what i’ve been up to
not writing here, it would seem. i think most of my blogging energy’s gone towards a new project (about which you can read below) and my photography business, where i also post plenty of personal photos and so on… i hear that in this business it’s one’s individuality that makes one stand out (and i believe that that’s probably ultimately the way to get the clients i want), so i’m doin’ my best to be open there, but it’s not quite like this space and i can’t quite make the jump to making it that way. not all my photos are perfect and i can post the less-than-perfect ones here and be less-than-perfect here in general and that’s okay. lately i’ve been feeling too busy to even do to much posting there — plus i am taking a lot of photos with my new iphone(!), which is not exactly the content i want there but which i am excited to post here! and so — without further ado — what i’ve been up to in 2012 –
* A and i moved to san francisco. it was unexpected and serendipitous — my aunt, who lives in a beautiful old house in the mission, had a room open around the same time we were realizing our situation in berkeley was financially unsustainable. yup, we moved to the city to save money! it’s been pretty awesome — A has wanted to live in san francisco proper since he was a teenager, and i’ve been loving all the street art i see on my morning runs. for example (iphone photos!) –
and lots more. i find something new every day.
* i’m still working at an after-school program at a public elementary school in oakland. it remains the most challenging job i’ve ever had. four weeks of school left! i’m not sure what i’m going to “do” next; i have a few weddings lined up this summer and fall, but i’m not sure i’m going to get too many more without investing in advertising. i’m planning to find another part-time job in the fall, but i’m not sure whether i’d like to try to work with kids again or find something that takes a bit less emotional energy! working with young kids for a year has made me really thoughtful about education, discipline, learning processes and so on, and to be honest i really wish i had kept a better journal throughout the year. i’ve struggled with a lot of things, but the kids are wonderful.
(collaborative chalk artwork!)
(puddles: just as interesting to kids as expensive playground equipment.)
* i photographed my first paid wedding. it was scary and exhilarating and fun. you can see some of the photos i took here and here.
* i joined a church: the first unitarian church of oakland. i signed the membership book in march. i like it a lot. i have been thinking so much about religion and spirituality lately — really for the past few years, but it’s felt more pressing recently. last month i started a related big longterm project that i’m still trying to define and organize and articulate. you can find it here.
* i’m in a play! my friend adam is directing his ambitious adaptation of moby dick, his favorite book, in his backyard as part of the international home theater festival. i play tashtego, a harpooner; and captain bildad, one of the owners of the pequod. i’ve been pretty busy this past month with rehearsals and so on, but i’m so glad i said yes! it’s been a lot of fun and it always feels good to do some theatre. i haven’t regretted moving on from wanting to make it my career, but i do hope to keep it a part of my life in some capacity.
anyway, last night was opening night (and, uhh, our first run-through without stopping. hah!) and tonight is closing night! some rehearsal snapshots –
* it’s spring, which means flowers! though who am i kidding? i live in california and there are always flowers. but here’s some iphone photos of flowers anyway –
* i bought an iphone — my first smartphone — and have found it to be the biggest technological leap i’ve made since i got my first laptop computer (at 14). it’s slowly replacing a lot of stuff i’ve always carried around: phone, camera, notebook, planner, ipod… plus i’ve been listening to a whole bunch of podcasts (my favorite lately is american public media’s “on being”), and i downloaded an app called “runmeter” that includes the couch-to-5k program and will tell me exactly when i should run and when i should walk to get the intervals right (i’m on week 3 and going strong). and of course i’ve downloaded at least a dozen camera apps; my favorite is VSCOCAM, and i also like Osmo 120 for adding fun light leaks. my instragram feed is at statigr.am/staciafuchsia. here’s some more phone photos –
(the brass liberation orchestra, which A joined a few months ago.)
* we are getting married in less than six weeks. here’s a cute cheesy photo by lynette boyle –
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:
