Lookout Below
I've almost never felt happier than I did on that first night spent rolled up inside a sleeping bag on a tiny bed in a fire lookout atop a towering mountain down south past Bend. This is because I was incredibly warm and comfortable, I was tired from wallowing 4 miles straight up in the deep snow with a heavy pack (an act that I would call mountaineering, but I know if I did real mountaineers would pat my head and say, "Hush"), I was among several people that I liked very much, and I was there in the cozy dark surrounded by 360 degrees of windows that held nothing but stars.
This fire lookout: it's a toy-sized hut built at the very top of the world. The idea is that from there, you can see everything around you, and when a wildfire starts—you can spy the column of smoke, sleuth it out on a topo map, and then quickly report it to the smoke jumpers. This is in the summer, mind you. Isn't it quaint that they still spot fires that way? Very antique.
Aaanyway, my bed was pushed up right against the window. Laying there staring out, I didn't see any mountains or rivers or majestic fields—or any land at all. We were up in the sky! I just saw stars, a senseless pile of them. And after drifting off, I awoke again hours later with the Big Dipper right in front of my face. A cosmic surprise and whatnot. In the interest of finding a "happy place" where one can seek shelter and zen-like peace, I think that this moment shall be mine and I'll close my eyes to return there again and again, then, now, forever.
Lefty and I woke up like this.
The sun poking out up at the top of the world.
Morning coffee has never tasted better than in this little ole cabin all filled up with sunlight.
See, errybody got to protect their feet up in the high alpine.
Exploring the morning after we got there meant doing this ... for fun!
Golden hour, way up on high. Nothing to do but watch the sun drop and the storms roll in.
Ah, this was Nate gearing up for our expedition. A rollie and a full wine-skin = hipster backcountry kit.
Did I mention we did a wee hike up Smith Rock on our way down to Bend? We did. Views on views.
Taking pictures of people taking pictures of sunsets.
The Great American West, guys.
The Year That Was
I don't usually sweat the New Year or starting fresh, but this year I did take a little inventory and did find things a little wanting and did make a little list. Things to remember. Ways to live. Aspirations of a higher order.
1) To wait and see. Patience served me well in 2015.
2) To live honestly. It's a character thing.
3) To be there and be cool for my friends and my family. Relationships are complex, but what they require is pretty simple.
4) To pay attention to the world around me. The little things are the big things, etc.
5) To get good at getting old(er). I think this has to do with cultivating an ongoing appreciation of me, such as I am.
Aaanyway, here's a wee tour through my 2015. Salut!
Spring: Tiki-bar karaoke. Eugene for Derek's birthday. Skating in shirt sleeves under the flowered, drooping trees.
Summer: New York City skate gangs. Go Skateboarding Day hill bombs. A boozy rabbit hole of summer involving swimming spots and front stoops.
Fall: Road tripping to the American Southwest in order to bathe in the sage-brush breeze. Halloween hijinks. Piles of crunchy leaves and all the trees caught on fire.
Winter: Powder days. Arctic nights. Copious celebrations indoors—where everyone gets along because it's too cold not to.
Get Out
We're having a "real winter." The kind that sends the faint of heart back to wherever they came from (California). Perpetually dark skies. Flood warnings every weekend. Rainstorms worthy of horror films, with the wind lashing a torrential spray against your windows.
It's nice. It's what makes it a little rugged up here. More weather today? I don't even care. I'll slosh my way to work again, keeping a towel ever close to dry off the dog. Sunshine is a fantasy. The littlest blue, a fleeting pinhole on the horizon—that shit can last me a whole month. I live in the North Country.
Key to winter survival is the ability to get out of the city.
As mentioned elsewhere, I have adult-onset phobia of driving in the snow, but I happen to know a handy fellow with a 4-wheel-drive car. We've escape toward the mountains whenever possible. You can breathe a little deeper up there, take in some natural light. You can walk. You can hike. Stumble on the ice. Maybe snowboard? Hell, even telemark if the mood so strikes you. Any outing involving physical exercise in the cold is what I suggest. Bring drinks, bring snacks. Bundle up. If yer like me, wear two sweaters at once but forget your gloves. It's all about getting the blood moving and tapping into the wilderness vibrations.
See, rain is very dark (especially today—the darkest day of the year), but snow—snow is bright! It holds the light. It makes the evergreens sparkle in the dead of winter. If the spirit of the solstice is rebirth, then I would argue that there's nothing more solstice-y than retreating into the cold, embracing a polar adventure, and then driving back toward the warmth of the city through that strange late-afternoon dusk.
Ghosts Of Christmas Past
I come to you today from memory lane: Oregon. Colorado. Nights that got cold. Christmas parties in my old kitchen. Winter quiet. Snow in the city. Snuggling in my pop's chair with nephew Pat.
Late-December dusk at 13,000 feet—white knuckled in the passenger seat on that crazy road between Denver and mom and dad's house.
The Slammer—a scummy bar with a heart of gold. This place decks it out for Christmas, but I don't think you can go there anymore on account of it being clogged with Chads and tourists. Fuck it, though.
Dog walks on Christmas Day when everyone was happy and the snow danced with sunlight.
Baby-face Justin, back when the boys lived in the Belmont house and threw the wildest New Year's Eves.
A mistletoe last year, for kissing season. As I recall, I'd been feeling blue, and although December did bring with it a spicy kiss or two, they weren't partaken of in any real proximity to my kitchen or this talisman of Druidic fertility. Nevertheless!
A powder day. A powder day with my dad. How many of these I’ve had in my life, I can’t be sure, but they’re very valuable.
Me hanging twinkly lights at Commonwealth in 2011, the year I decided against all odds to open an indoor skatepark in the middle of a recession.
This picture reminds me of the unkempt Chrismas parties I used to have and how one in particular, maybe even this one, ended with a can of caramel popcorn getting tossed all over the hardwoods and then, like with alchemy, transformed into a kind of tar thanks to the addition of spilt beer and dancing. Ah those were the days!
Nephew Pat in his Kermit slippers, working his way through a dire case of post present-opening blues.
Do y'all remember how for a little while there after Department Of Skateboarding got torn down, we still skated the empty warehouse—just cuz it was winter outside and there was NO WHERE ELSE TO GO?
The coldest Christmas camping in Arches National Park. We were the only ones. It was beautiful and austere. I turned into an icicle.
Peace on earth.
Fire & Ice
Despite a lot of harsh, wild, and sad events happening in the world right now, December carries on, here in the Northwestern territories of the United States. It seems like every act of turning on the news is an exercise in bravery, and I haven't been very brave lately.
Really, the bravest thing I did this weekend was attempting to skateboard after eating a monster burrito that was so heavy, it almost ripped all Hulk-like through the paper bag it was carried home in.
There was a birthday party, too, featuring an arm wrestling tournament that crowned our pal Xeno the #strongestmanonearth. And the day after that, there was a slippery hike up an icy gulch (much cat-like balance came into play). The reward at trail's end was simple and austere: a veil of rushing water and a cauldron of blue ice.
There were many, many minutes tucked away in the corner of the couch. Book open. TV or radio on. Rain rushing down the windows. And so on. Plenty of quiet hours appreciating such things as the sense of peace a sleeping animal can bring into a room.
In contrast to the rest of the world, our lives are magical, lucky, impossibly charmed. Continuing to live them in the face of impermanence and death isn't exactly brave or noble, but it's something.
