thinking aloud

August 9, 2015 by The Noisy Plume

Robbie came home from Oregon yesterday, mid-afternoon, gave me a hug and then worked the rest of the day. I feel like I haven’t seen him for such a long while. I was gladly toiling in the garden, pulling fat carrots from the soil, picking onions, collecting squash and tearing up all the lettuce that has bolted for the sky. I took the harvest into the mess hall kitchen and began to clean it and scrub it all at the sink, exposing the bright and gleaming skin that home grown veggies have beneath all that righteous dirt.

One half of the mess hall is currently the sew shop* — rows of industrial sewing machines line one wall and the hum of solid kevlar stitches landing in tight succession is the music I make lunch to lately.

There I was, scrubbing carrots, when I heard the fellas put on some Bob Dylan. One by one, they all began singing along to the music, while snipping threads, setting grommets, loading bobbins and pushing thick cordura past sharp needles. I stopped what I was doing, looked over at them, and simply enjoyed the sight of them being together, being manly, being quirky, being sweet, being capable, being themselves.

And my heart felt so full.

I thought to myself, “Run. RUN and get your camera.” But I knew the moment wouldn’t last forever, and so much of the beauty was locked up in the feeling of it, so I stayed and simply enjoyed it for what it was; I witnessed brotherhood, from the fringes, and didn’t feel left out for a single moment.

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I’m thinking a lot lately about what to give and what to keep. What to catch and what to set free. What to hold onto and what to release. I’m thinking about how to share my life and my work and my learnings in a honest and open way while still retaining some special little secret things for the most special people in my life.

There’s a line here, scratched in the dirt, painted on asphalt, and to one side of it is “too little” and to the other side is “too much” and I keep on walking it. I keep on moving forward and my feet keep falling where they may, where they might.

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I made a fabulous pesto for seashell noodles last night with sides of roasted squash and greens. Everything came from the garden. I felt rich.

Fresh Garden Pesto (roughly): olive oil, walnuts, lemon basil, pepper, salt, garlic and a smattering of romano-esque sheep cheese.

Dig it?

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*The North Cascades Smokejumper Base was built in 1939 — the first base in the program. The buildings are historic, somewhat primitive and unevenly distributed between beautiful lawns, gardens, aspen groves, elms, ponderosa pines and locust trees on the edge of the airstrip. It’s a beautiful base. The buildings with air conditioning are the office and the mess hall.

When the weather is hot, the sewing machines are moved into the air conditioned space of the mess hall. Actually, I think they sew in the mess hall in the winter, too, when the weather is cold and the loft is hard to heat.

Did you know that smokejumpers are master seamstresses? They draft their own patterns, sew their own packs, travel bags, jump suits, and patch their own chutes…among other things.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2015/08/09/10389/

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: base life, brotherhood, summer, thinking aloud, washington

June 30, 2015 by The Noisy Plume

Let’s begin with the beautiful things. Let’s end with the beautiful things, too.

There are swallowtail butterflies in the echinacea patch. There are swallowtail butterflies everywhere, really. The gardens outside the studio door are meant for butterflies and hummingbirds. Its a soulful pace. I wish it was mine. I will build and grow my own garden like this someday, when we finally land for good.

A swallowtail butterfly landed on my ribcage while I was sitting on the edge of the lake over the weekend. I felt its papery wings beating against my skin, I felt our two hearts separated by the wall of my bones and sinew. Its thorny feet forced a laugh from me and then it flew off into the wind over the water.

In the same place, yesterday, a hummingbird hovered inches from the tip of my nose for a handful of seconds (a handful of seconds is an eternity to a hummingbird) before it sat on a branch beside me and stared at me for a while. Simultaneously, a bee was crawling on me and the feeling if its feet against the skin of my stomach was lovely and sensual.

Regularly, the male bluebird, who happens to be raising a family with his drab wife in the nesting box behind the Airstream, perches on a pine branch outside the trailer door and allows me to approach within a couple of feet of where he sits wherein we both simply look at each other, cock our heads to one side, and then eventually part ways. I sometimes wish my skin was that shade of blue.

While I was picking raspberries this morning, a cedar waxwing alighted on a cane next to me, looked at me with one unblinking eye (what a handsome profile), picked a berry with his clever beak and flew away into the sun.

I think everything knows I am feeling sad, for a myriad of reasons — for myself, of course, but I have these occasional bouts of general melancholy for all of humanity and our planet and a kind of hopelessness sinks into my bones and i just have to let it fester there for a bit until it passes on and I find faith and grace and love again. I’m also feeling hyper-sensitive about being a pest lately; I’m walking on self-imposed egg shells. It makes me insular and hermity (more insular and hermity that usual, that is).

I am sitting on an Adirondack chair by the bee balm. My legs, from the knees down, are being blasted by late morning sunshine. The heat is almost burning, down there on my toes. As I sat down this morning, I realized one of life’s greatest pleasures must be the simple movement of sliding into an Adirondack chair, the careful schloop of the arse across a series of parallel wooden slats, the gentle recline of the upper body until it comes, solidly, to rest.

There is a piece of heaven in a well built chair.

My friend sent me an exquisite essay about hearts and blue whales and hummingbirds. The words are like a soft security to wrap myself in.

Which reminds me, I vowed to re-read all of Hemingway’s works this summer. A Tour de Hemingway! Will you join me? I read the Ten Letters Project last week which I discovered through my (brilliant and ever evolving) friend, Esme — one of my favorite lines in the book (I underlined dozens of things in every letter) is this: “Take all the risks.” I think I shouted out YES when I read those four words. The other thing I appreciated about this collection of letters is the fact that they make me feel like it’s normal to be a creative weirdo…if that makes sense… Doing creative work can be complicated. Doing creative work for a living can be complicated. Being an independent artist can be complicated. There are also times when you are faking the depth of your work and making it complicated when it isn’t and you’re tricking everyone, including yourself, except in your heart of hearts where you know, always, that you’re a fraud. There are also times when the depth of your creative work is very real and is uncomplicated. There are times when the complication is uncomplicated. I’ve said the word aloud now so many times that it sounds bizarre.

I always think there should be two zeds in the word “bizarre” instead of two r’s.

I am also reading The Emerald Mile which is beautiful and makes me bitter in my heart of hearts that I cannot be in a boat every moment of the day on a river somewhere. It’s an account of the Powell expedition of the Grand Canyon as well as a natural history of the Colorado River and also a tale of modern day adventure — to boot, it is wonderfully written. It’s everything a superb book should be.

Last night, I went fishing, as usual. I parked my truck in a little turn out along the Chewuch River, set up my rod, tied on a big dry fly and scrambled down the cliff towards the water. The soft portions of the slope shifted and crumbled beneath my feet, grit found its way uncomfortably between the sole of my foot and the bed of my sandal, I paused a few times to shake my feet, loosen the coarse dust, dislodge small stones from my ginger arches. The granite rubble held the heat of the day and was warm on the palms of my hands and fingertips. I was sticky with sweat and bug bites and the moment I reached the bottom of the cliff and slid my feet into the water I felt one hundred degrees cooler. I bent low, dipped my free hand in the river, and splashed a piece of it up into my face. I stepped out and made my way across the current, fly rod in one hand and the other groping for steadiness, reaching for stone. My well placed feet slipped off the slime of submerged river cobble and I said to myself, “Steady now.” I made my way to the opposite bank, to the edge of night, to the musk of the willows and the killdeer piping. I loosened my line and began to cast my way upriver.

“Just do your work. And if the world needs your work it will come and get you. And if it doesn’t, do your work anyway. You can have fantasies about having control over the world, but I know I can barely control my kitchen sink. That is the grace I’m given. Because when one can control things, one is limited to one’s own vision.”

[Kiki Smith]

I realized, last week, when I read this quote, that there is something that has been shattering me, over and over again, that I have been trying to control, trying to keep my finger on, trying to guard myself from, trying to fight, trying to create a distance from. I am dismantling (I am working on dismantling) my need to control it. I am working on not being hurt about it anymore. I am working on loosening my grip and letting it go. I am working on allowing it to figure its own way out of the maze of bull shunky it has been building for itself.

I’m not free yet. But I am going to be. And it will be a sweet day when I am.

When I am free.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2015/06/30/10329/

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: bugs and birds, journal excerpts, thinking aloud

Three Flew In

June 18, 2015 by The Noisy Plume

This morning, three birds flew into the Airstream, flapped around inside for a short while, and then flew out again…all except for this little sweetie who needed some help finding the exit once more. I was reminded of the time we lived in the Layfield house here in the Methow Valley and woodpeckers and starling used to fly down the chimney and needed to be rescued from the fireplace — scooped up carefully in my hands, walked to the french doors on the back porch and released into thin air and spooling light.

I like to think I summon these small things to myself, from time to time, when I need a little flight, when I’ve been craning my neck to bite at my own shoulder blades trying to bring my wings to the surface, to bursting, to full span so I can find the wind once more.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: thinking aloud

A Photo Round Up (and other things)

February 16, 2015 by The Noisy Plume

I ate an artichoke for dinner tonight. I like them so much. The pulling away of the scales, the dipping in olive oil, pepper and lemon juice, the scraping of the teeth, and the delectable heart of it all — so plump and rare tasting.

The artichokes are wonderful at the grocer lately. I’m taking advantage of it.

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I am writing a lot right now. Pages and pages in the morning, scraps of essays that are slowly taking form. I have something I am supposed to write — there is no deadline but there’s kind of a deadline, you know? Anyway, I’m figuring out how to approach that piece. There are five directions the piece can go and I simply have to settle on one.

Oh, sometimes the committing is so tedious, so impossible.

I keep writing things that I don’t know what to do with. I’m in a place, here in my 30s, wherein I want to share some of my larger life lessons through writing but sharing those life lessons will require anecdotes and truths and I don’t know how to write, how to share, without having people (some who are dear to me) feel alienated! I want to write about my family, my friends, my strangers, and the little pieces of me that have been murdered over time…but I know that when I write about those things, there’s going to be some kick back. I know I cannot make everyone happy. It’s impossible. But where does the balance fall between work and love, expression and respect, revolution and safety? I’m not sure yet, which is why I’m keeping a lot of good things under wraps. I remind myself, everything takes as long as it takes and in the meanwhile, I keep putting my pen to paper every single morning.

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Speaking of morning, my mornings are finally finding a rhythm. My days are finally finding a rhythm, my nights, too. It’s amazing how much more time I spend working when I am not spending myself on Robert (and I love to spend myself on Robert). I miss him but it’s very good to be a full-on workaholic right now.

I’m like a draft horse in the studio, all bright brawn, rippling muscle and keen eyes.

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Late at night here, in the wee hours of the morning, Tater and Farley come clip-clopping into the bedroom and one after the other they climb up into bed with me. We don’t allow dogs in our bed, but I let them stay, because I need them to, and I think there’s something intangible they are sensing that draws them to me in the night. We sleep together, my hands on their warm backs, until the sun begins to rise. I recently read that a lone wolf is a symbol of freedom while a wolf pack is a symbol of community; when Rob is away, my dogs give me an augmented sense of place and family. I often wonder who I would be without them. I think I live a split life, a life of a shape-shifter. I’ve become half-dog-half-human in my wide open living — in my isolation. I don’t know whether to sigh at the moon or howl at it. I don’t know if I should scoop the water up to my mouth with a cupped palm to drink or lap at it like a dog.

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I hoped to update the shop this week but need to postpone until next week — for practical reasons as well as my own general sanity. You can expect a shop update on February 25th and it will be a wild smattering of new designs as well as pieces I have had cluttering my workbench that I FINALLY made the space to finish. I’ve been cleansing my palate, tying up loose ends and creating some new and glorious things. I can’t wait to share it all with you, for it is all good.

More soon.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: general smatterings, life details, thinking aloud

February 11, 2015 by The Noisy Plume

Do not dwell on the shots you missed, do not fret about the shots to come. Work hard, have faith in your dog and cross the creeks as they come to you.

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I’m already missing those foggy, muddy days out on the land, chasing tailfeathers with my favorite men. I keep putting my nose into the wind when we go out hiking and running here, but it’s not the same. Everything feels edged with tameness, gently corralled by barbed wire and fenceposts. Even though I turn my back to it, I am aware of town, stretched out thin and humming in the valley below. I need a bigger horizon. I need more space. I need longer sunsets. I need the stars for a blanket. I need to feel the cold again, eating at the sparking and electric ends of my spirit, causing me to quicken my pace in a quest for heat.

Sometimes I think I know exactly how the mustangs feel, or the wolf that has been made a pet, or the falcon that is only set free to hunt.

I fret I won’t ever find a way to balance who I really am with basic, human civilities. But I think we all struggle with this, to a certain degree. Even the cities are wild jungles, in their own way, demanding a certain set of survival skills.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2015/02/11/9902/

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: i already miss him, idaho, thinking aloud, upland hunting