The Life and Times of the Plume — Page 133

Pondi Pines

July 6, 2013 by The Noisy Plume

[Pondi Pine Earrings :: sterling silver & copper]

This is a little series I began working on, on paper, last summer and have just been getting around to fabricating this past week. The forms are directly modeled after jigsaw pieces of ponderosa pine bark. It’s magical stuff. No two pieces are exactly alike and they are tremendously abstract in form, which I love! Here’s what I do. While I am out woodsing here, I keep an eye out for interesting jigsaw pieces beneath the trees. If I find one I love, I bring it home, make a paper template with it, and then design around the form. These earrings have, so far, turned out to be wildly modern and organic looking, like ink blots or splats of rumpled texture against the neck. Terrifically bold. Perhaps a little savage. I’ve crafted these from copper and sterling and hope to finish a few other sets this weekend in sterling and gold.

I feel everything I have made lately has had a sort of mad, wild elegance to it. A sure sign that though life is a bit disjunct here at the moment, I’m still managing to find a honest and lovely momentum in the studio which makes me feel so grateful and centered, even when the world feels like it’s whirling out of control.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: jewelry

July 3, 2013 by The Noisy Plume

There is a small stone in my belly, I must have swallowed it to get it there. It rumbles around with numerous other small stones that I have swallowed and forgotten about or refuse to think of. It is jagged and prickly. It is named fear. This week, I have been forced to bring it forth, spit it out into my hand like I would a cherry pit, and see it for what it really is. I am afraid that some day my husband will not come home to me. The fear does not paralyze me, does not make me a coward or un-brave, does not prevent me from living my life fully, but it is there. It is inside me. I need to acknowledge it and learn to understand it and live with it like one does a disease that threatens to make a body and spirit frail and dull.

I won’t be made a slave to my fear.

But I am afraid.

Writing about it helps.

I have been away in Walla Walla, Washington with my parents (on Robert’s side of the family), some of my sisters, my aunts and uncles and cousins. We gathered as a family to remember Grandmother Jean who passed away earlier this year. It was a wonderful time, a meaningful time, a rich time. I am thankful I was with family when I heard the news that nineteen wildland firefighters were burned over in Arizona. When I was told, my heart stopped beating. I had a terrifying moment when I realized that one might be Robert, who was supposed to be in Alaska, but as all smokejumper wives can attest, could really have been anywhere in the USA. We go for days, at times, without hearing from our men and they can be sent to different bases without our knowing.

My friend told me the crew lost was a hotshot crew.

My heart fell into a deeper silence.

We have friends who are like brothers and sisters to us on numerous hotshot crews and I wondered which one of them might be dead.

Shockingly enough, we didn’t have a friend or acquaintance on the Granite Mountain Hotshots. I feel…guilty that everyone I know and love is alive. I feel guilty for being thankful. I feel shame over the fact that I haven’t a specific person I can grieve for. But I grieve regardless. I am deeply and terribly sad. Disturbed. Upset. Rattled. I cry too much. Too easily.

In Walla Walla I managed to box up my grief and focus on my family, on remembering Grandmother Jean. I don’t know how I did. I am not one to hold in my emotions. As soon as I began the drive back to the Methow Valley, I drew up my sadness and cried for the better part of five hours. I simply could not contain my sorrow. It leaked out of me, drop by drop. This was when I realized, fully, that I am afraid my husband will be burned over one day. I am afraid our friends will be burned over. The nineteen firefighters lost could have been any of our friends. One could have been Robert. The raw grit of that fact is ripping at my heart right now.

Robert continues his current boost at the Fairbanks, Alaska smokejumper base. I wish he could come home so I could wrap my arms around him and make sure he is still real. I wish I could wrap my arms around all our friends who are fighting fire right now and tell them how much I love them and cherish them. I wish I could tell them all, in person, to take great care, to trust their instincts when they are on the line, to come home safe, again and again to us.

I want to tell everyone who took a second to write to me, with concern and care, or text me, or phone me, that I appreciate it very, very much. Thank you for thinking of us and for taking the time to check in. The loss of almost an entire hotshot crew is a catastrophe and we do not go untouched by grief.

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No forest, no structure is more valuable than nineteen human lives. Not now. Not ever.

To the ones who remain: The mothers, fathers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, lovers, wives and babies: I cannot fathom the depth of your grief, I cannot fathom my own right now, but I know yours is severe and all consuming and much, much greater than mine. If there is anything the North Cascades Smokejumper Family can do for you, do not hesitate to call. I speak for our fire family when I say we are at your service and hold you in our hearts.

To the one crew member who survived: Feel no guilt. Do not fade away. We love you even if we don’t personally know you, and are so thankful that you remain. Your life is precious. Please, live it.

To all the ones who are left, battling flame today: Please come home. Safe and soon.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2013/07/03/6448/

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Today:

June 27, 2013 by The Noisy Plume

I woke up.

I was tired.

I made coffee.

I ate something. I don’t remember what. Maybe toast.

I answered emails.

A butterfly flew into the Airstream and I managed to catch it with a finger tip and carry it outside. Those wings looked worn.

I placed a metal order by phone because the internet quit working. It has a habit of doing that.

I packed a bag, started a truck, drove down the mountain, picked up a package at the post office, picked up lunch to go, filled the truck with a half tank of diesel and drove out of the valley.

I stopped at a lake.

I found a wigwam.

I sat in it.

I felt confined, by my very self.

I took my braids out and removed my boots and socks and then sat down in the wigwam for a while longer and watched a rainy sky turn to something blue. I threw sticks for Tater. He loves to swim.

I walked in the lake. Barefoot. The rocks hurt my feet. I collected driftwood and Canada goose feathers. I looked closely at wildflowers.

I felt more free. I felt less tired. I felt more myself. I felt wild.

Tater was chased by a doe. I was chased by the doe. I felt bad for the doe. I think she was protecting a spanky new fawn or was on the cusp of giving birth. She was probably in deer hysterics. What’s worse than any female being pushed to hysterics? Poor thing.

I found a killdeer chick. I held it. Its mother was in a panic. I set it down and walked away. Its feet were ridiculous, as they always are. I found a killdeer chick last year, too, but it was older. It fell in the river, by my feet, while I was fly fishing. I threw my rod down on the bank, leapt into the river and fetched it from the current. It had such intelligent eyes. I set it free. Its mother was also in hysterics. Poor thing.

I met two lovely men. I talked to them for a long while. They liked Tater Tot. They want me to make their wedding rings.

I got in my truck and drove home.

It rained.

Then it quit raining.

The sun came out and the sky looked so blue and full of hope.

When I arrived at the Little Cabin In The Woods, my little forest was on the cusp of dusk. I changed into my running gear and took the dogs out for a spin. The light in the trees was beautiful. I leapt, like something feral, over the puddles and mud on the road. I felt strong and alive.

I ate leftovers for dinner.

I mixed myself a delicious gin and tonic with extra lime and garden strawberries. It is delicious. I am sipping it now. The berries are so scrumptious. I don’t want to eat anything but berries ever again.

In a moment I will retreat to my bed with a book and a cup of tea.

And a cat.

I miss Robert. This was a very fine day.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: sometimes it is good to take a rest, summer, washington

Succession

June 24, 2013 by The Noisy Plume

[Succession :: Kinnikinnick Ring :: sterling silver & chalcedony :: for the burned heart that is regenerating]

I like to visit the burned forests.
The trees stand on end
backcombed by righteous flame
twisted and crumpled by furious fists of lightning
rows upon rows of black poles issuing silent screams.

The quiet is stacked in every direction
like dominoes.
I step on a twig and the world around me flickers
waggles
and collapses under the strain of sound waves.
A robin sings and I am startled.
Echos run for miles in
thick
unobstructed pulses.
It is surreal.

I like the burned forests.
I like the unburned forests, too, but for different reasons.
Both are tremendously alive, even though a burned area can seem just the opposite.
A forest fire brings renewal, eliminates blights, frees conifers to grow the next generations of forests because with the heat, comes release and a flood of nutrients: As I walk, I think I hear the earth hum.

Renewal and regrowth come in successionary tiers,
building, quite literally, in new and greater heights as a forest establishes itself
again after ruin and plight.
The first thing to grow abundant and rich grows at ground level.
The sweet carpets of the forest floor that dig in, with relish, root tip by root tip, and bring the first stability to a wilderness area made fecund by fire: mosses, grasses, kinnikinnick, mushrooms, wildflowers, rose, alder, willow…and so on and so forth until the fir and pine tower once more.

Up from the ashes
come green on green on green.

When I look at a burned forest I see so much promise and hope and probably a metaphor for the human heart which is also such a delicately magnificent thing of strength and beauty. A thing capable of so much growth and regeneration, even after the fiercest burning flames. If a forest can do it, rise up from heartbreak and pain, I can too. And so I do.

Begin small, like the forest, and go from there.