West Coast Blues

My time here grows shorter each passing day. I'm not sure whether or not I will stay. The grandiose mountains, the the flickering urbanscape. The Lonesome Crowded West as Modest Mouse called it.

Over the past few months my life has been evolving at a much faster pace than I ever expected it to. It's a busy but enjoyable adventure. In most parts.

I was building a sense of place here. I started hearing the comfort in people's voices as they talked about this area. It was very persuading. Adopting a new home is never an easy ordeal, but the flags associated with each imaginary line have a fairly discernible impact upon a choice. A choice on whether to leave or stay.

And I don't resonate here.

There are certain things that have always stuck on me, things that I now no longer bring up with hesitation to people. I have grown comfortable in the region's deficits, even beginning to possible claim them as my own. The rain. The cold. The winter. The pretentiousness. The perfection. The false marketing; and the actual reality.

Lackluster? Disappointed?

No. I don't think this place has had a negative effect on me. It has had a constructive gleaning one. How much I have learned from this place is beyond a fathomable amount. I built the second story living room of my house of life in this place. But as your back and mine will tell you; you can't crash on a couch forever. Eventually you need a mattress.






















Some pictures of my Christmas trip to Ohio:

Good Tidings for All

There's something about a Christmas tree.

It brings together the house in such a way; that it's just too good to be true.

Residents sit together and talk around it. The lights are simple: No tree skirt. No fancy ornaments. Simply a bit of garland, large white lights, and no star.

The dog (Cupcake) plays with Kyle, I talk with Sonja & Andrea about Christmas plans. I should get them some gifts. It's such a great feeling to split a house with people who are so warm and welcoming, and to have them accept you and keep you as an old acquaintance.

The city also looks like Christmas lights. Spanning out across the horizon are warm orange and yellow orbs, lit up for the world to see, as the city wraps up its Tuesday.

I always have a hard time believing that it's actually Christmas time. Especially here in the sopping forests of the Northwest. I've missed the snow, but at least some nights are bitter cold, and waste the energy right out of your breath.

That chill in the air is a subtle reminder of the place I will be returning to on Friday. I fly for Ohio at the break of dawn, and enjoy a Cascade sunrise on my way to Dallas.

These mountains out here are starting to get with me. I'm making roots, finally, in this place. It is trouble, because I now am feeling attached.  This feeling is reinforced by the fact that I've worked so hard to get here. I feel like I've been climbing up the slopes of Mt. Hood to arrive to this point, and I think I'm now above the timberline.

What if I have started to turn? What if I stay out here? What if I keep this awesome killer group of friends I've started to amass? I'm in life now, and nobody is saying I have to go somewhere else...

I've met people who have claimed this area their home. I now know what this place means for others; where I could not see that before. Now I am stuck in a randomly generated sequence of thoughts between where to go next August once my time is done here. 

Warmth.

It's dark out.

The quiet sizzle of the highway simmers outside the library's fifth floor doors.

The urban lights twinkle like distant stars, shimmering through the suspended vapor that hangs in the air.

A kick drum starts! Beats manifest themselves through your headphones, as you recollect the past day. People you've briefly met in passing have lost their coarse outer shell, and offered a concession for the betterment of the group. "There is good in this world" you say to yourself, unbelieving in a feeling of transcendence you haven't felt in a while.

The air turned brisk, the rain came. Winter is here.

But this time you haven't plummeted into the depths of the dark. Or at least not entirely.

Last year you clawed your way out of the pit. God, it took forever, but you did get there. The summer sun most likely had something to do with it as well.

That sun. It is what keeps you going. The direct sunlight felt only one week ago. This time you plan on keeping it held for a little longer, and refusing to let the time change get to you. We invented a way to capture electricity and keep it burning for light. You can use that to keep you going.








Everyone here seems to turn joyfully inward when the rain comes. Its actually kind of enduring. It must be the way people cope. The area grows on me more and more by the day, and maybe it isn't the geography.

I've been using place as an expression for lack of a personal network and support structure. I've been accusing the "local feel" as being the reason for my ills, but I believe it has been the fact that I simply have had to struggle through the first year of a new place. But why was I struggling?

The place does not foster the connections in the ways other places do. But I don't have a reference. I don't know if it is simply the fact that I am in a major urban area, or if it is a strange Northwest phenomenon? The South is never this cold. The Midwest is not this cluttered. The city has never been this awkward, nor the area so segmentunited.

I guess it is the people that make the place, but it is the place that makes the people. Its cyclical, with no discernible beginning or end, nor specific actors to blame. That is the ceaseless mystery of place.

It fascinates me so.

Manufacturing of Place, Identity, and Exploration

I know that "manufacturing" is a long word, but it makes the most sense to use in this context. Manufacturing is the process of creation of new material, whether it be physical, mental, or emotional. We manufacture things all the time. It is the constant pulses of our brains which write and re-write to lead us to think and create.

All I can do is smile. The time among old friends, reminiscing about the long concluded days, makes me think about all of the things that are going on, and how to make sure we recognize that our thoughts are manufactured. That we are aware of the constant bias our mind employs against us and our memories.

The songs we sing; the media we watch; the books we read. Many (if not all) of these include the descriptors and qualifiers to why we go to where we go. Place is a hugely important and essential piece of the human condition.

I once had a friend in High School who listened to the Augustana and got me into the band. They have this beautiful song called "Boston" and it got me thinking about how much of our world is manufactured.

The media constructs the environment of what we think about where. So many stereotypes and truths are formed by the simple images and presentations of what we are given on a daily basis. It is what our mind does with those is where it matters.

Our minds are such beautiful machines. While we may be fed images, sounds, and video of our world, but only we can interpret what it all means, and what we will do with it. We go out to explore, exhume, and experience. And how you go about doing that is exactly what matters.

There is no "right" or "wrong" way to experience a place. The only important aspect is to pay attention to "how" you experience it. Stop and realize exactly what it is you are seeing, what you may not be seeing, and how/if you'd like to see everything you can.

I was in Spartanburg, South Carolina to conduct a VISTA training for a friend and her VISTA team, and I felt exactly at home. I fell in love with the town then and there, and vowed I would live there. What is it that makes me lust after a new place the first time I see it? That didn't happen with Vancouver or Portland? Maybe it is because I knew I would stay?

Homecoming has become a special time for me. You do something again, it becomes tradition, right?

Visiting the college for the second time provided closure. The fact that I did not know anyone there. That I was not going back. It was a distant place to be recorded in the halls of memory that are my neurons and synapses.



So where do I belong? Am I going to be living segments of life upon the film of 80 odd years I'm supposed to live? Permanence is a terrifying thing, but I feel as though it is the only way I can be happy. I don't like living on bridges, but my introduction to the "real world" has been exhausting, and I don't know if I'm willing to give it another shot. It feels as though my roots have been stretched to their limit, and that two-thousand miles is simply too far for them to stretch.

Maybe I'll be a touring plant, visiting back to the only soil that can hold me from time to time to revitalize myself. Journeying drains people, and I guess now that we are out of the time span of months, we will move into the extended adventures of years.

A touring plant slowly putting the pieces into place to see what fits, and what doesn't. The bridges aren't quite in view yet, but I know they are coming, so maybe I should just enjoy the ride until they rise over the horizon, and work with them then.

Long Beach and Adventures

This is what my car was meant for. Riding down the country roads, out to the Pacific down some unknown highway.

The City of Astoria from the Astoria Column

Astoria & Where the Columbia Meets the Ocean

Meeting people is an art highly sought after, and rarely found. We have taken on a new housemate for a couple of months, and on Saturday she and I traveled out to the Pacific. I decided to go see the Long Beach peninsula this time round because it was an area I have never seen before.

I've been on the inside of Willapa Bay and seen the Long Beach peninsula from the east, but the lure of the Pacific ocean lay right across that small ridge I always had in the distance.

The View from North of Raymond

The peninsula  has some of the strangest landscapes I have seen in a while. It acts like the mountains until you are well onto the narrow stretch of land. Then, the mountains fall away, and all that is left is open sky, dunes, and beach grass. If you deviate to the west at any point of the departing journey, you tend to hit the ocean quite quickly:

They say Long Beach gets its name because it is the "longest continuous stretch of beach" in the US. There is also a part called "Waikiki Beach" because its sands resemble those found in Hawaii. And the towns themselves remind me of the small beach villages in Florida. They dot the landscape with silly tourist shops and the best seafood places you can find. Fresh catch right that day.

The contrast of the landscapes here is even more dramatic than in Central Oregon. The cliffs intersect with many more beaches, and the water is surprisingly not that cold for this time of year.

The cliffs led to many more spots to swim, if you could get over the surf.

We stopped and had lunch/dinner at a local grille, and thankfully they had boca burgers for myself. Their sauce was to die for, and really made the whole thing "pop" in a certain way.


The drive back was uneventful, other than the fact that we took US 30 back to Longview, and along the way we were able to see the summit of Mount Rainier over the looming Cascade Mountains. After returning, I set out to play a bit of D&D, and came home at 11 PM exhausted. I'm enjoying writing this blog post for everyone, but I figure it is time for dinner and bed. We are moving into a new office tomorrow, and I'm going to need all the rest I can get to setup my new space.

Foo Fighters and Rain

The rain has come once again.

Its been cloudy and rainy for the last three days, and I am awaiting winter's onset once again.

This time around, I am prepared. Well. Not really. But I can sure as hell try.

I find myself listening to "Wake Me Up When September Ends" by Green Day. I don't know why. Just feels like the right mood.

That would be the view from the library where I am writing this right now. The camera's auto-enhance makes it look brighter than it actually is.

September has taken forever. It has literally been one of the longest months I have experienced, and I'm just dreading that it gets over with soon.

Right on key autumn hit. It got cold one night, and it hasn't gotten above 75° since. I kind of enjoyed the beginning of the rain. It was like the cold gray blanket had descended back on our moderately sized valley.

"Our"

I've started identifying with this place.

I wonder if this is what comes with the year end of the cycle. Did it take me that long to get here? It's a tough love. Traveling the path has been less like a smoothly paved North Carolina highway, and more like trudging up one of the taller Cascades on an unimproved gravel road in a four cylinder car. The journey takes forever, and it busts up different parts of your car, but you do get there.

So what is next? Do I want to stay here? I know I still have a year left, but it weighs on me. I don't want to pursue connections if I'm not going to stay here. But I want connections. I can't keep still. I don't want to just "go on" here. I want to explore.

See.

Experience.

Return.

I entice you to ponder the definition of "Home". What does it mean for you?

I can't decide on a definition. Does fate dictate that I will need to settle down eventually? Can a living be made place-hopping? I don't want to be that jerk though.

My reservations are large, but my aspirations are larger. So many things to contemplate. And I have so much to consider. One one hand, I don't like being alone, but on the other hand, I love to travel. I want to see places and become acquainted with them. But I want to see everywhere.

Ohio was the starting place. New England was the taste. Warren Wilson was the honeymoon. Ireland and Barcelona were the extravagant spending. Vancouver is... The doldrums? Painful reflections and life lessons?

Whatever it may be, with the turn of the clouds and the cold I come upon another year here. Lets make the best of it.

Windy Ridge

So if you were to ask me which of the three sides of Mount Saint Helens I liked the most... Well I'd say I like all of them the best for different reasons.

The North side it's for the "easy tourist/learn about the mountain itself" experience. The road is the nicest, the drive is the clearest, but the crowds are the biggest. But the facilities are also really educational, with lots to do for families.

The South side is for the adventurers. The ones who want to get out and play around the mountain in nature. The roads here are half the time gravel, but the experiences are twice the fun. You get to descend into an old lava tube cave with nothing but a gas powered lamp, hike in a basalt valley with a one person width swinging suspension bridge as the end reward, or even climb the mountain itself.

Finally, there is the East side. This is the side for awe and inspiration. It is by far the farthest out, but gets you the closest to the mountain. When you pull up to the final overlook, Windy Ridge, you and your car are literally three miles from the start of the crater. Each lava dome is clearly visible, and you can see where the volcano has started to rebuild itself.

On the way up, you get great views of Mount Adams to the east, and Mount Hood to the south. The road is a mix between pavement and rubble, but it makes the journey that much more valuable. The forests are old growth, interrupted by the sudden decimation of the 1980 eruption.

You get to drive into the pumice plain, and your car sails among the sticks of seared trees and the sea of downed timber.

The half barren mountaintops are like two sides of the same coin, the west facing slopes gone to bedrock, the east facing slopes, spared from 1300 degree mudslides.

You can even see and visit the famous Spirit Lake, once home to the Mount Saint Helens Lodge, which is now under 250 feet of earth and rock. The lake itself still has the log mat, still floating about from the 1980 explosion.

I sat and thought (call it meditated?) for a while at the top of Windy Ridge. I sat in the pumice and ash, and took in the marvel of being so close to something of such immeasurable power. And being surrounded by others which are much older, and contain much more than the geological youngster of Mount Saint Helens.

I even saw the colossal Rainier off in the distance, holding the title of grandest of them all. Rising 14,411 feet in the air, it is plainly visible between two mountain peaks.

So here I am. Sitting among giants. I still can't fathom it to this day.

What more can I say? Pixels cannot capture the amount of beauty in this world.