Outside my home in Portland 2003.
Hello lovelies in the world. Or wherever else you might be...living amongst your dreams and your visions.
I'm about to embark down memory lane, or what might seem like a bit of egocentric mania to anyone who happens upon it, but I just want to say ahead of time that I am posting it as a sort of therapeutic reminder to myself of the life I have lived. Recently, I hit a pretty lame moment on the life-road, just for a minute....in my attempts to start a family. And in my failure thus far I'm a bit of a baby and a drama queen, so 6-8 months of trying for something that I suddenly think I want terribly has seemed like an eternity. But the real hell that comes over me every time my period shows up isn't within the fact that I'm not pregnant, but more in the possibility and fear and worry that I might never be able to be. The reality of aging. Each time I find out I am not able to conceive yet is another time that my mind is filled with absolute worry that it might never happen because I am past the point of naturally easy attained fertility. I am 35, to be 35 and a half on March 10th. With the disappointment and anxiety that I might never be able to have a family, comes a self destructive meanness and anger at the loss of youth, and an anger at myself for waiting so long to be ready for children. I would have tried earlier if I had even known how severely your childbearing ability begins to decline, really it does!, around age 30-35. I just wasn't thinking of it, or when anyone brought it up I just thought it was fear-based hocus pocus. Now I realize it is real- scientifically biologically proven, and it's frustrating and scary. It's so NOT FAIR that men can take part of the reproduction of healthy children well into their 80s! Somehow remembering what my own life has already consisted of is comforting. It makes my age seem worth it, even yet without children. These are just a few bits of stories that are hidden from my view most of the time, in old photo albums and boxes and diaries. I wanted to pull them out and dust them off because sometimes, in this modern technology moment, I completely forget the sweetest adventures that happened in my life before Facebook, blogs, Iphones, and digital cameras.
Santa Barbara 1999.
And besides, without the passage of time and all of its odd landmarks (like the dirty looking age spots on my forehead uggh), all these things that I have done so far in my life would not exist. I like to think that I have extracted beauty from my experiences so far in the world and have written their lovelinesses into my soul permanently. And perhaps as the beauty of all that experience builds up, my outer skin fades and spots, my teeth jut out more (and or crumble), my hair greys, my ovaries lose their once industrious work-ethics, and years of emotions carve tiny canyons into my face. But alas, as says my favorite book
The Little Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery, "What is essential is invisible to the eye." Perhaps there it lies, all that essential beauty I've run into along the way, all the essential learning and experience, whirling around in my soul, and perhaps it matters for some reason beyond my reach! Perhaps that kind of soul stuff is ten times more important than pretty skin! ? I also like to think that the beauty collected and stored in your soul is visible to those who are also searching for and gathering their own experiences of wisdom and adventure. That those who seek true beauty can see it other seekers' eyes, and don't look for it on their skin. But growing old in this country and in the midst of all of its social constructs can do a number on a girl. New Year's Eve it did a number on me. But I'm not willing to let it continue ....so here's to the belief that beauty dwells much deeper than skin and that experience and courage are what makes a woman more powerful, not just older. And here's to scanning old photos! :)
All this life.
Heather at the Oregon Country Fair.
One of my favorite ways that I have spent my time gathering beauty in this life is one of the most magical, whimsical and holy ways imaginable. With my beautiful, smart, and wonderfully fun sister. Everyone who knows Heather knows that she is one of their favorite persons to be around. There is never a dull moment, and I mean ....NEVER. She is so fun and is in such high demand that it can be really hard to get ahold of her, even for me, as there are veritable Heather competitions to see who can get her for the evening, day, whatever. I'm serious, the girl gets like 20 phone calls every morning. I tell her I would kill for that much popularity! And its because she is kind, creative, beautiful, absolutely NOT BORING, talented, overly generous, and just a plain amazing soul. No one could ever get too much Heather time.
She makes you feel something that is almost indescribable. Perhaps it's just a sort of whirlwind of thought and kindness, activity and vividness that moves in the air around her, and contagiously you feel wanted, excited, rewarded for being alive.
2001 (mint green honda days)
Ever since about 1993, around the time we both got our drivers licenses, we have taken to the notion of absconding from the world and heading out together on road trips. Sometimes they lasted a day. Sometimes they lasted three days. Often we slept in the car in parking lots and brushed our teeth and got gussied up in coffee shops in the morning. Other times we stayed in cheap, cozy, (one time bullet-ridden) motel rooms. Sometimes we would start our driving at midnight and drive all night long, and sometimes we would get up at the break of dawn. We have patched passenger side car floor-holes with pillows to block the subfreezing air from whirring into our old jalopy. We have watched the moon rise and then fall and then the sun rise with the moon still looking on. We pulled off the side of the road to collect seashells, go on hikes, explore docks, old broken houses, forest paths. We have run to the edge of night ocean cliffsides screaming "Heathcliff!!" pretending and spinning in full-grown adulthood but with the childlike glory that can rarely be shared or let free. We have gone on so many road trips together we probably could not count them all. We would reconnoiter at gas stations, cafes, rest stops, ocean beaches, art monuments, ice machines.
1999, visiting our brother Matt in Santa Barbara.
We have combed the streets of New York together, freezing and without even 20 dollars, after my airline and her busline both lost our individual luggages and we found out that Heather's house burned down- (I picture one of those "while you were away" notepads with "luggage disappeared, house burned down" scribbled on it.) We have slept in December tents together and held hands in Pioneer Square (Portland) as John Lennon's words echoed over thousands and as Y2K failed to meet everyone's stupid doomsday expectations. We have discovered people that others thought were forever lost, we have met old souls and listened to their strange and distant stories over dark beers along the stretch of resined wooden bars littered with peanut shells and cigarettes. We have spent hours huddled in cozy seaside bookstores. We have sung at the top of our lungs while winding up Highway 1 or across the brown and barren Nevada endlessness- Bryan Adams, Ryan Adams, Grandaddy, Tori Amos, Cake, Lucinda Williams, Bob Dylan. We have climbed ocean rocks to meet morning fisherman at Pacific Grove, we have held our breath whilst entering dark and ominous taverns in the middle of redwood forests (almost strictly to defeat our own dramatic fears!), we have ice skated together in romantic Ashland, we have met strangers in streets and cafes and park benches and on 5th Avenue, we have cuddled up over coffee and cleaned up in countless rest stops and talked for hours about our wildest and most bizarre dreams. One of them investigating various bathrooms and writing a book about the best road trip restrooms along different routes. One of them was living in a giant seaside Victorian together and eating whatever we wanted always and growing old together huge and fat and happy. One of them was creating a book called "Lighthouses and Palm Readers"- that documented both along highway paths (which we still may do!). We have buried lost treasure and found it again. We have lost our minds on the road together and we have found those again, too. We have witnessed actual magic. Actual, real, synchronistic and glorious chaotic magic. I can't even begin to tell you all the adventure and wonderful insanity and odd sorts of destiny that has happened with Heather at my side. And it is only by the grace and allowance of the passage of time, and with it our inevitable aging, that all this beauty could exist.
1998, visiting Matt in Utah.
Twin Lakes near Bridgeport, California- 2000?
Bird watching field trip to Elkhorn Slough- 2000.
Y2K Oregon New Year's road trip- December 1999.
New York City, November 2000.
One of the early trips! 1995?
Utah with Matty. 1998.
Near Hearst Castle, I forget when.
There's one more fear I have about starting a family. ..... That if I can have one I won't have sisters.
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| Elkhorn Slough trip |
Ashland Oregon January 2000.
At my work in Portland, 2003.
And more of the brewing.
Cooling the wort as quickly as possible. We did ours with ice and a bathtub (the po' man's way).
