Sweating the Small Stuff...

Barry and the Silence of Death

So, Barry died today.  And I'm shocked by how profoundly saddened I am by his passing.  I mean, just yesterday he was swimming around his tank, full of life, and today, he's not.  That's how quickly it happens, I guess.  

We have no idea how old Barry was.  We got him several years ago at our local pet store (I can't even remember when we got him--it's been that long).  And I don't even know how long goldfish can live (pretty long, I think).  But dammit, whenever I walked into Sarah's room (where Barry lived), he wiggled and jumped and just seemed so damn happy to see me.  So utterly thrilled!  It's as if he was saying, "Oh, thank GOD you're here!  I've been waiting all day!  I was so worried!"  And let me tell you--I know of nobody else who wiggles and jumps like that when I walk into a room.  Not even me.

When I first saw Barry, suspended motionless in his tank this morning, my first thought was, "Oh, shit."  Not an angry, all-caps "OH, SHIT," but more of a tired, helpless, "Oh, shit."  And then the sadness settled in.  Sadness for a life that had ended.  Just like that.  Poof.  Yeah, I know, it's "just a fish," but still, fish have little souls, right?  Fish have quality of life indicators, right?  (Clean tank, good food, people to watch, etc.).  

But what surprised me the most, and always does about death, was how quiet it was.  There was no screaming, no flailing, no crisis.  Just death.  Silent and deep.  It was the same when my father died.  One minute he was breathing, the next he was not.  Simple.  Silent.  Relief.  But with my dad, there was baggage.  A whole carousel of baggage.  With Barry, he wiggled and jumped whenever I entered the room.  That's the thing that makes losing a pet, even a goldfish, so profoundly sad.  No baggage. Just love.  

Godspeed, Barry the Fish.  May you forever swim with the current.

Finding the Flow

Check out this selfie!  Know what I'm doing?  Shooting an honest-to-pete short documentary, that's what I'm doing!  This winter, I signed up to take a documentary filmmaking course at Bellingham's own Documentary Center, and I am soooo glad I did!  Because, in all honesty, I think I may have missed my calling.

You know how you feel when you become so engaged in something?  So "into" it that you lose all track of time and space?  For some people it's cooking, for some it's writing, for some it's reading.  For me, it seems to be video production.  And I'm not surprised.  It's in my genes, after all.  

When I was in high school, I worked summers at WBNS 10-TV, the CBS affiliate in Columbus, Ohio.  My dad was a reporter there, and had his own segment called "Ed's World," where he featured local personalities who made a difference in the community (or who were just interesting, like the folks at the nudist camp down near Chillicothe).  After a brief stint as an English teacher (that's in my genes, too), he went into broadcasting, first working at a small radio station outside of Pittsburgh.  From there, he received his Master's in broadcasting from The Ohio State University, and did an internship in L.A., where he met the likes of Richard Nixon, and the Beatles. (He got to cover their first U.S. press conference--can you imagine?  I still have his press pass from that event.)  

Rather than going to NYC to work for the big boys (or play shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles, who drafted him to their farm team), he chose to stick closer to home.  He found a long-term home at WBNS, whre his skills as a storyteller flourished.  He was a pro at finding the sublayer of a story, and working with that--the emotional piece (often times very funny) that people would remember.  And these were the days before digital--it was all reel-to-reel.  Literally cutting and slicing.  No Final Cut here.

So I figure that my genetic make-up has something to do with why I love video production so much.  I only wish I had come to it sooner!  But alas, I've come to it now (and it has been part of my work at the university for several years), and now it's time to step my skills up a notch or two.

Yesterday, I went on my first "official" shoot ("official" meaning I was holding an $6,000 camera) at the Bellingham Food Bank.  There is a lot to love about our local food bank.  For starters, they serve 20% of Whatcom County's population.  Yeah, that's right.  20%.  That means that twenty percent of the families here in Whatcom county struggle to put nutritious food on the table each week.  And I don't think that Whatcom County is all that different from anywhere else.  This speaks to a systemic problem that's more complex than I have time for today.  

But this is why I decided to focus on the food bank for my project.  They serve a vital role in our community, and I desperately want to get their story right.  And here's where the "flow" part comes in.  As I was shooting, my heart went out the the team of dedicated volunteers who were there, sorting through the fresh produce.  I was driven to compose thier story, as artfully as possible, to be shared with a wider audience.  At the end of the shoot, I was stunned to discover that over three hours had passed.  I hadn't noticed.  I was completely lost in the flow that happens when you're doing what you love--doing what you feel like you were born to do.

Author Nancy Lord recently came to visit WWU.  She has written about environmental issues for years.  When asked how people can be of greatest service to their communities, she told us, "Find the one thing that it is that you do really well, and then do that thing with a nod to preserving our planet."  By seeing to it that no good food goes to waste, the Bellingham Food Bank is doing just that.  Because in the end, being well-fed is at the core of well-being.  When community members share a sense of well-being, communities thrive.  The entire community is in "flow."  

For thousands of years, stories have had to power to transform lives.  It's in our genes.  

Vanishing Ice

Yesterday, I finally got to the Lightcatcher Museum in downtown Bellingham to see the Vanishing Ice exhibit, an artistic response to our rapidly disappearing glaciers and polar ice caps.  

Sarah's class had already been to the exhibit on a 4th grade field trip (I love her teachers), so she acted as a tour guide for me and my mother.  Sarah excitedly ran from painting to portrait to sculpture, telling us that, "This is the one I studied!" or,"This one is cool because it has penguins on it!"  I appreciated her enthusiasm, her acknowledgement that art is a language all its own, and through those purposefully chosen words and images, speaks volumes to what is creative and primal within us (well, she just mostly thought the images were "pretty," but I'll take that for now).

As we toured the museum, I was struck by how the vanishing ice is both a global and a local issue.  In the photo above, you can see what appears to be a globe, with a red mid-section.  Those are the Himalayas, which feed the major rivers of Asia (the Ganges, Mekong, an so many others).  Those glaciers are supplying water to tens of millions of people from India to Viet Nam and beyond--and those glaciers are disappearing at an alarming rate.  And along the wall to the left of the globe are pictures of Bellingham's own Mount Baker, with her shrinking Easton and Coleman glaciers, receding more and more each year.  The photographs from 50 years ago placed next to the photographs of today is nothing short of alarming.  I mean, really.  Without sources of fresh water, we're pretty much screwed.  Ask Africa.  Or Southern California.  Or Iowa.  Droughts are a bitch.  So are floods, which we have seen a lot of lately (think Sandy).  I mean, the outlook can be bleak, at best, and downright soul-crushing at worst.

Ugh.

So there's Sarah, flitting from photo to photo, and I'm standing there thinking, "Shit."  I mean, what have we done?  What have we, as a fossil fuel guzzling civilization done?  It's such a complex matter.  We all want comfortable lives, and that right to a comfortable life should extend to everyone.  Why shouldn't everyone want (or deserve?) a refrigerator, a computer, a car?  Who are any of us to deny any others of us that privilege?  But why do those things define what a comfortable life is?  Why must success come from a factory, wrapped with excessive plastic packaging?  We really need to examine the morality of possession.  We need to look beyond the cash price of everything to see what it is costing us elsewhere.  

Part of me wanted to apologize to Sarah and her generation.  I mean, we made this mess, and they're going to have to clean it up.  Because if you believe the most current climate models (and I do), we're already past the point of no return, carbon-wise.  A five degree temperature increase by 2090?  Good luck with that.  And just today, I read that the study that the State Department is presenting in its environmental impact statement regarding the Keystone Pipeline was heavily researched by a consultancy group that backs the pipeline's construction!  

So, the question then becomes:  How does one remain hopeful in light of all of this really, really depressing news.

Last week, I was fortunate enough to be involved with the first ever Washington Higher Education Sustainability Conference.  The speakers ran the gamut from policy makers to to educators to local tribal elders, and they all had one message:  We must remain hopeful.  Especially in education, where we ask our students to consider these issues of their time.  It's easy for students, K-12 and byeond, to become immune to the noise, to feel helpless and hopeless.  After all, these are big problems, global in scale and impact.  Who can blame a young person for throwing their hands up and saying "Screw it--there's nothing I can do, so why bother?"  I get that.  I really do.  My colleague Marie spoke at a session about dealing with the grief that often accompanies discussion of climate change, and our changing planet.  We grieve for what we have already lost (large amounts of biodiversity), and what we will surely lose in the future.  We grieve that we can't "fix" the problem, make it right for generations to come.  We grieve that this is largely our doing, thanks to our ability to extract cheap fossil fuel.  There's a lot to grieve.  

In the book Moral Ground, Barbara Kingsolver's essay, "How to be Hopeful," offers this:

    The arc of history is longer than human vision.  It bends.  We abolished slavery, we granted             universal suffrage.  We have done hard things before.  And every time it took a terrible fight between people who could not imagine changing the rules, and those who said, 'We already did.  We have made the world new.'  The hardest part will be to convince yourself of the possibilities, and hang on.  If you run out of hope at the end of the day, rise in the morning and put it on again, with your shoes.  Hope is the only reason you won't give in.

Hope.  Hope and agency.  Realizing that we (and our students and children) do have the agency required to make changes.  To adapt.  To prevent.  To put on our shoes and slip hope into our pockets.  It can be done.  It must be done.  

 

 

Tube Time

Sometimes the videos just speak for themselves...

Tube Time! from Lauren McClanahan on Vimeo.

 

Cracking the Knuckles Case

My 10-year-old, Sarah, has developed a nasty habit:  knuckle-cracking.

This is not her first foray into bad-habit territory.  From the day she was born, she was a thumb-sucker.  "Oh, good!"  I naively thought.  "No need to ever mess with pacifiers!  Her thumb is always attached!  How convenient!"  Well, tell that to her upper palate.  That habit took six months and an $800 piece of orthodontia to break.

But this knuckle thing.  It's different.

It started a month or two ago.  It was almost imperceptible at first, especially since it was done discreetly, in her room, under blankets.  But then, the habit became more brazen.  The knuckles were popping out in the open, at the dinner table, in the back seat of the car on the way to school.

"Who taught you how to do that?"  I asked.

That was my first mistake.  Not only was I assuming that someone at school taught her, but I was already accusing that person.  I had an idea of who it might be, but that part of the story comes later.  

"Nobody, Mom."

"Bullshit!"  I thought.  Someone had to have taught you.  I don't crack my knuckles.  Your dad doesn't crack his knuckles.  This had to be an outside influence.

Weeks went by with little interrogation.  I would ask her every now and then if it was Susan*, the girl I suspected.  Susan has taught Sarah some other unsavory things, so I just assumed.  But then yesterday, as we were all sitting down to relax after a long and stressful day, it started.  "Pop, pop, poppoppoppoppop!"  Like the cartilegde, I snapped.

"TELL ME WHO TAUGHT YOU HOW TO DO THAT!  IT WAS SUSAN, WASN'T IT?!?"

In reaction to my outburst, Sarah struck back:  "WHY DON'T YOU EVER BELIEVE WHAT I TELL YOU?!?  IT WASN'T SUSAN!  IT WAS STEPHANIE*, OKAY?!?"

Stephanie?  Wow.  Didn't see that one coming.  I like Stephanie.  Stephanie's a kid who I don't mind being around.  A kid I would hang out with if I were 10.  I was taken aback.

Shit.

So, there I sat, begging for an apology for not believing my daughter in the first place.  In my mind, I'm ripping myself apart.  "Nice work, McClanahan.  Good luck ever getting Sarah to share anything with you ever again.  Way to knock down whatever shaky foundation of trust was already there.  Here's just another example of how you suck as a parent.  How do you even pull it together enough to get dressed in the morning?  And this was only KNUCKLE CRACKING!  Wait until it's weed, or pills, or booze, or sex!"  The cassette tape in my head looped on and on.  

This is where the solace of friends comes in.  I told this story to a couple of friends this morning, and they got it.  They TOTALLY got it!  They had examples from their own experience to share, and shared them without judgement.  We realized that we would NEVER be as hard on our friends or our colleagues as we are on ourselves, and that that level of expectation of ourselves trickles down to our daughters, and what we expect of them.  If we want that foundation of honesty and harmony and acceptance with others, we have to model it in how we treat ourselves.  Let that sentence sink in.

I think that's a hard lesson for women, in particular, to learn.  I'm almost 46, and am JUST NOW learning how to loosen the reigns on what is reasonable to accept from myelf--as a wife, mother, daughter and teacher.  And from my kid, too.  She's ONLY 10!  She's only starting to figure out how to be a fully-formed human.  What kind of humanity do I want to model for her?

No world problems were solved during my talk with friends, but some realizations were made.  Our daughters are watching us all the time.  If we blow up at them when it comes to knuckle cracking, they'll never come to us when the big stuff hits.  Perspective, McClanahan.  Perspective.  

And maybe a little SAM-e.  You know, to take the edge off.  

*All names have been changed to protect the innocent.  And the guilty.

I Took This

I'm arriving a little late to the "year-in-review" party, but I'm here now, and feel like reviewing.  But before I review, I want to say that this year, 2014, has a little bit different feel for me.  It feels kind of...promising?  Not that 2013 was horrible.  In fact, it wasn't.  It's just that even-numbered years tend to treat me better than odd-numbered years.  But okay--let's do a quick review before I go down that road.

As you may know, I judge the quality of a year based on the pictures I make.  2013 led me down the west coast of the United States.  Well, part of it anyway.  First, I ended up in Northern California, where I took this:

And this:

That's my daughter at the base of the giant redwood.  Mind-boggling, right?  I also got out of the woods and into the city, where I took these:

Later in the summer, I returned to the coast, this time to central/southern Oregon.  That's where I took this:

And this:

 

I made some kind of nice videos as well, but for some mysterious reason, Typepad isn't letting me post them.  Gotta figure that out.

But back to what I was saying earlier.  This year feels full of promise.  I have a lot of intersting work-related projects in the hopper.  I'm also teaching a new educational technology class, which has re-ignited my interest in maintaining this blog.  It's the whole perfectionism thing that I've never really gotten over--unless I can create an exceptional post, I just won't post at all.  Gotta figure that out, too.

Suffice it to say that I am cautiously optimistic about 2014.  We'll see.

 

At the Half

Well, tomorrow is the day.  Super Bowl Sunday.  Our nation's winter celebration of the 4th of July.  The day that we come together as a country to...watch television at the same time (and, really, what could be more American than that?).  It's quite a feat, if you think about it.  Gone are the days when we all had only the three networks to choose from (and PBS, if we were lucky and got good reception).  Gone are the days when the Nielson's could accurately predict that, on any given Tuesday, the better part of 1/4 of the country was at home watching "All in the Family" or "MASH."  Who, back in the 1970s, could have ever predicted satellite TV, DVRs, Hulu?  Who could have possibly imagined skipping the commercials, or watching an entire season of a show in one afternoon?  That was the Orwellian stuff of the dreams of Madmen (which you can now, incidentally, watch in just one afternoon). 

No, the times, they have a changed.  But on this one Sunday each year, we as a nation revert back to those times, if only in a nostalgic sense, when we are all doing pretty much the same thing at the same time.  Not all of us, of course.  If you're like me, you couldn't give less of a shit about pro football.  Frankly, I don't even know which two teams are playing in the Super Bowl tomorrow.  But it's never been about the football.  It's about only two things: the ads, and the halftime show.  Here, I'd like to focus on the halftime show.

In the beginning, the halftime entertainment was pretty much standard football fare--marching bands, flag brigades, you know.  The usual.  I vaguely remember some mish-mash of performers ("Up With People?") who reminded me of the albums I was listening to in the early 70s ("Free to Be You and Me" comes to mind).  Then there were lots of Disney productions, and lots of military salutes.  But then, in the early 90s, there was a shift.  In 1993, Michael Jackson (yes, leave it to Michael) made his appearance, and began a trend (sometimes good, sometimes not so good) of halftime "performances," or "extravaganzas."  Acts like Aerosmith, Prince, Diana Ross and Boyz II Men began to replace "Up With People," and the cash started flowing.  

Wikipedia tells me that last year's Super Bowl halftime performance (by Madonna) was the most-watched performance of all time.  114 million viewers world-wide (about 3 million more than who tuned in for the actual game).  This year, it's Beyonce's turn, and I have no dubt that she'll do well (in lieu of her lip synched performance at the Presidential inaguration a few weeks ago).  It'll be stellar.

But, if you know me, you know that my favorite Super Bowl performance was way back in 2002, when U2 were summoned to rally us as a nation in the aftermath of 9/11.  Yes, U2, with their jumbo-tron screen of the names of each victim, scrolling behind the stage.  Sure, they're a bunch of smarmy Irish dudes, but who better to bring us together, as "One" (pardon the U2 pun).  And bring us together they did.  I dare you to watch the video and NOT be moved.  From their opener "Beautiful Day," to the dream-like interlude that is "MLK," to their triumphant "Where the Streets Have No Name," the audience was whipped into a frenzy. And then, THEN, when Bono revealed the American flag stitched into the lining of his rockin' leather jacket, well...I was sold.  Just one more reason why they remain my favorite band, doing what rock bands SHOULD do, and doing it with style and grace.

I won't be watching the Super Bowl tomorrow.  If it's Sunday, it's Sarah's ski lesson day.  But I will tune in to Beyonce's performance on the Web, to see how spectacular it is (was, by then).  I doubt that it will be able to match what I witnessed in 2002, but I guess that's not really the point.  Maybe the "point" is that as we as a nation become fragmented around so many divisive issues, disappearing behind our screens and our bunkers, never really needing to come up for air anymore, this annual event gives us an excuse to remember who we are and what we stand for.  (And maybe that what we stand for is just an ode to unfettered capitalism and the entertainment industry.  In that case, never mind...) Just watch this.

 

Getting High on Church

"In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth."  --Genesis 1:1

Either that, or the continual processes of subduction and uplift over the past 8 million years (with some advance and retreat of glaciers thrown in for good measure).  All I know is that the North Cascade range is relatively young, and sharp, and steep, and pointy--and yesterday, was heavenly.

[Can I get an AMEN up in here!]

Church Mountain.  Aptly named due to the craggy spires that comprise its true summit.  For years I've seein it listed in all the hiking guides, but always dismissed it, based upon various trail descriptions that I had read.  For example, "The view is straight up, nearly a vertical mile, yet the green is so vivid and appears so close a person cannot but wish to go there.  A person can readily do so, but must be a sturdy person and carry much water, because the climb is longer than it looks..."  (Spring & Manning).  The forrested part of the trail is described by McQuaide as, "2,200 feet elevation gain in less than two miles of steep, forested switchbacks with almost no letup."  He's right.

All tolled, the Church Mountain trail gains nearly 4,000 feet of elevation in 4.2 miles, with a high point of 6,100 feet.  It just sounded too intimidating for a puffy, Midwestern girl like me...

[Can I get a hallelujah up in here?]

But alas, fears are meant to be faced, and challenges are presented to make one stronger, so with one of my intrepid hiking buddies (and all around dear friend), we decided to, as Nike would say, "Just Do It."  We stragetized that we'd take it slow.  Stop at every other switchback for water.  Support each other when the chinks in our mental and physical armor threatened to allow fear and doubt to trickle in.  And so we began.

[Yes, Lord!]

Up, up, up, and more up.  Steep.  Relentless.  Just like the books said.  Stopping.  Drinking.  Breathing.  Up, up, up.  

Then heavy footsteps coming up behind us.  What the?  Yeah, we had to step aside and let a kid (well, college student, but still) who was RUNNING up the trail pass us!  RUNNING!  He swiftly passed us with a "Hey," and kept going, going, and was soon gone.  About 15 minutes later, a very fit man in his mid-50s approached (at a quick but more acceptable pace) and asked if we had seen a kid run by.  Apparently, there was a group of Western students (biochemistry) up on the mountain for the day, on a field trip,and this particular student is training to be a Navy Seal (because isn't that what one would wish to do with a biochem degree?).  We said that, indeed, we had been swiftly passed, and the professor (Spencer) thanked us and proceeded on.

At about 2.5 miles, the switchbacks momentarily eased, the trees were behind us, and Kathy and I found ourselves in the Deerhorn Creek Basin--the bottom of a bowl surrounded by waterfalls and wildflowers, and a fast-moving creek that would ultimately feed the raging North Fork of the Nooksack River below.

It also offered us our first glimpse of where we were headed.  Up, up, up.

More switchbacks now, but this time more exposed to the sun.  Luckily, there was a breeze, and the wildflowers urged us along.  At this point, I started getting tired, and the doubt started creeping in.  "What do you think you're doing?  You can't do this?  You're not capable of doing anything physical!  You were always the last one picked for kickball at school!  You always had to walk your bike up hills!  You're not strong enough!  Stop now!  What are you thinking??"  These messages were mostly coming from my legs and my lungs, which felt as if they were about to explode.  I imagined what REAL mountain climbers must feel like, on the way to Everest, or even Rainier, for that matter!  Technical climbers.  Climbers who had to carry ice axes and crampons and wear helmets.  This was just a "day hike."  Get a grip!  Kathy and I fell into a groove, and kept on slogging.  Whenever I'm getting really tired, the song from "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" always pops into my head:  "Put one foot in front of the other, and soon you'll be walking out the door-or-or!"  Yep, me and the Abominable Snowman.  Up, up, up.

Then, nearly 4 hours after we started, there it was!  Our destination!  We had arrived!

[Praise be!]

Now came the decision.  Do we stay where we are, happy to have made it this far, or do we attempt to scramble the last 400 feet or so to the top?  We had seen the group of Western students do the scramble so effortlessly!  We both were scared, but we knew we HAD to do it.  We hadn't come this far (and this high) to stop now.  Besides, if we fell, surely the college students would save us, right?  We went for it:

[Lord, have mercy!]

Here we were, on top of the world!  (Our world, anyway.)  360 degree views of all the rock stars (get it?) of the Cascades: Baker, Shuksan, Tomyhoi Peak, the Border Peaks--all greeted us with their icy grins.  We had definitely arrived:

But here's the thing.  While we were triumphant in our short ascent, we were both secretly terrified of our short descent!  We could barely enjoy our lunch knowing that what goes up must come down.  How would we ever do it?  We both have kind of crappy balance, and we were already so tired!  We tried not to think about it.  The group of biochem students was sitting nearby, whooping it up, talking about beer and the Honey Badger.  How could they be so relaxed?  So oblivious?  Didn't they realize that they, too, had to get back down? 

After about 20 minutes, the biochem students began to leave.  They waved goodbye to us and simply skipped down the steep, rocky, 400 foot "trail" to the platform below.  Like nothing.  Nothing!  We could hear them laughing and squealing in the distance, like so many pre-school children at play.  "Fuck," we thought (apologizing soon after for cursing in church).  

Wanting to get it over with sooner rather than later, we faced our fears and began our slow descent.  Mostly on our bottoms, as the "trail" went straight down.  It was funny, because going up didn't seem quite so difficult (of course, we had gravity on our side).  Going down, gravity was mocking us, pointing her bony finger at us and screeching, "Try and use me, now!"  

[Holy, holy!]

But you know what?  We did it!  Inch by inch, rock by rock, we did it.  Slow and steady.  Nervous laughter all the way.  And waiting at the bottom was a group of extremely rugged, 60-ish year old women, eager for their turn at the top.  Among them was "Pickles," named because she was munching on a home-made baby dill.  She had the demeanor of a pirate.  "Argh, that looks pretty steep!  I'll climb it if I feel like it.  Gonna have my lunch first..."  You go, Pickles!  She set her lunch aside long enough to take a picture for us, jubilent in the fact that our likelihood of returning home safely had just increased to 98%.  I can still hear Pickles now, "Argh--move your feet in closer--I hate it when my feet are cut off in pictures!"  Yes ma'am, Pickles!  Whatever you say!

The way back down was long, and sometimes silent.  We were spent.  We were also in awe at what we had witnessed at the top.  Two triumphs, actually.  First, we felt so blessed to be in a position to witness such extreme beauty.  How lucky we are, we thought, to live where such an outing is classified as a "day hike."  Easy breezy, lemon squeezy.  We live and walk among beauty, and were reminded of that on this day.  The smell of the pine forest, the warmth of the sun, the cool breeze mediating between the two.  It's nothing short of a miracle.  Additionally, we felt blessed that we were physically up to the challenge.  No, we were't running up the trail (we're not training to be Navy Seals), but we walked.  And we reached our destination.  And it was good.  

[Preach it, sister!]

Almost as good as the Mexican food we devoured at Taco Lobo when we got home.

 

 

Obsession

The topic of obsession has always been an obsession of mine.  I consider myself to be a pretty obsessive person.  Not obsessive-compulsive--that's a completely different animal.  I mean obsessive in terms of once I get an idea in my head, it stays there, eating away at me until I've done whatever it is I need to do to ease that particular craving (for lack of a better word).  Lately, my obsession has been the need to get outside and not squander this amazing stretch of weather we've been having.  I've done a number of hikes recently, as this year (unlike last year), many of the higher elevations are melted out and ready to be visited.  LIke Cascade Pass above.  Or like Blue Lake:

Insane, right?  (The water really, truly is that color.  There's a reason for it, but it's too science-y for me to remember.)  Or how about this picture from my recent foray up into Canada:

(Yeah, that water really was emerald.)

Then there was this earlier trip to the North Cascades National Park:

And to Sauk Mountain,for the insane wildflower show:

And did I mention the Sequim (pronounced "Squim") Lavender Festival?

Here's the thing.  Most of the time, our weather out here really is crappy.  Now, I happen to like crappy, because as I've addressed in this space before, crappy weather gives me permission to stay indoors and get things done--laundry, school work, reading, writing--you know.  Things.  But when it's nice, well...

When it's nice, I feel completely obligated to enjoy it--to literally soak in as much sun as I can, because once it's gone, it tends to stay gone for quite some time, and you can never predict when it might come back.  Add to this self-inflicted mix my obsession for taking pictures and, well, you've got yourself the perfect psychological storm!  

For me, taking pictures is more than just taking some simple snapshots.  I'm the person who judges entire events based upon whether or not I got good shots.  "So, how was your trip to France?"  "I'm not sure yet--let me edit my photos and get back to you!"  For me, photographs are, quite literally, my external memory.  Unless I have photos, how can I be sure that it happened?  What?  Rely on my real memory?  Not a chance.  My real memory is mysteriously horrific.  I'm seriously concerned how I'll know whether or not I'm senile--there's no baseline for measurement.  My horrific memory causes me counless instances of embarrassment, from my work life to my personal life to my inner life.  Colleagues at work will as me what was discussed in a meeting, or what the specifics of a document are that I helped to create, and nine times out of ten, I look at them as if they have just asked me something about discrete mathematics.  My response is typically "Um...I don't know.  I can't remember.  Can I get back to you on that?"  Followed by drooling and limping away, slowly, from the scene.

This is not hyperbole.

At least once a day, I walk into a room and can't for the life of me remember why.

This explains, in part, my obsession for documentation, namely visual.

I do, however, think that this combined obsession with not squandering good weather and documenting life events can be a good thing.  Imagine how glad Sarah will be (hopefully) when she's an adult--her entire childhood displayed before her in copious images.  And I do have some nice photos hanging on the walls.  Some of my photos have even sold, so others have my photos hanging on their walls, too!  But the problem is I always want more--more pictures, more outings, more variety.  More, more, MORE!  Sure, I have 300 shots of that same lovely vista, but not at SUNRISE!  Or not in NOVEMBER!  Not on a WEEKDAY!

It never ends.

Sometimes I wonder if I need professional help.  I'm quite serious.  I literally get anxious if I can't get outside and take pictures.  I'm anxious right now just thinking about it...

I also wonder what will one day become of all of my pictures, obsessively shot on unspeakably clear, Northwest days?  I certainly can't take them with me, and I doubt that anybody else would be particularly interested.  Will all of my external hard drives and DVDs be tossed out with the rest of everything else that goes when I go?  Kind fo depressing to think about, really, so I won't.  Instead, I'll continue to obsess about the sun and the out-of-doors and the taking of the photographs.  It's not like I'm using film, right?  

 

Is it me?

Today is the third day of summer.  Summer.  That word is a paradox to me.  On the one hand, it connotes a sort of freedom--freedom from the routine of the academic year, freedom from mental and physical confines of snow and ice, freedom from the routine and the mundane.  But on the other hand, the flip-side of that freedom, resides obligation--obligation to feel free, to have fun, to be outside, to go, go, go!  

Is it just me, or is that too much pressure?

Here's one of my many, many dirty little secrets.  Ready?  I'm not a fan of summer.

There.  I said it.  Go ahead--judge me.

But before you do, allow me a brief explanation.  If you've known me for any length of time, you know a couple of things about me.  I absolutely, positively refuse to go on (or near) roller coasters.  If my mother's funeral were scheduled on the same day that U2 was performing nearby, I would legitamately have to think about it.  And I absolutely, positively HATE hot weather.  It's like my body simply shuts down.  It says, "Nope, not in the contract."  I literally cannot move.  Or think.  I can barely breathe.  The years I spent living in North Carolina were among the most repressive in my entire life (physically as well as metaphorically).  No, I do not like the heat.

Interestingly enough, I'm not a fan of extreme cold, either.  Winters in Ohio were brutal--the steely cold that would stab you each time you stepped out against it.  How the tiny hairs in your nostrils would instatntly freeze, how your eyes would water, and no matter how many blankets you piled upon your frigid bones, the warmth would never come.  Bone-chilling, they call it.  And it was.  And I hated it.

This is why I like the Pacific Northwest so much.  She's indecicive.  She can't make up her mind.  She's somewhere in-between.  I like that in a place.  She's a lot like me.

The photograph above is emblematic of early summers in the PNW.  This photo was taken yesterday afternoon; it was 55 degrees.  The (heated) pool was steaming.  It was like a big bathtub.  A womb.  The children inside were doing what children do--flailing about, learning to use their bodies in a new way--a way that they have forgotten, but will eventually remember.  We are born of water, and we will return to water.  We are water.

I think that's part of why I love living in this corner of the world so much--why I MUST live here.  Everything is reliant on water.  It rains here.  A lot.  And when it doesn't, people worry.  We talk about watersheds and water tables and water policy.  We understand that water is integral to life.  Our life.  Here, where we live.  This past week, I was fortunate enough to visit the North Cascades Institute, a learning center nestled deep within the North Cascades National Park, two hours from my home.  While there, I was surrounded by water--the turquoise gleam of Ross Lake, the wide, winding Skagit River, and the waterfalls that feed them all:

When it's cold and misty outside, I have permission to stay in.  I have permission to read, to write, to think.  I have permission to linger in bed, reading with my girl, or just sleeping.  I have permission to do the laundry, to wash the dishes, to tidy up.  When it's sunny outside, I don't have that permission.  The pressure to get out and DO things is too great (after all, the rain might move in again tomorrow, so get out now, now, NOW!).  Forced outdoor activity.  That doesn't always work for me.  Don't get me wrong--I LOVE to be outdoors, but I just don't want to be obligated.  

I'm not a fan of obligation.

I asked a friend yesterday what his perfect life scenario would be--place, job, partner, the works.  He said simply, "To be free of obligation."

I think he's on to something.

I love my family.  I love my work.  Both provide structure and meaning in my life, and without either, I would be lost.  But my GOD, the obligation of it all!  Oh to be a trust-fund baby, to be able to jet off whenever and wherever I pleased.  To not have a balance on my Visa.  To be beholden to no one.  Sounds equal parts scary and exhilerating!  

Give me the in-between space.

In the meantime, I'll take my cold, misty June days.  I'll linger in my bed and read and think and snuggle with my girl.  Last night, we stayed up as late as the twilight, while she read some of her writing to me.  My heart was literally bursting.  Outside, the rain was pelting against the window pane.