firewood.

I love my morning runs. They're my favorite part of the week, and I actually look forward to them--something I never thought I would say about running. Now that I've gotten into a groove, it feels natural; it's a great stress-reliever, and I get a lot of writing done. My mind is always writing.

Just before my first mile is complete, I pass a small wood recycling business. I haven't quite gathered what the place actually does because I get lost in the piles of firewood stacked near the chain-link fence, and those piles pull me in further with their lingering scents of cedar and oak. Oak--I take it in and feel the cool morning--high 60s--brush against me. It feels like fall in Pennsylvania.

I'm reminded of Saturday mornings with my Dad. We would rush down the hill in his old Ford truck that hadn't been registered for road driving since the hit-and-run accident years ago. I should also mention that the brakes were pretty sketch. It was a bumpy ride down, and the interior always smelt of the crayons that I had left on the dash when I was very little; the colors melted into a rainbow-ed pool and hardened to match the polypropylene.

When we got to the bottom of the hill, across the road to Grandpap's corn cribs, we'd get out and start loading wood from the corn crib to the truck bed.
"Where are your gloves?" Dad would say, looking at my hands. My eyes would echo his, look at my hands, then back at him, as I shrugged.
"I don't have gloves."
He'd go back to the truck and start digging around the floor, the glovebox, behind the seat until he found me a pair of old leather work gloves. Oftentimes, the tips of the forefinger and thumb would be worn away, letting the woodchips and spare pieces of bark in anyways, which made me laugh at their purpose, until I got splinters.

Somedays, the corn cribs were empty or low, and we went into the woods. Dad would chainsaw while I followed behind and collected the cut quarters of logs, branches, bark. We saved every piece because even the small ones would help get the fire started. I liked to trail back and forth, two logs at a time from where Dad was cutting back to the truck, on whatever clearing or path we stopped that day.
"Why don't you use the wheel barrel?" (That's the technical term.) I would shrug and maybe once the path started getting long as Dad got further and further into the woods, trailing along the fallen tree, I would start piling them into the barrel to make the long trips easier. I never really liked using the wheel barrel because it meant that I would spend a lot of time standing around waiting for the wood to be cut. It was always cooler in the woods, and my nose, pink, would run with nothing but my sleeve to catch the cold & moist.

When the truck bed was full, we would take the firewood back to the house and load it into the cement shanty that Dad built on the side of the basement. I would usually be in the truck bed handing the logs in as Dad stacked them into steady lines, sturdy and straight to fit in as much as possible. Sometimes he would stand on a ladder and stack them to the ceiling as I stretched to reach from the lowered tailgate or piled some wood onto the tailgate so that I could stand in the shanty and just hand them up.

"It's sure nice to have some help. It goes a lot quicker with two people." He said it every time. Verbatim, with a little chuckle at the end. I would smile. This was the only chore that I enjoyed--being with my dad, outside, feeling the pull of my muscles in the physical act of work, feeling the pull of the seasons in the chilling fall, feeling the rewards of the warmth from the wood burner on cold nights in preparation for winter.

Or maybe, it was the one chore that I didn't mind because when I took the old gloves off at the end of the morning, small pieces of wood still stuck to my smooth skin, my hands still smelt of tight leather and oak.

Just before beginning my seventh mile, I pass the small lumber yard on my way back. The smell of the oak, the sweat on my skin chilling in the breeze, the light sun overhead still warming the day, the feeling of fall and of home--I wonder if, were I still in Pennsylvania, I would be saving my Saturday morning tomorrow to go get firewood with Dad.

"You are all a lost generation."

     ‎"'Oh Jake,' Brett said, 'we could have had such a damned good time together.'

     Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.

     'Yes,' I said. 'Isn't it pretty to think so?'" 

-The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

Since I first stumbled on this book in high school, I have made it a point to read it once a year. I put everything else aside and just read this book. There are many many poignant moments throughout, but those last few sentences always grip me the most--isn't it pretty to think of the life we could have had?

I'm starting to get used to transition in my life. I have now decided to withdraw from my graduate program and seek employment here in the Seattle area, all the while searching for a new place to live. Don't get me wrong, it was difficult coming to this decision, and every once in a while, I think oh gosh, this isn't right either! Then I remind myself: who am I kidding? I'll never move forward with anything if I continually wonder on what I've missed out--the whole resolution in leaving the program is knowing that I came here, and I tried it; it didn't work out, so at least now I won't have to wonder my whole life if I missed this grand opportunity. 

But it begins again--the tugging my limbs in every which direction: head East and move with Katlin; stay West and make it work; go South to Arizona. Knowing that my...well, I guess I don't have an original plan and/or a back-up plan, so let's call them Plan North and Plan South...knowing that Plan North didn't quite work as anticipated leaves so much opportunity for Plan South. Now I have that same wonder...am I missing out?

There's this odd balance in my mind. Seattle feels right in terms of community; this is the place where I can be independent and become my own person. Arizona feels comfortable, safe; I know the places; I know people--family is a strong tie, and there is such comfort in that. And yet, I do have family in Seattle, and there is comfort there too. 

Maybe I'm afraid of the clouds, and I want to run away before they invade. Maybe I'm afraid of this unfamiliar urban setting. Maybe I'm afraid of...Scratch all of that. I'm afraid of being alone, and by choosing to stay in Seattle I am making a definitive decision because if I go to Arizona, I could be just as alone. I'm afraid of taking big risks. 

Moving across the country once was enough. During the process, I learned how these things ruin friendships--how distance can wipe out any connection between too people. I'm afraid of closing that gap because I'm afraid of losing it again. There are so many ties and implications connecting these thoughts that I'm not even sure if they make sense any more. Take it as you will, but here it is:

I'm afraid, that one day, I will find myself in Spain with a close friend where there was so much opportunity that never happened, and during that brief pause where the car's tug touches our shirtsleeves, we will look at each other and know, that damn, we missed out. 

Note: Title quote comes from beginning of The Sun Also Rises. It is a quote by Gertrude Stein.

525,600 minutes and counting

Every day this one moment flashes through my mind: my first steps out of the hospital one year ago today. Everything was so bright. And warm. And I remember thinking that life in that moment could not be real. I knew that this would be the first of many moments where Derek was gone.

The first few months, I had the same dream. I was at his funeral every night, only instead of standing next to his casket, like in reality, I was in line with the visitors. The line was so long. And each night, I never made it to him. The line kept going. It was torturous.

Lying in bed, I wondered how every minute could put me farther from him. I could feel the distance growing. One hour. One day. One week...One year.

Elegy for a Boy with Wheels for Feet

I.
When we were nine years old,
we built a clubhouse in the woods.

We tried to level the ground
with a foundation of plywood

and an old car tire toilet
that we rolled up the road from the junkyard.

We spent weeks between the trees,
planning our lives in silence

living together, alone, in the woods.

We buried a chipmunk
under the tree beside our 'house'

and put salt on its body
because you told us to

so the dogs would not find it
after we buried it three inches deep.

II.
I imagine you walking
in memories of our childhood.

I have forgotten that your toes had not touched
the soles of a shoe since years before,

years that sometimes, I can barely remember
because I am confused

that you were always walking,
that you were never bound to a chair

because we never saw it as such--it was your feet,
and you were walking.

IV.
I try not to step on the soft soil
and fresh grass, heavy on your tomb.
I know that you cannot feel it, but I feel bad anyway.
And I wish that you were not there.
And I wish that the grass were not so green
in a long rectangle of new beginnings
or endings.

V.
Snow kept us
from crisp air

and our clubhouse,
still plywood on the ground,

no walls, no doors,
just a hole underneath the rubber tire

too wide for our bums.
And the wagon,

wheels frozen to the ground,
that we did not retrieve in the spring

or the summer or fall
or even the next winter,

maybe even the next year.
But the dogs

uncovered the chipmunk
in a day. And Katlin cried

like the day you ran over the toad,
like the day we thought we were losing you,

like the day that we did lose you.

What happened to the snow?

Familiarity Syndrome

I think the world has a way of shaping itself around us so that at any point in time, we can find a way to realize that we are not as alone as we feel.

I've been a bit discouraged by "the Seattle experience" so far. I haven't really met anyone new, and people are continuing to tell me that I won't because people here are closed off and set in their ways. How encouraging. I'm also told repeatedly to soak in the sun now because, try as I might, I will get depressed at least by March because it is unavoidable. Yet again, looking forward to it.

So now that I've been thoroughly drenched in warnings of negative adjustments that are in my future, I'm starting to understand the reality of this city, the jokes that people always told. The question now: is it worth it?

Is it worth going through the hassle of changing residency? Is it worth pushing through a program that I'm really starting to doubt? Is it worth dealing with seven undergraduate women for at least a year? Is it worth the cold and the rain and the depression? Is it worth it?

I'm sure praying that the answer is yes.

As much as I love lists, I'm not even sure that a pros/cons list would help me now--anything that I could comment on would be so surface-level anyways, as I can't yet grasp all of Seattle's scenarios right now: it's all still so new to me. 

On my run today, I witnessed something that has happened to me before, but I can never understand it. Every time that I go to a new place for an extended period of time, I see people from wherever I lived before. When I moved to Waynesburg, I saw people from Mamont; even in Italy, I thought I saw people from Waynesburg, only tanner and taller and with deep, brown eyes. It always takes me aback. I have to remind myself of where I am and where those people really are--be it Pennsylvania, Arizona, or even Italy. But there's some sort of comfort in just thinking that I saw someone familiar, even someone that I only know in-passing. 

Sometimes, I'm tempted to just blurt, "You look familiar!" Then I realize how terribly inappropriate that would be, especially since I can hardly get a smile out of passers-by when I'm running or even just walking to the store. Yet, I can't help but wonder: do I look familiar to them too?

I've been having these very strong, but brief, bouts of questioning if I made the right choice in coming here. Some days, it feels so confirmed: yes! why would I be anywhere else? Other days, I feel like "the road less traveled" is that way for a reason: I'm how far into debt for business school?! Sometimes it's just comforting to know that, at least for the next month or so, I am in the same time-zone as Arizona, and that kind of feels like home; I can hide behind these mountains and no one can see me fall apart or get stronger because they are my cocoon, drenched in Puget Sound's cloud-cover, as I morph and grow into God-knows-what. Hopefully an independent young woman and not some freakish cave monster or something. As long as I still have hope in the world, I'll be just fine.

So today, I've been saved by the passing of familiar but unknown faces on the sidewalk, comforting me with the reminder that this can be home too. And even if they won't smile back, it's okay, because I'm still smiling. 

Windows, Take 2

So when I last blogged about windows, I was mostly being figurative. Today, I learned that, sometimes, God literally leaves a window open.

My day started out fantastic. I was in a great mood. I watched the last minutes of the sunrise over the bridge outside of my kitchen window. I ate breakfast and cupped my tea with both hands to keep my fingers warm. I posted my "out for a run; please leave the door unlocked" note on the door and went for a run and felt better than I have probably ever felt during a run. Five miles? No problem! Maybe I was just in too good of a mood. Karma is a bitch. Wait, that's not really how Karma works, right?

I said "Good morning!" cheerfully to every person that I passed. A lot didn't even acknowledge me, but who cares? That wasn't going to ruin my morning. Jamming to Coldplay, I walked backwards up the hill like I do everyday (don't look at me like that; it works different muscles!). I even ducked because the sun was shining just right so that I could see the spiderweb going across the sidewalk. Not this time, spider! I bounced up the stairs and opened the door. Not. I didn't open the door. Because it was locked. Because apparently, it's opposite day, and "Please leave the door unlocked" doesn't mean what it says.

An initial burst of rage ran threw me because most days, I feel like my patience in this house is zero. But I decided to give it a chance first. Deep breaths. Think. Think. I knew one of my roommates was inside sleeping, so I knocked on the door. Then I rang our terribly obnoxious doorbell about 9283479374 times. It's really bad; it makes an ERRRR!! sound and keeps going for as long as you hold in the button. No answer. Okay. I tried the other four doors to the house--all locked. I threw stones at the wall (I knew I would break a window if I tried throwing them at glass) to the room where one housemate was sleeping. No luck.

I didn't have my phone, but even if I did, I only have one housemate's number, and she was at work anyways. Aha. She works at the University cafeteria, two-ish blocks from our house. I walked to the cafeteria, but all of the doors were locked, and no one was in sight. I went to the other campus eatery and asked the lady behind the counter. She directed me to the place I had just come from. Great. I gave up and resolved to going home and waiting.

Frustrated, I tried to remind myself that it really wasn't a big deal. I won't cry over spilled milk. I won't cry over spilled milk. I won't cry over spilled milk. 

I got to the porch and decided to try the door again. I held in the doorbell this time. EERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. I watched the second-hand on the kitchen clock inside. Fifteen seconds. Still nothing. Hands cupped, peaking inside for any sign of life, I saw it---the window, propped open by a can of iced tea.

Seeing the open window from the outside, I rejoiced at two things: 1) that I opened a window last week, 2) that I ran the Rugged Maniac last month, and one of the obstacles was climbing a wall. You guessed it, from the ground, the window was on the second story.

There's a circle of plastic yard chairs by the firepit in the back. I thought I'd get one or two for a head start. Walking towards the backyard, I noticed an old ladder knotted to the cement foundation in ivy. In an excited fury, I grabbed the ladder, ripping apart its ivy bonds. I didn't even bother to do anything about the spiders. I set it against the wall. It leaned left. I tried to adjust it, but it still leaned left. It'll do.

I started climbing. The ladder still fell two or three feet shy of the window, but that was no problem. I stood on the top rungs and hoisted my torso to the windowsill. Are my hips really going to fit through this?! I nudged the window open more; the can fell, and the window stuck open by itself. Please stay open; please stay open. I kept imagining the window falling and my squirming legs knocking the ladder down and me being stuck in the window like the kitten that we found in our basement window at the first house I ever lived in when I was four years old. We named her Lucky.

There must have been some sort of luck with me today because--are you ready for this?--there was a chair on wheels just inside the window. I grabbed it with my hands and gave a jolt. Weee! I wheeled into the house; the chair literally dragged me in. This has to be quite a sight for the neighbors... Inside, I walked up to the front door--my Post-It was still there. I unlocked and opened the door. I couldn't help but laugh. Such a simple thing.

I put away the ladder, gathered up my iPod and water bottle, and collected up my iced tea can to put back in the window. Can in-place, I stared at the window. Laughing, I thought, how do I bring this up to my housemates? If I tell them about the window, they'll shut it, and I won't have a way in the next time they lock me out...

Thank you, God, for windows.

Ghosts

I've been thinking about Derek a lot lately. What else is new? I've been thinking a lot about all of the writing that I have done--our stories together--and how I don't know how I'm going to continue to pull it all together. The funny thing is...the stories haven't stopped.

Even though I can't write about him beyond these tidbits of longing, I also can't share what I've already written. I can't let anyone see-- it's like opening a book where the spine is in danger of cracking if you let the pages fall apart. But I read them to the ghost who resides at the home where I spent this summer.

I don't believe in ghosts. I used to try to-- I'd search photographs for orbs and watch television shows where the professional ghost hunters sense spirits. I never really felt it. The theory just never meshed with my perception of life and after-life. This ghost was undeniable. He would flash in my peripheral, like how Annie Dillard describes the headlights of a car rushing light through her window in An American Childhood. That's what I saw--those flashes, like someone had walked in front of a lamp. The lamps were lit, and there were no cars.

When I first realized that this really was a ghost, my initial instinct was to be afraid. I had spent several nights alone in the house, pre-awareness of the ghost, and each night, I was more afraid than the next. Of what? I couldn't pinpoint it--how dark it got when I switched the last lamp before scampering upstairs; my reflection flashed in the glass door, as if someone stood on the porch just waiting for me to be out of sight; the creak of each step and how my feet couldn't pass each other fast enough, causing my footsteps to sound like echoes as if someone were following me. So when the reality of a ghost settled in, my first thought was justification of my previous fear, but then I felt so calm.

Calm is a rarity in the chaos of everyday. This calm felt good. I felt happy. Soon enough, I learned the relief of having some company-- I no longer needed to fear these silly nothings because, even if something had come of the noises and reflections, the ghost was in my favor.

I wish that I knew his name. He never spoke, and I just didn't feel right to give him a new name. Despite his silence, we got along well. He really liked the sunroom. Most nights, he would just stand there and watch me. Many of those nights, I would be sniffling and trying to keep my eye puddles from dripping onto a couch that wasn't mine. I could feel him more than I could feel God in those moments.

One night, I went upstairs to get ready for bed. From the bathroom, I looked straight across to the main bedroom. The closet door was open just a little. It hadn't been before, I swear. Maybe it had, and I never noticed. Regardless, I could feel him. Why was he hiding that night? I walked into the room and opened the cupboard door--only clothes, folded, sleeves hanging still on over-stuffed shelves. I shut the door until it clicked.

My mind tries to justify all of this by saying that we think odd things when we are lonely, that we will do anything to comfort ourselves and not feel alone. Maybe it's true. Maybe he was just a part of my imagination. Kim does think that the ghost is a female, and she's certainly lived there longer than me. Maybe it wasn't a ghost from years long gone, someone caught between death and whatever follows. Maybe it was a friend, be it of my imagination or not. Maybe it was God, staring me in the face with the life I have been denying. Maybe it was just what I needed at the time, whatever that was.

My last night there, I was feeling particularly sad. I would be leaving Waynesburg for good. So many changes so quickly. It also meant that I would be going home--a place where Derek was not. I read all of my stories to the ghost. All of them. Every line of every poem and every page that I had compiled. I sat in the living room with my back to the sunroom--I couldn't face him when I was at my most vulnerable. I sat with no one but my own reflection in the large, dark window. Reflections didn't scare me anymore, but I could still see the flash of him pass in front of the light.

But I couldn't feel him anymore.

staggering tendrils

staggering tendrils

         run off morning

as people teach you

     kisses & meals

     consumed by liquid lips,

for leaving is not here

on my evening,

     darkened like lace,

     by summer--blossomed--

in secrets, wild

     with want & why,

when all we have

          is this

     --like work--

but I cannot ask you

               to go.

black-and-white

3rd Ave.

2:32

cycle

gum wall music

hello.

blue

brandnew

 sail

fares

take-off

Photography © Copyright 2012 Natalie George, All Rights Reserved

Signs

I was nervous--driving into a city that I had never been to, where I would live full-time for the next year at least. When we first arrived, it was chaotic. I was anxious to arrive but was a bit disappointed with what I found. For some reason, I expected Seattle to be as familiar to me as Arizona--enough that I could get where I wanted to go, yet still with much left to explore. Since "settling in," I've realized that I don't know a damn thing about this place.

When we entered the city and saw the freeways and streets, I had the feeling of home that I get when I first arrive in Phoenix. It took me all day to remember that I was four states north and would remain so.

After getting the "tour" of the house that I was to share with seven? eight? (I'll never get it right...) other girls this year, I panicked. Let's be real here--the place looked like it hadn't been lived in for years: mold, flies, scum. I can't even begin to describe it. Taking lots of deep breaths, my mom, aunt, and I went for a drive. For fresh air? Maybe, but for some reason, I thought that I could just find a new place and be done. Be okay.

Attempting to be stoic, we reached the end of my street. We saw it---across the road was a sign, huge, reading "222". My grandma's number. My mom always said that whenever that number shows up, Grandma is with us because that was her lottery number that she always played: it identified her and kept her with us in that way.

"Something good is going to happen," my aunt said.

Even though I have fervently felt a connection with that number my whole life, this time, all that I could think was, "Grandma's not going to show up and make everything better this time. She's not in the material." I was right, and I was very wrong.

We returned to the house and unpacked my things. It's just a house was my mantra for the next 24 hours. The next day, we deep-cleaned the major areas of the house--the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and my room. It's just a house. It's just a house, I repeated as I scrubbed lines of black mold from the bathroom tiles. Light echoed past the pink orchid that previously sat in the kitchen sink housing flies; it now smiled into the sun from the windowsill. I looked at the room and took a more final deep breath. Home.

Chores done, we went exploring the next day. My aunt's number one site to see in Seattle was the Space Needle, so we went there first. From over 600 feet in the air, we viewed the cloudy city. Nothing looked familiar, but I thought about how well I would come to know these streets in the next year, just as it took some time to get to know Pittsburgh when I first started going into town. I also thought about Italy and how I climbed the Duomo; I pointed out my apartment and the many streets that I had ventured in that short month. Maybe at the end of my Seattle adventures I can do the same. But now, I couldn't even point out the direction where my house was or even where the bus had dropped us off in-town.

Next to the Space Needle, there was a new exhibit--Chihuly glass & gardens. I knew that my mom and aunt would love it because they always commented on the Chihuly pieces installed at Phipps Conservatory. We bought a dual ticket for the Needle and the gardens and smoothly transitioned from one to the next.

Bright pieces of ornately twisted and connected glass reflected off the floor, each other, and the spectators' eyes and glasses in colorful array. Outside, orchids and maples blended with glass shine and organic form.

I could breathe easy, and I was growing to like the city--a place that intimidates me at every thought. I knew that my house was going to work out, even though we hadn't found a different one. I knew that I would be okay here.

As we walked from room to room in the exhibit, I happened to glance behind me at the door: Room occupancy, max capacity: 222.

I believe in signs.