twenty-twelve
I just got home from my first jazz vocals class and it was so much fun that on the walk home I found myself tiptoeing along ledges with my arms out, skipping in circles from sheer cheerfulness. Around the corner from my house I saw some graffiti I hadn’t seen or noticed before: “p.l.u.r.” and a large abstract rendering of a woman’s face in a few picasso-esque curves. Last week, when walking in south Berkeley, down Shattuck’s familiar sidewalks, I found several big thriving white sage plants I had also never noticed before; I picked a leaf and kept it in my pocket all day. I don’t know, I just feel good about 2012, friends.
I spent a lot of 2011 anxious. Anxious about moving to California, anxious about planning my wedding and getting along with my family, anxious about finding a job, and then anxious about my job once I had it. (Also anxious about my friends and myself getting tear-gassed and shoved around by cops at Occupy Oakland and Occupy Cal, which should be a lengthy post in its own right.) 2010 was a year of adventure and possibility. 2011 was the year of follow-through, and follow-through is hard.
Here are some intentions for 2012. Or, resolutions for this revolution.
– find a church in the east bay.
– find a farm in the east bay.
– keep learning more about taking great photographs; keep looking for my photographic voice.
– grow my photography business and photograph more weddings! more people! more fun times!
– fold 1000 paper cranes before our wedding.
– get married! celebrate with friends and family! yay!
– stop eating the junky snacks the school provides for the kids in the program i teach for. I’ve put veggies in the fridge at school to eat instead.
– say “yes” to the kids more often.
– sing that one song in front of an audience of at least a few people, and knock it out of the park.
– get back in the habit of bike commuting.
– be a good friend.
– practice.
Since I last wrote: I went to Portland for Thanksgiving, and yes, I loaded my car full of stuff and strapped even more to the roof. When I got home to Berkeley, I parked the car in the garage and brought in a box or two; the rest I left in the car to deal with later. I didn’t want to unpack the car, ’cause doing so would mean I couldn’t change my mind and turn around and drive back to Portland again without having to pack everything back up. After a few days, I missed the bus to work and had to take the car. I had just a few minutes before I’d be late to work, so I got to work pulling stuff out of the back and cutting through the used bike tubes I’d used to strap a huge duffle to the roof rack. And there I was, driving the empty car to my job in Oakland — I’d moved to California.
It is so nice to have my books here. I loaned my copy of Infinite Jest to one of my housemates. The other night while in the kitchen talking to another housemate and a couple friends, I ran upstairs to get my copy of Gaia’s Garden and the book of stories my unitarian church gave me when I was in first grade, because these things were relevant to the conversation we were having and because I could. The quilt my mom made me when I left for college is on our bed. The triptych I painted in college is… well. It’s leaning against the wall in our room because I haven’t quite committed to putting into the wall the six nails required to hang it. Small steps.
After Thanksgiving I had three more weeks of work and then two weeks of vacation. A and I spent our first week roadtripping to southern California; you can see a bunch of photos I took here and here. Joshua Tree was beautiful. We camped for one very cold night, alone in the desert.
We drove back to Berkeley, took a day off, and then drove all the way to Portland. On the way up, A read aloud from a book called Cadillac Desert while I drove. The book is all about water, irrigation, rivers, dams, and so on and how they have shaped (and will shape) the American west. The experience of reading it reminds me of reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee in 2010: it is important and terrible.
Spent Christmas with family, mine and A’s; spent new year’s eve walking all over northwest Portland with my brother and then drinking in a hotel room downtown and kissing A at midnight. When we took off to catch the bus, my friend Gabe yelled, “this is the year you get married!” and so it is. A few days later, A stayed up all night outside the Parks & Rec office in Portland to secure our ceremony venue. On top of a hill. In a big circle of trees.
tethers
there are tetherball poles at the school where i work, of course. two of them. however, they are not in great shape. one of the balls slowly deflated and then disappeared, leaving the rope just hangin’ out and blowing around a bit in the breeze until the ball was replaced by a sandal that someone tied on. of course no one wanted to play tetherball with a shoe, so they all lined up at the remaining tetherball pole. the rope on that one wore through just above the ball, and i tied the ball back on a few times before it, too, disappeared one day. so now the kids play tether-shoe. every once in awhile the chain attached at the top of the pole will get twisted and it’ll pull the shoe-ball up out of reach. when that happens, the kids’ll call me over and i’ll tug at it for a couple of moments until it slips free. yesterday this happened, and i jiggled it a few times to no avail. so i tried to toss the shoe over the top, and it swung back around the pole and hit me smack in the nose. and that’s the story of how i kicked myself in the face.
later a bunch of the first and second graders break-danced to lady gaga, so it all evens out, right?
i have been sorely neglecting this blog. i feel guilty when i think about it, which makes me wonder why—who am i writing for, here? do i feel guilty for alienating a readership i like to imagine might someday consist of a large number of worldly, interested, and compassionate folks, but in reality consists mostly of friends and family—who, coincidentally, are all not only worldly, interested, and compassionate, but who will not particularly care one way or the other if i blog irregularly or not at all? do i feel guilty because the less i write the worse i write? do i feel guilty because i am leaving holes—big, important holes—in this already incomplete and eternally inadequate record of my life?
should i skip the excuses and navel-gazing and dive right into the, uh, navel-gazing?
well. there is the occupy movement. that is a whole ‘nother entry in itself, which i will try to write next week when i’m in portland for thanksgiving. it will be poorly illustrated, at least if i try to illustrate it with my own photographs—i think i have just about decided to invest in a low-light lens, but in the meantime, most of the occupy stuff i’ve been involved with has taken place after dark, sometimes in environments i haven’t wanted to have a nice expensive camera at, and as a result my photos of it are pretty terrible. i have been neglecting my photography in general these days. A has been neglecting his music. that is my third use of the word “neglecting” in this post so far, which probably says something about my internal struggles with what i ought to be doing to make my life more awesome.
i am, as mentioned, going to portland next week. actually i am planning on driving up on saturday morning (and saturday midday, and saturday afternoon, and saturday evening, etc—it is a long drive), though this morning i had to learn how to jump-start a car and i am SURE i didn’t leave any lights on or anything like that, because that would be stupid and i’m not stupid. my point is, i hope the car is up for a 12-hour drive. but if all else fails, we have jumper cables now.
i am going to see my friends, eat thanksgiving dinner with my family, and pack the car full of as much of my STUFF as i possibly can. remember that stuff i packed up and put in storage in june 2010? that stuff. my books and my bedding and my sentimental knick-knacks and mostly my books. i have been in california since january but i haven’t moved to california yet. i am hoping that i can cure some of my homesickness by bringing home down to california with me in the form of a bunch of bookshelves and a quilt my mom made for me when i started college. i am also hoping it’ll get colder here, and start raining, so that every conversation i have can start with a comment or complaint about the weather, like it’s supposed to. yesterday it was so warm when i got to work that i had to take off my light cotton sweater. it feels disorienting, like summer is stretching on and on.
i gotta head to school (work) pretty soon. yesterday the art & garden club i lead finally planted some seeds, in pink 4-inch pots that a really nice guy at the east bay nursery gave me. today we’re gonna start garden journals.
no more radio silence here. i’ll write more soon.
what a year
it is october 7th, and one year ago today, 100 days after pedaling out of portland, oregon, i woke up in my tent behind a general store somewhere in eastern virginia. i packed up my panniers and rode to the chesapeake bay. my body knew exactly what to do and it did it joyfully. pretty sure i sang aloud a lot that day.
i swapped my bike for a backpack and took trains and buses to visit friends and family in philadelphia, new york, boston, maine, and chicago. over a month later, i got on a train in chicago, and two days later i was back on the west coast, in berkeley. it had been three months since i’d seen A off at the bus station in boulder, colorado, and we’d been on uncertain terms. but just after dark, he walked down some stairs and took my hand and we walked home together.
i spent a few months living with my parents in portland, earning some money and getting totally soaked through on my bike commute once or twice (for old time’s sake?). in january, i took a train to california and moved in with A. i have been here for almost nine months now. a week and a half after i arrived, i proposed to him on ocean beach.
in march, i moved to commonweal garden, outside of bolinas. i lived there for six months in a tight-knit intentional community, learning to care for goats and chickens and baby plants, eating fresh organic veggies with every meal, dancing alone on the beach, and living in community with foxes and birds and, yes, mice and rats. A and i got used to driving through the redwoods and across the richmond-san rafael bridge. i applied for dozens of education jobs.
in august, i packed up my tent again and, in one busy week, left the farm, photographed my first wedding, and started work as an elementary after-school teacher. teaching is the hardest job i have ever had, and the steepest learning curve i have ever climbed. but the kids are good kids. this past week, i started an art & garden club at school.
yesterday i launched a website for my fledgling photography business, stacia fuchsia photography. i also made a page on facebook, which you are more than welcome to “like.”
tomorrow i am taking the gre. i should be studying square roots, mathematical permutations, and algebra right about now.
the seasons are changing. it rained this week and the air smelled like portland. the funniest things make me homesick for portland sometimes. a month or so ago, i was in line at berkeley bowl (the grocery store) and one of the magazines on the magazine rack had a photo of sunnyside piazza on the cover. A and i will probably get married in portland, though we still don’t have a date or venue nailed down; seems like every time we think we’re getting close, something goes wrong. i am beginning to understand why people elope. (don’t worry, mom; even if we end up getting hitched at city hall, you’ll be there.) (we probably won’t.)
what a year, huh?
here’s some photos from a trip to big sur with A’s parents when they were in town a month ago (yup, i gotta post more often!)—
transition/celebration
two weeks ago was our “transition celebration” on the farm. i made flower crowns for everyone and we held a little private ceremony in the yurt before folks starting showing up for the feasting/drinkin’/music-makin’ part of the festivities. we ate all kinds of food laid out in the warm and cozy greenhouse, and the music around the fire circle went on until late at night, of course. of course everything was fresh, abundant, there for the taking. stories there for the telling.
i am grateful for the fresh, nutritious, abundant food that we grew, shared, and ate.
i am grateful for everything i learned about growing, sharing, cooking, and eating that food.
i am grateful for the times i sunk my hands, knees, and toes into the wet soil.
i am grateful that i could call that lush place by the ocean my home.
i am grateful for the people with whom i shared that home.
i am grateful for sacred questions, and for the gratitude, yeah yeah.
i am grateful for the birds, the foxes, the deer, the mice, the skunks, the snakes, the lizards, and even the alleged mountain lion with whom we shared the land. (the gophers, maybe not so much.)
i am grateful for the music! and lots, lots more.
so, yeah
dear readers (!?), there are reasons for my silence here. in the past two weeks, i have left the farm, begun living full-time in berkeley, started a teaching job in oakland, and helped show my visiting future in-laws a good time. and last weekend i attended (and photographed!) the wedding of my dear friends ben and elana:
so, yeah. lots more once i’ve caught up with myself a little bit.
mullein
*
i took those photos at the farm, but i’m in berkeley at the moment. headed back to marin tomorrow for just five more nights before i move here for keeps. lots to think about that, of course, and maybe i’ll do all that thinkin’ once i’ve secured a job and moved through this heady and heavy transition. in the meantime, here’s what our bedroom window here in berkeley looks like at the moment:
and here’s two windows (well, a window and a door) that i helped trim, in the bunkhouse at the farm:
four years ago yesterday
i started the blog before this one (hah).
august 16th, 2007—
I work for a bike shop. Kind of. I work for a dot com that sells bike parts and accessories. I pack boxes and sometimes write copy. Since I graduated, it’s become less a throwaway summer job I bitch about and more a job I plan to hold for awhile and am trying to take seriously and maybe even enjoy. So I got a new bike for my 22nd birthday, in July. I started feeling more and more guilty about the environmental (and monetary) cost of driving ten miles each way to work every day, and last week I became a bike commuter. I mean, I didn’t do perfectly. I biked three days out of five. For the week as a whole, my bike miles were about even with my car miles. Could be better, but could be way worse. And I surprised myself by actually really, really enjoying the ride, even though it meant leaving my house at seven in the morning to get to work on time. I mean, I already knew that the freeway during rush hour kinda sucks, but I had no idea how many beautiful things I’d see just by slowing down and taking residential streets. Trees full of windchimes, cats asleep on front steps, other cyclists on their own way to work… I’m a convert. I fantasize about selling my car. I read bike culture and green living blogs when I should be writing copy.
Yesterday I rode my bike over every bridge across the Willamette in Portland as part of the 12th annual Providence Bridge Pedal. My dad and my brother, spandex-clad and riding sleek carbon and titanium bikes, came down from up north to ride with me. I got downtown a little before they did and hung around near the fountain counting kinds of bikes: full-suspension mountain bikes, tandems, trail-a-bikes, recumbent bikes, vintage road bikes… I was just thinking to myself, “no beach cruisers yet,” when one rode by. Later I saw a tandem beach cruiser–I swear. Also unicyclists!
Despite–-or because of–-the thick crowds of cyclists, I was in high spirits pretty much the whole time. After five or six bridges, I was getting a little tuckered out, but it was nothing a banana and a short breather couldn’t take care of. At the bottom of the ascent up to the St. Johns, I groaned and muttered about having to walk it. My dad said, “just get in your easiest gear and take it slow.” So I grannied it up past, among other things, a… uh… whatever the word is for a bike that seats three people. And I made it all the way up without getting off my bike. In fact, I only ever got off my bike when crowds made it impossible not to (like before the Ross Island Bridge). Or when free food beckoned.
You know, and a couple hundred meters from the finish, when I went over some MAX tracks at a bad angle and wiped out. I landed pretty hard on my right side. Mostly my elbow. After a few moments of embarrassed sobbing, I got back on my bike and rode through the finish one-armed. Then we tried to find a first aid station so I could get some ice and maybe a sling. I went through a couple cycles of calm and tears while volunteers pointed vaguely and mumbled that, well, they weren’t actually sure where the first aid station was… Eventually a cop called an EMT for me, which I guess was a first, but “get rescued by ambulance” isn’t on most people’s “to do before I die” list, I think. Anyway I got an ice pack, a triangle bandage sling, and assurance that my arm probably wasn’t broken. Dad biked seven miles to the hotel he and Scott (my brother) were staying at to retrieve my brother’s car, then came back downtown to pick me up and take me home.
I had preexisting plans to go to the coast with some friends and wasn’t about to let a stupid fall mess that up, so I enlisted my ex-boyfriend to drive my car (manual transmission–-hard to drive stickshift one-armed), and four of us piled in, with a fifth following on his motorcycle, and we headed off towards Seaside with blankets and beer.
It rained pretty much the whole way, but we weren’t tempted to turn around. We’re Pacific Northwesterners; we can deal with a little wet. We listened to music and talked about relationships and people and all that. My friend Brook said something about being hopeful and idealistic, and I said, “I guess I’m going through a cynical period lately.” Maybe. In any case, as we approached Seaside, the rain cleared. It was warm, if not sunny. The beach was crowded with volleyball players-–there was a tournament on. We watched for awhile, ate some mediocre yakisoba noodles, talked some more. As the evening cooled, we walked along the beach until finally we found a spot below a little ridge, away from the lights of downtown, to lay down our blankets.
As the sun set, the clouds turned pink and then, miraculously, began to disappear. The sky darkened, stars appeared–-more then any of us had seen in ages. A while later, we could see the Milky Way. We pointed out the constellations we pretended to recognize, and we watched for the Perseids.
Then we went skinny dipping in the Pacific Ocean under the sky full of shooting stars. When we were waist-deep in water, I held hands with a friend and we fell backwards together into the water. We laughed and yelped and splashed, then dried off as best as we could and huddled together between our blankets for warmth. More meteors. One of those nights of beauty. I’d taken some Vicodin (left over from an ear infection earlier this summer) for my aches and passed out on the way home. Fell into bed. Woke up this morning and reluctantly (and carefully) drove into work, where I spent four hours printing shipping labels ’cause I couldn’t really actually help out much with shipping. Thing is, I won’t be perfect. I’ll fuck up, things’ll happen, I’ll drive, or I’ll fall, I’ll ache (are you getting that I’m maybe moving into figurative territory here?), but then things will be beautiful. Mostly when you keep driving even when it’s raining. Except for the driving part. Do you know what I mean? I’m not sure I do. That’s what I’m here to figure out.
Welcome to my blog; here’s what I’m (trying to be) about:
“Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but … life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”
–Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
