Wild

Laying here, curled up in the grass next to the river, listening to the wind rattle the long-dead prairie grass, I realize that I am madly in love with the sky. That’s why I feel breathless on those winter days with thick blankets of low-slung clouds. I am longing for my love’s sweet blue face. The warmth of her yellow smile, even in the winter’s cold. I can feel it now, as I gently doze, stroking my face like the hand of a sweetheart. Although there is ice on the river I am not cold. I lay still, pressing my heart against the earth like a lover after sex, feeling snugly secure of my place between the earth and sky.

It has been too long. I always let myself get to the breaking point before I come back here. This is where I am me, but I am used to the cage that I accepted for most of my life. I’ve been getting bolder. Over a year now of slipping out of the cage, climbing over the back fence, roaming farther each time. I still come back though, lock myself in out of comfort, duty, habit. But I know that it is not where I belong.

I am not a true wild thing yet. “I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself” (D. H. Lawrence) and that is something I have been quite a lot in the last months. But I am growing wilder. My body is changing with my newfound freedom. I used to be all ample curves, not overfed but soft, domesticated. Now I am angular, bones and muscles and hard edges. I can go for longer between meals. My eyes can see better in the dark. I am no longer stricken by terror in the quiet, longing to fill my every moment with human voices to dull the fear.

And there is quite a lot of fear. Stuck halfway between, I fear both the unknown and the cage. I am more elusive than I once was. I do not trust myself yet but neither do I trust anyone else. It is exhausting, which is why I return so often to the safety and consistency of the cage, but that no longer feels like home. I run myself ragged, flailing and clawing wildly, feeling lost and alone and running in circles, trying to decide who I am. Eventually I always find myself here. Safely tucked between the earth and the sky, breathing into the slumbering grass, my face caressed by the last rays of sunlight. This is who I am. Remember. You already are everything you want to be.

"Never go a second hushing the percussion of your heart", or: Becoming a hermit is probably not the answer to all your problems

This morning I had a very hard time getting out of bed. The news of the last few days: the attacks in Paris, in Beirut, those in Kenya several months ago that I hadn't even heard about until they were brought up in comparison to Paris, the worry for the Syrian refugees who fled to Europe to escape ISIS only to face more bombs and guns and increased xenophobia on top of it, another unarmed black man killed by police in my own city of Minneapolis, the fact that before all this #paris was going to be a call to arms for the climate fight, to hold our leaders meeting there accountable for finally making and sticking to big commitments in the face of climate change...added to my own anxiety/self-pity/shame spirals and the atrocious darkness of November which had already been pretty effectively keeping me down.

It is, of course, a privileged position to be able to respond to all of this by disengaging, by going numb. I am incredibly lucky to be able to lay in bed with a blanket over my head and feel safe. It is easy, in this position, to allow these stories to feel far away, to feel powerless and exhausted and like nothing I could do would possibly make a difference so why should I do anything at all? I can hear King Theoden at Helm's Deep in my head, "So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?"

I heard a woman on NPR this morning talking, not about terrorism at all but about National Parks, but she paraphrased Karen Armstrong saying, "Compassion is not an emotion, it's an act. But if it were aligned with an emotion it would be most closely tied to discomfort...It is so important for all of us at this moment in time to cultivate our discomfort because if we allow ourselves to feel that pain, that unrest, that discomfort, then we will act on it and that becomes an act of compassion. But if we continue to avert our gaze...then the world continues to suffer and we are not engaged in that suffering."

So Step One is don't shy away. I mean, take care of yourself first, that's important, but when things hurt they hurt for a reason. Don't numb the pain with escapism, even though it is easier and abundantly available. Living to avoid pain drains your life of meaning.

Step Two is act. This one is hard for me. What can I do? It's easy to make a gesture that is largely symbolic - like posting something heartfelt on the internet - and then move on and feel it was good enough, especially considering the vastness of the world's problems and how small and helpless it feels to be a human. It is a start, but that's not really acting, it's just talking. Which can be important, but it's not enough. What would be enough? If I can't affect change all by myself then it doesn't matter what I do, might as well just try to make myself happy while I can and ignore all the rest, right? In the scope of the world does it even matter what I do? This is a trap I easily fall into.

There is a quote that addresses this perfectly. At first I thought I made it up, then I thought I'd heard it from a friend or maybe from a book...I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that it is from Angel, a fantasy show that I don't even particularly like. Be that as it may, it is a truly excellent quote: "If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do."

Compassion is an action, love is a verb.

You can't possibly do everything but everyone can do something. Make art, make love, make food. Reach out to someone. Donate time, money, or blood. Listen deeply to someone, especially if they are telling you what they need. Try to give it to them if you can. Look for the helpers. Join the helpers. I guarantee that there is someone somewhere working towards a cause that you care about and they would love an extra pair of hands. I guarantee that there are things that you want to do and that you are good at that will make the world a better place. Find them. Pay attention. Stay engaged, have civil conversations with people you disagree with and listen with empathy, compassion, and openness. Learn things. Share things. Love even when it's hard, even when it's not returned. And when something tragic happens you do not have to shift your focus, although it can feel completely overwhelming, like there are just too many problems to solve and you are just one person...but you don't have to do everything. Just do what you are doing harder.

It's dangerous to write this all down because the pledge to act can feel as satisfying as actually acting and it can stop you from actually doing the thing. I don't want to do that. I don't want to post some fancy quotes, make an appointment to donate blood, throw a few dollars to a charity and move on. I want to push myself to live better. Understanding and awareness are good first steps that I feel like I've begun to master (you are never done) but now it's time to walk the walk. A lot of what's been holding me back is the fear of doing something wrong or of being an inconvenience (I am from Minnesota, after all). That's stupid. The knowledge that my fears are stupid has never actually stopped me from having them before, but it's too important now for me not to try to push through them. So help me out, would you? Do what you can. Start small and grow. Push me (and those around you) to do what they can. If you want help with something, let me know. I want to help. And whenever you are feeling defeated and small, listen to this absolutely beautiful poem by Andrea Gibson.

"And this is for that moon
On the nights she seems hung by a noose
For the people who cut her loose
And the people still waiting for the rope to burn
About to learn that they have scissors in their hands"

Rest in Peace, Joe Brown

"You haven't met Joe Brown?! You need to meet Joe Brown."

I met Joe Brown, at Captain Tommy's insistence, in my last week in Texas, watching the sunset from his fishing pier and drinking. He was at least thirty years older than me, we had nothing in common, and we spent almost the entire time we knew each other drunkenly arguing about politics, but our brief friendship was absolutely one of the highlights of my time in Texas and definitely changed my life. I am incredibly sad to know I won't get to tell him to shut up and let me talk again.

He described himself as an "anarcho-capitalist" and had worked for and was friends with the Koch brothers. There was really no reason for us to like each other at all and in fact I think that is why Capt. Tommy introduced me to him, basically just to watch the sparks fly. But he was a genuinely nice and thoughtful human being, in addition to being funny as hell. After a long night of yelling at each other he gave me a hug and invited me to come to an Argentinian wine tasting with him and his wife ("She will love you." he said).

Even though we did not agree on anything and he really had no reason to listen to an idealistic Millennial slurring her way through Feminism 101, Why Ayn Rand was Wrong, and even Why Tattoos are Good, he did. He thanked me for interrupting him when I got impatient with his rambling tirades and then sat with rapt attention while I told him all the many ways in which he was wrong. We both argued passionately, explained ourselves fully, sometimes flat-out yelled, but then shut up and really listened to what the other had to say. Sometimes we even found things we agreed on. And admitted it. He thought about everything I said, asked me questions, and thought about it some more. It was magical. Nobody does that. No one.

I'm not positive that I changed his mind about anything, and he didn't necessarily change mine, but we absolutely got each other to think about things in a new and different way. And it was fun! And fascinating. He single-handedly gave me hope that there are people who are willing to have real discussions in this world. That people can believe things that I hate and still be reasonable and good people. That we can drop useless politeness but still respect each other and speak from the heart. That it is possible to change minds and to share across generations and political ideology, not just preach endlessly to a choir or scream at each other with our fingers in our ears. That there are people who genuinely want to know what other people think and will shut up and listen to what they have to say.

It is heartbreaking that there is one less of those people in the world now but he gave me hope that others exist. And for that, as well as for the welcome and the wine, I am forever grateful.

Perfectionism Part 2: Too Many Metaphors

A note before I start: This is a post I've had in my head for probably at least four months and in draft form for at least one. I've been holding on to it because it wasn't quite right, because there were far too many conflicting metaphors, because I was too afraid to share. But that's exactly the point, right? So here goes...

It's funny to try to trace your long-held notions back to their root because often you will find that so many of the problems you face stem from the exact same origin. You've been trying to hack them off at ground level separately for years only to find that they're all connected feet below the surface and you are going to need to break out the heavy machinery and dig it all up. And by you, of course, I mean me.

I have always been a rule-following kind of kid. If there's a rule, it must be there for a reason, right? Better to follow it, just to be on the safe side. Who knows what could happen if you break it. For a long time it baffled me how I got this way. My parents were more lenient than most of my friends', I wasn't raised with any particular religion...I think it was just never getting into trouble that led me to believe that it would be the worst thing I could do. The kids that tested the limits found out that the consequences were pretty minor, all things considered, and once you'd done it once it wasn't that hard to keep doing it. I lived in constant anxiety because I didn't know what would happen and a mark on my unblemished record would destroy all I had built.

I have already pontificated on being a perfectionist in recovery, but recently I've been thinking a lot about perfectionism and the concept of building, particularly "building a life". I think this concept is what has caused me a lot of problems, both in terms of "success" (good grades in middle school were important because they were important in high school because they were important in college...sweat all the small stuff because it all adds up!) and in terms of relationships (of all kinds).

That phrase has been stuck in my head for a while now. I heard a friend of mine talk about "building a life" with their significant other and my first reaction was intense jealousy. I thought that was everything I wanted. It is certainly everything I've been taught to want. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that it isn't what I want. Not really.

Building a life implies that there is a firm foundation, that if the soil you started on shifts there can be no shifting with it, only crumbling. In my relationships I am usually the one who builds faster, trying to lay bricks precisely and quickly, following the blueprint I have specifically tailored to everything I think the other person wants so that they will agree to stay in this house we've built together...then when it's clear that they are no longer building in the same direction as I have been I am already too high in the scaffolding and refuse to jump.

When, usually months later, construction finally does cease, the building is left vacant, unfinished, and desolate, but it does not disintegrate. It stays, in a row with the others, haunted by the ghosts of failure, of what could have been. If I had changed the blueprint, if we had worked together, if it were fancier, if it were smaller, if I had tried harder, if, if...

It is of course reasonable, natural, and expected to feel sad when something ends. What I hate is the feeling of loss, not of the other person but of the structure we were building together. I never want to be sadder about losing an imagined future than I am about losing someone I care about.

Also, though I crave safety and security, I am also deeply claustrophobic. I don't want to build a life because I don't want my life to have walls. Instead, I want to share my life.

It is scary to think about it this way because my terrified little perfectionist heart wants to build a perfect fortress with a perfect partner, and be Done. Like it's supposed to be, right? But you're never done until you're dead. You can keep building forever, hoping that the shifting sands will not topple your castle, trying desperately to keep each other within the confines of what you've built, or you can give in to the fluid nature of existence and not try to force it into any particular shape.

I want my life to wash across the soil, picking up and depositing debris as it goes. I want my life to collide with others and create reactions, to mix into a volatile solution, to pool for a time, to recede, to course and change and be changed by those around it. When streams diverge around a solid object in their path that they could not break through together they do not mourn for what could have been. They carry on, permanently and fundamentally changed by the experience of swirling together for a time over the rapids. I want my life to be vast, to flood the landscape, to be fed by many streams at once, to grow and change and keep growing. I want to take the love and experience with me, to give it freely and let it multiply, rather than entombing it within walls, hoarding what I have jealously.

Of course, thinking up pretty metaphors is easy. I am still a scared little rules-obsessed kid whose biggest fear is screwing up. What if I hurt someone? What if I make a mistake? What if I can't take it back? What if I ruin my life? What if I loosen my grip and lose everything? How do you uncurl your fingers after a lifetime of clinging desperately? Thinking about it is easy but feeling and acting on these thoughts gets hard, scary, and messy almost immediately and, all things considered, my life is still pretty pristine. I am lucky. I have planned well. I haven't felt a lot of consequences, and when I have dealt with life's difficulties I've been quick to forget how well I handled them. Maybe next time it will be different. Maybe next time will ruin everything forever. Better be on the safe side.

I wrote this all out because I think it is Important. Because I am exhausted by trying desperately to cling to what I have and where I am. Truthfully, none of this is new. I've been working on this for a long time and I've been making progress, getting braver, but I'm getting to a point where I have to let go of the cliff and jump to get to where I want to go and I know I can do it but I'm too scared and the longer I sit here weighing my options the more my muscles grow weary and start to shake. I've been trying so hard for so long to hold on to everyone I care about all at once and to be completely honest I do not trust the people I love to hold on to me back, even though many of them have proven that they will. It's just safer if I do it all myself. But I am sick and tired of being scared, of holding on for dear life. I want so much more than safety.

So, deep breath. Here goes. I hope if you're reading this you'll stick with me through whatever happens next.

Victory!

Okay,  so this feels weird to announce but I just had a huge life breakthrough and I am really proud so I'm going to.

Today I was feeling incredibly shitty and for the first time in my entire life looking at my body in the mirror made me feel better instead of worse.

It sounds really small, but it is actually a huge accomplishment that has taken my entire life.

Not that I've never felt good about my body before (although that in itself is relatively recent), but it is usually on a day when I feel really good, on a day when I put effort into looking good, or right after I work out.

Today I did not feel good. I did not work out or put on makeup or nice clothes. I crawled out of bed at 11:00, reheated a huge bowl of yesterday's cheesey grits, and went back to bed to eat them while watching My Drunk Kitchen.

It's been a rough time for me lately. Actually, it's been rough for kind of a while. But the fact that I can drag myself out of bed at 3:30 in the afternoon all greasy and disheveled on a "cry on the phone to your best friend" kind of day, look in the mirror as I'm getting into the shower, think "Well, at least I look good", and actually smile deserves to be celebrated.

An Earth Day Rant and CHALLENGE

So it's Earth Day again, that magical day when people who rarely spend more time outside than it takes to get from their car to the mall entrance pretend to care about the environment. Hooray. Everyone post a picture of the planet with a little banner about how pretty trees are so you can feel good about yourself and then continue taking thirty minute showers, using four paper towels when you needed one, leaving all the lights on and everything plugged in at all times, and consuming plastic and fossil fuels at an alarming rate.

See? Everything's fine now!

Oh, did that sound a little bitter? Look, I know that a lot of you reading this are not the people I described above. I know that a lot of you honestly care and want to fix things just as much as I do. The thing is, we're not doing it.

I am included in this. I try to do what I can: unplug things, turn lights off, take short showers less frequently, pick up litter, reduce, reuse, recycle, work for a conservation organization, etc. But there's only so much you can do. You can bring reusable bags to the store but everything you buy comes with a pound of plastic packaging. The fact that I do work for this conservation organization means that I don't have enough money to buy all organic, it's often hard to buy local, and I drive an enormous gas-guzzling car now because my tiny fuel efficient one got wrecked and my parents offered this one to me for free which was incredibly kind of them and I was in no position to pass it up. I hope to buy a fuel efficient one in the future but I'm about to drive this behemoth 1,400 miles and I feel kind of sick about it but it's what I have to do.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has changed its language. It no longer talks about what we can do to stop global warming. It talks about what we can do to limit it to two degrees (Celsius). Spoiler alert: We're not going to do it. The big businesses are actually trying to get regulations loosened, the government is wishy-washy at best, and the media is still focusing on whether or not the people believe in climate change. I wonder how many people and animals will have their homes destroyed, starve, or run out of water before people will stop caring about everyone's right to their own opinion and start taking action based on the science. Obviously, it will be too late. It's already too late.

"Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. There is no other way for land to survive the impact of mechanized man..." Aldo Leopold wrote that in 1948. 67 YEARS AGO. And if anything it is more true now than it was then.

Everyone knows that fracking is using millions of gallons of water while much of the country is in a prolonged drought, that it poisons groundwater, that it ruins habitat, that it is detrimental to the health of anything living anywhere near the mines. But who cares, right? It's natural gas. Natural means good! We'll have a cheap solution for a few years until we use all of it up just like we're doing with oil and then we'll all be fucked again. But why would we waste money figuring out solutions now when we could make money by pushing the problem onto future generations?!

All of this makes me want to scream and punch people and throw up but it also leads to that age-old question: So what do you do about it? I've been thinking about this a lot lately in terms of my career as well as my personal habits. I might make a separate blog post about that later, but for now the short answer is: I don't know.

But I have an idea. I'm issuing a challenge:

I'd like to make Earth Day like New Year's Eve, where we all make at least one resolution. It can be small! It doesn't have to cost money! Just pick something simple that you know you can do but haven't been and try to stick to it for a whole year. A lot of them will become habit pretty quickly. Then next year, make a new one. We're going to make this a thing.

My Earth Day Resolutions:
1. I will remember to bring my reusable bags to the grocery store every time this year and be more emphatic about refusing plastic bags when I really don't need them.
2. I will master the art of the 5 minute shower.
3. I will go camping at least three times this summer.

Edit to Add:
4. I will use locally-sourced fruit, vegetables, and eggs when possible and actually research where in my community to get more local produce.

Beauty, Perfection, and Seashells

I have long been a perfectionist. I believed in straight lines, right angles, and right answers. If you can't do it perfectly, don't try. If you do try you had better give it all you have until it is perfect. To be fair, it helped me accomplish a lot. Perfectionism got me Magna cum Laude and departmental honors in a subject that didn't come especially easy to me. It got me into Phi Beta Kappa. It made me a better writer and a better dancer. It also gave me crippling anxiety and depression. I was terrified to make the wrong move in relationships, in my career, and just generally in life. I wanted to count the squares ahead of me so I would know which move would be sure to lead me to happiness with the fewest rolls of the dice.

It's something I've known I should fight for a long time. But I believed that if I stopped trying for perfection I would fail, and failure was unacceptable. I also saw fighting against it as a losing battle and if you know you are going to lose why fight, right? I'd been trying for a couple of years, making glacial progress, but since last summer something started to change: I started to win.

And you know what? It turns out that trying is FUN. It is just as fun if you end up not being good at what you're trying. Sometimes more. And I like myself a lot more. There's still the voice in the back of my head that whispers that I'm not good enough, that nothing I do is as good as what others can do so I should just stop, but it's getting easier to shut that voice up.

I'm still ambitious. I still put all of myself into what I do. I just don't beat myself up as much if it doesn't work out. I actually try harder now. I don't avoid practicing because it no longer ends with abuse. The other day I did a truly atrocious painting. This thing was UGLY. The little voice started back up and I felt bad for even trying...for a minute. Then I looked at it again and just laughed. I noticed that I did the shape part pretty well and decided I'd try to fix the colors in a couple of days. Then I practiced guitar and decided to just wing it on a recipe. 

Obviously I still have my bad days, but I don't think I really recognized how much of my perfectionism had ebbed away until I went beachcombing with a new friend today. She only picked up the most perfect shells: big and unbroken. I started to do the same, out of habit. And don't get me wrong, I kept some of those perfect shells.

And they're pretty. But...kind of boring. They're the kind of shell you see everywhere. You can buy these things in bundles at tourist trap stores. They're just not exciting. The Hallmark-y phrase that kept running through my mind all morning was "Sometimes the broken shells are more beautiful than the perfect ones."

The broken shells are the ones that let you in. The inner structure is almost always more beautiful than the outside. And the inside gleams, polished by the life in contained.

The imperfect shells tell stories. Your eyes glide over the whole, shapely shells that look like every third grader's drawing but these hold your attention. You want to spend time on these shells, to see them from every angle.

The other phrase that leapt into my head today and stuck there was "I'm interested in beauty, not perfection." I like that one better and I think I'll keep it as a life motto. My perfectionism is disappearing in everyday things like learning to draw or play guitar but when it comes to my life as a whole I still worry constantly that I'll make a wrong move, or worse, that I've already made a move that will fuck it all up. It can be a paralyzing thought. But I'm getting braver.

Things get shattered, or just turn out different than you'd planned. You leave the board and travel in any direction you choose. You make mistakes, things change, choices you thought were right might feel wrong later, but you'll never know until it's too late so the best you can do is follow your heart. Holes may be blown in the walls you've lived within for a long time, but what you go through can only ever add depth, complexity, and ultimately, beauty.

Natural Habitat

Okay, I know that this will sound like bragging and that everyone in the Midwest and on the East Coast will get angry with me but it’s my blog so I’m just going to say it: one of my biggest problems right now is that it is just too nice outside to get any work done. It is January and in the 70s with bright sun, blue sky, and a slight breeze. It is absolutely the perfect day. And there are just magnificent climbing trees everywhere around me. I actually just sat in a tree for almost two hours. It was fantastic and I didn’t want to move. It’s one of those days where I don’t really want to swim or hike or bike or do anything, I just want to be outside. Feel the breeze and the sun and the bark of the tree, listen to the birds and watch them go about their business without racing around trying to see and identify as many as possible. Just be with nature for a while.

Of course, thoughts inevitably pop up that get in the way of that kind of serenity. Today as I was lounging in my tree I kept thinking about this sign that I saw a couple of days ago:

That sign just makes me so angry. It was at a park, too. Along a “hiking and biking trail” which was actually a wide cement path through a decent oak mot but close enough to the main road that you could always hear traffic. At one point there was a break in the trees and about twenty feet away was a golf course. The smallest amount of nature possible wedged into some suburban sprawl and they still put up signs to “Beware”. Why is everyone so afraid of nature?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand that plenty of things in the natural world are dangerous and should be respected. If there had been an educational sign informing visitors about the existence of snakes in the area and maybe explaining which species could be found here or simply telling people how to identify venomous snakes, that would have been fine.

In case you didn’t know, snakes that are venomous generally have a head that is distinct from and wider than their bodies, whereas harmless snakes usually do not. (http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/gaston/Pests/reptiles/venompix.htm)

Recently I had to promise my mother that I would try not to get bitten by a venomous snake (I don’t mean to pick on you, Mom!). I don’t blame her for being worried. I do have the biologist reaction when I see a snake (Ooh! Cool! Lemme see!) rather than the normal reaction (Aaah! Run away!). But even as someone who spends more time than most out in places where Scary Nature lives it’s still fairly low on the list of things that will likely kill me. It’s probably going to be heart disease, cancer, or a car accident. But I constantly eat fried food, drive my car, and, I don’t know, live in the world (pretty much everything gives you cancer these days). People seem so much more unnerved by the possibility of death by animal attack than any of those far more likely scenarios. Everyone told me I would get killed by a venomous animal in Australia. Yesterday I showed a friend this photo:

And he responded “Ah! Kill it!” I know he was mostly joking, but seriously? It’s a pretty small gator, and it was pretty skinny. It didn’t even open its eyes when I got close enough to take this picture. Pretty much every other gator I’ve seen has splashed abruptly into the water before I got nearly this close. The snakes at the refuge, too, were much more interested in getting away from me than in trying to attack. I barely got a look at the rattlesnake; I heard it rattling as it disappeared deeper into a brush pile. Obviously there are some more aggressive creatures out there, but by and large they would rather run (or slither) away than attack you.

So why is everyone so freaked out by them? I think it’s the uncontrollable aspect. People like to think that in laying down concrete over half the country and walling out the nature, clearcutting unsightly natives and planting swaths of safe, boring, completely useless turf grass that they’ve controlled their environment. There are designated “natural spaces” that people like to view from the comfort of their air conditioned cars (no one is ever too hot or too cold anymore, why would you allow yourself to be uncomfortable?) but the thought of interacting too closely with anything wild or uncontrollable is terrifying.

Also it’s gross. Nature smells funny and is dirty and it’s not sterile like everything should be. Growing up I used to go on long walks in the nearby nature center with my parents and my dad and I would pick up feathers to bring home and make quills. I love finding feathers. But once in high school I was walking with a group of friends and found a beautiful one. I picked it up and jokingly stroked a friend’s face with it and everyone I was with was horrified. “Don’t you know that feathers carry disease?!” I was embarrassed and even though I was pretty sure they were all wrong I didn’t really know how to argue the point. Even years later after being told by an ornithologist that my dad and I were right, I still hesitate for half a second before picking one up.

I am still fighting other aspects of this. Wandering through the woods today I spotted my new favorite climbing tree with a nice wide branch to recline on and I hesitated before hoisting myself up. “I’m wearing shorts, I might scrape my legs, it might be dirty (I’ve noticed raccoons like to poop on all the best sitting spots on trees. It’s really annoying), maybe I should just go sit on a nice man-made bench". But then I decided, “Fuck it! I want to sit in that tree!” And I did scrape my leg. It stung a little for about two seconds. And it wasn’t completely comfortable, like a couch up there. But it was better than comfortable. It was wonderful. I would be there now if I didn’t want to get all this off my chest.

I want to say it was perfect but I won’t because I think that’s sort of the root of this whole issue. Society is obsessed with attaining and maintaining perfection and nature is imperfect – asymmetrical (often, but not always), in flux, complicated, dangerous, messy. We fight so hard against it. But you can’t keep things from getting dirty. You can’t keep things from getting chipped or scratched. “Puppies turn into dogs, who get old and die!” And people do, too. Our culture tries hard to fight, deny, and avoid it, but you can’t. The best you can do is take a few precautions – get insurance, wear boots, don’t poke the snake – and then embrace whatever happens. The alternative is essentially making a cage for yourself to keep the unpredictable things out.

Happy Birthday to Me!

*I wrote this about a week ago but didn't get a chance to post it until now.*

I am twenty six. I don’t approve of being closer to thirty than to twenty, and there is a minor voice in my head telling me I haven’t done nearly enough to be at this point, but I’m on a brand new adventure now so that voice can shut up. This is by far my loneliest birthday ever but I didn’t care at all today because for my birthday I got an entire new world!

The drive from Wisconsin was long and mostly boring except for the snowstorm and murder motel in Kansas. But I added three states to my list (Missouri, Kansas, and Texas) and we reached my new home past dark so I didn’t see much of the town or even my surroundings. I set up my tiny new home. I have to say, so far I kind of love it. I have way too much stuff (I knew that was going to happen) but I have just enough space (for now). It’s going to be kind of an extended dry run to see if I could hack it for long periods of time on a boat. The whole thing is 18 feet. It looks like this:

Let’s play a game I like to call “Which Bed did Karis Sleep in Last Night?” If you guessed the tiny high-up one, you are correct. Hint for the future: that will always be the answer to this question.

So far I’ve been doing really well. There were a few pangs of loneliness and fear last night, and a little bit of a feeling of being lost without the distraction of other people and the internet at my fingers constantly. Just as one of those pangs was hitting me I started to hear a great horned owl pretty close to the trailer. I heard another, then another, even closer. Three of them called back and forth so close that after listening for a few minutes I got out and by the light of the full moon (and it’s reflection on the bay) I could see them, soaring and perching only fifteen or twenty feet away! I listened to them off and on around my music all night and they made me feel so much happier and at home.

I was shocked when I stepped out into the sunlight and the bitter wind this morning and saw a pasture full of cattle in my front yard! 

There were also trees! With leaves! They are live oaks and they are everywhere and they are fast becoming one of my favorite trees. They make such gorgeous shapes, are often extremely easy to climb, and I just love them.

I heard cranes calling and thought nothing of it for a few minutes. The last nine months with fifteen species within earshot has made me fairly blasé about the preposterous calls of even African species echoing across the Wisconsin prairie. But the second or third time it dawned on me: those are real wild whooping cranes! Not raised by humans in costume, but from the original flock, brought back from the brink of 16 individuals in the wild. I can hear them calling back and forth from the marsh out to the North and the ponds in the cow pasture outside my front door. It is an amazing life I lead.

I finally met my new boss, Liz! I absolutely love her. She knows everything. We ate breakfast tacos (yep. Texas), and she showed me around the Lamar Penninsula (where I live), Fulton and Rockport (the closest towns), and Mustang Island (the barrier island across the bay). It is a strange mix around here of ranchers, oyster fishing, local beach folks, and wealthy snowbirds (“Winter Texans”). We saw tiny brightly colored shacks and enormous $10 million mansions, restored wetlands, and decimated habitat. 

Coastal ecology (like a lot of ecology these days) is full of fascinating facts and beautiful sights followed by phrases like “but its population is declining”, or “but it will all be underwater in a couple of decades”. I saw mangroves which was very exciting, but they’re moving into this area now only because it no longer freezes enough to keep them out because of climate change, so they’re choking out a lot of native plants and decreasing coastal habitats for - among other things - cranes. It was fascinating and depressing. But mostly fascinating. I hope to one day know half as much as Liz.

I saw the Gulf of Mexico! And we went birding! Both at the beach and at a little watering hole (apparently all of the migrating species stop there during the migration and in the spring they will have their breeding plumage. I cannot wait). Every year I make a resolution to become a better birder and every year I fail pretty badly but there isn’t a choice here. I will get better at it because there are just crazy amounts of birds everywhere! And they are all new and exciting to me. Today we saw:

Black and Turkey vulture (my most abundant neighbors next to cows)

Grackle (everywhere. Like pigeons. I love them)

Sanderling

Willet

Royal tern

Black skimmer (a huge flock, pretty uncommon as they are declining)

Brown pelican (almost went extinct due to DDT and are now off the endangered list)

White pelican

Laughing gull

Herring gull

Ring-bill gull

Snowy plover

Couch’s Kingbird

Kiskadee

Black crowned night heron

Great blue heron

Common flicker

Forester’s tern

Great egret

Belted kingfisher

Kestrel

Osprey

Liz knew almost all of them. And most of the shells. And told excellent stories about field biology. I kind of want to be her. I think I’m off to a good start here.

As we drove up to the gate (yes, I live in a “gated community” here) we could tell there were still whooping cranes at the cow ponds because there were birders parked all along the road with huge zoom lenses trained towards the pasture. It is very strange to have people training telescope lenses towards your home. I’m glad none of my windows face that way. I also feel like King of the Birders in a weird way. Although, I don’t want to tell them where I live because I can’t let them in to take good pictures of the birds.

So today was amazing. I am so excited to explore the town and the natural areas and just everything. I can’t wait. Now that I am alone in my tiny trailer I’m getting those pangs again a little, and I know I will get homesick and friendsick and things will be scary and hard but that’s how I know it’s worthwhile! I am so very excited to be starting this brand new adventure, and while I am not exactly excited to be turning 26, I think this is going to be a very good year.