"Write honestly and thoughtfully about what moves you."
-Molly Wizenberg
I've been reading more recently. And writing too. I've forgotten the sheer pleasure of combining words to form phrases that bring color and meaning to your imagination and of reading the combinations of others for new ideas. I didn't write for awhile, for a variety of reasons, but now I'd like to write again.
For a long time, I think the biggest roadblock (or mental block) to my writing was wondering about audience. Who is out there? Why are they reading my words? What do they think of them and of me? With wondering came worrying, with worrying came stagnation. And with that I forgot the reason that I do this. For me, writing has always been less about the creation of something and more about the remembering of something. I write because I want to remember feelings and days, moments and people. Ultimately, it's a selfish endeavor and that's the way I've always done it.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Modern Day Wild West
During the fall of 2008, my senior year of college, I participated in a set of field courses called Semester in the West. During this experience, we traveled through 8 western states and northern Mexico learning about the various environmental, political, ecological, social and humanitarian issues of each particular place. We learned that the American West is an idea, not one contiguous region; that there are different kinds of issues in each specific locale and many different ways of searching for solutions. We learned that it's hard to talk about the West as one coherent area. Rather it should be addressed as a large collection of smaller regions, each with it's own unique culture, ecosystem and associated issues. We learned that making generalizations about the West is like saying there's only one way to wear a bandana.
Upon graduating, I was lucky to spend a couple of seasons in Lee Vining, CA working for an environmental non-profit organzation who's work focused primarily on water policy and education. For several months, I lived in a water-loving, outdoor oriented bubble that was exactly what I needed at the time. I could find inspiration from people who's views were like mine - they gave me fresh perspective on the same old issues and helped me find a way to start thinking about these issues in terms of action and involvement. That's not to say that dissenting views didn't exist. Far from it, in fact. Eastern California is full of red counties, and Mono County is no exception. There are many ranch families that have been in the area for much longer than any of us "environmentalists" and they let us know it at town meetings and on the street corners. They gave us hell for many of the things we proposed. New education center? What about the native american artifacts that might exist on the land? Re-vegetation of the old airport strip? Where will the county get the money for that? But on an everyday basis, the people I worked and interacted with held the same general views and values that I did. It helped me put shape to my ideas and prioritize the issues and actions I felt were important. Sometimes it's good to agree.
After almost a year with the Committee, it was time to move on and stretch my wings a little bit. Now I find myself working on a ranch in Western Colorado where the priority is the bottom line, making sure we end up in the black, hopefully well into it, every year. The people that work at this ranch come from a very different background from those at the Committee. No Harvard-graduate, tofu-loving, prAna-wearing people here (sorry for the cascade of cliches). My new co-workers were raised on ranches all over the country. They are cattle men and women, horse men and women, hunters, and fishermen; a whole different category of outdoorsperson. And they're wonderful. They don't recycle because it involves a ninety mile round trip drive to the nearest facility. They drink bottled water because the water from the ranch cistern is laced with minerals and bugs that don't agree with our stomachs. They drive big, noisy trucks because the roads aren't plowed everyday. Even when they are, the mud can get as deep as a new snow. This time, I'm looking at the same issues from a completely different perspective that often comes to very different conclusions than I'm used to. My views are getting challenged daily by the people who. Sometimes disagreeing is important too.
Once again, my views of the West are being challenged and changed. I'm so lucky for the time I've had to explore this vast, empty part of the world and I can't wait for every new opportunity to further broaden and deepen this love and appreciation that I've developed for it.
Upon graduating, I was lucky to spend a couple of seasons in Lee Vining, CA working for an environmental non-profit organzation who's work focused primarily on water policy and education. For several months, I lived in a water-loving, outdoor oriented bubble that was exactly what I needed at the time. I could find inspiration from people who's views were like mine - they gave me fresh perspective on the same old issues and helped me find a way to start thinking about these issues in terms of action and involvement. That's not to say that dissenting views didn't exist. Far from it, in fact. Eastern California is full of red counties, and Mono County is no exception. There are many ranch families that have been in the area for much longer than any of us "environmentalists" and they let us know it at town meetings and on the street corners. They gave us hell for many of the things we proposed. New education center? What about the native american artifacts that might exist on the land? Re-vegetation of the old airport strip? Where will the county get the money for that? But on an everyday basis, the people I worked and interacted with held the same general views and values that I did. It helped me put shape to my ideas and prioritize the issues and actions I felt were important. Sometimes it's good to agree.
After almost a year with the Committee, it was time to move on and stretch my wings a little bit. Now I find myself working on a ranch in Western Colorado where the priority is the bottom line, making sure we end up in the black, hopefully well into it, every year. The people that work at this ranch come from a very different background from those at the Committee. No Harvard-graduate, tofu-loving, prAna-wearing people here (sorry for the cascade of cliches). My new co-workers were raised on ranches all over the country. They are cattle men and women, horse men and women, hunters, and fishermen; a whole different category of outdoorsperson. And they're wonderful. They don't recycle because it involves a ninety mile round trip drive to the nearest facility. They drink bottled water because the water from the ranch cistern is laced with minerals and bugs that don't agree with our stomachs. They drive big, noisy trucks because the roads aren't plowed everyday. Even when they are, the mud can get as deep as a new snow. This time, I'm looking at the same issues from a completely different perspective that often comes to very different conclusions than I'm used to. My views are getting challenged daily by the people who. Sometimes disagreeing is important too.
Once again, my views of the West are being challenged and changed. I'm so lucky for the time I've had to explore this vast, empty part of the world and I can't wait for every new opportunity to further broaden and deepen this love and appreciation that I've developed for it.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Well, I'm here!
So I've tried to blog a bit since I've been here, but every post has either gotten interrupted or been too boring to publish, so here I go again. Here's hoping this one sticks.
I arrived in Grand Junction on January 2nd, exactly one month after I left Lee Vining. I spent a glorious month at home skiing, spending time with family and friends, buying my first car, and enjoying a full month with no work and few committments. Every time I return to Bozeman I go through a new set of emotions. It's still home, but that feeling of belonging has started to slip away. My Bozeman friends have either moved away or created new lives for themselves with people that I don't know. Much of the town itself has changed as well, and many of my favorite businesses are either gone or have moved somewhere else. I've begun to feel like a visitor in my past life when I'm in Bozeman and though that can be fun for awhile, it's also important to me to keep moving.
This past stint in Lee Vining is the longest I've been anywhere for several years. I really started to nest there and feel at home. It was hard to leave a place and a community I loved so much. However, it has inspired me to create that kind of community in any place I live. This never happens overnight, and as a result my first couple weeks in Colorado, in addition to being ridden with minor house dramas and the settling in phase at my new job, were a little rough. Beth and my work schedule is a little crazy - 8-5 with an hour long commute on either end - so we were spending a few hours each night trying to get our house furnished and livable while fighting with first frozen and then burst pipes, no dishwasher or internet.
But with a first week like that, everything else looks easy and over the last couple weeks we've really begun to settle in and enjoy our house. We live in a quiet neighborhood near the college and not too far from downtown. We've got a huge fenced backyard for our dogs (two black labs, one 11 year old, one 6 month old) and beautiful old wood floors. Grand Junction is really beginning to feel like home and I'm beginning to measure my time here in years rather than months.
In our time off, we try to adventure and explore as much as possible. We spent a great weekend in Laramie with good friends from Africa. We watched lots of football, reminisced about study abroad experiences and went to a phenomenal country show at a cowboy bar. We spent a weekend skiing on the mesa and are planning for many more.
On top of all of this, I've been playing some volleyball at the Gold's Gym here and meeting some really great people. One new friend even spent a good deal of time in Lee Vining/June Lake and is the nephew of a park ranger that I knew there. I never cease to be amazed by the connections between people.
One final note - Beth and I are working really hard to train for a half marathon. She'll run one on March 12th in Little Rock, AR and depending on her recovery, hopefully run one with me the following weekend here in Gateway, CO. In order to motivate ourselves to keep up the training, we've registered for a 10k in two weeks in Fruita. I've done a bit of running here and there in my post-college life, but I've never really had races to train for (not because I want to do well, simply because I don't want to keel over and die) so it's really nice to have that date looming in the back of my head each morning when I wake up at 4:45 and think, "Wouldn't it be easier just to go back to sleep?"
All in all, things are going well here. I'm keeping very busy and enjoying most of my daily goings on. I don't have any pictures to post because I've been super lazy about taking pictures, but hopefully soon that will change. We skied Powderhorn on Sunday and the view from the top of Grand Mesa was breathtaking. Flat-top mountains that fold in onto themselves and form this crinkle-scape that catches light and casts shadow with incredibly minute detail. It's unlike any place I've lived before and I'm looking forward to becoming intimate with this landscape.
I arrived in Grand Junction on January 2nd, exactly one month after I left Lee Vining. I spent a glorious month at home skiing, spending time with family and friends, buying my first car, and enjoying a full month with no work and few committments. Every time I return to Bozeman I go through a new set of emotions. It's still home, but that feeling of belonging has started to slip away. My Bozeman friends have either moved away or created new lives for themselves with people that I don't know. Much of the town itself has changed as well, and many of my favorite businesses are either gone or have moved somewhere else. I've begun to feel like a visitor in my past life when I'm in Bozeman and though that can be fun for awhile, it's also important to me to keep moving.
This past stint in Lee Vining is the longest I've been anywhere for several years. I really started to nest there and feel at home. It was hard to leave a place and a community I loved so much. However, it has inspired me to create that kind of community in any place I live. This never happens overnight, and as a result my first couple weeks in Colorado, in addition to being ridden with minor house dramas and the settling in phase at my new job, were a little rough. Beth and my work schedule is a little crazy - 8-5 with an hour long commute on either end - so we were spending a few hours each night trying to get our house furnished and livable while fighting with first frozen and then burst pipes, no dishwasher or internet.
But with a first week like that, everything else looks easy and over the last couple weeks we've really begun to settle in and enjoy our house. We live in a quiet neighborhood near the college and not too far from downtown. We've got a huge fenced backyard for our dogs (two black labs, one 11 year old, one 6 month old) and beautiful old wood floors. Grand Junction is really beginning to feel like home and I'm beginning to measure my time here in years rather than months.
In our time off, we try to adventure and explore as much as possible. We spent a great weekend in Laramie with good friends from Africa. We watched lots of football, reminisced about study abroad experiences and went to a phenomenal country show at a cowboy bar. We spent a weekend skiing on the mesa and are planning for many more.
On top of all of this, I've been playing some volleyball at the Gold's Gym here and meeting some really great people. One new friend even spent a good deal of time in Lee Vining/June Lake and is the nephew of a park ranger that I knew there. I never cease to be amazed by the connections between people.
One final note - Beth and I are working really hard to train for a half marathon. She'll run one on March 12th in Little Rock, AR and depending on her recovery, hopefully run one with me the following weekend here in Gateway, CO. In order to motivate ourselves to keep up the training, we've registered for a 10k in two weeks in Fruita. I've done a bit of running here and there in my post-college life, but I've never really had races to train for (not because I want to do well, simply because I don't want to keel over and die) so it's really nice to have that date looming in the back of my head each morning when I wake up at 4:45 and think, "Wouldn't it be easier just to go back to sleep?"
All in all, things are going well here. I'm keeping very busy and enjoying most of my daily goings on. I don't have any pictures to post because I've been super lazy about taking pictures, but hopefully soon that will change. We skied Powderhorn on Sunday and the view from the top of Grand Mesa was breathtaking. Flat-top mountains that fold in onto themselves and form this crinkle-scape that catches light and casts shadow with incredibly minute detail. It's unlike any place I've lived before and I'm looking forward to becoming intimate with this landscape.
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