Long time, no blog

 Let's face it: it's difficult to blog when you don't have internet at home. It's also difficult to read and respond to emails. Or even to send them. To remember to send the photo of that thing you told your mom about on the phone - to remember to take the photo at all - when the connection to the internet just isn't there.

It's been a year. It's been more than a year. I haven't regularly updated this blog in ages, certainly not since we moved to a place without internet access. Certainly not since I've copped out and shared my life in single-photo snippets on Instagram that I can automatically forward to my Facebook without ever having to look at anything posted by anyone else. Efficiency. Is that really what this is about?

Just a couple days ago I started reading "Do Nothing" by Celeste Headlee and I'm pounding through it because it's resonating so much. It both stings and salves. The reason I don't take the time to write blog posts anymore is because I have made my sharing of life an internet chore to be checked off a list, the more efficiently, the better. There are ways I could compose blogposts and share them without taking so much of my limited connectivity time, but I don't do them - because they would take time on their own. Writing a blog post takes so much more time and energy and craft than making quick edits to a photo and slapping it on IG/Fb with a clever sentence or two - or even just a single word or emoji.

I have lost the beauty of my words, longhand, scrawling across a page. Written (typed) for myself just as much as anyone else, with the knowledge that my blog views are generally in the single digits and almost never receive comments or feedback. It has been months since I've reflected on the public-presenting story of my life in-depth and crafted a post on it. This reflection was just as much for myself as it was for my friends and relatives who wanted a window into my long-distance life. And lest we not forget: the earliest posts on this blog were just as much nature writing as they were autobiographical vignettes. 

As I continue to read this book, I continue to reflect on my current life choices, especially with regards to social media, and I believe that in the coming days and weeks we can expect to see some changes in what I post, how I share what I share and where. And maybe, just maybe, I'll start writing proper blog posts again.

Until next time!

It's been a summer (and a winter)

My mom wanted me to update. :) It's been awhile... in the interim, I finished my masters degree, officially was the lead at my job for the summer, and have largely had not enough time and too much to do! In my respite, now that summer programs are done and school is done and I've got a bit more time for myself, I have been reading like crazy! Science fiction, historical fiction, scientific non-fiction, history, comedy... all those books that I started a list of last winter that sounded interesting and worth reading are slowly parading through our home courtesy of the local public library and its interlibrary loan program. Here's what I've got home at the moment:

The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell

This extra-thick novel is a debut for the author and I absolutely love it! It takes place over three-ish generations in Zambia (mostly) and especially now that I'm nearing the end I find myself exclaiming out loud when I realize the threads she has managed to tie together from the different characters lives as they come closer and closer together through the generations - truly spectacular! But make sure if you get this from the library that you've got time to read it - the book clocks in at over 500 delightful pages.

American Eden by Victoria Johnson

I've only just started reading this one, but I like it already. It follows the life and times of David Hosack, a botanist and doctor in post-Revolutionary War New York. It's a time period that I honestly am under-informed on, and I am really enjoying the way that she seamlessly weaves in the history of the era (without assuming I know too much already). I feel like I will learn about a topic that interests me - ethnobotany - and will come away with a better understanding of an time period that I never really retained much on - the early years of the United States.

Unladylike: A Field Guide to Smashing the Patriarchy and Claiming Your Space by Cristen Conger and Caroline Ervin

I have been listening to a podcast (radio program) by these authors which goes by the same name for a couple years. This is a fun read with lots of little illustrations that breaks down the various ways that women might experience sexism in our society and what we can do about it, from little comments to systemic problems. It's an eye-opener, but light and fun - although the amount of lingo and cultural references that permeate every paragraph really rub in how much of a hermit I am these days...

So anyway, that's what I've got going on right now. I just finished knitting a couple pairs of socks (one for Jack, one for me) and am about to go take my favorite drive to a local spring to fill up water jugs for the house. Jack will be home soon, and we'll be transitioning into a busy fall!

The Uncertainty of Waiting

On things we may have lost...

Trudy - that darned old truck that we both loved and hated, and which we had parked at our friend's house in Paradise for the summer.
Photographs - of friends no longer with us, of ancestors long-passed.
Familial objects - the owl lamp from my Grandma Workman; the barometer Grandma Witt gave to each of us grandkids in honor of our Grandpa.
Paintings - of places I've been, of places my mind has made up. Empty papers waiting for the brush to meet the page.
Letters - to each other, from each other, from family and friends.
Clothes - so, so many. Clothes that we meant to sort through this winter; clothes that were meant to be worn this winter because they were useless in summer. So many beautiful pairs of tights. My mother's wool pleated skirt. The dress she made me from the fabric I bought in Botswana.
Craft supplies - Fabrics, fabrics from places I've been, fabrics with plans and purposes that I hoped to put them to this winter. The sewing machine. Supplies for making candles - all the candles that were made.
Shoes - so many shoes. Fancy shoes. Expensive shoes. Shoes that aren't made anymore and you can only find on eBay if you're lucky.
Books - so many books. Hundreds of dollars of books. Books for school, books for pleasure, books that were purchased, and books that were presents.
Records - Jack's whole collection. Rather heat-sensitive, those are.
Bicycles - bicycles with histories. Matching cruisers, and the frame of the bike that Jack's great-grandfather rode to work every day.
Furniture - a bed, a cot, the sewing desk, the end tables (all but two). Some of the chairs for our kitchen table. We were fortunate to have gotten a good portion of our furniture out the weekend before.
Surfing gear - wetsuits, wax, and boards. All those trips I was planning for us to surf on the coast this winter - will they happen? will these have survived?

It's the not knowing that is the hardest part. The waiting. The realizing that our problems are small in comparison to those who have lost their homes as well as their possessions, who did not have the luxury of taking a trailer-full of their things out of town the week before, who have not been able to get in touch with their loved ones since they evacuated and are wondering if they're alright...

The things we know are saved:
Each other.
Our friends - evacuated or out-of-town.
A trailer-full of stuff: the essentials - mostly kitchen equipment, rugs, dressers, and shelves. A couch with a pull-out bed that I've appreciated sleeping on over our floor. The kitchen table - an heirloom from Jack's family. The "Buddha Shelf" - a box filled with special found objects from our time together - rocks, driftwood, feathers, old photographs, and other tokens.
All the things we each carried with us over the course of the summer - the daily needs that help us get through our lives, and a few sentimental items that we found space to squeeze into our cars this spring.

It's hard to say when we'll know if our storage unit survived. It's hard to say if we'll be allowed to go in to see it anytime soon. It's hard to know what kind of condition our things will be in. Will they be untouched in their metal building, surrounded by pavement? Will they be utterly destroyed by this wildfire that grew 80 football fields every minute? Or will they be in some gooey melted-rubbermaid mess of in-between? I'm not sure what to expect. I'm not sure what to hope for. The worst could be felt as both a terrible pain and the relief of a burden.

This is the uncertainty of waiting.

And waiting..

And waiting...

And....

Until next time-