All of it Sounds good.

Exploration is one of my core functions. It resides in the bottom of my being. There is nothing like a good road trip. Especially when it's included in a part of your work.

Driving north has always been a thrilling experience for me. I rarely make it past Longview in Cowlitz County, so any opportunity I can get to go north, I do.

This trip took me to a training in the tiny town of DuPont, Washington, and my first acquaintance with the Puget Sound. The Sound. What a place.

First starting out I didn't quite realize how... Oceany it is.

Going north in Western Washington is strange. You're not in a valley, like in the Willamette Valley in Western Oregon. The landscape flattens out into rolling hills. The Cascades are still on one side of you, but eventually, there are no Coastal Mountains, they simply... disappear.

What you're left with is the giants of the Cascades looming in the distance, their snowy peaks popping out in the least expected places.

The little chains in the Cascades also are prominent, extending their small ridges out onto the plain like small tree covered fingers. You and Interstate 5 dart up and around these small hills on your way north, and wrap around them like a strand of ribbon or a piece of floss.

The tidewater hits you with forests greener than the thickets around the waterfalls in the Gorge. Olympia and the capitol sit at the mouth of the South Sound. (I absolutely love that alliteration). The campus is greener than green, and always misty, a sight to see. But that was a past trip. This time I went farther north.

The training was in DuPont, Washington, self-claimed "Golf Central of the Northwest" and Nick-appointed "most planned and newest town I've ever seen in my life". The town was around since the 1950's (still young in my mind!) but the neighborhood, and "downtown" part I stayed in was planned and built in 2002. There was a long haul bus terminal (for commuters to Tacoma and Seattle), everything was pedestrian planned (stores faced the front, parking lots in back, sidewalks took precedence), and military reigned supreme. (More on that in a future blog post perhaps?)

As I left the conference this morning, instead of going immediately back to Vancouver, I decided to explore farther north into Tacoma. I mean, I was going to get back at like 5 PM on a Friday, so why not? You can't see the Sound too well from DuPont, so I decided first to travel up to another small Sound town* named Steilacoom. Driving up I was a approached with a view very similar to this:

I didn't even mind the gray clouds.** I was elated when I saw that unique ocean like thing from the top of the hill I was driving down.

This view from the town was beautiful, and then I saw it in the distance: The Tacoma Narrows Bridge. I needed to see that.

You see it? Waaaayyy off there in the distance?

Off I went, to see the spot where famous Galloping Gertie was tossed in the wind and collapsed in a terrible structure failure during a windstorm in November of 1940. Here's a picture to refresh your memory:

Picture and previous caption from here.

So I went! I actually didn't cross it though. It costs a five dollar toll, and I'm not paying that one way just to cross a damn bridge. I did, however, go to a park that is adjacent, and it was there I did something that I haven't done in a while. I went for a hike. (Or a stroll, whichever you prefer.)

There is the new bridge, in all it's mile-long span and glory. The place in the foreground is the local boat club, which was obviously deserted. And surrounded by a chain-link fence that I couldn't find a way through.

So this is the Puget Sound. I never quite got what people meant when they talked about this place.

It's rugged, full of pebbles, forests straight to the water, islands; squishy and soggy. It would have been one hell of a place to settle. It is majestic, urban, outdoors, and surprisingly calm. Due to the hills and the forests, the sound from the nearby city drains out, and all you are left with is the water lapping up against the pebble beaches. One could say I fell in love instantly.

The Sound is unique. I have never been anywhere that is ocean... but not ocean. The towns fished, the forests envelop the land, the tidewater produces a diversity in life rivaled for any ecosystem. Thinking back, it reminds me a lot of the Appalachians really. In the Appalachian mountains, the tops are considered "islands" of diversity due to their high elevations and ecosystems where unique elements from the last ice age were pushed and evolved on their own rights in those high sub-alpine systems. The Sound has islands of water from ocean life. The waters are gentle, with little waves, the water is salty, the life teeming, yet different, from the connection with the Pacific so far away. But creatures can migrate from the Pacific because of this existing connection, which is amazing to think about.

The geography of the land fascinates me. Much like those ridges of the Cascades extending onto the pre-tidewater plane, the fingers of the Sound reach far "inland" to places so far removed from the Pacific Ocean proper. When I first saw it, much like the first time I saw where the Columbia empties into the Pacific, I got goosebumps and chills. This place is amazing and so... grand. The natural world here is amazing. I marvel at the natural and built worlds, and I can't help but be filled with excitement for the places and people that lie ahead.

I'm slowly learning to live my life with a sense of wonder and exploration again. I can pull myself out of this culture and environment I have become stale in. I will find a place where I resonate, where I will grow in good company with others.

I'm excited.

P.S. In Steilacoom I found the spot where the first Methodist Church north of the Columbia River was built. I mean come on. How cool is that?

This edition comes with footnotes!

*As you can tell I'm having fun with this.
**In typical "Nick fashion" the sun came out later

Chapters

The perfection of a clean desk is so comforting in an unknown place. A clean workspace. A clean slate. A place to retreat to. A place to think.

A place.

Places. I think a lot about places, and their meaning. For all the variation in numbers, data, and statistics, there is always an elemental narrative of a place. It doesn't follow a set pattern or routine, rather a gut feeling. It is however divided up much as you would think a chapter is.

Beginning:

And End.

My chapter is coming to a close here. It acts like the gravity assist that sends spacecraft out into the depths. I had an amazing blast off, and as my craft flies towards Jupiter, I can feel it bringing me in faster by every moment, each velocity measurement greater than the past. But the pivot is still astronomically far away.

I've seen this coming for a while now. As I said in my previous post, this place does not resonate with me. This chapter is coming up on the conclusion of it's two year duration. And I have decided that. I don't know where I will go, I just know I will be moving once my VISTA term is up in August.

There is a feeling I get when I go somewhere I resonate. Imagine a yearning; a deep grab from the bottom of your heart; a settling of all of your worries. Your toes curl with the anticipation of being there, and excitement builds to a long *sigh* as you take in the sunset on your landing.

Arrival brings the natural match of your pitch with the cultural and societal tuning fork of the area. Whatever builds that for you, you find it there.

There is nothing like it in the world.

I find this feeling solidly in Baltimore Ohio with my family. In the Blue Ridge of North Carolina with my friends. In small glimpses of places like Spartanburg South Carolina; the massive urban center of Barcelona in Spain; marshlands and swamps around the Nature Coast in Florida; the central rural community of Bedford Pennsylvania.

Most of all, I feel this natural matching of pitch and fork in the very idea of exploration. Of adventuring off to see new places, meeting new people, and experiencing new cultures, no matter how slightly or radically different they may be from my own.

When is settling? I have a feeling it will find me when I want it to.

For now I am destined to wander, live, and experience. Let's give it another round, and see where it leads me next.

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.