The Wind

I have lived through some pretty scary windstorms in my lifetime, though nothing near a hurricane or tornado or anything, so I guess technically I’m not much of an aficionado. But relatively speaking, as far as gusty wind is concerned, the Puget Sound area has its doozies. Seattle windstorms are strong and powerful, but feel in general lofty and dissipated; maybe it’s too far south from the source or perhaps gets its wind from other means. The winds here puts everything else I’ve ever felt to shame.

To. Shame.

Known in these parts as the dreaded “nor’easters” they come barreling down the Fraser River Valley in the cleft between Canada’s Coast Mountains and the Cascade Range. The winds rush, gush, gale, gust, moan, groan and every other kind of spooky wind adjective you can think of. The striking gusts feel like angry ocean surf pounding against the house. I have heard voices, yelling, singing, shouting and other such bizarre and “Who’s there?” kind of moments, especially at night, and especially at night when Will is out of town. The constant rushing around the house creates a loud din, similar to the ever-present whooshing sound one hears on an airplane: inescapable, punctuated by turbulence, and instills the desire to never, ever open the door. Our house sits slightly above the valley floor, nestled against the foothills of Sumas Mountain, and therefore is shielded from the worst of it, which I hear can gust to 80+mph out in the open flatlands. When the nor’easters hit our first November in this farmhouse, wind advisories warned of 35mph winds with 50mph gusts.

Wind moves things. The toys in containers that are usually stored against the side of the house got strewn across the yard, the road, the creek, the gully, into the neighboring acreage. Same for my large stacks of flower pots/containers. Also buckets. Oh, and lawn chairs.

And then there’s the trampoline. The safety netting around it acted as a sail, eventually inching the entire thing forward about 20ft from its original position along the treeline behind the swing set. By the time I noticed, it was 5-feet in front of the swing set, as if the two were in a slow race towards the side of the house and the trampoline had just broken out ahead. The thing had also rotated so that the zipper-door faced a different direction, and one of the metal poles holding the safety net was bent inward at a 45-degree angle. It looked like it had been hit by a truck. We bent it back and cautiously continued to utilize the still-good toy.

The next year another windstorm hit and though we battened down the hatches and secured everything we could think of, we had failed to bury, tie or otherwise secure the trampoline over the course of the previous several months. Again a wind advisory warning was issued for the county. Again the wind raged against our house. That afternoon I happened to be talking to Will in the living room when we heard a THUNK right outside the front door. I had a sneaking suspicion it was a toy or bucket that had flown up against the side of the house but I was unprepared to find myself FACE TO FACE with the trampoline upon opening my front door. The thing had flown, its safety nets like a sail, across the yard, narrowly missing our cars by mere feet, and crashing into the wall underneath a small window.

The house was unharmed: a metallic scuffmark in the paint was all the damage sustained. Trampoline? Not so much. Nearly all its safety poles were pointing the wrong way, the main circular framework was bent, and the legs were torn apart at several soldering seams. Unsalvageable as a trampoline, though we saved the mesh fabric for some possible future usage.

Wind. Wind did this. When it was blowing. Scary, scary wind.

Usually the willow isn’t visible from this window.

The Community

I have always felt isolated. It goes beyond my introvert nature, though the fact that it’s hard for me to “put myself out there” certainly doesn’t help. Growing up we lived on about an acre of land in the Sierra Nevada foothills, real near to where James Marshall pulled a gold nugget from the American River in 1848: the first pebble in the avalanche that history would later call the California Gold Rush. Our neighbors around my childhood home were friendly enough, and we often traded babysitting, or house-watching, or other simple chores and neighborly duties. But that, and waving to one another on the road, was the extent of it. There weren’t a lot of kids our age nearby, so there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to hang with a gang. My best friends were a car-ride away, tens of miles from me and not at all “walking distance” like those kids on TV sit-coms and after-school specials. We had few family members around: a couple aunts and uncles living within an hour’s drive, and my grandfather who moved in across the street when I was a pre-teen. Occasionally we’d have a distant relative visit from the greater Los Angeles area. My parents had a handful of friends that we visited and entertained on a somewhat regular basis.  But overall, in general, it was a fairly isolated existence.

College was about the best time for me because I felt a strong sense of comradery with my peers. We lived together, first in dorms and then in off-campus apartments. We ate together. We often worked together. I was a musician so we spent hours and hours together in rehearsals and performances. They were my family and I loved it. Graduation changed everything, of course: each year I lost more and more friends until they were all alumni and mostly flung to the far corners of the state/country. Some I kept in touch with, others I did not. All the while my immediate community had once again shrunk again to a handful of core players.

Moving to Seattle did nothing to help my isolation, in fact it made it worse. Despite having my sister and a couple good college friends living nearby, I was pretty much limited to about five people in my life that I ever saw or hung out with on a regular basis. Ironically, participating in the music scene yielded no opportunity for a new musical “family.” I tried making friends at my various jobs but nothing stuck, and so as the years ticked by I was amazed to realize that I was still pretty much friendless. Our neighbors bordering our suburban lot were polite and sometimes waved hello, but with the exception of a few fence-building co-operations or have-you-seen-my-cat interactions they all pretty much kept to themselves. News reports called attention to a phenomenon titled The Seattle Freeze, but having a label to the problem did nothing to alleviate its impact. I was just glad for my extrovert husband who easily made friends with whole cross-sections of fascinating people. Many of them we have stayed friends with over the long, long years. So things turned out well enough, but again, we were still isolated in pretty dense pockets of solitude nonetheless. In fact, it wasn’t until we had kids and started down the rabbit-hole of playdates, toddler classes and pre-school that I began meeting people that I now consider good and lifelong friends despite my not living near to them any longer.

Ironically, it took moving away from a big city filled with hundreds of thousands of people to finally provide me with the community I so desperately craved. I have always felt more comfortable in small towns. I gave urban/suburban living a good go, but the reality is that I just never acclimated to city life. My entire 13 years in/around the Seattle area can be summed up as feeling like I was always wearing clothes and shoes that were one-size too small: they still fit and looked okay, but they certainly weren’t comfortable.

When my daughter was nearing 5, I had an almost-panic attack over this realization: not wanting to change school districts once established, I suddenly understood that once Anya entered kindergarten, we’d be locked into living in the city 15-20 more years. Could I survive another two decades in the concrete jungle? The answer was immediate and visceral. When I managed to calm myself, I voiced my concerns to my husband. That night he began researching real estate and rentals in Whatcom County, the northwestern most corner of Washington state, hugging the border with Canada. Will had lots of family there. It was rural. The big-big city of Bellingham had a population of 80,000. The next-biggest city of Lynden only has 13,000. This was a huge step down for us: Seattle was fast approaching 700,000 but to me it might as well have been ten million.

The story of how we found our current property is stuff of legends, which I will regale at another time, but suffice to say, within 18mos of my original statement, we were driving a packed vehicles north towards Everson (population 2,553) and our new home on three acres of land in the foothills of Mt. Sumas.

We moved out of the city for a lot of reasons. One of them was that we wanted to provide our children with a real community, one we were struggling to establish and maintain in Seattle. Within seconds of our arriving at our new home the tendrils of my new life, my new community, began to take hold and our lives were forever changed.

Before heading to the new house we first needed to stop in Bellingham to get keys from the landlord and finish signing lease agreements. As we departed he left us with this advice: “Don’t be alarmed if the neighbors come out to help you move in.” We almost brushed off his advice. I mean, it was dark and nearing 10 o’clock. By the time we’d arrive at the house it’d be close to 10:30. I get friendly neighborhood welcoming committees and helping us lug boxes, but surely they’d wait ‘til first light?

It was pitch black when we arrived at the house. We were exhausted and had already decided: just unload the mattresses, bedding and maybe the suitcases and crash for the night. The rest we’d do in the morning. I was returning from my first trip inside when I saw headlights in the driveway. Just as the landlord had warned, the neighbors had come out to help us move in. They grabbed boxes and hand-trucks and furniture and made quick work of emptying the truck and car of our stuff so that by a little past 11pm we were unloaded and ready for sleep. This same neighbor was later integral in introducing me around the households that dot our little hillside.

It has been a little over two years since that fateful night in May when we began our lives here on The Hill but I can honestly say I feel like I’ve lived here my whole life. I have some very good, endearing relationships with several of my neighbors, and friendly first-name relationships with most of the rest. I have been inside many of my neighbor’s homes for parties or quick stop-ins or group get-togethers. I usually bump into someone I know every time I’m in E-town. I can point at things and say “I know who did that” or “I know who lives there.” It’s like I have finally come home. My son says it best when he calls this place “The house where we live.”

For the first time in a long time, we are part of a community. And we belong.

Enjoying an autumn evening on our front deck. Sept 2013

Will, Ben and our late dogs strolling through the ‘hood.  Sept 2013

Our town. I know the woman who volunteers her time to tend the town’s flower beds.

The Hike

My Uncle Wayne was always good for a laugh or twenty: most of my memories of him as a kid involved me holding my sides and gasping for air, teary-eyed as I guffawed at his antics. He moved away when I was a teenager, first to Nevada (not that far away) then later to Denmark (very far away). He is currently keeping a great blog of his own: everythinginandarounddenmark.

Uncle Wayne was a kind of a lone wolf who often took off into the mountains for days or weeks at a time to climb peaks and be one with nature. I loved his stories about these adventures and more loved his photographs…long strings of panoramic shots in which he’d name every peak in the mountainous ranges. He also loved plants and wildflowers, often pulling me aside so he could show me a bloom and dissect its stamens and pistils and recite to me its common and Latin names. Most of what he taught me has been lost to time but what remains was his sense of wonder about the world and eagerness to learn everything about it. It is a trait he, his mother, my mother and myself all share. We are lifelong learners, and when we commit to something, we almost always obsessively strive to understand it as best we can.

I remember millions of short day-hikes with Wayne, normally with my sister and/or my aunt Karen. Sometimes we’d drive to a proper trail and hike in the woods. Often we’d walk around his neighborhood, almost always including an off-road excursion into a thicket or over a hill so he could show us a plant species. Once we stayed in Yosemite and zig-zagged halfway up the Falls trail.

One day, when I must have been twelve or maybe thirteen, I was old enough, strong enough and willing enough to accompany my uncle alone on a hike up into the mountains. He was to lead me up a moderately-difficult and sparse trail to the summit of Pyramid Peak. It was a day-hike; we’d be back before sundown, but it was grueling and long and worse yet, I’d have to wake up before sunrise so we could drive the several hours to the trailhead. But I persevered, and off we went.

The trailhead was a virtually unmarked path through the wilderness that was accessed off Highway 50, just before the road rose up into Sales Canyon. We pulled off on the side of the highway near the Rocky Canyon Creek between Strawberry and Twin Bridges, scaled the easement directly off the side of the road, and disappeared into the quiet of the woods above. The trail was so sparse we picked our way through thick underbrush by following ducks. Then the trail widened and became easier to follow. For a spell we walked a small ridge that paralleled above the creek. The trees were huge and it was dark and cool under their canopy.

It was here, at the beginning of our journey, the first hour of our ascent, that my uncle began asking me the tough questions about life. What is god? What is the meaning of life? What are your thoughts on the world? At first I was taken aback, and may have even answered his first question with “Don’t you already know?” “But I want to hear what you think,” was his reply. I was humbled, and thought deeply for a good answer that may impress him. The remainder of our conversations on that hike are lost to me, but I will always remember how grown-up I felt when Uncle Wayne probed my young mind and honored my responses with acknowledgement that was free from judgment and preconception.

Climbing the mountain itself was probably the most fun thing I had done to date. Pyramid Peak is made up entirely of boulders. It’s just a huge pile of weathered talus blocks. To get to the top, one must hop from rock to rock all the way up its side. So.Much.Fun.

A huge pile of huge rocks.

The top affords wonderful views of El Dorado National Forest, the Crystal Range, Desolation Wilderness, Carson Pass, and the high Sierras where I called home.

Desolation Wilderness, Aug 1994.

Me atop Pyramid Peak in August 1994. I am writing the note that I will place in a film canister and bury near the summit.

I could see what Uncle Wayne loved about hiking so much: the absolute freedom. The views. The journey.

A few years later, I asked Wayne to provide me directions to and through that trail, which he did in the form of a hand-drawn map, so that I may lead some of my high school friends up the Peak. We all had a grand time on that mountain, but it was a different vibe going up the hill with a group of teenagers. It felt less sacred, less special, less spiritual. I could see why Wayne usually hiked alone or with no more than one partner. Sharing the wilderness with too many people certainly distracted from the experience. Later still, in college and beyond, my then-boyfriend Will and I would often hike the same trails Wayne showed me as a kid, and it was a delight to share such special trips with the man who would become my husband.

Frog Lake, Mokelumne Wilderness. Summer 1996.

Will in Frog Lake. Sept 1996.

Hiking near Frog Lake and Elephant’s Back. Sept 1996.

Now that I have children it is my duty to introduce them to the mountains and woods that I love so much. My daughter, though tomboy to a point, is not interested in hiking or spending much more than a few imagination-play filled minutes in the wild. (Although her favorite subject in school is science.) My son, however, delights in entering the trees: calls every wooded enclosure “Fangorn Forest” and loveloveloves to run around dirt pathways and up hills and over rocks. He is going to be my little hiking buddy and I am already imagining our excursions: first we will explore the flanks of Sumas Mountain above our house, then we shall explore other trails in the Mt. Baker Wilderness nearby, later we may conquer the world.

But there is time yet. For now I enjoy in sharing with my son the wonder that is our world: he loves looking for slugs and woolly bear caterpillars and snakes and rabbits and insects on our daily walks up our road. He loves climbing the large boulder near the crossroads and jumping off. He loves “hiding” in his “house,” which is really a Doug fir with low-hanging branches that make a cozy space underneath. And I love imparting my knowledge and helping to interest the next generation in the beauty and reality that is this earth.

Me, my uncle, my aunt and my sister acting goofy, early 1990s.

The Hell

Depression has four layers.

The first layer is, under normal circumstances, transitory; transitionary; temporary. It is where most people may go for a few hours or days – a week at best – when feeling sad or blue or down in the dumps. It doesn’t last, it ebbs and dissipates and leaves its host within a short, often predictable amount of time.

The first layer is my normal. It is the best I can hope to feel in any one day. It is where I usually live and survive. Every day is a fight to stay in the first level. Forget climbing out of it — that is near impossible most of the time — so I strive to maintain. Each day a struggle to stay the course, to keep the boat afloat. Each day I gage how far I am from the mainland that is “normal,” how far I am from the island of the second layer.

The second layer is when depression begins to sing its siren songs so loudly that oftentimes I cannot hear reality through the din. It is when I surrender to despair, it is when I spend every day fighting and struggle against the tide, unsuccessfully trying to swim back to the relative safety of the first layer, to the comfort of the familiar: the second layer is unpredictable, it is where the monsters of fear, paranoia and anger reside and preside. Often I give in to their shenanigans, or am eaten alive, and my life becomes explosive and irrational. It is all the death throes of my sanity, however, for I dread most the third layer and use every ounce of my being to keep myself from its gaping maw.

The third layer is transitory, but of the worst kind. The third layer is usually passed through quickly en route to the fourth layer. The third layer is the long slide into the long dark. The third layer usually only lasts a few weeks at best before all the life force is drained from my soul and I find myself at the bottom of the rabbit hole.

The fourth layer is the long dark. Infinite, empty and quiet, it is and can be as long and dark as your worst nightmares, and depression will see to it that all your best fears seem true: that you will lose yourself completely to the void. It is so hard to get out of the long dark. With no light source to guide you, one can float aimlessly through the depths forever, never knowing which way is up, never knowing if relief is within reach, never knowing if you are heading straight for certain doom.

I fear the long dark. It is the only thing that truly terrifies me to the core, because I know that it is in the long dark that depression has won, that it has overtaken me so completely that I am muffled and diminished and dissipated and shapeless and ohsohelpless to its whims; I am nothing at all. And when I am nothing, I do not feel and cannot formulate mass enough to escape its black hole and so I float and I am not afraid and I am one with that which isn’t anything. When I am in the long dark I am content to be in the long dark for it is easier to stay then to escape.

I recently found myself in the third layer, fast approaching the long dark. Until my recent slide I had spent a year struggling to stay in the second layer. Before shipwrecking on the isle of despair I had spent two years battling the shark-infested waters of the first layer. Nearly four years of discomfort and strife. Nearly four years of struggling against the force, the tug, the weight, the inevitable.

I recently found myself in the third layer, fast approaching the long dark. And so I screamed and reached out. Hands clasped mine and helped to pull me up, first into the relative safety of the second layer, soon after bubbling up into the first. I am now at the base of the great climb to the top of mount normalcy, the last journey in my quest for peace. With help I have confidence I can do it, and with the clarity that comes from certainty I know that soon I will find a new normal that is better than all the other “normals” I have ever felt. A normal that feels genuine: lofty yet tethered, grounded yet free, happy yet realistic, but mostly a normal that feels settled and not upset.

I recently found myself fast approaching the long dark. And so I climb…

The Pumpkin

The Most Evil Pumpkin Ever was tilted. Tall and sideways it offered much possibility for carving fun. The Most Evil Pumpkin Ever started as the cutest pumpkin with the most potential. My son wanted to carve The Most Evil Pumpkin Ever into an awesome jack-o-lantern. I wanted to cook The Most Evil Pumpkin Ever into a delicious pie. In the end, neither of us got our wish.

The Most Evil Pumpkin Ever was rotten. My first handful of innards were gooey and stank of dark and slimy mushrooms. I should have known to just stop and throw it out, but having paid $4 for the thing, I wanted some semblance of salvaging: a jack-o-lantern or roasted seeds or a batch of mush for pie. Scraping the sides, smelling the rot, I knew I couldn’t carve, light, and let my kid play with this pumpkin. And as I was making this realization, I noticed the seeds were awfully squishy and probably wouldn’t be good for toasting.  And then I got a sliver under the nail of my index finger as I dug into the soft shell of a rotten seed and gashed the flesh of my self. The Most Evil Pumpkin Ever had bitten me.

But maybe I could eat it! Or half of it, the part not brown and mushy. Cutting out the rot, I reduced into chunks the normal looking flesh of The Most Evil Pumpkin Ever. I was not a total failure, despite what my index finger was telling me. Onto the stove went the fine looking chunks, on went the low heat, in went a cup of simmering water, on went the lid. Time passed. My son, struggling at that time with toilet training, surprised me by requiring my immediate assistance and so my attention was diverted to places other than the kitchen. After much time passed I remembered I hadn’t checked the pumpkin in awhile and rushed to the stove.

The Most Evil Pumpkin Ever was burning. Black and stuck to the bottom of the pan. It was Game Over for me, and I scraped its remnants into the trash can. Not even the chickens would touch remains as charred as these. In the end no part of The Most Evil Pumpkin Ever was put to good use: soggy seeds not fit for human consumption, compromised integrity not fit for carving, and distempered flesh that would rather self-destruct then give me any satisfaction or gratification in return for the terror it bestowed upon our family.

My finger still hurts. My freezer lacks fresh pumpkin mush for Thanksgiving pie. And our window is absent one smiling, flickering gourd. Rest in Fucking Peace, Most Evil Pumpkin Ever.

None of these beauties are the Most Evil Pumpkin Ever. Attempting to photograph the Most Evil Pumpkin Ever will actually explode your camera.