smokejumping

Isadora

October 27, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

I had a tremendously and gloriously happy night last night!

Robert, and our lovely friends who are visiting at the moment, went bird hunting with the dogs over by

Little City of Rocks, here in Idaho.

When they came home, they were dragging a 1964 Airstream Sovereign travel trailer!

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

It’s so beautiful!

I’d kiss it but my lips would stick (it’s cold here)!

Best of all,

we paid $500 for it which is a shockingly small number!

We’ve been searching for an Airstream for a few months now. When they come up for sale, they sell quickly and usually go for somewhere between $2500 and $3500 in Utah, Idaho and Montana.

To find this Airstream in such wonderful condition for such a low price felt a bit sinful.

I’m so thankful for it.

Why did we get this hulking pile of travel trailer bliss?

Let me tell you why:

Sometime this summer, RW called me up from the jumper base in Winthrop, Washington and at the same time we both blurted out that we couldn’t do summers apart anymore. We’ve been repeatedly blurting this very thing for a few years now but suddenly the impetus to make a change in our lifestyle materialized and we found ourselves with a plan. The main detail that has prevented me from living in Winthrop these past two summers is the lack of a studio space. After humming and hawing over the phone this summer, we decided that we needed some sort of trailer I could use as a travel work space and after pondering our options we, quite obviously, settled on an Airstream trailer because:

1. They are awesome.

2. They have serious character.

3. There is a subculture of humans that celebrate these trailers and we love being part of such subcultures (we belong to the VW bus subculture as well and it too, is wonderful).

4. And of less importance, but importance nonetheless, Airstreams match our big, hulking silver truck….

This winter, we will entirely gut Isadora (prior-to-renovation-Isadora photos will be coming) and thoroughly renovate her interior into a small studio space for me and a larger living quarters for our little family. I’m excited about it! But I’m even more excited about living in the same place as my husband next summer and being a part of the North Cascades Smokejumper family all fire season long.

After fire season, we will probably find ourselves doing a few extended trips to the deserts of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah where Robert will bird hunt and I will work in my little studio space during the daytime.
We have the hearts of nomads beating here in our chests.
Isadora is going to allow us to explore even more
than we already do. I adore her.

All this is to say, welcome to our family Isadora!

You make me feel like I’m living in a Miranda Lambert song.

We’re going to shine you up bright and fix you

up with some tender loving care.

Soon, you’ll be like a silver streaming star in the night sky, shivering, glittering and guiding the moon into her place.

Yee haw!

Filed Under: airstream, smokejumping

July 27, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

The Gables is filled with this palpable, thick hum of energy today — it’s practically sonic and moves in waves of green and light in every room I walk through. I feel so revived by it. I feel sensitive to it. The doors seem to have wings, the windows are all thrown wide open, out in the blue spruce the squirrels and birds have gone berserkers. The dogs are riotous. They can feel it too.

I have attempted to take a few photos this morning to capture a slice of what I can see and feel around here and everything has come out blurry — perhaps I managed to capture the hum and thrum of here decently, after all, now that I think on it.

I woke up this morning and suddenly found myself in a routine. I rolled out of bed, washed my face, popped the ferns in the tub for a day long soak, fed the beasts, ran the pointers over to the park to get the ants out of their pants for the early part of the day, pushed a delicious French press and fell on my journal for three solid and voracious pages of kinetic words, metaphor and purge.

These days, I ache, deep in my chest, for my husband. These feelings are sharp. My emotions run just beneath the surface of my skin, oceans and tides of love for my man who is so far from here. My life is full and continues beautifully with experience and growth without him, but somedays I can’t believe how far away autumn is. I pine for him. I do. I continue with my living here, most robustly, I’m doing my best to suck the marrow out of life, but I miss my partner more than I can say. I haven’t talked about it much this summer, preferring to pour myself out on the mountains and on paper…but there you have it.

Dammit. I miss my man.

I have been spirit weary.

Yesterday, I was in and out of bed all day long.

I don’t recall sleeping much, but laying with my eyes closed seemed like one of the most restful things I could do. The wind was wrapped up in the trees. There was a pair of robins singing throughout the day. I wasn’t sad. I was tired.

I didn’t know what else to do.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here, or just in my journal pages, but I sense a massive shift coming with respect to the work of my hands. I don’t know where I’m headed but I feel I’ve had my toes curled over the edge of a precipice for months now. When I’m in the studio working, I feel restless. Perhaps it’s just the season melting away my self discipline and sweating inky patches into my resolve (because, you know, doing this takes so much self motivation and resolve and discipline). I’m excited about the coming change, whatever it is. I like transitions.

I’ve been reading the autobiography of Daniel Lanois which is something I RARELY do, read autobiographies, that is — it’s excellent. As a result, I’ve found myself listening to the albums he has produced. I’m spinning Wrecking Ball, by Emmylou,*** until it’s dizzy and it spins on its own. Seriously. Bob Dylan’s, Time out of Mind, has me on the edge of my seat. Lanois is passionate about creating sound, full sound, and I’ve loved the story of his life and feel such an appreciation for his own music as well as the top notch albums he’s produced. If you like music, if you are music, you should give this book a chance.

There’s been a revisiting of Holy The Firm.

I hold that book in my hands sometimes…overcome by the inspiration of it…it’s so

honest. So true.

I love it for the questions it asks, for what it represents — the regular and steady struggle and flow of questions that apologetics attempts to answer.

I cherish these words and maintain that Annie Dillard has, on multiple occasions,

changed my life.

Also, and importantly, I picked up a copy of Daybook by Anne Truitt at Walrus and Carpenter (my local used book nook) the other day and began reading it last night at midnight. It has captivated me. The writing is strong, compelling and intelligent. More than anything, I relate with it — I feel championed by it. I don’t know if that makes sense. But to read the journal entries of another artist dealing with fatigue and self-definition is just…..well…..it was destiny that I would find a copy of this book this week. Destiny.

What’s inspiring you these days?

Direct me, if you will, to the things that make your heart swell, the things that zap you like lightening bolts,

the things that shoot you through to the core and braid the ribbons of your soul.

I want to know.

I hope the energy is thick where you are,
go ahead,
cut it with a butter knife and spread it on some toast.

xx

***I just had to add here that I think Emmylou is so tragically beautiful. When I look at her, when I read about her, when I hear her sing, I just know that she has accidentally ruined a handful of men in her lifetime. She’s that kind of beautiful — one just can’t help but be gloriously wounded forever when rubbing up against the brilliance of her soul.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2011/07/27/1054/

Filed Under: books, smokejumping, summer, the gables

Man Candy

July 17, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

For all the lonely ladies out there on this fine,

fine Saturday night:

Here are some foxy firefighters for you.

Thank God for the North Cascades Smokejumpers.

Please note: The seventh man from the left IS taken.

The Plume

Filed Under: fire fighting, smokejumping

Jiggity Jig

June 29, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

I’m just back from taking a quick holiday in RW’s arms,

up in the Methow!

For those of you who are new, RW is not in prison, he does this for a living, three states away from here. Actually, the highlight of this trip was when I told a barista in Spokane that I had been visiting my husband, she gave me a terribly strange look and I told her this very thing:

He’s not a felon.

He’s a smokejumper.

I don’t think she believed me.

Anyway, we did all sorts of lovely things:

lake swimming

hiking

eating

driving

live music-ing at the brewery

cooking with the boys

smoochin’

gardening

cabin shopping

coffee sipping

climbing

sleeping in

parachute packing…

…or at least RW did a bit of rigging…

…I was a mustard-wearing distraction.

I do my best, ladies, I do my best.

We shine so bright.

I feel the beautifullest when I’m with him.

All in all it was a truly beautiful and fairly restful trip.

I rolled into The Gables last night at midnight after a full, 15 hour solo drive (well yes, I am a trucker). I meant to stay over in Missoula for the night but I arrived there at 6PM and the daylight was eternal and I didn’t feel like hanging out alone for hours until the sun set. I wanted to sleep in my own bed so I pushed on in my swift, silver chariot. Thanks to the besterellas who connected with me by telly and helped keep me awake in the final hours of that drive — I know I didn’t make a lot of sense but it made me happy that you were laughing so hard.

This morning, Plum woke me up at 6AM, and we just spent a full 8 hours gardening, pulling weeds, planting extra beet rows, cutting fresh flowers for the house, harvesting the chamomile blossoms, irrigating the yard with the spring creek and guess what?!!! ~~I just heard from RW and he’s going to be~~ ~~here~~ ~~tonight! Apparently those smokejumpers get around and they’re running an errand down in New Mexico for the next few days. Life swirls in mysterious ways.~~
Scratch that. They’re headed direct to Provo via the Twin Falls cut-off.
Drat.
Sometimes it’s such a pain when the heart hopes…

I hope you are all well.

I missed your souls.

PS I have a confession to make: I really. REALLY. Really. Like the Methow Valley.

Filed Under: smokejumping, trip, washington