Wyoming Day

Wyoming was: horses, tobacco products, wind, dusty pickup trucks, trains, trailer-homes, and ravagingly beautiful scenery.  We passed a town called “Ranchester”, which, unfortunately, is not too different from the actual pronunciation of that upstate town, “Rochester.”

This Christmas I chose to fly home, leaving my car in Seattle for later collection, to avoid driving across the country in winter. Well, in Wyoming we had winter anyway. In those high elevations the snow blinded our path, the wind was clawing, ravaging, relentless. There was enough snow to be frustrating. Our car sneezed back and forth from the buffeting winds and we passed workmen bent by it; their florescent vests flapping violently.

I don’t know how people make it here.

For our Wyoming Night I had emailed a stranger from the bicycling-host-network, Mr. Handlebar Moustache, who had a bed and breakfast right at the base of Devil’s Tower (which is a huge monolith of granite extruded from the earth, looming outstanding from the surrounding pines and prairies—the nation’s First national monument). Even though we aren’t bicycle touring I explained my story, and offered that we’d provide a mobile Indian Restaurant. Within a few hours I had a voice-mail with a resounding welcome, come and stay at the bed and breakfast—his treat!—and he would love to be cooked for.

Absolutely low-season in the tourist trade, and Mr. Moustache was the lone soul around his place and just about the only other one near the park. Probably around 60 or 70, he was lean and only a little grizzled, speaking in a languid drawl. A climber, runner, and cyclist, he and I resonated about that near-panic itch of being stuck inside on a sunny day. We were astounded to learn he’d climbed that rock probably 2,000 times. “You just climb it once at a time though baby” he said, and then felt I could do anything: I wanted to run for miles or bicycle across the country.

In addition to Anurag’s luscious curry, and a green salad, I had brought out my pop-corn popper. One of those pots with a lid and a little handle-turner, to whisk around in the bottom to keep everyone from burning. Mr. Moustache stared at it, “Cosmic” he said, impressed, then: “Galactic.”

After Mr. India and I had hiked around the great rock, admiring it’s structure like many organ pipes smushed together, we came in from the cold and made ourselves at home in the kitchen. He made us a wood fire and we ate curry on couches, while gazing out the window at that amazing rock. It was like a 5-star hotel with expensive exclusive views, but all because of hopefully reaching out and being welcomed.  

Mr. Moustache invited me to play the piano—how convenient that I happened to have my music books on this trip (oh, and all of my other possessions too)—and so I eagerly sat down and played gospel and Celtic and jazzy old hymns. I heard his drawling voice, from a reclining type angle from the living room, “THAT is delicious. I wanna put it on a plate and sop it up with a biscuit.” And just like my Dad, he griped when I said, “ok last one!”

What a good trade, with no money necessary. Two travelers received a warm place to sleep with a totally unique view and someone in the quiet season of no visitors had dinner and piano music. 

(please see accompanying photo albums appearing on Facebook) 

Montana Day

Saturday night we spent the night in Butte Montana, with the son of the friends of Mr. and Mrs. Hydrology. Oh connections! How cool. They’d called him the night before for us, explaining our trip, and Mr. Butte said sure, they’d host us. 

Driving into Butte, across the wideness of Montana: there are large flat places with little grass, and then looming hills of bedrock, scattered and wearied trees. It is very, erm, spacious here. We rumble across a cattle grate on the exit into the town. Mr. India commented, “How do people live here, without farming….just cattle. Whole day you do cattle ranching. And on top of that you go through all this winter.”  It’s April but snow still rested in divots.

Mr. Butte gave us a tour of the town, leaning into the cold wind, admiring the expansive red brick buildings, the wide empty streets, the views of the mountains looking down main street. I felt a little bit Turn of the Century. At that time, Butte was the largest city west of the Mississippi river, booming due to the copper mining. A head frame—a tall frame structure above a mining pit—was all decorated with red glowy lights, a prideful tribute to the town’s industrious past.

We visited a little distillery, wooden barrels stacked in the window, a huge polished wooden bar like it was out of a museum. The place was packed and a plaid man jammed away on a guitar. “There ARE people here!” Anurag said with pleased surprise.

Mr. Butte said he liked living here, “I really like winter” he said, all incomprehensible to me. The coldest it got last year was 35 below and then the next weekend it warmed up to 15 degrees, and everyone was out in basically tee-shirts. It’s all about the T delta, I suppose.

We’re driving in Montana as I write this from the passenger’s seat. Anurag has never been across the country, and he is giving a running commentary all curiosity and interest, with his hydrology background: “Good”, he says approvingly, “there is a river going there.” And then: “Oh! There is some water there. What is that water doing there, all alone.” And then some hypotheses about the height of the water table and availability and such.

“I wish I had the magical power to track waters of the earth. To see through the soil and see where they originate,” he said. I decided my magical power would be to be able to play any pipe organ in the world, with any combination of complex pipes and manuals.

Montana is very big.

Idaho Day

Saturday was Idaho Day and our first day. We set out for a nice early 7am departure at 10am; traveling with Mr. India Anurag is not traveling with my parents. This is more fluid and carefree (in a good way), more spontaneous and allowed us to sleep in after a Famous Last Idaho late night of dancing and pool tables, where you feel sort of a grand goodbye and not-caring-about-anything because you’re leaving anyway.

We set out south through Idaho, driving through spectacular sunshine making the dried wheat fields glow, weaving around humpy hills. Our Subaru was one in a world of Subarus, mountain bikes on the back. “Antlers Galore—World Headquarters” advertised a building as we passed. Shapely clouds—cotton puff clouds—with surprisingly distinct edges floated above us. Like a painting. Then out of the wheat and we drove down onto Highway 12, a rick-rack road winding through pine forests, along the Clearwater River all raging with rapids. Up the elevation gradient of the hills fresh snow was white, in sharp contrast to what should have been April.

Mr. India about this: “The clouds are talking to each other…’Where you going today?’ and the second cloud says, ‘Ohh I am going to that mountain. I feel like a should snow there and rest a bit.’”

The United States

A project of sorts, a project about connections and places. The ramification of My Most Recent Life Decision.

The project is to get across the united states, from Idaho to New York, staying at night, when possible, through 1^st and 2^nd degrees of separation. This involves hopeful posts on facebook, asking people who they know in Nebraska, and checking email frequently. I did this in 2011, going the opposite direction heading to my soil science degree, with Buddy Holly. We slept in the spare room of my pastor’s brother in Chicago, in the adorable guest bed in Minnesota of my community college’s guidance counselor’s ex-boyfriend (before-she-discovered-she-was-a-lesbian)…. people who I’d never met before but who welcomed us and threaded us across the country.

I studied soil for a while in the west, then studied it some more in the Puget Sound, then went bicycling around southeast Asia, flew to the Puget Sound because my car was left there, and then had to make a choice between 2 job offers.

Originally when I stuffed my Subaru and rolled west, I told everyone I was for sure coming back. “Don’t worry I won’t stay there long.” But then, in the Puget Sound, I fell for the bike lanes in Seattle, the mild winters, the glory of Her Elusive Majesty Mt Rainier, the ever-linking public transportation, and a certain small and resoundingly supportive Episcopal church. So I leave a substantial book mark there.

I am returning east, to the small fingerlakes and collegy town of Geneva in upstate NY. In some ways I am thinking of this as returning home, and in some ways I think of this as a visit. I have taken a hands-on, experience-rich, and lowly job at Bejo Seeds, Inc (until this November). I will be trotting around outdoors this summer, learning the subtleties of irrigation, and of caring for and taking inventory of 54 types of vegetable varieties. What I think might be my dream jobs (university extension, sustainable agriculture research, urban farm projects) call for “X number of growing seasons experience” and so tra la this summer I shall gain said experience.

I am also very eager to spend a summer among the fingerlakes (and Lake Ontario), something I have not done since I was immature and unappreciative. I look forward to bicycling the drumlins, to cooling off in freshwater…but most importantly I shall be equidistant from all those important loved ones I left a few years ago. My aunts and uncles, my parents, Buddy Holly, all the Rochester people (who are also essentially aunts and uncles). This next chapter will be a blend of Moving Somewhere New (I won’t be living at home) and Being Bold And Brave Because It Is New, and also the irreplaceable comfort of people who’ve known me most of my existence.

 ~~~~~

I’d spent the last week or so in Moscow ID playing Easter services for my other Episcopal church and living with some lovely church people, Mr. and Mrs. Hydrology. I come in one night, and there they are at the kitchen table reading issues of Nature. “Hey look at this supernova!” Mr. Hydrology says eagerly to Mrs. Hydrology, showing her his page. Oh scientists. I think they are adorable. They’ve been married 30 years and frequently go hiking and rafting.

Who’d a thunk, that 2 years ago when I was introduced to Mr. Tenor (aka Mr. Hydrology) at the Idaho Episcopal church, that I’d be coming back and baking them muffins and sleeping under their tribal blankets in the spare room. People are so wonderful.

Spending time in Moscow was lovely (save for the cold and wind), and almost convinced me I could live there. The co-op, having your errands slowed substantially due to chatting with everybody, the bicycles all over. Being close to my church so that I could wake up in the morning with a hymn traveling around my head, and then walk over and play that hymn. But I cannot see myself living for too long in endless acres of wheat.

~~~~~~

This trip germinated in 3 days; when a job offer is made then a decision must quickly accompany it. I had to choose between 1) vegetables in upstate NY, 2) customer support for environmental science equipment in ID, and 3) floating around for longer while applying for more jobs, helping out at my favorite pub, and playing for church. I chose 2, which then means I have to get there.

And so Mr. India, dear Mr. India who now happily has a post-doc assignment at UI in hydrological modeling, is accompanying me across the country. We shall have ourselves an epic road trip. But we are driving ourselves towards our end, ending while we are still golden, ending because in October (supposedly the auspicious month for this according to His Mother) he goes back to India and must acquire a wife of the arranged marriage variety. In a week he gets on an airplane in upstate NY back to Idaho and that is that.  (oh cultures and duty and differences and acceptance and grieving) 

But I’ve had the blessing of a romance out of Bollywood and I do not regret anything.

Tortoise and a hare: on leaving, jars, and running

Ramblings after packing.

Tomorrow, with my bicycles, my dresses, my chopsticks, 8 bars of "cheap store" chocolate (I stocked up while I could), and all my other possessions, I drive across the state of Washington. I'm leaving the Pacific Northwest. I'm going to Idaho.

In some ways I am leaving with a hole in my heart; I did not expect to fall this much in love with A Place. Mount Rainier hugely present on rare days, ferns and unhurried rain and restful pines, endless color in flowering form (see Figure A), good coffee, communities who call for bike lanes. Not unreasonable temperatures in the winter.

Going To Idaho is the only part of my future I can envision at the moment. I am in the job hunt stage, but doing it rather as a floating thing....or a tortoise, with my house on my back (wait, that's not quite right: with all my possessions with me and in other people's houses). I'm going to Idaho because there is a church there who needs an Easter Week organist. And also I have a job interview at a soils/plant research instrument company nearby. And also Mr. India has a job there now.

Mr. India and I lugged boxes out of the attic and into my room, their contents flooding and pooling all over my carpet. Belongings! Decisions! What will come? What should stay? I don't have many things, but I find myself becoming inexplicably attracted to certain things (this Medusa lamp, for instance: I could buy it again at goodwill probably, but it was in my freshman dorm with me) and then all buggered trying to make decisions about them.

But this time around, this final leaving of my grad student guest house, I am feeling more free and unburdened. I am leaving all my jars (and let me tell you: I love storing everything in jars--to admire the color of lentils through glass, the freshness of loose leaf tea in a jar rather than a baggy): the funky one with the handle, the little ball jars that once contained my dear mother's jam, that curvy number I'd bought disgusting pickles in just because I mostly wanted the container.

I left them because I realized I gain as much gratification through the act of acquiring jars as I do in actually having them. The journey here is better than the destination. And certainly better than lugging them around all jangly in my Subaru.

Everything fit in that Subaru, by the way. Even though I did find three separate pairs of gardening gloves in separate places.

.......

Maybe I turn around and come back across the state. Maybe I continue forth and go all the way east. For the first time in my life I am actually at ease about What Unknown May Happen Next. 

So I am a tortoise. And also a hare. A hare because I have been running. Although not a fast hare, mind you. A floppy, panting, hair-askew-hare. This is what happens when one's bicycle has broken from Southeast Asia and one has become addicted to endorphins. 

I always used to look at runners as amazing people, doing insurmountable things; I could barely trot up our driveway without cramping up and becoming short of wind. I'd labeled it in my head as Something I Did Not Do, but even meanwhile envied the fleetness I saw in others, the freedom to flap and flow along, the lean muscly legs. Once I'd looked at the pipe organ in the same way, insurmountable and amazing (minus the legs).

I learned the pipe organ.

When I was in Thailand, a big celebration for Chinese New Year occurred. Cars were decorated with flowers, alters set up in all the yards, people drinking beer at 9am. I asked someone what all the fuss was about. "The Year of the Horse" it is. And I asked what that signified. "Auspicious for money," I was told, "and the year of the horse means: running."

I think I even got a little shiver when I heard that. Running.

And, because trying to overcome something challenging and painful can be very rewarding, I am running. Almost without fail I would be pinched through in my belly with a painful stitch within a few minutes. But Mr. India, all wise and marathoner, advised me to "be a little patient" and "just run a little slowly." Patient? Slow? Me?!?

But going out each day, just running bit by bit for a few weeks now, I feel astonishingly better. I ran up a hill yesterday without a stitch and enjoyed a view of Mt. Rainier, buzzed on endorphins.




(oh hum, I think I'll need to take a bike trip again quite soon, or else my blogging--which I feel compelled to do anyway--shall end up rambling all quotidianly such as this)

(I've decided "quotidian" needs an adverb form, so please pardon that)

Being back

It's now been a week and 5 days since I've been drinking from the faucet and flushing the toilet paper.

What's it like being back? Has there been reverse culture shock?

In a way the transition back surprised me by requiring little processing, maybe because I was returning to certain ingrained patterns (the grad student house, the cover crop research), and also because the last 2 weeks of the trip were cold and rainy. So it wasn't like I was directly leaving sunny tropical beaches or anything. And having two months away allowed me space to reflect and muse in the many moments there, although I know that the bigger impact of this trip may not surface for me for months or years.

But I know I have become more assertive, in asking for what I want. The Vietnamese were stubborn and to get my needs met I had to put in some work. I've also picked up unkempt and brazen bicycle habits: bicycling wrong way in round-abouts, up one-way streets, sidewalks....  Finally, now I have seen cultures where superstition is strong, where families are The Most Important Thing, where floors are nearly sacred and you remove shoes before entering. Values so different than ours out here. I've seen that the world can function without hand-sanitizer, without endless complex forms, without guard-rails.

I miss the cheap prices of food; I miss riding my bicycle every day; I miss the resounding appetite I had.

I still dream of markets and caves though, apparently two things which really clipped onto my unconscious.

I am happy to make eye contact with people passing on the street (without being sold sunglasses, donuts, or cigarettes). I am happy to not be so toweringly huge, happy to be a little more anonymous and a little less stared at. I like being able to understand what people are saying. Bathrooms have soap AND toilet paper AND paper towels.

Driving a car on the roads here feels unsettlingly fast. Because there is so much less traffic, much  more space, and far fewer potholes. The bicycling dynamics feel markedly different. Cars wait for me at intersections, give me heaps of passing space or even wait for a spacious break to pass. 

Since being back I've been once again discussing the existential properties of cover crop mulch with one of my advisors (I'm getting a little money to write an extension bulletin). I sat on a Seattle coffee-shop balcony in the blessing of sun and watched pale bearded men on commuter bicycles whiz down Seattle's capitol hill. There are bike lanes and I want to live in a place like this.

Also I slept in a tree-house on Bainbridge island, relishing the birds, wondering what is so compelling about the stillness, the looming pines, the moody waters of the Puget Sound. In the forests there is green from every pore. That which would feature brown color is instead covered by ivy and moss and thus all is green green green. Even when gray here, on the Puget Sound, there is something beautiful. That sorrow is beautiful here, contemplation is right and good; melancholy can be fulfilling instead of depressing. And then, when the glory of the sun does flood down, oh then: this is the most delicious magnificence.

I visited my old Episcopal church to wide hugs and smiles, although I have been replaced by a new organist. "That you are back, proves that there IS a god," stated one of the church ladies, one of the more openly opinionated ones. "Our new organist is terrible," she added. I had to explain that I could only visit for 2 Sundays. Mr. New Organist, who I didn't even get to meet because he arrived just before church started and left right away, doesn't offer a prelude or postlude, so I had an opportunity to play a little bit for everyone again. I sat in the front pew, didn't know the appropriate times to stand for the hymns, and involuntarily started at the lines Father Priest says just before the Sanctus and the offertory.

After the service I sat at a round table-clothed table eating biscuits and gravy (fundraiser for a new furnace) and felt like I was holding a sort of court for a group of unhappy subjects. All around me people were sharing their unhappy stories of this new organist. The time he played his violin at the pulpit was particularly noted, "it sounded like a room full of rocking chairs and a long-tailed cat," stated one. "We at least got 2 of the 5 verses of the gospel hymn today," noted another. Father Priest said he was having nightmares. It was almost comical how disgusted everyone was, but sad too, because I could offer little suggestion and, how I wish I could return!!!!, but I haven't been able to find a position in the area to keep me here.

So, yup. This brings me to job searching. Which I have been doing. I have an interview at a soil-science/environmental science company which manufactures research equipment. And there is also a possibility at a seed company. And maybe some other things....

I am not under stress about finding a job. I can float for a little while (I'm heading to Moscow ID next to play Easter for my other favorite Episcopals) and I know I can find something somewhere.

But thinking critically about setting up the next chapter of my life... Knowing what you want--what you really want, what will serve you in the future, what will nourish you in the now--is extraordinarily hard. What kind of job I want. The kind of place I want to live in. Who I want to be near.

All I can really get at now is that I want to be in the sunshine, drink strong tea, and ride my bicycle. To make food for people. I want to contribute and feel productive. I want laughter and love and curiosity and wonder. I want someone I cannot have. I want Mt. Rainier. I want to be near my family. My Wise Friend tells me I cannot get everything I want, and that this is a good thing. That there will be other things, unimaginable at this point, which I will receive and want then.