Goat Ranch Life

Life Rolling Along

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The flurry of the holidays are over, but now the really expectant time of the year begins….baby goat season will be upon us in six or seven weeks. The mamas (or, more correctly, the does) have their shaggy winter coats and grow heavier in the pasture. I don’t interact with them every day, but visit them from time to time to reconnect. They have grown more wary; I’m not sure if that’s an effect of their pregnancy or if it’s just because I haven’t been associated with the grain bucket every morning.

Lovely ladies

I’ve been here for over a year now, and have memories of the cycle of seasons through the year. As exhausted as I became last spring, I can’t help but look forward to kidding season. P says February 20 is the day, but I’m still hoping for Valentine’s day kids. Remember last year when I was anxiously examining the privates of every goat for weeks before we had our first happy deliveries? I expect I probably will be again.

I’ve never been good on patience, and I am being tested on that again. This time, it’s with the gigantic bureaucracy of the US government. I applied for the Peace Corps in November, and even though it all moved rather rapidly, it’s felt like an exercise in sitting with the unknown future.

It was an interesting thought path in the decision to apply for the PC (which I’ll call it for now, to keep this from popping up too much in search engines). I’ve been reading, off and on, Peter Matthiessen In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, a devastating account of the continuing travesty of the treatment of Native Americans by we-the-people. A couple of references in the book to shamanism had me doing some casual research online, comparing Mongolian shamanism to Native American practices…and noticing the similarities in how those cultures have progressed. (In Mongolia, the Soviets moved in and “modernized” things…moving a nomadic culture off the land, severed their ties to wild nature and to their spiritual traditions, and moved them into urban areas where now rather than providing for themselves, they are simply poor. And, oh yes…drunk on vodka most of the time. Sound familiar?)

I have been crazy about the Mongolian Eagle Hunters for a long time. It is a dream of mine to see them in person some day. So while sitting at the computer, the thought pops into my head. “Why don’t I see if I can get the PC to send me to Mongolia?!”

It seemed like a silly idea at first, but I went off to the web site and started reading about it. My aunt was in the PC in it’s very early days; she served in Ethiopia. There is something about her outlook in life that I have always loved, and I found myself wondering if her PC experience had anything to do with that.

I found that you can’t choose where you will serve in the PC; you can suggest where you might like to go, but it’s very rare to be sent there. I found that most people who go to Mongolia have a background in teaching English as a second language, which I don’t have. But by the time I found that, I realized that everything about serving was sounding really good to me.

For a while now, I’ve been wrestling with the idea of doing good work in the world. I’m fortunate in that much of the work I do to earn a living is overall positive, but I don’t have a strong sense that it’s making a difference. I don’t have to do big things, but I do want to feel like I’m contributing to a greater good, even if it means working on bringing a better self forward in the world.

I also wrestle with the sheer mechanics of making a living. I’m pretty desperate to not go back into a full-time office environment and all that entails. I think it would literally kill me. I have enough trouble with the amount of time I spend in front of the computer now. But I haven’t really figured out yet how to make it all work. I’ve managed to keep health insurance, but I end up working almost a whole week every month just to pay for that, and the deductible is so high, I’m scared to use it. I love rural life, but auto milage adds up and I live in fear of car problems. (With good reason….I was able to get my car fixed last month relatively cheaply, given that a mechanic friend was very, very good to me. Even so, the yet-to-be-reimbursed tow and the repairs had me in a bind with January rent.) The situation on the ranch is iffy…it could be sold, and even though that would take time, who knows what I’d do then. And don’t even ask me about paying income tax. Taxes? April perhaps will be the cruelest month after all.

So the PC might buy me some time and space to keep figuring this out, while at the same time doing work I can believe in AND knocking me off my well-worn paths and opening my heart to something bigger and different. It would be an adventure of a lifetime, and those tax dollars would actually go towards keeping me sheltered, fed, working, and medically cared for while I did something generally positive.

The more I sat with the idea, the better it felt. Was I “pulling a geographic” – trying to escape my life for a fantasy of something else? I don’t think so. There is the mechanical making-a-living piece that perhaps I’m trying to “escape”, but I see this as more of a respectable solution to that instead of an escape from it. I’ve been sitting around for three years now with a feeling that I want to feel some purpose in life, and I’m not getting it on my own. It feels really good to think I can turn this over to a higher power and say, “OK. You decide how I can be of service and I am going to trust that it will be the right thing for me to be doing.”

So I talked to a recruiter. Got my application in. Convinced three wonderful people to write references for me. Got an interview. Then stalked my post office box (and my recruiter’s telephone) while waiting impatiently. Finally I got the nomination:

nominated to a/an Ag Extension assignment, going to the Africa region. Anticipated departure date is October 2011.

Exciting! I did some research online and found that the type of assignment and the departure date means it’s likely that the assignment is for one of three countries: Niger, Burkina Faso, or Rwanda. And the number of Ag Extension volunteers going to Niger has typically far exceeded the number sent to the other two countries. Of course, they could have a new program in a different country planned, or change some of the departure dates, so I would just drive myself crazy trying to “plan” to go to one of those places.

But this is all even more tenuous than it might sound here. My recruiter cautioned me that between nomination and the official invitation, assignments change up to 50% of the time. The official invitation happens only after passing medical and legal clearance (oh, hello IRS!), which I’m stumbing through now, and it is a huge pain in the ass, not to mention pocketbook. There seem to be an infinite number of things which could prevent me from going, not the least of which is my own ability to accept bureaucracy…possibly the greatest skill required for the whole venture.

Because the PC is a government agency, there’s a lot of data about it available on the web. I found that, out of 100 applicants, 65% get a nomination…that’s where I’m at. 42% (or 65% of those who get nominated) make it to receiving an invitation. 33% make it to trainee. 25% serve a year in-country, and 22% serve the entire 27-month term (3 months program and language training in-country, and 24 months of project service).

I’ve been trying to keep it quiet, but word has been getting out, so…well, I guess that’s one reason I haven’t been writing much here. But I may as well, because I miss writing here.

I must admit, however…there’s been another distraction. Over the holidays, I decided to go ahead and create a profile on a dating site. I’m honestly not sure of the wisdom of this, but I do miss that part of life. But maybe if I’m heading for a remote village in Africa, it would be better to get some of my ya-ya’s out now, you know? In some ways, maybe I am emotionally college-aged again, and it shows up in my interests in things like the Peace Corps and in dating. If I were really that age, I’d have no qualms about dating with the intention to go away for a couple of years. And I’m being honest about, and other important things, in my profile.

So far, the biggest results of this stupendously important decision has been a lot of learning about myself. And I am even more fucked up that I thought I was…surprising, given how incredibly intelligent I am <smile> Still, it’s been fun also. I’ve corresponded with some interesting guys I wouldn’t have met otherwise….a cowboy/pilot who lives a little too far away. An activist who splits his time between the US and his land and restoration project in South America and is WAY too far away. An artist who agrees he would be bad news for me, so we’ve let it drop. I’ve read messages from Nigerian scammers and other suspicious types. I’ve walked away from someone trying to argue that the 33% “enemy” percentage on our match in his very serious profile wasn’t a big deal (we vehemently disagree on “ethics”, “lifestyle”, “dating”, etc. so what’s the problem, right?).

So far, no actual dates, although it seems that once some logistical things work out, I might get to meet cowboy, who has taken to calling me “hippie girl”…he warns that there could be sparks and he might be right, but I’m not sure if it’s going to be from romance or from hippie girl cutting loose on a republican.

If nothing else, it could be a good story.

Sunset, 1/2/2011

Reflections

Mirror from the Past

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Years ago, I lived down the road from a little country store. At the time, they had a tiny bar in a room off the store, and I tended bar and worked in that store for a while.

Late last summer, I was coming back from hawk watch and passed that store. I wanted to make a stop, but the owners had been on my mind and I wasn’t sure I wanted to see them right now. Besides, I didn’t even know if they were still there. So I went on, many miles down the road, and stopped at the next store.

I walked in, and there were the owners from the old store. They now owned this one. They remembered me, but not my name. We chatted a bit. Eddie smiled, “It’s nice to see you again.”

Weird, I thought. Well, now I know where to find them.

——————————-

Two days before Christmas, I steel my resolve, read over my notes, and head out. Stop in town and use the ATM at the bar in town…I hate the fees and I’m not crazy about being in the bar either, but I need to be quick before I lose my nerve. I get change for one of the twenties so I’d have a neat fifty dollar bundle at the ready in my pocket. And then head for the store.

Eddie’s wife is there. I shift uneasily, waiting behind someone buying beer. “Is Eddie here?” I ask, and immediately wish I hadn’t.

“No, he’s not. What do you need?” My emotions begin to get the best of me. Godammit. Now I’m standing here in this store, tears welling up, asking some guy’s wife if he’s around and if I can talk to him. I have to tell her why I’m there. I know what I’d think if I were in her shoes.

I make my humiliating explanation and then flee. I’m screwing this up.

——————————-

It’s almost a week later when I finally go back with my little fifty dollars. There’s a kid behind the counter, but I wait behind another person buying beer, and Eddie emerges from the back with stock for the deli counter. He’s a quiet man, smiles at me and looks down. Yes, he heard why I was stopping by.

I tell him that I was responsible for that big Red Wolf beer mirror being stolen from the bar way back then; I didn’t take it myself, but I allowed, even encouraged it to happen. When he asked me about it at the time, I lied to him and feigned surprise about the theft, even when he explained that it was going to cost him four or five hundred dollars because the stupid thing was on loan from the distributor and wasn’t even his.

I tell him now that I want to pay it off; that I want to make it right over the next few months. He smiles and says that he never had to pay for it after all. He says he’s glad that I’m telling him now. He won’t take any money, even though I want to give it to him anyhow. He sends me on my way with a, “Keep up the good work.”

I’m not sure I actually do feel better afterwards. There is a weight lifted, of having done this and at least stumbled clumsily through it. But there is a humbleness that settles over me, perhaps a truer humility than I’ve felt before. I’m not sure I like it. My mind races…maybe I can come here to do all my grocery shopping and give them all my business from now on! Maybe I’ll bake them a bunch of cookies! Maybe I’ll…maybe I can….

And I realize that probably what Eddie and his family would like the most is for this crazy teary woman to quit coming by the store and making them feel embarrassed.

I have to face my own imperfections, the factual wrongs that I’ve done. I have to face that there is never any going back to undo what has been done. There is no, “Oh yes, that was me but…” There is only, “Yes. That was me.” And I have to face the fact that my ego does not like feeling like Eddie and his family have one up on me. They know about some of my misdeeds and my ego really doesn’t like that. I also have to face the truth that my brain likes to try to tell me that I’m better than everybody else and it does not like being presented with the real facts.

Worst of all, there is no magical cleaning it all up and being perfect from now on. I will continue to be a human with faults.

Can I accept this imperfect human being? THAT is what’s nagging at me most, that’s at the core of this uneasiness. I have to move beyond this cycle of thinking that I’m going to get some fresh start, some clean slate, if I can only close the door on my past and suddenly be perfect in my future. I always thought that would be freedom and happiness. But there is some zen-like temporal shift in all of this; the past is. I can’t stop the past from being, any more than I can stop the future from happening. To accept who I am now means I also have to be willing to accept who I was then, and the imperfect me I will be in the future. To liberate myself from myself, one clumsy ugly piece at a time. A futile yet necessary effort.

There is nothing to do but to continue to work for it.

Reflections

The Luckiest Day of the Year

I often say that the day of the Point Reyes Christmas Bird Count (“CBC“) is the best day of the year. This year it might have also been the luckiest.

I’m on the Tom’s Point team, also known as “Area 3”. We start, early in the morning, on Route 1 at a little area by Walker Creek. The first bit of luck: I made it with no incident, even though the day before I’d been having a bit of trouble with the car that involved getting a jump from a tow truck.

Anyhow, we trespass around Walker Creek for a couple of hours, and do our best to find our target species, the Rufous-Crowned Sparrow (RCSP). (Luckily, we found our RCSP’s with little effort this year). Then we head up to Tomales, have coffee and the most delicious pastries in the world, and an all-important restroom stop. Our area leader also picks up a loaf of bread for his wife’s Christmas present…it doesn’t seem like much, but he does a gazillion counts each holiday season, so I figure he’s picking up the jewelry and chocolate truffles on other counts.

Part of the thing that makes this day so great is the people who I get to spend it with. In addition to the area leader, there are two other friends that join in, and this year they brought their 11-week-old baby along to bird with us, which a beautiful thing.

After our break in Tomales, we head out to Tom’s Point proper, an Audubon Canyon Ranch preserve that is not open to the public. Here we wander around counting birds and looking at interesting things. This year we were lucky in many ways. For one thing, the weather was not nearly as bad as we expected. And we got a new bird for our area, a Short-eared Owl. I didn’t get a really good look at it, but luckily, others on our team saw enough to get a positive ID. And we were all treated to great views of a Peregrine Falcon doing his best to pick out a Bufflehead for lunch. I feel such a wonderful connection to this place, watching it over the past few years.

But it was back in Tomales that my luck really picked up. My car started! I was parked on a hill just in case I had to push-start it, but no need. Our area leader headed off to get a couple more birds out of our area, and I packed up my gear. Unfortunately, the car stalled and then wouldn’t start again, but I was lucky to be on that hill and then the people on our team showed up just at that time. They made sure I got started ok, and I was off to Point Reyes Station for the post-count dinner. Funny, I screwed up the push-start, but somehow the engine caught and started running again anyhow. I was suspicious that it wasn’t the battery, but I was glad to be on my way.

Many CBC’s have a post-count dinner. However, I’m absolutely certain that the Point Reyes CBC dinner is the best in the entire country. It’s like the Illuminati of birding all gathered in one place; each area is lead by someone that you’d normally have to pay to go birding with. It’s a lively bunch of bird nerds. My kind of people, though I’m pretty sure some day they’ll discover how poor my birding skills are and kick me out. Shhhh….we won’t tell….

After everyone gets their dinner, the count compilers read through a big list of bird species we typically see. As they read each one, you yell “Yes!” if you saw it that day. We usually have about 200 species marked “yes” by the end of that. Then it’s story time. Every group leader stands up and relates the highlights of their day. This is where we get to find out what rarities have been found, adding species to our list. And the stories are great, sometimes hilarious, sometimes with unintentionally hilarious delivery (nerds are nerds, after all). My favorite stories this year were about a mountain lion sighting that one team had, and another story about a coyote that seemed to be trying to play with a bobcat. Capping off the day with this dinner definitely makes it my favorite day of the year.

When dinner was over, I went out to my car to head home, and the darned thing wouldn’t start. Another lucky thing: my area leader helped me set up jumper cables so we could try jumping it. A passerby pointed out that it wasn’t my battery; the symptoms pointed to another problem. He was right, at least, that a jump wasn’t going to help me. But my luck still held: I had phone coverage, and was able to call my auto club with my cell phone. It was too bad, though, that they couldn’t coax anyone to come out to Point Reyes Station that late at night. My day leader also helped me try to push-start the car, but that wasn’t working this time either. He pushed the car a whole block! I finally got him to go home after that.

Luckily, the auto club gave me the number of a tow truck operator that wouldn’t contract through them, but could come out and I could pay them and then get reimbursed. After some calling around, I decided that the out-of-pocket was too steep, so I decided to try something else. I walked up to the gas station, but they were closed.

And then I had the super-incredible luck of coming back to find two last people leaving the dinner. One of them was a woman who’s son participated in the count, and she also happened to be a Point Reyes park ranger. She knew the local tow company personally, and suggested we go try to find them. So off I went with her. He wasn’t home, but we stopped at a local tavern and they called his numbers. No answer. It was here that I noticed that my wallet wasn’t in my purse. My heart lept into my throat, but luckily I’ve learned this prayer about offering over my will and by this point I was saying that prayer to myself about every five minutes. OK universe, if losing my wallet is also part of what needs to happen here, let’s go with that.

My good samaritan offered to let me sleep on her couch. At that point, I was prepared to sleep in the car, but I was grateful that I didn’t have to. This wasn’t luck, this was sheer goodness in another human being who turned out to be one of the most upbeat and positive people I have ever known.

We went back to the car and, lucky me, my wallet was right on the dashboard where I’d left it. And, also lucky me, I had a change of clothes, packed just in case we got soaked on the count, and a toothbrush and toothpaste in my purse. So off we went. I decided that there must be some reason for me to meet this person, so I let it drop that I’d applied to the Peace Corps and of course it turned out that she’s a returned volunteer herself. She had some interesting stories and good advice for me.

And so this is how I ended up waking up in front of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Limantour Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore, maybe the most beautiful place on the planet. And, although there was no phone service, there was a wireless connection and just enough juice left in my phone to get the word out to my ex, who was dog sitting, to let him know what had happened. How lucky is that — my dog was already in good hands that night! Any other night, and I would have been leaving her stranded alone at home without dinner.

In the morning, my good samaritan took me back into town. Super-duper lucky to find a pay phone that would let me make toll-free calls for no charge. I literally spent an hour on the phone with the auto club as they tried to find someone to come out in the stormy weather. (Luckily, the phone booth had a bit of shelter to make the big shower we had during this time much more bearable than it might have been.) While waiting on the phone, I tried to think of all the dry places on the earth where they would literally kill for this kind of rain. And pulled out that prayer in my head a few dozen times.

The auto club just couldn’t find anyone they contracted with to come out to such a remote area for such a long tow. But luckily they could arrange for the other tow company to take me for cash, and (incredibly lucky) this happened during a time in the month where I actually have money in my checking account. Also lucky: the tow truck said he’d meet me at the diner and take me to my car. I was going to get my coffee AND breakfast!

The luck doesn’t end there. On the way home, we saw some routes were flooded out, but we made it all the way back to the ranch. The trees I always see on “my” road have never looked lovelier. And I know more about the towing business than I ever imagined possible. I like to think that my tow truck driver needed to come up to Bodega today for some reason we’ll never know. Maybe he needed to be away from an accident that he might have been in on his regular territory. Maybe he stopped to help a disabled driver on the way home and maybe they fell in love and will have a bunch of kids and one of them will find the cure to cancer. Who knows. All I know is, at this point, I’ve convinced myself that everything that has happened had to happen, and I“m better off going with that flow than railing against it.

Best of all, when I got home I heard a familiar bark, and Laika came running out to greet me. She’d already been delivered home to me, so I no longer had to worry about anything else for the day. I could just enjoy being snug at home, taking care of us, and appreciating all the luxuries of warmth, tea, internet connections and phone coverage and electricity. Tomorrow, I’ll call a friend who’s a mechanic, and I’ll get his advice about what to do next, and I’ll take it one step at a time. If I try to think two or three steps ahead, a dozen hydra heads of potential problems crops up. So just one.

This is not to say that I’m some kind of paragon of virtue and serenity. There were moments when I just wanted to buckle and bawl in a giant pity party. I was rude to the auto club rep last night, hanging up sharply instead of saying goodbye politely. I spent a lot of time beating myself up about not maintaining my car better, about always depending on other people for help, berating myself for my whole lifestyle, ”if you just got a job like everyone else you would have more money for these kinds of emergencies“ and so on, endlessly. Envy at the park ranger’s home (when she and her husband have obviously worked hard for years just to be able to get into this, a rental through the park service!) Endless self-centered head chatter about endless details, ”shouldas“ and ”if onlys“ and falling into ”help me“ instead of ”I accept“, even now.

But I am grateful for all of the little things that went right. And I’m open to more of that kind of luck.

Reflections

December Morning

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Laika has been trying to get me back in the routine of going for a walk. She nudges me while I’m sitting at the computer, drinking coffee, and gives a little groan while tilting her head towards the door. She is irresistible, especially when she knows I’ve gotten the message and begins dancing in delight at successful communication. Besides, the walk is a good thing for me, too.

She’s been on my mind a lot lately. While filing away some papers the other day, I found her adoption ad from the shelter, and noticed that it included the date she was found as a stray. It was only a day or two after an utterly miserable February night for me. Home from a failed road trip to see some good birds (we’d been turned back because of snow at a pass), we were enduring a massive cold snap for Sonoma county.

I was full of anger and resentment and despair, with no real target other than myself. I’d started therapy less than a month earlier, and I think something inside didn’t like that. It was fighting to pull me into the darkness for good.

I’d’ had lots of beers when I decided to go outside and lay on the porch glider. If I could just manage to pass out there, I wouldn’t be found until the morning. Just a stupid drinking accident during an unusually cold night.

I hate being cold. I fear it. Too soon, I got up and went back inside. Had some more to drink.

Then went back out. Even at the time, I questioned how serious I was about this. Just tempting fate, like staggering down country roads at night, wearing black. Letting the accident happen if it will.

I made it longer the second time, but the blackout I’d been hoping for never happened. Finally, shivering and shaking, I gave up. I couldn’t even do this right.

Somewhere out in the night, there was a pup, only six months old, out on the streets of Ukiah. With her short hair and her own loathing of the cold, she must have been shivering and miserable, too.

It took us a few weeks longer to find each other, but we did, just in time.

I don’t know why some of us are saved and some are not. I haven’t done anything to earn it. I’ve seen better people than me buried. And I know that if I’m not careful, I could lose it all in an instant.

This morning I woke up, and I thought about the year before as I lay in bed listening to the owls and coyotes and thought, “This is real wealth…owls and coyotes!” I went through my morning routine, finished a painting, ate pomegranate and toast with almond butter. When we finally got around the taking that walk, the fog was starting to lift, making me feel as though we were walking in clouds. I stopped to say good morning to the goats standing in the mist, with the sunlight illuminating each drop. How can life get this good?

During our walk, I thought a lot about all of the people who have saved my life. People who say mysterious spiritual things about “dog” and show up to help you move, without any drama, and who never tell you how to live but you know they have something you want. People who tell their story with no idea that they’re saving the life of someone else sitting silent and hungover in the zendo. Friends who show up when you didn’t even know you needed them to, with lights or lattes or laughs. Women who circle their names on phone lists and insist that you come back. People who take a chance on you and give you work when you need it. Friends who call you on your own bullshit. People who listen and encourage.

And shivering, skinny black pups who are too scared to walk past the other dogs in the shelter, and have to be carried all the way home.

Eating Disorder

The Mouse in the Storeroom

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It wasn’t the first time I stole candy. Nor was it the last. But it’s the memory I return to again and again.

They were chocolate malted milk balls, in a clear plastic bag. They were being stored, with other candy and food, in one of several large yellow tin cans. I think the tins had been used for some sort of food-service product; my dad probably scavenged them for his storeroom, along with the old grocery store shelves.

The “storeroom” is a room upstairs in our old farm house. You have to walk through my parents’ bedroom to get to it. It holds anything that that we shouldn’t be getting into and more; locked trunks that held guns and who knows what else; shelves with old army electronic manuals and other things from a life before us.

Along one whole wall are the wire shelves; under and in front of the shelves are the cans. The shelves are laden with canned foods, jars of preserves (both home-made and store-bought), and all manner of dry goods. The cans hold anything that isn’t impervious to mice: flour, bags of rice and beans, marshmallows….and candy. My dad grew up during the depression, and he made sure that his family would never be left without enough to eat. He buys on-sale and stocks up, even to this day.

I was sent upstairs frequently to get ingredients for mom as she cooked, so I knew where all the food was. I’d known about the malted milk balls for some time. One day, I decided to snitch…just a couple. I tore a tiny hole in the bottom of the bag and squeezed the candies through it, and stuffed them into my mouth. I’d hardly gotten the can closed before I was opening it for more. Just a couple more. I tucked the bag down into the bottom of the can, under the other items.

This went on for a day or two as the bag, to my horror, became more than half empty. I was out of control and I couldn’t stop. I was a criminal and I was going to be caught. Weeks later, when the evidence surfaced into my dad’s attention, I was in fact caught. Not only did I feel ashamed of my behavior, but my methods were ridiculed. My attempts at misdirection by opening the bag from the bottom and not finishing the whole bag were obvious. Did I really think he would be so stupid as to believe that a mouse had opened the can and gotten into the bag? Or that the bag was not full to begin with?

All too often today I find myself back in that store room, an insatiable mouse whose food is always stolen, because when you have a lifetime of eating too much, ALL of your food is stolen. “I really shouldn’t…”

And the voice in my head mocks me as I put on my jeans or look in the mirror. “Did you really think I would be so stupid as to not notice?”

Reflections

Thanksgiving

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Sometimes “gratitude” seems overused and trite to me. It comes out sounding like I’ve been sitting at a table with a drill sergeant. “You’ll eat your gruel and you’ll be THANKFUL for it!” Yes, yes. I’m grateful for my gruel, because I know that so many others are going without gruel and they would be thrilled to be sitting here with you. Sir.

Borage

Gratitude is not something you can rationalize yourself into. It feels so cliche to write about gratitude. But it’s Thanksgiving, and sometimes you’ve got to write something. And I’m almost embarrassed to find that gratitude is on my mind.

I spent some time this week with my brother, sis-in-law, niece and nephew. They live on the peninsula, which is a world apart from the ranch here. Everyone moves fast, everything is kept so clean. When I walk Laika, she looks for overgrown patches on the infrequent run-down places to do her business. The manicured lawns of the CEO mansions we pass aren’t fit for defecation…that can’t be real grass.

My brother and his wife manage to keep a house full of love that is a sanctuary from the hum of silicon valley. Chickens in a neat coop greet us in the driveway, and dinner often includes something out of his garden. This little family has taken care of me, probably far more than I’ll ever know. Somehow I landed in a high place last year when I was ready to bottom out.

Laika and I came home to the ranch yesterday. I had a commitment to keep, otherwise I might have stayed through the holiday instead of making the drive back and forth another time. But as soon as I stepped out of the car, waves of gratitude hit me. The cold air was clear and fresh; there was real earth beneath my feet. I headed into the yurt and was almost giddy to go inside. This place is more “mine” than any other place I’ve lived. It’s held me, allowed parts of me to grow and expand within its radius. It holds some kind of energy, something that flows through me but is not me, not mine.

Sometimes my brain holds up ideals about How I Should Live. I remember reading adventure stories as a kid, stories about people who understood or had to learn how to survive in the natural world. People who understood the ways of animals, who hunted them or even trained them to hunt for them. People who understood the herbs to gather for healing, who knew how to ride a horse or read the land and the weather. The cowboys, the indians, the castaways, the explorers, the pioneers, the naturalists. I was entranced by those stories and tried to act them out in secret….always in secret, because I thought everything else in my world was telling me that was all silly. We don’t do that anymore. And you’re going to scar up your knees and won’t look pretty when you grow up, and then the boys won’t like you.

Eventually, all of those stories that seemed so real to me as a kid became like cardboard pictures. They flattened out with distance and seemed as lifeless to me as the picture I was trying to live, the one I thought I was supposed to want.

When I moved here, to such a comparatively rustic place, I was enthusiastic but not confident. I worried (I still worry) about being cold…it turns out to be one of my greatest fears. I worried about the drudgery of the inconvenience. I worried that for all my bragging about how I liked the outdoors, I wouldn’t really want to live like this. I had lost my ability to know what is right for myself. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. But I took a chance on a feeling.

When I stepped out of the car yesterday and breathed the air and felt the earth, I was overcome with the feeling of gratitude. But it was less for the air and the earth itself, and more for the glimmer of courage I found last year to give this a chance. To reach back into the feelings that those stories stirred up in me as a child, and give them a chance to be enlivened again. To trust a tiny feeling that said, “this is what you need to do now.”

Those tiny moments of courage aren’t born in a vacuum. They grow out of love. And sometimes, the most pivotal points of courage happen in the tiny place where we are most unable to love ourselves. They catch us in our fall, like a tiny hook, and its not until we surface that we see that the tiny hook is attached to infinite lines of power…the love of friends, family, and people who know their place on this earth and have the strength to reach out.

Gratitude, yes. Overwhelming gratitude. It flows through me, through everything, an energy that can’t be stopped and held in a moment. Every expression of it fails; it must be lived.

Reflections

Altered States

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I almost drowned as a child. As my dad tells it, we were at the kiddie pool with relatives. They were sitting right there, keeping an eye on us, but suddenly he looked down to see me laying on my back, under the water, a sickly unfocused smile on my face. He leaned over, grabbed my suit, and hauled me out of the water…but also submerging the camera that was hanging from his neck. It was a nice camera, and it was ruined.

I remember it differently. In my memory, I’m swimming underwater, belly down. I taste a little vomit in the back of my throat, and the light changes; everything becomes brighter, the refracted ripples in the turquoise water.

Then the fish appear. Animated cartoon fish, swimming by me, then a friendly big black whale with a big smile. It is delightful.

Then I am yanked out of it, and the grownups are yelling.

………………

I remember a feeling that used to come over me as a kid. I didn’t have a name for it, but I associated it with the feeling you get when you push a sewing needle through the top layers of the skin on your thumb…it doesn’t hurt…there’s just sort of an odd pressure of something there, under your skin.

When it happened, my sense of time (if you call it that; this is hard to describe) became stretched out. It was as if part of me was moving along slowly, like molasses, like slow motion, while another part was moving quickly. Physically it felt like I was in the back top of my head, with a lifting sensation.

I knew that what I was experiencing was internal; it wasn’t something others were feeling. It scared me. I didn’t know if I would come out of it, and I was fearful of surrendering to staying in it. I knew better than to try to explain what was happening to anyone; I didn’t have the vocabulary to do it.

It was as if, had I stayed in that state, I could have moved among people so quickly that they couldn’t see me, darting around like a hummingbird while they all moved in slow motion…not physically, but in a part of my mind that maybe was now separate.

Sometimes this would come over me at night; I remember once going downstairs to use the bathroom and being overcome by this surreal feeling, hyper-aware of the sensation of my feet and hands on the wood steps as I went back upstairs on all fours, slapping the steps with my palms as I went.

………………

I’ve never tried to describe these in writing before, and it’s interesting to see how they appear when it is all set down. You would think that we know, then we write down what we know. But I learn about myself by writing. Sometimes I have to write it to know it.

Reflections

Fall’s Rain

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We got our first big storm of the year this weekend. Over an inch of rain and some high winds this morning were a good test of the new tarp over the yurt. This morning, I stayed under the covers, grateful to have that new tarp in place. I listened to the rain and watched the ceiling, pulsing as though it was the top of a breathing, living drum. The storm, too, seemed to breathe, pausing for deep inhalations before hurling another bucket of water at us. I like living in this structure that flexes and breathes with the storms.

This week I’ll have been here for ten months, but already I feel the cycle of the year closing in. The storm brought with it a sense of familiarity…yes, I remember this now. Yesterday afternoon, Laika and Jasper burst in through the door, full of boisterous energy and once again patterned the floor with muddy paw prints. And already I have a collection of wet towels and clothing hanging around to dry. I must start tending to my wood pile.

This afternoon I built my first fire of the season. It wasn’t the coldest day we’ve had this fall, but since I was spending all afternoon and evening here (and had things to dry), I splurged. Having the fire is a little like having another pet, and I enjoyed being reunited with its cheery flames and cozy heat.

Most Sunday afternoons lately have been given to creative pursuits (another luxury!), and I intended the same for today. But I mostly frittered my time away until I realized that I may as well finish some work for a client and actually make some money. I tell myself that this invoice will pay for new super-duper rain pants and a camera, but the truth is that it will probably go to pay for a speeding ticket and traffic school. Now I know why the saying is to “cop” a resentment. I love my life and I don’t mind having little disposable income, but it is also familiar territory that little missteps like speeding have a bigger impact on my personal bottom line than they did in my higher-income days.

It was with amusement that I read Interview: man who owns only 15 things. Andrew Hyde only owns 15 things, and at the end of the interview seems to take issue with being called “elitist”. I got a little caught up in the excitement of the idea. Maybe I, too, could live a spartan lifestyle where I’d only own 15 things! Then I laughed when I realized that I simply couldn’t afford it. It would take too much money to pay someone with tools and stuff to do all the things I have to do for myself: cook, clean, shower, drive, keep track of bills and whatever else comes in the mail.

But I have no desire for Hyde’s elitist life; I much prefer my own elitist life, with or without the stuff. Recently I wrote here that I was happier than I’ve ever been, and I’ve thought about that phrase a lot. Some might interpret it to mean that I’m giddy with delight at every moment, but that’s not the case. It’s more like I suddenly woke up, noticed that the dictionary looked a little different, and opened it to find that the definition of happiness itself has changed. Most of my “problems” are still hanging around; the happiness lives side-by-side with sadness, anger, fear. But I’m finally facing all of that, in ways I didn’t expect. I’m becoming more flexible myself, weathering the storms, and maybe even learning how to breathe.

The rain stopped for a while late this afternoon. I went out to fill my water bottles and startled a Sharp-shinned Hawk, probably saving one of the Towhees who lives in the shrubs next my door. As the little hawk entered the airspace above the ranch, the Red-tailed Hawks screamed…four of them, circling over with Turkey Vultures and White-tailed Kites. Evidently everyone was getting lunch while they could. Even the goats were active, seeing me and trotting up to the pasture behind the yurt to say hello. I forgot my errand and wandered through the gate to greet Rozena and Audrey, then the others, and walked among them for a bit.

Tonight, there’s still a parking ticket to be paid, the messed up eating, the confusing feelings, the endless desires for MORE, the fears that the car will quit running or there won’t be enough ranch work to pay the rent this winter, or any number of other things. But there are also the coyotes singing to bring back the moon, the embers of a warm fire, hands that smell like goat, and a house like a rain drum. This is not a work in progress to be unveiled at a later date; this is my life, and I am already here.