have. 

The Ganesha Tree

PS, I also might be a little in love with the Ganesha Tree because in its vine-covered state, it reminds me of The Tree that lived in my parents' back yard for so long.

Opposite view of the Ganesha Tree

Crossroads

Recently I read an article in which the word ‘crossroads’ was mentioned in passing. That one little ten-letter word stuck out from all the other words on the page like it was made of flashing neon. It unleashed an avalanche of images, times I’ve been at physical, mental or emotional crossroads in my life. 

I put down the article, gave those images a bit of time to settle, and hurried over to my laptop, excited by a new topic to write about. 

Half a dozen attempts at a first draft were begun and abandoned before I switched to ink and paper. Another half dozen drafts, a cramped hand and one dead pen later, I needed to step away. 

I didn’t quite know what I was trying to say, and it was obvious I knew less how to say it. Until I’d meditated on the topic more, and why the word and concept of ‘crossroads’ struck me as it did, I’d never be satisfied with what I’d written.  

* * * * * * * * * * *

Stumped, I embarked on a mental journey to unpack and define what meaning I can take from ‘crossroads’ at this point in my life. A week or two of sifting through the detritus of old memories brought me to this:

When I was in college, I worked one summer at a historic site. It was based around ‘living history’ of 1850s rural Illinois. We dressed up in approximations of prairie-settler garb, cooked pies in cast iron Dutch ovens over a fire, churned butter by hand, and tended gardens on the property to show the public what life may have been like during that time. The site included a house and several outbuildings, among which were a typesetter’s shop, a barn and a potter’s workshop.

A woman who lived nearby used the potter’s workshop to create and sell her wares. She was friendly but quiet, and kept to herself. We mostly interacted with her in passing. 

She made an impression on me nonetheless. She was independent. She had a big dog that went everywhere with her, usually riding in the back of the small pickup truck she drove. 

Watching her made me realize I wanted something similar for my life. A measure of independence. A truck of some sort. A big dog, definitely. And since I’d grown up in the flatlands of the midwest, I wanted to live in the mountains as well. 

After I left college and moved to Chicago, I rarely gave any conscious thought to my brief wish list. 

However, within two years of that college summer job, a client at the grooming shop I owned left his eleven-month-old German Shepherd with me. I was supposed to dog-sit for a few weeks…but the client never returned. I had my big dog - Shuby was sidekick and road trip companion for the fourteen years I was fortunate enough to have him in my life. 

Later I bought a used Chevy Blazer that was, well, not the most dependable vehicle ever. Once I traded the Blazer for Albert the Jeep I finally found the measure of independence I'd been searching for. 

I moved to the mountains of Northern Arizona. Shuby died of old age. Albert and I logged 214,000 miles together. 

A couple months ago, I gave Albert up because it was no longer economical to keep him. He was the last vestige of an era that began over twenty years ago, in the (fake) 1850s. 

* * * * * * * * * * *

Still: Where does the notion of ‘crossroads’ fit in with all this? 

I suppose in any pilgrimage there comes a time when you stand at a crossroads, scratching your head and wondering whether to turn off down an unknown path or continue forward. 

I’ve achieved the things my college-age self wanted most - and then some. The mode of transport that helped propel me down the path I’ve been on is gone. The changes in my life, the changes to who I am as a person, make progress down the same road, in the same way, no longer an option. 

So perhaps I’ve reached a T intersection instead: still a crossroads, just a slightly different configuration. It’s time to decide a direction, or series of directions, that will take me into the new phase of life that’s forming right now. 

It’s exciting. A little daunting. I just hope that in twenty-some years I can look back at this version of myself, this person who is at this crossroads, and say ‘Wow! If you only knew!’ - like I am saying to my college self from this vantage point.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I'll leave you with some ear candy, from a man who knew all about the crossroads.
Reposted from Classicmoodexp on youtube.com 

How do you get to Wonderland?

It’s June of 1989. I’m riding in a large blue hired motor coach with a group of twenty people. Basil, our driver, is racing along a rural four-lane highway through the English countryside. We are participants in an English Children’s Literature class led by my college lit professor, Jacqueline - Jackie - Jackson. 

Each stop thus far on the trip has been full of thrilling exploits in its own right, but this excursion has special significance: It’s Alice in Wonderland day. 

Some of my class members have already studied Alice in Jackie’s regular Children’s Literature class. Several of us have dressed as our favorite characters from the novel to attend one of Jackie's annual Alice in Wonderland potluck feasts. Most of us have even had the opportunity to make use of the Alice-themed bathroom at Jackie’s house. Jackie and her daughters painted scenes from the novel on the walls of the bathroom years ago, when the children were little. 

Now we’re headed to the source, to have a tea party/picnic at the place where the Alice stories were first spun by Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) to his friends’ children. Needless to say, we’re all in high spirits.  

Not far out of Oxford, Jackie confers with Basil, who slows the coach and eases it to a stop along the side of the auto route. ‘Grab your things and follow me,’ Jackie shouts. A few minutes of commotion ensue as we gather up our notebooks, pens, backpacks, and picnic goodies.

Once off the bus we mill about, getting our bearings. We don’t appear to be anywhere in particular. There is farmland on both sides of the auto route, looking neat and trim as English fields somehow manage to do. The pasture nearest us is fenced with wood posts and barbed wire. 

Jackie does a quick head count. Before we can start asking questions she waves Basil on and forges down the slight grade from the highway, headed for the fence.

At Jackie’s direction, we climb over the fence and begin traipsing through the fields. None of us bothers to question whether we’re trespassing, or where she’s taking us. In the past five or six days of the trip, we’ve learned to appreciate Jackie’s unorthodox leadership style. We merely shoulder our belongings and string along behind her.

Jackie cuts across the pasture as if she’s done this a thousand times (it’s very likely she has), to a small break in a line of trees opposite the auto route. From there we make our way to a narrow lane lined with hedges. As we hike along, Jackie explains that the lane was too narrow for the bus. We’ll rendezvous with Basil at the auto route in a few hours.

We reach the end of the hedges. In the open pasture before us stand the remains of an ancient stone building, a portion of which was obviously a chapel at one time. Beyond this lies the river Thames. 

We gawk as Jackie tells us the building is Godstow Nunnery, built in the 1130s as a convent for Benedictine nuns. It was infamous forty years later for being the place where Rosamund, mistress of King Henry the Second, lived for a time. She was buried there upon her death. 

Jackie sets us loose to get a feel for the place, telling us to be back at the east wall of the abbey in an hour for tea. I wander through a gap in the perimeter wall of the chapel. The roof is long gone but a few peaked windows remain; ivy has taken the place of any glass that may once have existed. 

Photo courtesy of http://www.afreeman.org/2008/02/09/godstow-nunnery/ 

Running a hand along the rough stone, I try to imagine a time when the building functioned as a working abbey, try to picture the lives of the people who once inhabited the structure. Their eras and customs seem as different from where I stand as the land of the looking glass was to Alice. 

The hour of free time flies by. We gather back at the designated spot, unfurl our blankets, and commence picnicking. While we eat, two of our classmates deliver their class project on Lewis Carroll, the Liddell children, and how an Oxford mathematician caused the story of Alice came about. 

The women are in the middle of their report when a lone cow strolls around one corner of the abbey and stops, blinking at us. We glance at her, surprised, having not seen a soul the entire time we'd been there. With unflappable grace, the cow lowers her nose to the grass. The two women resume their talk. 

A few minutes later, however, we are surrounded by an entire herd of cattle, which has descended on us in the direction from which the first cow arrived. All is bedlam for a while as we abandon the picnic, forget the lecture, and scramble about photographing, petting and - in the case of one classmate - recording audio of the cattle. 

All the class participants are Midwesterners. A herd of Holsteins isn’t a novelty to any of us, but now that they’re here we couldn't be more thrilled. 

We examine the likelihood that we have crashed the cows' luncheon spot and not the other way around. It's decided that we must seem as strange to the cattle as the Mad Hatter and his crew were to Alice when she crashed that party. 

Original Mad Hatter scene from the book, illustration by Sir John Tenniel. Found at
http://www.luckypalm.com/graphics-and-clip-art/childrens-book-illustrations/alice-in-wonderland-mad-hatter-graphic/

Unlike the Mad Hatter, the bovine contingent are merely confused and perhaps slightly annoyed by our hilarity. They ignore us as best they can, munch some choice blades of grass. Within fifteen minutes they’ve moved along to another part of the pasture. 

After the cows are gone Jackie reins us back in. We settle down for the last bit of the lecture. As our Alice in Wonderland day comes to a close we take a few last-minute group shots in front of the nunnery wall. Then we trek back up to the auto route, where Basil is waiting to convey us to the next stop on our literary adventure. 

I went on to house-sit for Jackie one summer. I could never pass the Alice bathroom without thinking of the abbey, the picnic...and the cows.

Rendering of the abbey in 1882. With cows, of course.
 http://thames.me.uk/s01860.htm

* * * * * * * * * * *

Unfortunately, my photos of the trip to England have not been converted to digital form. Plus they are stored in a box in a garage 750 miles from where I currently reside. The photos here are from the Web, with gratitude to the folks whose sites are credited beneath each photo. 

If you’d like to learn more about Godstow Nunnery, go here:

- http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=1485 This gives basic facts about the history, use, and dissolution of the nunnery.

- http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=40178 This has further history of the workings of the abbey through the 1500s.

- http://www.thamespathway.com/chapter4/godstow-nunnery.aspx This is a fascinating blog by a man who decided to walk from one end of the Thames to the other. The entry after the one about Godstow gives a brief introduction to Charles Dodgson and some really cool, lesser-known facts about him. 

Jackie has published a dozen or more books over the past fifty years, most of which are out of print but well worth the read if you can find them. To find out more about Jackie and her writing, go here: www.jacqueline-jackson.com. She also writes a weekly poem for the Illinois Times, a weekly free publication in Springfield, IL, which you can read here: www.illinoistimes.com  

Today

Here's what is happening today as I walk Tanner through the park: 

A baseball team in white, pinstriped uniforms with 'Seals' emblazoned across the front in old-timey script takes batting practice on the field. Their bat boy, who might be six, wears an oversized red foam hat and stands at the edge of the field imitating them, taking big swings with a wiffle ball bat. 

Two women, barefoot in the grass, practice standing yoga poses that defy gravity. 

Trash-talking and laughter drift through the rose bushes surrounding the bocce courts, over the strains of Nat King Cole. 'Are you real, are you warm, Mona Lisa? Or just a cold and lonely, lovely work of art?'

A woman relaxes under the small stand of trees near the day care center. A shopping cart in front of her is loaded with possessions. A dog crate is affixed to the bottom rack of the cart. Her three nearly-identical white fuzz-ball dogs go from tussling playfully with each other to standing in a row at full attention the moment they spot Tanner and me, their black button eyes bright and alert. 

A tall, thin man with a long beard and youthful voice patiently teaches his son, who is maybe seven years old, how to execute a basic trick on his skateboard. The man's own skateboard is near at hand.

Brightly colored flowers, patterns and hop-scotch grids have been drawn in fresh chalk on the sidewalk by a child's hand.

Acorns drop from a couple of oak trees at the edge of the parking lot. Their shells are shiny and brown against the green grass. 

Bees gather pollen from the clover that dots the lawn. 

Leaves on the small decorative trees in the median are starting to turn shades of orange and red.

A toddler gripping a well-worn Velveteen Rabbit stuffed toy leads the way into the community center followed closely by her mother. Dad locks the car and trails behind them, carrying baby brother in a car seat.

A pair of ravens hidden among the branches in the heights of a redwood tree squawk at each other. 

Two of my neighbors watch the baseball team warm up while they share a smoke in front of the building.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I've always taken pleasure in noticing and appreciating my surroundings, wherever I am. But I am beginning to realize that perhaps I've been moving too fast the last several years, letting the search for some nebulous big picture obscure the small, immediate things that make up a happy life. I'm grateful for this opportunity to live more slowly, in a place that feels like home. And so the pilgrimage continues...

A Little Bit Batty

It’s mid-June. The sun has just dropped down behind the rolling hills to the west of my building. The sky, in its wake, is deepening into shades of lemon and cantaloupe. A cool breeze has come up, and the fog is sending its first tentacles over the hilltops. 

I dig a pair of shoes out from under the dining room table and strap them on. Tanner watches me with an intensity he normally reserves for squirrels. When I stand, he leaps up and dashes into the bedroom, doubling back to the doorway to make sure I’m still behind him. He circles around me and sits when I pick up his leash. He’s doing his best to be calm, but when I turn to grab my keys off the shelf he can’t resist a quick, excited nibble at his already well-frayed leash.

Tanner stands watch over the walkway as I lock the door. Then there’s the elevator and a stroll through the courtyard to get the business end of the walk out of the way. Finally I push the front gate open and we cross the street to the park.

The sky is darkening to a deep, iridescent indigo. Streetlights flick on. We come to a long, open patch of grass that separates the ball diamond from the bocce courts. Tanner’s head is down. With his hunting-dog nose, he’s minutely studying and cataloging the scents that have accumulated in the grass, tree trunks, and plants since our walk first thing this morning. 

I, however, am looking up. It’s almost time for the bats to come out.

We reach the light pole at the south end of the park. I see a jagged fluttering at the edge of my vision, then another. A bat cruises by, a few yards over my head. As quickly as the bat appears, it reverses direction and is gone. Within seconds it - or one of its companions - is back. I move away from the light and keep watching.

It’s difficult to tell exactly how many there are, since they are well camouflaged by the darkness and their movements are quick and jerky. After a few minutes I determine that there are at least six individual bats over the immediate area. They do an intricately choreographed dance across the park, threading in and out of each other’s paths, ascending steeply, executing sudden u-turns and death-defying dips and dives. 

I’ve been fascinated by these hairy, insect-eating neighbors of mine for weeks. Yesterday evening, as usual, I timed the end of our walk to coincide with prime bat-watching time. The lights at the ball diamond were on and insects were swarming around them. I figured it would be a good night for bats. Yet in the ten or fifteen minutes we spent milling about, I only saw one bat.

During June and early July I had observed that the average window of time the bats spent in this section of the park nightly was about forty minutes, after making their first appearance around dusk. In the past couple weeks I’ve noticed their numbers decreasing, but last night's solitary bat was an all-time low. 

Bats are nocturnal. Like birds, they must eat at least half of their body weight in food daily to maintain the energy they need to survive. I wondered: Is there a route they follow each night, with regularly scheduled appearances to mine each spot for insects before moving on? What kind range do they cover when hunting - blocks, acres, miles? What would cause them to pass over a place they frequented previously? And finally, where do they sleep during the day? 

It was time to find out. I gave Tanner his post-walk treats and immersed myself in the world of bats. 

I discovered a wealth of information that answered my biggest questions. If you'd like to explore for yourself, see the links below for bat-resources and further bat-info:

 - Bats date back at least 35 million years, possibly longer+. Of the 47 species of bats common to the United States, about 24 are local to California•. Thirteen species are native to Marin County*, where I currently reside. One of the most common is the Myotis lucifugus, or little brown bat. 

Myotis lucifugus photo courtesy of http://www.emnrd.state.nm.us/MMD/AML/Bat-LittleBrown.html 

- Bats are beneficial to the ecosystem, controlling insect populations (one little brown bat can eat up to 1000 mosquitos in a single hour** ) and significantly reducing the types of insect pests that plague crops. Many species play vital roles in pollinating plants, flowers and trees. They catch insects with their mouths, or use their tails to trap insects and direct them mouthward. 

- Despite the saying 'blind as a bat', they are sighted animals. Small bats like the little brown bat use echolocation to hunt prey, while their vision helps them navigate large obstacles++.

- Bats are known to travel several miles per day between roosting and feeding sites, they are likeliest to stay relatively close to their roosts. They're most active a few hours after dusk and a couple hours before dawn, sometimes heading back to the roost for a nap in between. They tend to return to areas where they have found food before. Bats are partial to beetles, which are large, easy prey ∆ (this may account for the large numbers of bats I saw earlier this summer when the June bug -June beetle- population was booming).

June bug photo courtesy of http://digitaldreammachine.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_archive.html

- It's commonly known that bats reside in caves, and under that one bridge in Austin, Texas (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/10852 - a 'World's Largest'!). Smaller species can fit into any opening greater than about half an inch, so any dark, warm sheltered place, including under rocks and inside wood piles, can be a roost. 

- While it’s easy to think of them as birds, bats are mammals. A female little brown bat gives birth to one pup per year, and it clings to her for a few weeks while nursing. After about a month, the pup can fly on its own and is self-supporting ∆. 

   

It’s about time for this evening’s walk. My soundtrack tonight, in honor of the bats, will be the Batman Begins score. Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard named each track after a different species of bat!

Links:

+Natural History Museum of the UK, http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/mammals/bats/session1/index.html, and ++http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/mammals/bats/session3/index.html

•San Francisco Bay Area National Parks, http://www.sfnps.org/bats

*WildCare eNews Letter, October 2008: http://wc.convio.net/eNews/October_2008.html

**Defenders of Wildlife, Bats Fact Sheet: http://www.defenders.org/bats/basic-facts

∆ University of Michigan Animal Diversity website: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Myotis_lucifugus.html

Ped Life

Back in the early 90s I was without a car for a couple of years, by choice. I moved to Chicago after college, my 1981 Buick Skylark stuffed full of the few belongings I had. After several years of break-ins, hustling for parking spaces on crowded neighborhood streets, trying to stay one step ahead of the tow trucks, and paying for parking tickets (plus the exorbitant fees to the auto pound when the tow trucks got me), I started seriously reconsidering my need for a car.

I lived a few blocks from the el. I worked a few blocks from the el. I only drove to work a couple days a week anyway. It might be worth a shot, I reasoned. 

Then the Skylark quit working as well as it had been. I don’t remember what was wrong with it, only that it was driveable - but barely. I found a place on a non-permit-parking neighborhood street near the shop I owned, and left the car there for a couple of months. I would walk by from time to time, start it up, drive it around the block, move it to other parking spaces if any were available on the same street. But mostly I left it alone. 

Finally I was ready to make the break. I told my Dad I wanted to sell the car. I drove downstate to the town where he and my mom lived, and he sold it for me. 

I figured I'd be fine. 

And I was. Truth be told, I was glad to be relieved of the burden. 

Chicago is an extremely walkable city. Getting around was easy. I could take Amtrak downstate to visit my parents and my brother. When I absolutely needed wheels, there was a car rental office less than a mile from my shop. For everything else there was the Chicago Transit Authority, and my feet.

I ended the carless streak by purchasing a used ‘89 Chevy Blazer. The thing was a money pit. I replaced every major component on it at least once in the three or four years I had it. Plenty of times I ended up on foot or el or bus, simply because driving was more hassle than it was worth.

After I bought the Jeep I moved away from Chicago, living in a series of smaller cities and towns in Northern Arizona. Walkable, hikable places. The Jeep wasn’t always necessary, but with it I could get to the remote places and back-country trails I loved.

In 2004 I moved back to Chicago. I lucked into an apartment in Old Town that came with a garage space - no more street parking! My boyfriend at the time parked his truck there; I kept the Jeep in the garage at my best friend’s house. With the apartment so centrally located and the vehicles so conveniently garaged, it was hard to justify driving anywhere that required us to spend effort finding and/or paying for parking. We mostly walked, took the el - the Brown Line stop was half a block from our place - and rode our bikes.

I lived a couple other places after that stint in Chicago: Northern California, Central Illinois. Places where a good balance of walking and driving were possible. 

Then I spent two years in sprawling Phoenix. Phoenix is a car culture city, partially out of necessity: there are times of the year when it's just plain dangerous to be out in the baking sun and scorching heat for too long. Few places in the metro area are set up, or even intended to be, pedestrian friendly. After about six months, the two- to three-hour daily round trip commutes to work took all the joy out of driving for me. Acre after acre after acre of asphalt and concrete took most of the joy of walking out of me, too. And the crazily erratic driving I encountered in my daily commute with the Phoenicians and attendant snowbirds had me extremely leery of biking anywhere.

When the opportunity arose for my current job and subsequent return to Northern California, I was ready to live in a town again, a place that was built on a more human scale. I wanted - planned - to rely less on my Jeep. It was 14, it had 210,000+ miles on it, it deserved a break. I planned to walk and bike more, in areas where doing so wouldn’t make me feel like I had a giant red ‘hit me’ sign taped to my back.

I sought out the building where I live because of its proximity to simply everything (it has a walkscore.com rating of 98). My daily work commute on foot takes all of twenty minutes round trip, less if I take the shortcut. Yet until I no longer had the Jeep I still relied on it nearly every day, even for the minor trips I could have easily done on foot or by bike. Yes, I was reacquainting myself with old favorite haunts: the Marin Headlands. Stinson Beach. Mt Tam. Bolinas. Pt Reyes. Perhaps I was also still in Phoenix mode; drive-everywhere mode. 

Now, without the Jeep, my radius of travel is considerably smaller than it’s been in a long time. It requires me to take advantage of transportation options I neglected when I could just turn the key in the ignition and go. Sometimes it’s frustrating. Being car-free requires patience and planning, two things I’ve had in short supply the last few years. It also requires a kind of creative thinking I haven’t used in a while. Most purchases, for instance, are limited to what I can carry and/or fit in my backpack (if I’m on the bike). 

Creativity, extra planning, patience…making use of these parts of my brain in a new way have been soothing. I feel more relaxed. Less stressed. It could be the extra exercise working its magic; either way, I’m going to stick with it for a while.

Full Moon

My dog and I were out for our usual walk around the neighborhood this evening. We rounded a corner a couple blocks from home and the light of the moon, two days from reaching its fullness, caught my notice. The sun was down beyond the hills to the west, and dusk would still linger for another thirty or forty-five minutes. Yet the moon was like a searchlight, demanding my full attention.  

At last month's full moon I slept beside my sister Susan in the open air, somewhere south of Sequoia National Park in the Sierra Nevadas. We'd spent the day meandering down Skyline Blvd (Rte 35) out of San Francisco, and various other twisting two-lane highways, and not driven up into the mountains from the Central Valley until well after 10pm. Despite the late hour and our desire to find a suitable place to pull off and sleep, periodically we were compelled to stop and take in the sight of the cliffs bathed in the otherworldly silver-blue light of the moon. A strong wind was blowing down through the gorge, adding an element of thrill to our late-night sensory experience.

Finally we discovered a narrow two-lane blacktop off the main road, from which we turned onto a forest road that was barely more than a dirt track through the woods. We drove in until we came across a wide spot where we could park the Jeep without blocking the road. 

It was too late, and we were far too weary, to worry about setting up the tent. We spread one of my tarps on the ground immediately behind the Jeep, rolled out the sleeping bags, and pulled the other tarp over us to block the breeze and hold in as much heat as possible.

The wind died down considerably, but occasionally it would stir the boughs of the giant pine trees that surrounded us. Otherwise the night had that deep quality of profound silence the wilderness provides. Cocooned in my bag with only my eyes left uncovered, I slept in spurts: doze, dream, wake to the silence and the moon coursing across the sky, snuggle happily into my sleeping bag, doze off again, repeat.  

At ten thousand feet elevation, it can get quite chilly at night - even in late May. When I awoke just before dawn I could tell the edges of the sleeping bag where I had drawn it around my face were damp. I thought the dampness was condensation and pulled the drawstring tighter, determined not to expose myself to the cold air until a few rays of sun struck the trunks of the nearby stand of trees. 

Eventually my full bladder would not let me lie there any longer, despite the nip in the air. When I unzipped myself from the cocoon I realized the moisture was not condensation: it was frost that my breath had melted. My sleeping bag and everything around me was coated with a sheen of the white icy stuff. 

Immediately I was grateful - again - for my zero-degree down sleeping bag. I stood up and dug my shoes out from under my legs. Sus was a vaguely human shape under her side of the blue tarp. As quietly as possible I let Tanner out of the Jeep and we wandered up the road in search of an out-of-the-way spot to do our business. I relished the bite in the air, knowing that we'd be spending the better part of the afternoon driving through the Mojave Desert with no air conditioning.

There was no way for me to know, as I stretched and walked off the cold and stiffness from the night, that that would be the last full moon adventure I would have with Albert, my trusty Jeep of fourteen years. 

View from the driver's seat. May 25, 2013.

I Have Found Me a Home

When I started this blog it was, in part, meant to be an exploration of what it is in me that has led to my restlessness, my inability to settle in any one place for very long. I was realizing that, while I love travel and would really rather do nothing more than journey from one place to another, the constant moving about was wearing on me.

I may have put the blog aside for a while, but the exploration - and the moving - has continued. I traveled from IL to Flagstaff almost two years ago for what was supposed to be a few months of helping my sister with her kids while she recovered from back surgery. One thing led to another, and before my time there was up I accepted a job in Tempe. For three months I lived in my tent in the beautiful Usery Park campground in Mesa three days a week (just me, the camp host, and the coyotes most of the time) and spent the rest of each week in Flagstaff.

Home Sweet Tent - Usery Mountain Park, Mesa, AZ

That same autumn my Mom decided to sell her house in Illinois and retire to Arizona. The two of us decided to rent a house together. She organized the IL end of the move while I conducted a house search and secured suitable living space on the southwest side of Phoenix.

I'd lived in Arizona before, but that was my first experience living in Phoenix. I liked Phoenix. I liked it much more than I thought I might. But the sprawl and the traffic started to wear on me about the time my daily commute went from 30 minutes one way, to 90 minutes one way. My job took me from one end of the city to the other at times, and with a few wonderful exceptions the entire Valley of the Sun began to feel like an endless sea of featureless, concrete-walled subdivisions strung together with strip malls. 

I began to miss wilderness, and the easy access to nature I'd enjoyed in Flagstaff and most of the other places I'd lived (Chicago included). I began to miss towns - real towns, the kind that have their own vibe, their own individual character. I recognized these longings as coming from the 'wanting what I don't have' side of me, and I systematically began working at figuring out ways to have those things I felt were lacking, while staying put.

After a year, Mom and I decided to move to a more happening part of Phoenix. We found a gorgeous Santa Fe style home to rent, and moved there in December of 2012.

At the same time we were moving to the new house, I was meditating on the question of where it was I really belonged. Phoenix just didn't feel like 'it'. Chicago had been the right place for a long time, but after living in sunny, dry climates I could no longer take the grey winters and summer humidity. I loved Flagstaff and Northern AZ as a whole, but every time I'd tried to live there in the past ten years I ended up getting called away elsewhere. 

In February of this year I received a call from an ex coworker, asking if I'd be interested in returning to Northern California to work with him at a small commercial development firm. I had an answer to my meditations, and a fast one at that. While I wasn't one hundred percent certain that the Bay Area was the answer I was looking for, I couldn't ignore that the company just happened to be located in San Rafael, where I had lived previously. 

Phone, Skype and in person interviews over the course of the next nine days ended with a solid job offer. Excitement mounting, I packed up the Jeep with the barest essentials (clothes, dog, tent, camp mat, sleeping bag, toiletries) and set off on the next leg of the adventure: getting myself relocated and housed in time to start the new job on the first Monday in March.

I left Phoenix during rush hour, planning to spend the night at Joshua Tree National Park. I needed a quiet night spent in the open desert before rushing headlong into the new venture. While I did not doubt that I had been given this opportunity for a reason, I was still not entirely certain whether I was making the right choice in moving so quickly. Perhaps I would have been better off to try to stay put and stick it out in Phoenix? I set up camp and strolled through the quiet, nearly empty campground under the stars that night, and again at dawn the next morning. Eventually the busy thoughts percolating through my head cleared away. All that remained was a sense of peace about what I was doing. That was enough. I broke camp, loaded up gear and dog, and made my way northwards.

That evening I drove the familiar freeways through the East Bay and across the Richmond Bridge into Marin County, my old stomping grounds. As I did, the chorus of an old Jimmy Buffett song I hadn't thought of in years crept into my head. It took up residence there until I was forced to dig out my iPod and play it:

I have found me a home.
I have found me a home.
You can have the rest of everything I own,
'Cause I have found me a home.

I rolled down the windows on the Jeep and Tanner and I sniffed the fresh, flower-scented spring air, with its underlying touch of salty ocean-ness. I had found me a home.

Marin County, seen from the Richmond Bridge.