The Place Beyond The Pining

There is the thing, and the pining for the thing, and the are two very different things. Sometimes when I get the thing, I miss the pining for the thing. Lately I have been pining for...everything I've ever had, been or done. My life is so solitary and peaceful (though I'm kind of uncomfortable with the peace) that I just sit in reverie over things I've never really thought about before as having been so freakin delightful. I miss what my life was like in college. I miss what my life was like when I live in NYC. I miss the two hour nightly phone calls with Erica that went on for years when I lived in New York & she in Chicago. I miss that my life was all in front of me and that it doesn't feel that way anymore. I don't know if I can possibly top the deep fulfillment and excitement that the 7 season in the Antarctic brought me. I am waiting to go back, but am afraid of that I've been gone so long some key continuity will be gone when I get back. I've got to change my thinking about that. I've just got to as I've got all my eggs in that basket.

For some reason I just bought a cabin on Mt. Hood. I am in the period of serious buyer's remorse and thinking I'm going to try & get out of it right away but maybe it could lead to something really cool. I bought it so I could ski every day, so hopefully I'll get to do that...or at least 3-5 times a week. I want to impress them in Taos next year...I want to be good. But even as I write this there is a part of me so walled of to this world & place I live currently. My heart is at McMurdo, and everything that goes with that, and to some degree in Austin. I don't give a fig about the hipster Portland thing...I just want to do unbelievably fun & exotic trips, with knitting and processing in between.

It is so hot & sunny here it is shocking...but the best part is as soon as the sun goes down it drops into the 50's...something we never got in Texas. This move is doing something for me that is good - I am very busy with it & get to settle into my new place and see what it is like out there. I don't expect to like it in the summer but who knows, it could be surprising. Maybe I am a mountain girl after all. I know that of all the mountians I've been too, I really like this one. It is less intimidating than Taos, and the snow covered trees are amazing in the winter. It will be beautiful!

Pie For Joy

Wow, just read that last entry that was written almost 9 months ago and I'm always impressed with what I've written after I've written it. While I'm writing it it always seems logorrheic. I've been writing in diaries for as long as I can remember. I threw about 30 years worth of them away in a massive de-clutter, but I have one I wrote when I was around 12, and it is so sad it is hard for me to read. Probably the most miserable time in my life. I don't know why I kept that one and not the insanely entertaining and shocking ones from my college days. I could probably just have typed those up and had a memoir (albeit a 10,000 page memoir). There were thousands of entries about some boy or man that I was over the top obsessed with...don't think I wrote much about all the crazy drinkin and druggin, nor did I itemize my daily activities like some people do. It was all about the angst within, which was basically a bottomless hunger for the twisted fulfillment of basic id needs and an addiction to excitement that the bar kept being raised on until it became reckless and dangerous.

This is not what I sat down to write about! I just got back from my fourth trip of the year...ughad why I think I could ever feel sorry for myself about anything is beyond me. All I ever wanted to do was travel and have adventures and now I get to do it. But I don't get to do it all the time WAAAAAAAH. And I can't go back to Antarctica because my dog is still alive WAAAAAAAH.

I just got back from my annual painting workshop in Toas. Jesus I cannot believe how awesome that was....In March I went to UAE and Oman and came back almost tripping with happiness. The I went to my annual ski week in Taos and that seemed even more awesome than it ever has been. And a few days ago I just got back from a 9 day workshop in Taos that I have been doing for 13 years. 13 years later I have had my heart blasted open like I have never done this painting before. I had a full on ripped up from the inside see-god-now experience and it just keeps happening every time I go there. I always go so crickly and hard-edged and angry and addled...and come back just soft as a grandma. Just drop all that shit in nine days of full on intimacy with myself. And I came back wanting to move to Taos. For the first time kind of seriously. If I can live in this former farm town now silicon valley of Oregon I guess I can live anywhere. I cannot imagine living anywhere and feeling more isolated that I am here. But when the plane from ABQ was flying over Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens and I saw all that lush green I sensed I would miss this place. I had such a great experience going to Mt. Hood Meadows this past winter, and if I worked at Toas it might not make the annual mecca there as special. So now I am looking at these affordable cabins near Mt. Hood so I can work there during ski season. I would live in the mountains, but not near any town...not near anytown near as cool as Taos. But I have to take the chance and do this one goal I've been thinking of for years so that I can get in a lot more ski days. I only did 31 last season, which is about 25 more than I usually do, but I want to ski all season. I want to get good. And having started so late, I have to do it 3 or 4 days a week to get good.

But it is only May. And I just got my new passport in the mail...wheeeee it is so beautiful and stiff! My last one got quite a workout and was floppy with wear. I'm itchin' to get those first stamps this year. I could move out of my apt. when my lease is up in June and go to India or Scotland or Africa. I'm going back to Taos in Sept. for the painting again so that will be a big deal. I feel like I should be doing something worthwhile, to help other people or something...I spend so much time absorbed with the planning and the details of my little dreams and plans. Delicious.

Tomorrow I'm driving out to look at the wee cabins again at Mt. Hood. The owners called me as they really want to unload them...The two ladies I talked to were so kind and gave me so much information about the mountain and what it is like to live there that I saw that living out there would be like living in a really tiny community..I felt like I had some friends after talking to them for about an hour each. I have seen this side of myself lately where I try and keep strangers in a conversation way too long as I need the human contact so badly...but the one lady I talked to told me that she was 85 & her son wanted her to move out of a house that had stairs so she is selling her cabin. Her name is Joy and we tried to talk several times but there were some phone & bluetooth issues, but when I finally got to really talk to her I felt a sharp pang that she was living alone and driving herself places at her age. She told me  to come to her cabin after her dr. appt tomorrow morning and I found myself wanting to offer to drive her to it. She lives 90 miles away from me but what else do I have to do but knit and scheme. When we  were getting off of the phone she said she'd love to visit with me even if I didn't buy the cabin...and I was very touched. I so appreciated her graciousness in wanting to spend time with me after a phone conversation, and I'm sure she sensed I could use a friend too...even if it's just for a few hours. The Herculean efforts I make for social contact since I've moved to Oregon are sometimes embarrassing in their desperation. But I'm not going to be hard on myself for this: I'll never beat myself up for making efforts and showing up even if the event turns out to be a bust (and oh so often it is here)...because damnit, I'm making an effort and not just sitting at home. Not one thing has come my way here...I've had to chase it all down. Life is so different now. I think the only way I could get a date with a man is to pay them. My life was so different before the Ice. Then there was the Ice. And now I'm not sure what the fuck is going on except that it's a mixed back of euphoric travel experiences mixed with a whole lot of downtime and knitting...and waiting...waiting...waiting...

And the one thing I've never had to live without, luscious and lots of attention from men, is totally absent. And that is one of the worst things about this suburban vacuum: my spinster status and the continual and draining attitude adjustment I've had to make to try and accept this really dry and awful season...nothing could be more against my nature than being asexual, or celibate, and I really really hate it. And for the first time, I have no options in that area. At least no options that wouldn't leave me feeling crappy about myself.

And I never thought I'd say this kind of thing but I'm looking forward to meeting this sweet old lady tomorrow. I just went and bought her a piece of pie for our meeting. I will take some pie for Joy. And we will have a nice visit.

We Can Stand a Half Mile Away From Each Other and Wave Enthusiastically

While in the throes of hysterical jealousy and sadness (mostly internal) while my tribe deploys to the Ice without me, I realized that I had made a choice not to go back, so while it's okay to feel some pain around not being able to go with them, to act like a whiny assed toddler was just stupid and childish.

My new life hasn't been that great. I feel like I've had to WORK so HARD for just a scraping of happiness or joy when that stuff just floods over me on Ice. I've tried to force myself to recreate the same sorts of things in Austin here in Portland, and even tried the same sort of work I did Way Down Under...but I haven't hit the magic button. When Winfly started this year I was flattened. I was heartbroken. And what I've had to really take a hard look at and turn the corner on is acceptance. Stone cold acceptance of Reality. I was not truly accepting the decision I myself had made to take care of the doggie in his geriatric years. In the back of my mind I knew there was the escape hatch of begging my mom to take my pet so I could go back. But this would not be respecting her wishes of being free of that chore. As a former therapist said about me, I always have my hand on the doorknob. I need an escape hatch.

I have spent almost every day of the past 16 months with my dog. This is the longest time I've spent with him in over seven years. I gallivanted around the globe, taking for granted that I had a dog sitter that loved this little guy as much as I did. Probably more. Because now that I am missing a second season in a row on Ice, I see how much I have loved my career more than him.  I loved my career more than any man or job or house or stateside routine. And I might still love it more, but I feel it is the right thing to do to commit to an ancient pet. I mean, it won't kill me will it, to miss several seasons of deployment? Won't it mean something in the end that I took care of this little guy in his final years. Ultimately, I don't know. I'm so nutso over this that I am having to listen and replay the words of a wise friend "you will never regret spending his last few years with him..." I have to keep replaying that in my head because my selfish, massively Ice-stroked ego keeps raging at me. He bullies me day and night calling me a loser for living this cosseted, easy lifestyle of long languorous unbusy days and endless mornings of coffee drinking followed by endless hours of waiting for the sun to go down. He was built and empowered by my gradual ascent into Bad-Assness on the Ice and now he is starving and angry and really pissed off at me for taking his big yellow tractor away. He says fuck it to the dog I'm fucking going back I don't fucking care how much she doesn't want to take care of him or how much fucking money it costs to get out of this lease or how logistically difficult it will be to get everything in place to go - I don't fucking care because I have to fucking go back. I have to go back to fucking survive, because if I don't I'm a big pussy loser who took the easier, softer way so fucking fuck it! It took me so long to find this gig  and explode it into the awesomeness it became - and now I can't have it? WTF!

Wow, I guess I really needed to get that out of my system. Underneath this Ice-stroked bully (therapy mode on) was a terrified child who was clueless on how to direct her life now that everything that defined her was gone. The hardest thing in the world for me to do was to be kind and loving with this terrified child. It is so much more in my nature to go with the ego..the one that Wants and Rants and Judges and Refuses to by Happy until he Gets what he Wants. Just like a two year old. Life would not bring me here to drop me on my ass (or maybe it did). Is it really as I hard as I'm making it to make a happy life here? I mean, I have a living situation that I LOVE, a smattering of pals and maybe even a close friend here. My deep, deep interactions are with oldest and dearest spattered around the country.

If I really think on it, I had joy in my life before the Ice: there were coffee shops and bands and yoga and trips and juicy good hangs with friends. I still get to travel. And I even don't have to work (though I'm better off if I do). I could sign up for classes. I can go on dog-friendly road trips. I can make more friends. I can do just about anything BUT go to the Ice...and by the time I stop freaking out about it, the precious pet may be on the other side of the dirt. G'bless him, he's an angel.

Maybe I'm just justifying why I'm not following the deepest yearning of my heart. Maybe I just really suck and figuring out what to do with loads of free time. But I think it's really important for me to remember the words of my Wise Friend: you will never regret spending his last few years with him...

The fact that I had to write that down twice (and even once in squiggly writing so I could find it easier) shows what a stone cold bitch I am at wanting the dirty-black-carhartt-wearin'-tractor-drivin' Me back, and saying "fuck it" to dog sitting.

I guess it's okay to just miss it. To miss the life I had for the last seven years that I can probably get back when I'm pet free someday. It's just getting through the days themselves that are the hard part. I just need to keep the little broken hearted girl whose dream came true and then she had to give it up contained and soothed until that time rolls around again. And then there's the little dog - so precious, so full of love and loyalty, and me, his assigned caretaker. It's the only thing I have to do.

Hello From Crone-ville p.III

this post was written over a year ago, cleaning out my drafts folder, enjoy!

Now that I'm entrenched in my 50s (OMG) I feel the burgeoning of some sort of wisdom but I also can spiral into obsessing over my trouble free and "luxury problem" filled life. I listened to a friend today while he talked about the troubles he was having around eating too much food & an hour into his sharing I was struck by the empty void that needs filling by the child free life - it must be filled with the babies of creativity! We, who have nothing we HAVE to take care of outside of ourselves, nothing depending on us for sustenance, can create "worries" and "problems" out of some pretty banal stuff. We, who sit in coffees shops wearing shorts we bought for two dollars in 1987 at the army surplus store, with our identical Mac laptops surfing sites that fill our brains with information so we'll have something to talk about...think about.

I only write postings like this when I am off Ice and my mind is skittering about over 10,000 things I could do with my life. 10,000 things before breakfast. I live in a small country town outside of Portland where I don't know a soul and live a cloistered life in the most wonderful domicile I've ever lived in. I knit and watch movies and play with my dog and feel very content. But the old excitement-craving me is bubbling under the surface...

I thrive on excitement, travel, an unknown future - I could never do the 9-5 again...not for an extended time period at least. I feel stuck...like I can't decide which way to go, like life is just waiting & brimming for me..holding out it's giant earthy hands swirling with lions & tigers & death & joy & sadness & living on the knife edge of reality.

Hello From Crone-ville p.II

If I could speak to young girls in an auditorium (assuming someone asked me to) I feel like I would have something to say to them. I would tell them that there will always be boys and men and dating and sex so just accept it as part of life but put YOURself as the person most important in your life. I never had a desire for a family or children and I know that this puts me in a minority of women, but if there is one girl who goes into that lifestyle who doesn't want it (do that many girls really want that?), and if I could reach out to that one girl and tell her her deepest dreams and desires could, would actually, come true if she was driven and committed to them as we women of my generation and before were told we were to be to men and our children. Say a 12 year old girl dreams of travelling the world. She doesn't come from a wealthy family or know if she can get into college but that is her dream in her heart. Her heart starts racing when she sees travel shows or brochures, and studies maps and globes as some girls study fashion magazines. Her family and friends may tell her to focus on a practical job and their may be subtle or unspoken generations pressure or programming for her to find a man to "take care of her," but if she takes that dream seriously and starts to take action towards it, however small, the dream will grow and expand and she may find herself doing things she'd never even considered or thought of...but she will be travelling. That is actually my story. I saw throughout my life that anytime I'd try to compromise that dream I would be miserable. Sure I found ways to jam some travel into my life...but it was not until I took some really big risks and made some big changes in my life that that dream became bigger than travel, bigger than anything I could have imagined. I talk to people my age, some younger, and even some kids about what their dreams are and they either say they never had any or filed it away as unattainable so many years ago that they can't remember what it was. I was driven by a hunger. I was clueless when I started out in life and didn't know what I wanted. I only knew I wanted to live in New York City. So I moved there and adult life overwhelmed me so I fed my hunger in self-destructive ways. I had very low self esteem, and saw very quickly that I wanted nothing to do with the corporate world. The dream that burned in me seemed at times to be my tormenter too - it wanted to be satisfied but I didn't feel I had the tools or maturity to address it. It took many years to get on a track of loving my life and my work, and I took a lot of action to prepare me for the life that I had pursued: I quit being self destructive with alcohol and chemicals, I went to a therapist, I employed a life coach, I did all kinds of workshops on finding one's passion, and read every book out there on the color of my parachute...and I think all that stuff helped. I was blessed with not having a family that pressured me for grandbabies (whenever I hear of such nonsense being played out today it seems surreal) or pressure me in anything at all. And I've seen how my "defects" have helped me to pursue my dreams: I'm so bad at romantic relationships that they don't last long enough to take me off my track. My fear of rootedness, domesticity and stasis has kept me on the run and externally and internally and I've always thought of "settling down" as a "settling" in general. If someone's hearts desire is to be utterly rooted and domesticated for their entire life and they can obtain that that is awesome. That is their success!

I see homeless people everywhere around me as I live downtown. When I do this feeding mission in the park I get to engage with hundreds of them. I make eye contact and smile and make chitchat with a lot of them and they are great folks for the most part. Many or mentally ill and drug addicted and some seem like they just got on the streets. When I leave this gig on Sunday I have this very strong sense that I am not one bit different than these people except for one thing: I am luckier. It is so sad that this country throws mentally ill people out on the streets; it is heartbreaking to see the elderly sleeping out in the rain, and it reminds me to not kvetch about whatever problems I might perceive that I have. But I have always felt very connected with these people on the streets. I wonder what dreams these people had and how they got to a place where their life was just about survival. When I was first out of college and working I could not for the life of me figure out how people made enough money to buy houses, cars, etc. I could never find jobs that paid much more than minimum wage, and always felt like I was one hair away from living on the streets. It was an extremely stressful time in my life..and with all my intelligence and independence and a bit of help from my family it was still very very hard. I can see why people pair off as it is very expensive to live alone. I have been able to afford living alone for 15 years now and don't know if I could ever give up that luxury.

This is a long rambling mass of a post that has no new or important information. I'm doing this just to practice writing, and to keep reminding myself that even though most of my dreams have come true, I still have more clambering for attention. Whoever said it was about the journey and not the destination was right - the second I reach my destination I see that the joy was in the dreaming, planning and action phases. I am having a bit of rootedness right now, but it's not the trapped style, it's more a pause to see what is going to happen next...or what it is I'm going to have to make happen next...stay tuned!

Hello from Crone-ville

this was written  05/24/11 & posted 08/21/12

I must have used this title before for a posting as it auto-filled as I started writing it. I had been putting up fluffy, shallow postings on my other blog about my exciting new life in a new city, but they were not heartfelt or real...just something to throw up to keep people reading, and more, I think, to see for myself if I could come up with something to write about. I have a lot of idle time on my hands now that the thrill of driving across country and setting up my new place have been completed. I get a lot of good feelings from going on job interviews and I've sent out so many applications that I've gone on quite a few...I got a part time teamster dock worker job within 10 days of moving here & I thought "this is it. I've arrived. I'm as cool as I was as an Antarctic worker...", but such is not the case.

I had such an epic season this last one on Ice that I'm finding it hard to just be a regular joe living a regular life. That scenario makes me panic, so I'm looking for creative stuff to do in my idle hours. I'm disappointed with my dock worker job for two reasons: I never know when they are going to call me (I'm an "on call" worker) so I am stressed out to make plans for the day, and I've gotten injured on the two shifts I've worked. And I couldn't tell them because of the macho culture there where we won't get hired full time if we get hurt as a part timer. All of this while I'm paying hefty Union dues and not getting anything out of it except for an extremely cool hoodie (that I paid extra for). So I'm continuing my job search, yet worried about committing to a full time permanent gig after 7 years of working half the year. I'll go back to the Ice someday, but probably not til my dog has made his "transition."

Also, along with the idle time has been some discomfort that has been tugging at my soul...some teeth grinding and tear filled Sundays where I'm feeling frustrated and sad. [ginormous, sprawling & whiny deleted section]. I had been obsessed and grieving until I got to the Ice, the Great Ameliorator and Fixer of everything in my life. I was so busy and engaged in my new job I didn't feel the pain of the loss anymore - though I must have talked about it as a friend pretended to be sawing his neck open with a plastic knife in the galley one night - oops, I must still have been talking about it more than I thought. I met someone wonderful on the Ice and we are having a great relationship, but recently I saw that I still had some grieving to do over this old relationship - [another huge new yorker length tomelette deleted - you would thank me!] but I found out today, and it was just: ouch.

I am going to try and make the best of "regular life" here. I have gone to storytelling shows, art museums, hipster golf, and some awesome volunteer gigs. I may give up this potentially high paying teamster gig to do a more scheduled type warehousing job. Moving to Portland has made me happy in so many respects, and I am grateful for the opportunities laid at my feet. I am tired of trying to be "good" and trying so hard to be perfect since moving here.

I do a homeless feeding mission that should make me very grateful for my luxury problems. I have cracked ribs right now and the good thing is they hurt everytime I laugh...and the one thing I do a lot with my boyfriend is laugh. We were serving up the plates for the 750 homeless folks who showed up for dinner and one guy bumped into the guy next to me and I ended up wearing about a gallon tub of cottage cheese on my jacket, purse and shoes. Chad and I were so busy we couldn't stop serving to clean it up so I just kept laughing as the cheeze was rolling down my side as the rain was hitting it. We laugh over trips to goodwill and the dollar store. He is my Wyoming cowboy gone city cook...and has enriched my life in ways he'll never know.

Reinventing at Mid-Life

I cringe when I write that: mid-life. It sounds so freakin old! I don't act or look my age (I hope) but I feel this strong push to reinvent myself by 50 (soon-ish). I've already gotten a new career, completely and utterly unlike what I've done up until now. I worked fairly hard to get it and then luck met opporunity and things fell in place. Check. I am struggling with accepting my looks. I've kind of just gone with the aging so far but am really thinking about getting a little "work" done...don't even know what kind but some sort of neck-skin replacement surgery might be called for. My figure is amazingly holding up well despite my diet, one that is akin to an 8 year old boy's. If I changed my diet radically I would probably look amazing. I am riding on good genes, lots of physical work outside & moderate exercise, and the ability for my anxiety to act like "aerobics" and speed up my metabolism. But the thing I'm really feeling like I need to look at is my accomplishments - in one sense I can stack them up & say they are pretty fair: college degree, acted on a couple of big moves to unknown cities by myself, fair amount of world travel, a thriving art life with dedicated painting, shows, and sales, and trying some new things like skiing, acting & scooter riding. But I want to do more. I am jealous of people who know how to fix lamps, refinish furniture, repair autos, or just tinker with things in general. I know people who can spend an "idle" weekend building websites & doing amazing things on the computer that I don't have an aptitude for. Now I could easily learn how to wrench on things or make stuff in my free time but I find that I don't do it but spend a lot of time thinking about it. Once I got off Ice just obsessed with learning how to operate heavy equipment. I investigated all the schools but it just didn't feel right. I see my friends who make art plug away at that & use the excuse that I am houseless and don't have a studio space. I try to blog, and at times that can be extremely satisfying when I've gotten to the vein of truth in a piece, but I feel a call to write a memoir and I get a thrill when I think about it but feel overwhelmed by it at the same time. I want to stack accomplishments now: learn to dive, ride a real motorcycle, get in great physical shape, find a bitchin' hairdo. I also want to find a new way to express love & appreciation to people and the world. Maybe in a creative way...maybe in a service way...and finally, someday I want a wee manor house in Scotland or Ireland...for when I'm older.