Joshua Tree National Park

The following were taken at Joshua Tree National Park with a Minolta SRT-101 on 35mm film.

Is it ever really waiting when we're so caught up in other things?

I know that Advent is supposed to be all about waiting for Jesus' birth. I know it. For years, I've watched the wreath be lit once a week until Christmas; I've lit it myself. Yet the whole ritual hadn't even crossed my mind until my first visit to church last Sunday--already with so few candles left to light.

I accidentally stumbled into my own sort of Advent, only instead of candles, it was with writing--or reading about writing anyways. I decided a while ago that I was going to read one chapter each Sunday from Annie Dillard's The Writing Life. I thought it would be a good reminder to write and why and how and even if I still couldn't, I had this little book to tell me that was all right--sometimes you just can't write.

At only seven chapters long, it seemed an easy commitment; in less than two months, the book would be over. So every Sunday evening, I sat down in my chair for a short discussion on writing. It didn't take me long in December to realize that the last chapter would fall two days before Christmas. I saved the last chapter for tonight, like the lighting of the last candle on the wreath.



The past few days have had a lot of this waiting: when will I get to see my friends? when will the "holidays" be over? when will I get to Arizona? In much more short-term waiting, though, I made ice cream today.

It was a real spur-of-the-moment thing. I was shopping for ingredients to make some holiday nom-noms, and I saw SoyNog on sale: 2 for $5. What the heck, why not! I've been wanting to try it anyways. Once home, I poured a glass to sip as I unpacked my groceries. I stood leaning against the counter with the glass in one hand, almost to my mouth, and the carton in the other, close to my face as I read the side panels. Like the free patterns on packages of yarn, I tend to ignore the recipes on the boxes of food, but this one caught my eye: SoyNog ice cream. I perused the ingredients, and shockingly, I was well-stocked on all of them.

So I whisked and I stirred, and I heated to a boil, and I watched it thicken and bubble like pie filling. I let it cool, and read the rest of the instructions: "Chill in the refrigerator for four hours. Finish with ice cream machine as instructed." Uhh, I don't have an ice cream machine. This is why you should always read the whole recipe before starting to cook, but come on, in school, we were always told to scan a textbook's chapter before reading it, but no one actually did it.

Luckily, of course, my friend, Google, came to the rescue: "how to make ice cream without machine..." What does it require? Time, patience...waiting. The gist of what I read was basically that when the cream freezes, little ice pieces freeze first, separating from the creamy part. An ice cream machine keeps it freezing while getting that slow-churn action going to make it freeze evenly, not giving the ice pieces a chance to take the lead. How to make it without a machine? Take it out every half-hour and stir it. Okie doke. So I did. Seven hours later, I think I have--what is as close as it's going to get to--ice cream.



Of course my evening trip to the Christmas Eve service interrupted the half-hour intervals, so I had to cheat a little on the stirring. For some reason, I expected a traditional Christmas Eve. I pictured a piano as the main instrument, and the dimmed lights of the theatre would be perfect for the candle-lit exit of "Silent Night." That was what I have always known, so I didn't expect any different. When the service ended with a catchy guitar riff solo-ing its way through "Joy to the World," I was a bit thrown off. Then, to exit the theatre into a packed shopping mall with fake snow and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" blaring from every angle just totally threw me off.

I guess the good thing about the whole Christmas Eve scenario is that it is new. This is my life now. I'm not at a dwindling Presbyterian church on a hill in the woods of Southwestern, PA. I'm not sitting next to my mother or keeping my peripheral on my cousin to check his grip on his lit candle. I'm not watching "It's a Wonderful Life" with my dad and grandma or exchanging gifts with my sister. I'm not getting up tomorrow and going to Derek's house.

I am in Seattle now. I still have to remind myself of it. I walked out to the festive, lit streets of downtown and listened to the shuffle of people. I felt like a mouse in a maze, trying to avoid running into people. The bus was my cheese, and I made it just in time.

When I got off the bus, my neighborhood was eerily quiet. Usually, I can hear the chatter of people in the distance or a dog's collar jingling against its leash or drops of rain falling from the tips of leaves and branches in a passing breeze. After the bus turned off, and the hydraulics puffed out their quick sigh, there was nothing but my breath and my steps. I looked at the moon, half-hiding in thick clouds, seeming exceptionally small and distant. I imagined the street lamps were candles and sang "Silent Night" until I couldn't remember the words.



I've been really fighting the idea of holidays this year. For a while, I had convinced myself that I was going to sit at home by myself and pretend like it was Boxing Day, and Christmas was a passing thought. The idea seemed appealing until I was out of work, spending most days home in the same patterns of knitting and reading because apparently my body decided that it didn't need to sleep until the hour hit well into tomorrow. Not only was the dull pattern forcing me to keep track of the days, but almost everyday, I got a Christmas card in the mail. Each time, I was surprised and happy: someone remembered me, even though I'm all the way on the other side of the compass.

Try as I might, I couldn't fully resist the holiday spirit. The problem with embracing it, though, is that then I have to also accept the other side: the absence and the grief.

Several years ago, our Touring Choir at school sang in a December service called "The Empty Chair." As I sat and reflected on how blessed I was that all of the chairs at our table were full, I was deeply moved by the sad faces staring back at the choir: the people who had one less place-setting that year.

Today, I think about a lot of things and a lot of empty chairs. I think about the families in Connecticut who are missing their little ones. I selfishly think about Derek. I think about how even though other people are grieving such deep, still-bleeding wounds, I find myself picking the scabs as if it could get me any closer to him.

I think about how we're all at the same table. How many people can gather around for Christmas and honestly say they aren't missing someone? I wonder if my family misses me at their table. I think about how some people don't even have a table or a meal or a family to celebrate with. Celebrate. Celebration. Christmas is a celebration of life, of birth, of light, and yet I have all of these big, sad feelings hovering over me like tonight's cloudy moon.



As I walked home from my bus stop, I looked at the houses with their bright lights and colorful decorations. I thought about how it seemed not too long ago that they were decorated with Halloween. I thought about how not too long before that, I had never even seen these streets.

Now the waiting is over. It's Christmas: Eve & Day and day-after. It still doesn't quite feel like it. Maybe because there were guys wearing shorts outside the other day. Maybe because, like last year, I've been focusing my thoughts on Arizona. Maybe it's because the only sign of Christmas at my apartment is the array of sparkling cards tacked to my wall. (Even though I really hate decorating, Christmas at home wouldn't feel right without the tree and the same ornaments every year and my mother's ga-zillion cat decorations: cats in scarves and sleeping cats and cats hanging from garland.)

I've decided that you know you're an adult when the most exciting thing you can do for yourself for the holiday is to take your sheets to the laundromat. That and cook. I don't mind laundry, and I like to cook, so I guess this "adult" thing is alright.

So I've stopped fighting the fact that it's Christmas. It's here. No more anticipation. No more waiting. Yeah, it's not a Christmas I have ever known before, but I'm trying not to let my head get too clogged with thoughts about trying not to think about the things that are actually on my mind and just let the day be and (try to) accept the adjustments.

Now I'll snuggle into my clean sheets, with that last spoon of SoyNog ice cream that didn't fit in the Tupperware still on my tongue, and I'll watch "White Christmas," thinking about our annual White Christmas Party and thinking about my friends in Waynesburg and Pennsylvania, and the people I miss there and elsewhere and the people I miss no matter where I go. And that all still sounds so sad, and I don't mean for it to. I'm counting my blessings, and they are many.

"When I'm worried and I can't sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep, and I fall asleep counting my blessings..."

transition

I seem to be caught in a hamster ball rolling down a spiral staircase with about twelve landings on the way. I'm going and going, bouncing and thwacking my way down, then there's a nice gentle roll for about a month, then its klunk, thwap, hugh. I'm not really sure where I am right now. I've grown so dizzy that it's starting to feel the same.

What I mean to say is that even though I've been in Seattle four months now, I'm still not settled. I'm still trying to find my place and feel a bit stuck in the patterns my life here has been taking so far. I haven't had a consistent job. I haven't even settled into my apartment such that it feels like "home"--it's just a place that I live (& hide). All of this has kept me from branching out and making more substantial friends (as in, I've met people; we are/were friends, but now we don't talk or see each other because I reached the end of that landing). I guess I'm mostly referring to how comfortable I felt at my last job, and the anxiety of roughly rolling into the next, once again, alone.

I find it kind of amusing, actually. I really like to be alone, but then I get to a point where I say, "I NEED PEOPLE," so I go to a coffee shop or ride the bus, and I watch people, and I kind of soak up their energy, their communication, their interactions. Socially re-fueled, I return to my basement to sit and knit and read and write.

In my last interview, I was questioned thoroughly on why a writer would be going for a position in business. "If you want to be a writer, you should go sit in a solitary room on Bainbridge island. This isn't a writers' environment," I was told. I thought for a minute, mostly of Annie Dillard in The Writing Life and how I can only handle so much of that lifestyle. It's not every writer's life. "I need people," was my response.

Yet my "people" need has thus far been satiated through the act of being a wallflower. I'll admit, at first, I really tried to settle in to the community. I went to the Farmer's Market and spoke briefly with the vendors; I tried to make small-talk with everyone. It's quite exhausting, actually, especially when people are not willing to give anything back beyond "I'm well, thank you" or "Yes, the weather is nice today." I suppose that's how I became a leech--I can pull pieces of other's social lives into mine, the way my hamster would reach his tiny claws from the holes in the plastic ball, grabbing any crumb or dustball that he wanted, and he was happy.



I watched a documentary oh-so-cleverly entitled Happy. The researchers spoke to people from many countries and asked what they wanted out of life. When nearly everyone, anywhere, answered "To be happy," they dug further to see what made people happy in different regions and lifestyles. A man in the slums of India was happy to be a rickshaw driver and come home to his family. The people of Okinawa, Japan talked about how they achieve happiness that has allowed them to have the highest census of people aged 100+ in the world, mainly through being united; one example they gave was their funeral ritual--they have a community urn where all of the ashes of all of the dead from all of neighborhoods go because they believe they are all one people. A family in the bogs of Louisiana enjoyed the simplicity of being together and enjoying alligators and fresh-caught fish.

Then there were the un-happy: the over-worked, the people under pressure. Japan's standards are so high that many people die from stress, and they have the highest suicide rate (which, I think, shows the concentration of the cities considering the status of Okinawa). They even have a word that translates to "death by overwork": Karōshi. Do I need to explain where the general American population stands?

I've been thinking a lot about the happiest people. Statistically, they live in Denmark in what equates to communes. They have very small living spaces, but live with several families, who all take turns cooking and cleaning; the children all have friends who they live with and treat like family; the parents can spend more time with their children without having to worry about the duties of daily living since everyone takes turns. It seems ideal. I like to think that I would love it, but there is the solitary part of me that says, "I like to visit, but I like to come home and be alone too." It's an odd balance.



And the scales are a little off right now. I really mean it when I say I'm not settled in Seattle. I knew when I moved here that no matter how much I liked it, this would not be my end-point. I don't know how long I'll be here: maybe a year, maybe five or ten. Woah, hold the reigns: ten is pushing it. Maybe five years. Maybe. Regardless, I'm not here for get cozy, take-your-coat-off-and-stay-a-while kind of living. Actually, I'm not really sure I have any expectations; I just want to be happy where I am, and when I am ready to move on, I will. (This mostly translates in my mind to: when I am ready to move elsewhere for grad school.) My hamster loved time to roll around in that yellow plastic ball, but when he was ready to move on, he'd bump into a wall and stop, just sitting there. Right now, I'm still rolling.

Because short-term to me is staying here for "a couple years" (whatever that means), I find it difficult to define "home." I always like to think that it's wherever you are that feels like a place you can define yourself in, like when I was in Italy, I felt I knew me there, as in Waynesburg or Mamont. Here, I'm still trying to find the edges; I'm coloring way outside the lines trying to find how I fit in here in the city, in this independent life outside of college.



I love baking. I love making a mess out of flour, watching it pouf into the air and letting it smear onto my itchy nose or fronts of my jeans. I love working dough. I love the range of smells from raw to warm. Despite all of this, I have not done any baking since I moved here. Part of me thinks it's because I'm vegan and don't feel like experimenting yet. That's a ridiculous excuse; I have plenty of time and recipes, and I've certainly been testing out the cooking end of it and with much success. The real reason I have not baked is because I cannot bring myself to buy flour. To me, flour needs its own little canister home so that it doesn't make unwanted poufs when the bag is bumped. To give it its own home is to settle in--I cannot imagine myself moving to a new place and taking flour with me.

That may sound ridiculous, but for some reason, it keeps echoing in my mind when I think about baking. You don't get to the bottom of a canister of flour and rinse it out and take it with you--you add another bag; you don't finish a bag of flour. And a row of canisters sitting across the counter, just waiting to be opened and turned into something delicious is one of those home-y feelings like sleeping in your own bed after you've been away or walking intentionally to avoid the creaks in the floor that you know are only in certain places or the weight of a door that you know how to shut just right to make it silent or maybe it needs a rough pull to even close at all.

This place doesn't have those things: it's not my bed, but I like to sleep in it; the floor creaks, but I feel more like hiding by avoiding them, trying not to be seen; the door is light and hollow and has to pulled until you hear the second click so that you know the number pad is secured. It makes impersonal beeps when you unlock it and always sounds like the door itself is cracking when you shut it. Finally, we're not allowed anything on the counter--no canisters here unless kept in the cupboard. To add to that, in with the mess of flour is the magic of never really getting it all cleaned up; it sticks in the corner-edge between counter and wall; it lays lightly on the rug; it smears when it's wiped up, never totally gone. I love that about it, but everything here must be completely clean all the time. Who has the energy to take the life-proof from the white dust that builds a home through snug bellies and a well-lived-in kitchen? What a sorry fate for the welcoming, comforting flour.

Sure, they're all just excuses. Nothing is really stopping me from buying a bag of flour, keeping it in my cupboard, and just plain baking. If I wanted to bad enough, I would do it, I suppose. But I find myself frequenting the local bakery, picking up a few goods and being on my way, mooching off their yummy treats to satisfy my want for a warm oven and a crumby pastry as I walk into the sweet-smelling shop--it is the same pinch of that unsettled feeling that I seek to temporarily please in going to public places and calling it a social life.



It took me four months, but I have finally dragged myself to church. Church, for me, is one of those sensitive issues. You can invite me and leave the card on the table for me to pick up when I'm ready, but you cannot drag me there, and if you try to tell me that I should go, I won't just because then it was your suggestion.

Like a little kid's first day at daycare, I feel shy and not wanting to play with the other kids, keeping to myself. If you try to talk to me or coax me into a game, I sink further inward with a pouting lip and a yearning to go home to my mother. But if you let me be shy and inward and pouty and watch the other kids have fun, I'll want to have fun too, and I'll choose it.

So I finally chose to go to church. (Though I have to say, I almost bailed because I hadn't told anyone I was going, then, the night before, my sister suggested I should go, and part of me said, "Fuck it. That's it. The deal's off. I can't go now because someone said I should, and I'm not going because someone said I should; I'm going because I want to." I told you I'm really sensitive about church. That or just stubborn.)

Regardless, I sucked up my childishness and went. The small crowd immediately pinned me as a newcomer--everyone knew everyone else. Suddenly, I was surrounded by smiling faces telling me their names and welcoming me. I was ready to run. I don't remember any names because I was so worked up in trying to play down the title "church" because all I want is relationship with God, not some overdone show that doesn't dig beyond the surface. When the service was over, and I realized that the message hit the right points and connected with the way I think and believe, I knew that I had better try harder to remember those names.

It scares me, remembering people's names at church. Then they have some sort of accountability towards you; they'll know if you skipped out. And knowing people at church means building friendships and meeting people beyond a surface-level "Hihowareyou." And having a regular church is one more step towards settling in. It took a while, but it happened. All of this is on my mind because I have Community for church tonight, where the people who live in the same neighborhood here in Seattle have a weekly get-together. I'm nervous yet excited yet afraid.



The hardest part about settling in to a new place is recognizing that it means leaving the old one behind. Part of me doesn't want close friends because it's such an obvious step away from the life that I knew, and I'm not ready to have a new "best friend." People aren't replaceable. It makes it easier to push others away, but of course that's not what I want. I want to settle in. I want to make room for new friends and a church family and cookies and pies. I'm just not totally ready yet, and it's taken me four months in the city to at least recognize that. I'm not trying to avoid people. I'm not too lazy to bake for myself. I'm just not there yet.

If you see me in the store holding a bag of flour, don't say anything. I'll probably be standing in the aisle, hugging the thick block to my chest, staring at the shelves. Maybe I'll put it back and try again later. Maybe I'll take it home and put it in my cupboard. The next battle will be, of course, to open it.

art-un-rav-eled

Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.
Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.

This pattern has echoed through my past two evenings. I am ribbing. I am meditating: a lesson in patience.

This is my first time making a whole project with double-pointed needles. This is my first go at the rib stitch. This is my first time using 2.75mm needles and 3oz. yarn. I feel like I am making miniatures, when really, they're only mittens.

I tell myself that I need to be dedicated to finish my projects in time for Christmas. Every year I do this; I wait until after Thanksgiving to start holiday gifts. If I start any sooner, it just feels too rushed and unreal. I don't even look forward to Christmas. I just like to knit. Because it is December: month of late nights curled in a chair with a blanket and needles and yarnyarnyarn.

Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.
Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.

I started this mitten last night. I was lying on my  bedroom floor, trying to hold the thin needles without breaking them or poking out one of my eyes: I was close, trying to see each thread of each stitch pass through. The tips of my fingers began to turn purple--words of wisdom: lying down offers poor circulation when knitting. But I couldn't move; if I moved, I might drop a stitch or break a needle or lose my pattern. Thus far, starting on double-pointed needles is the hardest part, keeping the first row intact despite the obvious stretch between needles.

Then it kept going. The rows got easier as the thread got tighter between the needles, and the four main ones formed a square which birthed a circular cuff tailing behind: now I'm getting somewhere. I was able to sit up, even to hold the needles off my lap because I had figured out to adjust each so that the stitches would stay.

I noticed a lapse in the pattern within the first three or four rows. I was about 3cm in and so exhausted from starting that I wasn't about to turn back. Let's see how it looks later; maybe it won't be so obvious. Sometimes you really do have to just see how things work out: maybe you can trust yourself to write in pen, but sometimes, it sure is handy to have an eraser.

I kept knitting until I had a full 7cm cuff. Tomorrow's objective: beginning the stockinette stitching.

Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.
Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.

You guessed it: I haven't started the stockinette stitch yet.

This morning, I looked again at my work; I was proud that the ribbing looked so nice and was adequately stretchy. As I turned the piece in my hands, I got to those jumbled few stitches in the first rows. Not too noticeable... I turned it again and again. The splotch of mistake more apparent each turn: the imperfection on someone's face--a zit, a crumb, a stray hair-- that you can't help but look at as you talk to them. It just won't do. 

I resolved that tonight when I got home from work, I must start over, putting me one precious day behind.

Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.
Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.

Sometimes, when I'm focusing really hard or concentrating so much that I start to feel stressed, I will grit my teeth and clench my hands and feel my chest tighten--all reminders of how I lack patience, like how I always look to see how many pages are left in a chapter or seconds in a song and how the countdown is excruciating: by the end, my jaw sore, my fingertips white.

For this project, I am determined to push the "deadlines" aside and just let it become a relaxing rhythm.

After supper, I sat in my chair and looked at the cuff that was done so far. But it's so nice; there's only a tiny glitch. Maybe I could set it aside just to remember how pretty my first ribbing was. Maybe no one will notice if I keep going. But I knew that I would notice, and the farther I knitted, the harder it would be to accept the error.

There was no sense in wasting time thinking about it. I began to unravel the cuff in quick, bumpy rows.

This is one of the most challenging yet beautiful aspects of creation, of art: letting go. You make something beautiful, and you let it go. Sometimes it is by giving it away--the gift, as Lewis Hyde reminds. Sometimes it is by destroying it--as in pottery when you find an air bubble in the clay such that if you were to fire it, the explosion would destroy the pieces around it too, and you have to just flatten whatever beautiful object it was even though you worked hard on it.

And yet the beauty reciprocates. Sure, you sold a painting or a pot; you smashed the clay; you unraveled the yarn, but now, you get to start over. You get a blank canvas; you get a clean wheel; you get a full skein.

Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.
Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.

I am about 2cm in on my do-over mitten. I feel good about my decision to start again. Not only does it give me a chance to fix my mistakes, but it offers me yet another lesson in patience: casting on those double-pointed needles again.




I remember my Ceramics professor in Italy, Isabella Fazzo. I can see her: a thin tank top to cover her curved shoulders and tall physique, horn-rimmed glasses in bright purple, soft wrinkles still new to the corners of her eyes. She said she woke up one day, after years of being a chef, and decided that she was going to be a potter. "It was a time in my life when..." she would begin her stories, the ends of her words in sharp staccato from her accent. She ended each sentence with an inhaled laugh, just shy of a snort and with those back of the throat gasps--the kind of laugh that makes you smile at its unique charm, the kind where once you've heard it, you can recognize that person anywhere.

She told us about how, one year, she left her portfolio of all of the ceramic pieces she had ever done (photos, of course; they were all sold by then) on a bus, where it was picked up by a stranger and never returned to her hands. Instead of mourning it, she accepted the loss as a sign, "That time of my life was now over. I began a new style, different from everything I had ever made."

While difficult to achieve, acceptance is beautiful. Learning to start over, learning to see the opportunity in a missed stitch, in a new city, in an open future where you can wake up and decide what you want to be that day or any day: this is what makes us artists.

Ramblings on Lifestyle, Operation: Simplify

I finally did it, naysayers! In attempts to simplify my life, I no longer utilize the ever-famed iPhone.

The switch was simple. In less than twenty minutes, I was out of the store, cheap little flip-phone in-hand, just in time to catch the next bus home.

Today, I found myself in the grocery store perusing a shelf of lotion and wondering which to get. Usually, I would pull out my phone and look up information about the brands and their moral backgrounds and their benefits. I gave a small laugh at my new found freedom. Yes, freedom. Why the hell does one need to research lotion in-store?

So many things are re-opening as non-necessities. Like e-mail: I do not need to answer an e-mail as soon as it gets to me. I do not need to check Facebook as soon as a little red circle appears on the homescreen app. These things can wait.



And yet, I am also learning that not every act of simplification feels resolved. As I manually punched in my phone contacts, I realized that I didn't need to include all 117 of them. I put in names and numbers and thought about when I last spoke to each and what we had said and what we might say in future conversations. I thought that, for some of these characters and digits, this would be the last I'd see of them, just memories of college and the variety of people I became friends with there--now ten or so states away.

I narrowed it down to 60 contacts--people that I certainly at least hope to keep in touch with, though I admit that most are either family or like family. Is this what it means to live simply? Less people? I always said that I would rather have a few quality friendships than a ton of acquaintances, yet don't we have fond memories with people we aren't entirely close to?

Then there are the close ones. Sorted by first names, I paused as I got to 'D' in my phonebook. Even though I could dial the number without having it officially named in this little box of technology, it felt like a big step--to scroll through contacts and not see his name; to know that even if I called, he would not answer. Yet just as with the acquaintances, I have to remember that an erased name on a silly list does not mean the memories are not there or did not happen.

I don't want to rely on little microchips to store my emotions, expressions, reactions. A name on a screen is not a face in front of you, is not even a photograph on your desk.



Even so, I saw opportunity in many of the digits that I typed. As I clicked each area code, I realized how far-spread my community is: Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kansas, Texas, Arizona, California, Montana, and now, of course, Washington, to name a few. I am young and blessed and have many places to see and visit and go.



Every day on the bus, I look around me. People are staring down at their phones, perusing some virtual world. What can be gained from it? Of course, I read on the bus--does that put me at fault too? Still, I like to think that books are a better alternative. You cannot see the world if you aren't even looking out the window.



I finished reading Cloud Atlas today and am a little torn between centuries, past and future.