displacements of the heart

that's what they mean by the love that passeth understanding: that pride, that furious desire to hide that abject nakedness which we bring here with us, carry with us into operating rooms, carry stubbornly and furiously with us into the earth again.

faulkner

happy saturday!

farmers' market bounty: a big loaf of bread, peaches, plums, tomatillos, berries, kale, and chard. the little pints of berries were full when i bought them and half gone by the time we returned to the house. it's really heaven to me to have a tray of assorted berries on my lap while driving through sunny, bustling portland.

not pictured: a big bag of multicolored potatoes, a shiny and robust purple onion, beets, spinach, and local eggs.

wild times

washington's olympic national park is spectacular.
mike, courtney and i just arrived back in portland after two days of hiking and camping. we left the city late thursday night, arrived at a campsite around 2 am, and hastily pitched the tent before falling asleep fast and hard.

the next morning we packed up the car and drove several hours to the sol duc hot springs. we found an amazing campsite surrounded by majestic trees dripping moss.
we were excited by the prospect of relaxing in the hot springs, but we soon learned that what qualified as 'hot springs' were actually man-made pools filled with water piped to the resort from the source, and we weren't interested in buying in to that racket.

most of the evening was spent making dinner, eating, drinking beer, and talking, talking, talking. courtney explained the whole plot of twilight and i read flannery o'connor's 'a good man is hard to find' aloud while mike and courtney reclined on the picnic benches. we couldn't stay awake past 10 pm.

this morning we woke up late, around 9:30, and readied ourselves for the drive to the hoh rain forest, located on the west side of the national forest.
the rain forest, which runs alongside the hoh river, was even more beautiful than the sol duc region. enormous firs, dramatically curving branches, lush moss, pale blue glacier water running along rocky gray beaches. the air was pure and delicate. we hiked along the spruce trail and made plans to return to the forest for an 18 mile hiking and camping trip sometime in the near future. besides the hoards of tourists and shrieking kids, it was one of the most peaceful places i have ever been.

on our way back south to portland we stopped at ruby beach on the pacific coast. it was both mike's and courtney's first time seeing the pacific.
it was cold and windy; the water was white and foaming and infinite. we climbed over massive fallen trees to reach the shoreline and once there, made our way over large, round and flat black rocks to separate chosen perches: courtney climbed up to a large rock surface fifteen feet in the air, i sat underneath a simple, lovely log ceiling some other beach wanderer had constructed, and mike rambled on down the beach until we called him back.

a deeply satisfying, calming experience, through and through.


(my camera was out of commission, as was courtney's, but i pulled this photograph from the internet so you'll have some idea of how stunning this beach was.)



and here is a photograph ( another i cannot take credit for) of the hoh rain forest:

awesome blog reading list

cricketbread.com/blog

veganicverses.blogspot.com

goodfarmmovement.com

thepeoplewhofeedus.com

separation anxiety

though it is lovely to be in a house in a neighborhood in a city, courtney and i long for a garden.
i began digging up a section of the boys' backyard and intend to plant there before we leave, but it isn't the same.

this contrast in lifestyles (waking up at 5 am and working yourself towards delicious exhaustion or waking up at 8:30 am and frolicking all day, hardly knowing what time you'll fall asleep) has revealed a great deal to me about the balance i aim to maintain in my life once the pieces come back together in something resembling orderly fashion.

what we daydream about is having a thriving organic vegetable farm with fruit trees, bread-baking facilities, chickens, and goats. we want all our friends to live there with us. we want to build things with our own hands and cultivate a creative space.
when i am in the dirt, weeding or planting or harvesting, there is a sense of infinite possibility grounded in something real and tangible.
even now, just writing about this inspiration for a very concentric, interconnected community-based homestead, i feel the urge to put on my boots and gardening gloves and finish digging up that patch of grass.

when i began working on the farm in wyoming, i had written small snippets of nothing-much. my literary energy felt sapped. i was constantly required to be in the moment, so there wasn't enough distance between myself and my experience to process it as a story.
but the conversations i had in wyoming, and conversations since then, have summoned up a desire to document. somehow that distance was there, though it would certainly not be described as detachment - rather, it was something like the buddhist concept of nonattachment.

it might have had something to do with this aforementioned feeling of expansion and concentration i have while gardening. i would find myself this state where i could see a thought arise and watch it pass by, without scrambling to dissect it.
one day i told courtney, i had the most amazing thing happen to me while i was gardening. i suddenly thought, i am nothing. all that there is is this small piece of earth that i am digging up and i am so small and nothing.
she had this look on her face, the lopsided grin, and she said, i'm sorry, i'm just in the kind of mood where i have to laugh at you.

i laughed with her. after being in school for four years and overthinking the most basic decisions and events of everyday life, after learning to believe that my every action has tremendous ripple effects and political implications, it's difficult to detach myself from that method of operation, if only for a moment. but something about the experience felt more stark and solid than previous pseudo-intellectual ones.

i suppose this brings me back to how i felt in that split second. and speaking of political implications, the practice of sustainable organic farming is chock full of them.

but my point being, what i miss about gardening everyday (and the reason why i want to build a life that centers around it) is that openness of mind, the way i can think about books and writing and music and friends and family and yoga and love and anger and the body and food and death and language, and then all of that din will become a dull murmur and then silence sets in, and once again it is just my hands (still weak) and the seeds or the roots or the flower, and it is nothing and it is everything at once.

pizza & poetry

chipp and i whipped up homemade vegetable pizzas for the house.

pizza one:

organic whole wheat dough
delicious sauce
vegan sausage
spinach
red pepper
onion
1/2 cheese

pizza two:

organic whole wheat dough
delicious sauce
vegan sausage
eggplant
onion
zucchini
1/2 cheese



we sat around the table in nice clothing, like a family. we drank wine and beer and ate lots of pizza.
then we read poetry to each other, both original and admired. louis is getting ready to fly to new york. he'll be there for a week and we'll sure miss him.
he is currently wearing a purple polo shirt and freaking out about gathering all the right traveling music.

i love love love portland and i want to live here.
i suspect my temperament is better suited for this coast.

6006 north atlantic

boys&osit

the cutest little osit that ever was

american girl

livingroom/sleeproom/charades stage

kitchenette

louis&mike

makeshift nest

c&louis

music station

round table

page seventeen

but it was the colour and the light of the place that made me stay there, not my fever. it became a calm week. it was the colour and the light. the colour a grey with remnants of brown - for instance those rust brown pipes and metal objects that before had held bridles or pails, that slid to machine uses; the thirty or so grey cans in one corner of the room, their ellipses, from where i sat, setting up patterns in the dark.

read: the collected works of the billy the kid by michael ondaatje

old joy

it has been gray skies and cool air ever since we arrived in portland.

yesterday courtney, courtney and i went to the farmers' market in the hollywood district. lots of organic food. i pursued heirloom tomatoes and leafy greens and teeny carrots.
the girls bought bread and cheese.
then we zigzagged through the city to the artisan fair and hung out there for a while before heading back to the house.

despite the weather, i feel perfectly content here. the energy of the city isn't nearly as frazzled as new york. osit describes it as a big village, and i think she's right. most people live in houses, there are gardens trimming front lawns and flowers languish on every corner.
fruit trees hang over the sidewalk: on our way to an italian cafe, we picked plums and pears and i was full of fruit by the time we reached our destination.

courtney and i drew up a plan for our future farm. we've decided we'll bake organic bread there, as well, and keep goats for their milk in order to make cheese and soap. and chickens for their eggs, and tiny sheep for their adorableness, and dogs for their personality.

i cooked dinner with items from the market. i chopped up tomatillos and heirloom tomatoes for salsa, marinated and baked tofu in barbecue sauce, and sauteed russet potatoes with dill, chard and kale. osit made scrumptious caramelized onions. everyone rolled the ingredients up in warm tortillas. weird tacos that everyone said they enjoyed.

courtney and i tried to arrange a small dance party (louis, mike, chipp, courtney, me) but it barely happened.



we are once again enchanted with a place and all of its possibilities, and i am especially interested in searching out the urban farming scene here, and in visiting that enormous independent bookstore everyone has told me so much about.

wyoming, montana, washington, oregon in 32 hours

it's a long story.




dialogue in the big horns:

m: i want to see the swiss alps, can we go? can we fit that into the trip?

c: sure, just for you, panda. it'll be like chitty chitty bang bang, we'll just drive across the ocean.




but we're not in the swiss alps. we're in portland, with our friends. the good times abound.

and now we go

i woke up at 5 am this morning to practice yoga. the sky just above the horizon was a thick bright pink stripe. the sun came blazing up out of the pink around 6 and everything came to life.
i will miss the wyoming morning. the romance of it.

i hope i can take this feeling with me, this feeling of deeply appreciating each moment of my experience.

courtney and i are leaving clear creek farms this afternoon, after working from 6:30 until 11:00 on preparing CSA shares.

carol and bob leresche took us into their home(s) and taught us a great deal about how to live in the world. they are joyful, humble, whip-smart people and i will miss them terribly. i had trouble holding it together when we said goodbye.
i am amazed at their endless capacity for humor and kindness. they both work so hard and with such passion, and after seeing what they have built together and the strides they make every day, i am wholly inspired to live in such a fashion.

and we will miss mona and steve: mona's big sweet smile and steve's quiet, thoughtful presence.

but we are on to new landscapes and new adventures and excited to see more people we love.
yellowstone to seattle to portland.

as carol would say, you lucky, lucky girls.

wyoming dinner party/trailer antics

sunday evening:

dinner at mona and steve's. wwoofer appreciation. lovely dinner, lots of giggling.
courtney and i rode a bare bones vehicle over muddy paths, through a creek, to the bonfire site. this machine is a cross between a four-wheeler and a golf cart.
we sat around a fire and watched the moon rise.

monday:

four hours preparing CSA.
three hours painting.
wonderful breaks and talks with carol and bob.
the drive home was gleeful, we were listening to music by artists we don't know by name and watching wyoming drift by (i saw cows mating) and we arrived home at the trailer to find two new kittens shyly awaiting us.
(kittens in service of the mouse problem. duke & daisy.)




our hearts, our minds, our bodies are in wyoming.
who would've thought.

homesteaders

carol's grandmother, born and raised in france, moved to the united states, fell in love with a cattle rancher, and raised six sons on the wyoming side of the wyoming/montana border.

(these are not photographs of her particular homestead)

A Flower Does Not Talk: Zen Essays
Abbot Zenkei Shibayama

"the real life and spirit of Zen is an experiential fact. it does not rely on letters, that is, on the written or verbal expressions which function within the dualistic limitations."

"Zen...should be understood and used by all mankind because it can help build and refine the character of the individual and can deepen thought."

red trellis, big storm

last night i slept with the light on. the isolation and silence out here makes me feel at once vulnerable and safe, exposed and protected by the space on all sides.

carol came to pick us up at 7:30 this morning, and we drove down a dirt path to mona and steve's house. mona is an organic gardener and her husband steve is a cattle rancher. we chatted over coffee about cows, tomatoes, melons, politics, tattoos, sheep, vegetarianism, and angry bulls.

steve, a soft-spoken and easy-to-smile man, spoke a bit about his experience as a rancher, particularly how it didn't bother him in his younger years to separate a calf from its mother, but now that he's older he can see the essential connection clear as day: even if a calf is taken from its mother at birth, if the two are placed on a pasture together six months later they will instantly find one another and express affection.

mona, steve and carol are some of the kindest, most sincere and energetic people i have ever met.

we were given a tour of mona's tunnel gardens and greenhouses before going over to carol's garden to tie tomatoes.

after an hour or so of work in the garden we went inside for a snack and had a lovely conversation with carol about what our trip means to us, our understanding(s) of independence and specifically independence as women.

courtney and i opted to paint carol's trellis. we stood on ladders dripping red paint on ourselves for three hours before taking a lunch break with carol and her husband bob, who lives forty minutes away in sheridan but comes out to the farm every day.

carol's garden saute:

turnips, 2
chard, 2 handfuls
onion, 1
garlic, 3 cloves
jalapeno pepper, 1
kidney beans, 2 cups

simmer onion and garlic in a pan before adding the turnips.
when the turnips have softened, add diced jalapeno and chopped chard.
add kidney beans when the chard has wilted. the chard should be an emerald green. include the stems for pretty colors.
stir and let simmer for several minutes.

serve with basmati rice.


then a huge storm hit. 70 mph winds, lightening striking down close, carol's insect and hail netting flying all over the place, diagonal rain.
it was over by 5:00, when carol drove us back to the trailer.
now we are home, showered, clean of red paint, ready for bed. 5 am wake up tomorrow.

the sun is descending and the fields and hills are bathed in lavender and coral light.

if we're ever feeling down and/or lonely, we just look at each other and say, hey. hey, you.

in love with a view

from 6:45 am until around 10:00 am, we picked chard and lettuce, cut squash away from the vine, whispered insults at pesky grasshoppers, washed all the greens, bundled up turnips, and prepared all the fruits of our labor for csa delivery. it began raining around 8:00 and we just forged on, safe and warm in our ponchos.

seven miles from the farm is a sweet little trailer (pictured below) where courtney and i will be staying, along with a woman from manhattan, lauren.

we are already completely smitten with the women we work for, carol and mona. sweet, encouraging, intelligent people. i feel deeply fortunate to be here.

woke up before the sun

kitchen



farmhand quarters



my bedroom for the next eight days



our backyard



the living room

wyoming is a verb, so what is it to wyom?

my father followed me throughout south dakota: when i was little he sang me 'rocky raccoon' by the beatles nearly every night before i fell asleep. it looped through my head the entire time we were in the badlands and the black hills.

and today, when we stopped for ice cream at that weird diner, it occurred to me that that place resembled an establishment in a horror story my father has told me numerous times. i think the plot came from a movie: it's about a fabulously popular barbecue joint/motel that serves human flesh to its unwitting customers.

don't get me wrong, the people were perfectly nice. the woman who rang me up asked me where we were from and what we were up to, and when i explained she just smiled a little bit, revealing very tiny teeth, and said, 'well, that's differen'.'

we thought we were going to camp on the plot of land next to the diner but by the time we had pitched our tent and started getting settled, we were told to relocate because we had mistakenly taken a RV space.
well, there were no RVs in sight. there were no other tents in sight. so on principle, we politely asked for our money back and left.

courtney says we may have just experienced the last stop before the gates of hell. true, the campground was wedged between the road (whining with motorcycles) and a terrifying dropoff into wild terrain.
that was the mouth of hell, she says.
and if i believed in hell i would say it's possible.


but on to brighter things, we are now snugly nestled in a cabin on an amazing plot of land in the middle of wyoming. a creek runs just outside our door and i think i can hear a cow either having sex or giving birth in the distance.

everything is peace, peace, peace. tomorrow we expect to begin harvesting and cleaning chard and lettuce at six am until the afternoon, when we'll become acquainted with the partner farm seven miles down the narrow road.

this land is magnificent and i am happy as a clam.

the worst cup of coffee i have ever had in my life

read this read this as soon as possible

devil's tower, wyoming

if i see one more motorcycle i am going to scream.



the black hills were beautiful. yesterday we hiked down a mountain & through wildflower fields until i insisted we turn around before venturing too far into bear territory, or what i imagined to be bear territory. we drove up to mt. rushmore but didn't bother getting close up.

we made dinner over a campfire & tried to pop corn for dessert, which didn't turn out well. all the kernels melted into one enormous black mass, which we discovered upon opening the lid after waiting for popping sounds for two hours.

i read courtney 'a view of the woods' by flannery o'connor as the sun went down, then we talked about boys.

we stopped in spearfish, south dakota before crossing the border into wyoming. now we are in a gift shop/restaurant near devil's tower, a bizarre & frightening piece of hard earth jutting into the sky. i am eating very non-vegan ice cream because it is damn hot. it's only a matter of time before the stomach pains set in.

this isn't the first time i've strayed from the vegan way in the past weeks - at the commune the only protein option was usually eggs, so i had a paprika egg (thank you camila) with toast two or three times, & i had what i assume was a non-vegan pancake at a kitschy buffet near the crazy horse monument yesterday morning. i've done my best - at the mexican place in council bluffs, iowa i had to scrap mounds of melted cheese off of my rice and beans.

but that's a central aspect of this trip: learning how to negotiate limitations & change, & trying to understand any anxiety that comes up in the face of situations i can't control. what has struck me as truly beautiful about this experience is all the time & space it allows for self-examination.

on the other hand, i have managed to maintain a steady yoga practice throughout all the relocating & changes of scenery, i.e. changes in ground conditions. yoga on the moldy fitness room rug at the commune was remarkably different from yoga in living room of a boyhouse in omaha, or yoga on the dusty, grasshopper-covered ground in the badlands, or yoga on the buggy earth of the black hills.

the land here is green & red & gorgeous.

tomorrow we begin working on a farm in northeast wyoming - we'll be there for a week before moving on to montana, washington & oregon.



p.s.
the little grasshoppers i mentioned in my last post chewed a hole in our tent. they will eat anything. if we had died in the badlands, they would have been all over our bodies in seconds. horrifying.