Me At 43

This is me at 43. I make my living thinking and writing. I still got it. I still want it. I was a little girl who grew up big. I’m a kid inside, but I’m not the same person as when I was a kid. Life’s interesting and continues to astonish me. And I like gettin old. 

As the years go by though, I miss my family more and more. There is a couple days’ highway between me and them, out where they are in the Rocky Mountains. But at least the distance isn’t further. At least I can cross it now and again. And hey, I do see them often in my dreams, which is a cool kind of consolation.

Last week’s dream: We were in Glenwood, Colorado — an old-western town at the mouth of a chasm where the Colorado River rages through. My sister had wild long black hair that caught the light as she rode a prancing black stallion. She was a kind of powerful warrior I think. 

Me, I was tasked with saddling up a soft and friendly bay mare. I had to ride it through the canyon eastward to our old home, alone. At the mouth of that canyon, there is a tunnel, and I was afraid to parade my poor horse through it amidst the rushing interstate traffic. Dad was there, and he dreamsplained to me: “Just keep her in the median.” 

“Sounds like something I would do,” he said the next day when I texted him CliffsNotes to the dream. 

Sooooooo anyway, here I am, at the mouth of my 43rdyear on earth, ready to clip clop through the tunnel of winter and endeavor to carefully “keep it in the median” as a pandemic/recession/social unrest/fiery apocalypse all rage by in the lanes around me. Dad, I’ll give it a try. 

Took It For Granted, Want It Back

Where are we on collective effervescence? Here on the brink of emerging from confinement when anxiety about being back close to other humans is a helium balloon about to pop, I’m remembering the magic-est together moments that might not come again any time soon.  

I remember this past December being squashed into a coach bus seat next to Brian Nally passing around a tear-drop-shaped bottle of whiskey on the way down from the mountain. We all shouted at each other down the aisles and the music was too loud. It was our work Christmas party. A few days later everyone got the same sinus cold and didn’t care. 

I miss sweaty and 90 degrees on the 4th of July, pawing through a cooler of cold beer and La Croix, skating the mini ramp and hugging your friends when you leave early before the fireworks start, as you always do, along with all the other dog owners.  

I miss the dark and heat of a punk house basement watching our buddies' band Donkey Lips play. Guitar shredding. Ravaging of drums. Rampant shirtlessness. Glee.

I miss posing for pictures by putting your arms around people, cheek to cheek, and always hugging people fully and warmly and hard, enthusiastically—a weak and awkward hug being the equivalent of a warm-milk limp handshake.

I miss scampering up the street to Conquistador after work for rambling happy hours to celebrate festive news like people getting engaged instead of sad news like people quitting or getting laid off. 

I miss the coziest holiday potlucks where none of your friends bother to respond to your party text so you think no one is coming, but then everyone shows up and you pack in the kitchen sharing huge plates of food, mainly mashed potatoes and cookies and finger food, and then continue drinking and grazing with unwashed hands and unfaded smiles, while a toddler climbs onto the coffee table and dances for your entertainment into the wee hours of 10 p.m. 

Comfort Media

It rained today. Jedda the pup doesn't like the rain. She was born in a heat wave, house trained on the hard summer dirt. Now she’s a warm-weather princess in a fur-feather boa—and I’ve never had a dog before who gave two-shits about the weather?

In the last weeks, the fall light has warmed to perfectly golden brown. I’ve been tired, I’ve had a cold, I’ve spent my nights mostly inside on soft surfaces, wearing soft things. As the days get shorter, like moth to flame, I go in search of mental coziness. It’s a gauzy-plush free fall into a nest of comfort media—which for me is rugged-beautiful adventure documentaries and old-person arts-and-entertainment podcasts. See below!

FREE SOLO: Newsflash—Alex Honnold free-soloed up El Cap in Yosemite. This documentary on Honnold's adventure, while ostensibly about the man and his rock, for me was really about relationships—and the ways they hold you back.

GIVEN: A beautifully framed piece about nomadic surf travel through the eyes of a toddler. Let's all quit our jobs and roam wherever we wish and most of all—never wear shoes again.

FRESH AIR WITH ADAM COHEN—LEONARD COHEN'S SON: Terry interviews Adam about his dad Leonard. Adam isn't an easy interview—his brain's wired differently like his old man's. That makes this talk richer, more thought provoking, more full of a cool kind of sad beauty.

The Days Of Piney Past

The heat here continues. All sense of freshness gone. Out with July and the tiger swallowtails. It was this time last year when Piney first learned to swim. At the Sandy, in a pool between the rocks, he discovered—you can float and paddle and make waves and it’s fun. He spent that afternoon swimming in circles, splashing a storm and biting the water as it rained down on him. Thus began a great career in watersports. Piney swam for joy, not fetch or concern for others’ safety. It was wonderful to behold.

Piney passed away in the spring. On Friday, April 30that 5:30 p.m., we “put him down,” that old euphemism for ending a life that I’ve used and worn like a suit of armor against the awful truth—that we stopped Piney’s life at a year and a half old because he had become suddenly angry and fearful, scary and aggressive. He started attacking us around the house. Whenever he felt nervous, or threatened. I quit bringing him to work. We called in a pro trainer. Life at home became tense and unpredictable, alternating between violence and silly joy—when he force-snuggled us in bed and spent laidback hours stretched out asleep in the sun by the cat.

We never knew what to expect.

Then came that last week. That last attack. Before Mark could get outside to pull Piney off me, the dog had pulverized my forearm and left a toothmark so deep in the palm of my hand you could see the pale pink muscle fiber squeezing through. I was bleeding. I was terrified. I loved Piney, and I knew couldn’t live this way anymore.

There aren’t many options for animals like him. We looked. We tried. We cried.

The last night we were all together was sweet-scented and summery. Mark and I took Piney to Mt. Tabor, laid out a blanket and drank cans of beer as the sun set, throwing morsels at Piney from a pile of treats so big his eyes grew round when he saw it. Liminality was in the air all around us. You are here now. You will be gone tomorrow.

I know we did the right thing. But that doesn’t make it any easier. Ending his life, it was the hardest decision I’ve yet to make. Everyone—the vet, the behavior therapist, our families—reminded us that Piney wasn’t healthy. We heard their advice. But. It was our decision and ours alone to make. We learned a hard lesson—how deeply responsible we are for our animals. After all they’re not teddy bears but sentient beings with minds and freewill. We bring them into our world, and we are responsible for them. This responsibility is really just the other side of love. The stronger the bond, the heavier lies the weight.

We measure our lives through our dogs. Family visits. Friends that came and went. First skatepark business. First real job in a decade. I remember the dog I had for all of these.

I remember Piney as the dog who we housetrained in the middle of an ice storm. The dog who spent the night on a mountain in a blizzard and kept us warm. The dog who made a parcel of land in the woods near Bend feel like home. The dog who loved my elderly cat Cougar so much he nearly exploded every time she walked in the room. I remember a life-affirming sunrise hike to the rim of red-rock cliffs with him. I remember the time we splitboarded up Tilly Jane. The wind on the ridge was fierce and he cowered against the leeward side of my legs. On the ride down, he chased me so close I nicked his paw pad with the steel of my edge.

I remember a lot about him.

I hope I always do.

Homesteading, October Edition

It was hard to find time amidst the juggling and scrolling to drive out to Three Rivers and winterize our trailer. And yet we did—out of fear. Remember last winter when we all got snowed in in Portland for 2 months?

The trip was last minute, a little panicked, but the drive was so beautiful we forgot all about that. The colors as we passed over the volcano—crimson scrub oak between the dark, mysterious pines, and when descended onto the plains everything got softer, warmer. Pale gold-spun grass, burnt orange brush, gauzy evening light. When the day fell, we were warm in the trailer. The puppy slept literally on top of me. Cramped quarters are the coziest (and happiest). And getting punched in the face with a paw first thing in the morning is one of the rare joys of being a dog owner.

So, we applied to have water routed to the property, and we built a small roof to keep the snowdrifts at bay. That is all. Just these small things are what we can do right now. Though I love the little trailer, I'm still haunted by dreams of a wildly cozy A-frame. I hope my cabin aspirations will birth reality in the coming years, the kind of reality that involves a couple dirt movers and a concrete truck to pour a foundation.