Or Not

I didn't take a single photo this weekend. It was kind of a nice change. I did finish knitting a shawl, the first thing I've knit in months and months, and it only took me a week. My hands were sore at the end of it, but it was worth it. Mostly I just petted Emmy, walked around the property, made food, ate food, did dishes, drove to Anacortes (three times!), bought groceries (also three times), watched movies from the 80s about country singers (three of them), and slept.

This week I'm staying at my Ballard room. In some ways, the simplicity is nice, and I can't tell you how much I LOVE having a functional closet, getting dressed in the morning is so easy, but I do miss the mini-farm. Time with Susan, Lisa and Stumptown consoles me. 

Lament

For our former blog format. Oh old blog! How I miss you!

Jess is not grossed out by slugs

Oops.

photo by Lisa Robbins

Um. I think I kinda screwed up the blog. Sorry! 

We'll get it worked out soon, I promise...

Having Time

from Seamus' birthday party last Sunday

The drive home was lovely last night. It shouldn't have been. All day I debated whether to go home or back to Ballard, and at the very last minute I decided to head north, only to find all lanes of I-5 closed, in both directions. I didn't mean to head all the way out to Mukilteo, but that was where I ended up, in my search for a detour, and if there hadn't been a line for the ferry I would have been sorely tempted to hop on the Whidbey Island ferry and go home that way. It was getting late, and the light was low and warm-looking, and Whidbey and the San Juans have been so tempting lately. Instead, I drove along the water for a ways before heading back east, just north of where the freeway was closed.  I lucked out and hit it right at the first open onramp. 

There was a Willie Nelson interview on Fresh Air, and then the baseball game was on and the light was not fall light, it was late summer, and when I got to the Skagit Valley Food Co-op, there were no lines and the peaches weren't soft, they were just hard enough to ripen in time for the long weekend, and the first crop of Washington apples was there and I thought I'd just do a little shopping, but I kept thinking about chips and salsa to watch the Seahawks game with tonight, peanut butter ice cream for Tom, meals for the long weekend, my favorite tortillas, a box of black licorice, and stuffed manicotti for dinner and pretty soon three bags were full and I was driving home through twilight, still content, not feeling late at all. 

We have the nicest sunsets at the mini-farm

We also have nice pancakes, a nice dog who puts her head in my lap when we drive to Seattle for nephew birthday parties, good knitting, and clean gutters.

It Used To Be A Mix Tape

Susan and I have been separated lately. The mini-farm, different sleep/wake hours, my NY trip, etc etc. I've been missing her and our get-togethers, trips to Moshi for sushi, going to Ballard Market for TV watching supplies, hanging out in her TV room, cupcakes, coffee. Finally tonight I'm staying in town to have dinner with her, no idea where we'll go, but it doesn't really matter. She's the only person who can get me to willingly eat at a restaurant with the word Factory in the name and be happy about it. 

Susan was one of the first people to make me a mix tape, back in the day when we did those. She's kept at it through the years, though now they're CDs. Yesterday I read this great article about mix tapes, and thought of her. Perfectly timed to remind me I need a new mix for all the driving I'm doing these days. Not quite as good as hanging out, but a whole lot better than nothing. 

Something Else We Do

We have a lot of kites at the mini-farm. Kathleen and Lisa came out last Sunday, and we sat in the grass and Kathleen tried to teach us how to make a blade of grass whistle and mostly Lisa and I just laughed and documented her. Tom brought us fudgesicles and popsicles and everyone got the flavor she or he wanted. 

What I Did Instead

On Saturday it was too hot to ride in the little red truck for long, so the yard sale shopping didn't last too long. I wilted on the couch once we got back to the mini-farm, my arm hanging over the side and Emmy kept bumping my hand with her nose, trying to get me to pet her. I just stayed there, drifting in and out of a nap. I might have eaten a popsicle, and arranged some yarn in the spare bedroom downstairs.

Later, I put on the gingham dress that looks like a picnic tablecloth and we all piled into my air-conditioned car to go to the fair. Even though the cows and kitties and cavies weren't lucky enough to have AC, I loved our night. It was all about the company. And hand-dipped corn-dogs. And soft serve ice cream. And the Skagit Rein Riders. And air-brushed t-shirts and allowances and county fair romances between teenagers and the farmboy who milked his goat with one hand and ate a cone with the other, and the bright colors the rides gave us for photos, and the kid who asked us "Hey, do you wanna know what it feels like in a rain forest?" There was a lot to love, but mostly the company. Definitely that. 

Welcome

I had to ask Jessica's permission before I posted this photo of her sweet kitchen. It just feels so private in there, cozy and secret and warm. She gave me permission and then for two days I let the photo sit, having no idea what the post was about. All I have is the photo. 

That's still all I have. The photo itself, the negative, is too faint to really get a good print in the color darkroom. You can tell that by the haze over the digital scan above. I still don't have a light meter other than the ones in my other cameras, so when I use the Bronica, I kind of eyeball it. Some of the negatives are dense and beautiful, others barely color the film enough for me to tell the difference between frames. Next week I have to turn in a final project for my Intro to Color class, and I'm at a loss. Not enough final prints, and the ones I have don't hang together as a set, to me. Some are medium format, some are 35mm. I wish I had done more portraits with the Bronica, wish I had gotten some good shots of the big curtain-like structures that hang over the berry fields on T Loop, can't quite bear to spend time on a print of that broken down old home I got chewed out for photographing. 

It hasn't been the best week here, really. It's headache season, and that's leaving me melancholy most days. I finished reading A River Runs Through It the other day, and that was a book that matched my mood, quiet and lovely, somewhat plain. It had a calmness to it that I needed, and a mournfulness that fit.  In the car, I've been trying to listen to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and sometimes that's just right, so clever and funny, but more often than not I find my mind wandering a bit, and end up just flipping back to an NPR station. I go through three of them on the ride home, sometimes clinging to the Seattle-based station that broadcasts Selected Shorts and This American Life longer than the reception really merits. 

Last Saturday Tom and I found a little bookstore we liked in Burlington, lured in by a copy of The Great International Airplane Book on the sidewalk shelf, marked just $2. I bought it, and a copy of This Is Washington and Tom bought The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The next day he read it to me as we drove through the valley, and then at the dinner table, another paragraph or two, and to the end of the chapter Monday before bed. Huckleberry Finn keeps my full attention with Tom delivering it. 

So I guess that's what this post is about. Just, where I am. In the car, in the color darkroom, at the dinner table with Tom, off with Huckleberry Finn, Some of the nicest times lately are in Jessica's and James' kitchen. James makes tea and I drink it whether I want tea just then or not, because I like it so much when he makes it. Jessica and James came home with a whole basket full of sweet blackberries the other night, and Jess and I sat in the store talking while the boys were in the kitchen, dishing up big plates of shortcake from the Bread Farm, berries from the basket, vanilla ice cream from our house. I have no idea where the headache was that night. I wouldn't remember it even if it had been there, that's how nice it was. 

Not Going

All week I struggled over whether or not to go to Doe Bay Fest this weekend. Saturday night campfires, bands we know and love, a long ferry ride, tall trees over the ocean, photo opportunities galore and several sweet friends who wanted very much to make the whole thing easy for me so I'd go. Why not?

NOT, though, that's where I landed. I had to feel my way through it, and clumsily, bumping into things as I went, making a chaotic mess of the last hours of the day yesterday. I guess it's about unpacking, and hanging art on the walls, and knowing where my clothes are, and why there isn't anything to speak of in the laundry pile, but even less in the drawers these days. Where did all my extra pillows go, and do I have fingernail clippers somewhere? Hair clips? Plastic sleeves for 35 mm film, where are those? 

Also, it's about sitting on the lawn, or watching our kites lift off from the back field, higher than the trees that surround the farmhouse, all bright colors and optimism. That's the only place the weekend needs to go.

Just One Thing

Tonight after work, I get to go straight home. 

Here's Hoping

chicken & potatoes by Kate Lebo

These days, I'm always happy to go home. If Tom has some idea when I'll be home, at least roughly, he'll open the gate and keep a closer eye on Emmy so I can sail right in. She goes mad with happy barking and wants to chase my car so my first sight is usually Tom kneeled down, dog-height, two arms around her, grinning. Then there's work to scan the yard for, did he build more on the little rock wall that's going in to protect the septic field from renegade parkers, or  mow the area we've started to call the Green Field, or fill the hot tub to check for leaks? Something like that, most days. 

There have been a few times when I've come home in the evening with grocery bags, but now that the moving is over, mostly I rush straight from wherever I've come from, empty lunch sack, empty travel mug, no idea what to eat for dinner. Last night we ended up frying up the leftovers from our dinner at the Trumpeter, reuben sandwich for me, smoked chicken pasta for Tom. The night before it was, well, dinner at the Trumpeter. We've had breakfast for dinner a few times, and one night Tom had grilled cheese and I ate cracked pepper potato chips with cottage cheese as dip. It's a good thing there's always fruit in the house. Tom, I've discovered, can't resist ice cream. "Just remind yourself that it's MY ice cream," I tell him, when he complains about the 5 tubs that are in there now. "But I KNOW you don't care!" he says, "You buy it, but you don't eat it!" He's right. But I will request slices of watermelon the minute I come home, and Tom slices them up for me. Also, for the first time since I started at Alder a few years ago, I've actually been bringing my lunch, most days. 

Now I'm determined to reform where it comes to dinner. I roasted a chicken for Tom once back in my old apartment, before I knew that he likes all meat well done, chicken included. That didn't go so well, even by my more pink-tolerant standards. I did make him a good salad though, and we have now served each other many many hot beverages. I used to make him tea at my apartment, and at the mini-farm he wakes up every morning and puts the little espresso maker on the stovetop for me. He's got the sugar amount just right, and the coffee is good even when we run out of whole milk and have to use 2%. 

I bought burger patties about a week ago, but they've been sitting in the freezer because getting the grill going for just two people seems like a hassle. Tom's little nephews are coming for a visit this weekend, so maybe hot dogs for them, burgers for us, some salmon, some corn? The corn is getting tall in the fields now, but at the Co-op it's all from California still. Maybe Sunday I'll roast a chicken, or maybe we'll just keep eating those good empanadas from the co-op deli? Either way, I'm happy. 

Some of this please.

This morning I was writing to Susan about how much I've been wanting to be at the mini-farm. Most evenings, I drive back to Seattle for one thing or another, acupuncture, Hugo House meetings, camera class, dark room time, but most of all, packing. It seems like I'm always loading boxes into my car right around sunset, sometimes remembering to make one last trip into the apartment for a popsicle to eat on the drive, sometimes not. No matter how much I've done that day, though, I am always happy to do the hour drive back to Bow, where I end up standing in the kitchen, eating slices of watermelon with Tom for the last hour I have of the day before sleep. When I come home, Emmy gets so excited her whole body wags and her teeth chatter. It's nice to have a dog love you. 

Tomorrow is the very last day of the Queenview. Five years wrapping up in a whirl of dust bunnies and fragile champagne coupes and old issues of Domino used as packing material. Then it's Lindsey's wedding that evening, and a drive home to the mini-farm afterwards. Sometimes it's very convenient to be someone who never drinks. Then it's Sunday, and for once, there are no plans for anyone to come over, or for us to do any chores. Maybe by the end of the day I'll know the answer to the question, When was the last time I sat down with a book? 

Where Was I?

That's been the question lately. The big living room on Queen Anne, with its views of Elliott Bay and West Seattle, is empty now, there's no soap in the shower, no towel hanging on the towel rack. There is one lonely nightstand, many stacks and bags and boxes of unsorted papers, not to mention the junk drawers in the kitchen and the coats in the closet. I just can't seem to get it all in hand. 

Soon though, July 31st is the last day I'll have the keys. The mini-farm shaped up nicely for the bachelorette party this weekend, 13 girls fed and watered and boozed up and barbecued then tucked in on air mattresses and sofas and in sleeping bags on Tom's bed upstairs. We sat around the outdoor (fire marshall approved) fire pit and played Ten Fingers (I won, or is it lost?), danced and sang to my Madonna DVD and hula hooped in the living room. I took a few photos of the girls all sitting up in the mini-barn loft but really the best photos were the ones we all took in our heads when Jen and I looked at each other and said "Cameras?", then "No".

As soon as they walked out the door on Sunday afternoon, boxes seemed to explode from the closets and the kitchen suddenly had more dishes and marshmallows and boxes of tea and plastic utensils than it did cupboards and drawers for them all. We kept finding Emmy curled up on one of the leftover air mattresses in the living room, or totally sacked out on the lawn, and she didn't even wait for any of the humans to go upstairs for bed before she did. 

I was in Seattle last night, craving the farm but still happy in a way to have just one small simple room there. A good closet can make all the difference sometimes. 

Peregrine

I don't quite know what to say when people asked me if I'm all  moved yet. The weekend before last, the movers took almost all my furniture up north, leaving the old Queen Anne place echoing and lonely, but still cluttered with papers and closets full of clothes. The room in Ballard is entirely empty, though I have a key now at least. I'm getting quite a collection of keys. 

Up in Bow, Tom is clearing out the mini-barn, the greenhouse, the weeds in the flower beds. I pile boxes on boxes and still need more boxes for what's left in Seattle. There is finally balsamic vinegar in the kitchen and the rice cooker does work to steam artichokes but there are no water glasses, only mugs. More than anything, I just wanted to be able to sit on the couch and watch a movie, the dog at our feet and a late late dinner on our laps. Someone asked me if I had taken a bath in the new bathtub yet, and I haven't, but that wasn't the thing for me. The thing was the movie. 

Sometimes when the boxes in the house get to be too much, I get in the car and head towards the Skagit Co-op for groceries. There is always something more to need. There are infinite routes there, it seems, past little farms, the alpacas on Avon Allen Road, or the strawberry fields on Cook Road. On Saturday night I met this guy there, a peregrine falcon and his falconer. How is it that I never asked his name? He's kept falcons since he was 14 and had lost a new one that day, was getting things arranged so that he could go up in a small plane the next day with tracking gear, see if he could find her that way. Someone else had lost a falcon to a great horned owl the day before, and they have to look out for the many bald eagles that patrol the valley as well, always a threat. 

The road I met them on is the one I drive on most, next to my own. It leads right to the highway, which is always in view from there. I like the other roads better, though it's hard to find a place where you can't see where you're going. It's all flat where we are, clear views and late afternoon sun and roads that take you back to where you started from. Even when I try to get lost in the Skagit Valley, it feels like being found.

Mother, Grandmother, Tractor Enabler

Happy Birthday Mama!

The boys and I wish we were there to give you a big wet smooch!

MWAH!

Thank you for driving out to visit us and for being so willing and helpful while you were here. Spending hours in the car with the boys while we were test driving can't have been that much fun, and we appreciate that you were so gracious about it.

We miss you all the time.

Fire Escape Redux

I took this photo again today. The cucumber/hearts of palm salad is gone, but the horse graffiti is still there and the summer salad had watermelon and pickled green beans and was impossibly good. I had barbecue chicken and Kate and Shanti split the pork chop with cherries and I did not let their last bite go unfinished. I vowed to make cucumber salad, Bee's Kisses and bananas foster at the mini-farm. Tomorrow, affigato at MoMA.

How To Get There

Just keep going.

I Never Did Get Strawberries

not the mini-farm

The mini-farm is five days mine now. My first weekend there, I discovered that the Mt Vernon co-op stocks Lopez Island ice cream, and makes really good coconut rice pudding and has eleventy varieties of sparkling water. The roads there take you past strawberry farms and the kinds of old barns I love to photograph and a pasture full of mini-donkeys. You can go so many different ways, winging it without getting lost. It's a good reminder, really, when you're trying to figure out floor finishes and light fixtures. Many different ways to go, without getting lost. 

Should we pimp their ride?

Driving just like Daddy!

This weekend in Vermont our neighbors brought the boys a little surprise... not the swank Barbie Jeep as seen in the video above, but the beat down monster in the photo below.

We can't decide whether to leave it all pink and fadedly glorious, or paint it flat black with racing stripes... or maybe camo with emergency orange accents.

Whatever we do, we're not taking out the phone - they kept trying to call Papa for Father's Day on it.



Note how quickly Max has taken to being driven around by a cute girl...

Things That Are Good For Good Days, or For Bad

Dogs

Tea

Walks

Willie Nelson

Jenny Lewis

The butter lettuce salad at Cafe Presse

Lattes

Naps

Asking for help from the people who you know will always give it to you.

Boys at the Farm

I don't know when we'll make it to the mini-farm, though I sincerely hope it will be soon. In the meantime, we took the boys to a farm this weekend to meet some baby animals and familiarize them with the whole scene.



Thomas gets a little education.



Max gets a little love.

Max is alright

After the trip to the ER, Max is acting like his normal crazy self... and I think he may be having the most fun ever.

What I Forgot

A day pack, hand-knit socks. On purpose, hiking boots. This weekend, if I can't do it in cowboy boots, I'm not doing it. I didn't bother to pack CDs for the drive in Kate's car, and everyone is bringing food, except me. I do have a sleeping bag, and a bag of dried peaches and a lot of those tiny bags of roasted almonds, and Richard Hugo's autobiography, and a notebook that I started for notes about the mini-farm. Two pairs of pajamas, two pairs of flip-flops, my feather earrings and my favorite shawl. Only three cameras this time, if you don't count my phone. Which reminds me, I forgot a phone charger.

It feels strange to get away right now, on the face of it, more anxiety-producing than relaxing. Jennifer and Kate planned this trip to the Rolling Huts forever ago, and I was in immediately, but have been fretting over it all week. Maybe I need the weekend to pack? Do I even know what I need to do? How will I decide? Decisions have been tough these past few weeks. Yesterday I told Kate that I thought the force with which I made the mini-farm decision had spent all my deciding power and she wrote back "I think you're right! Now you need to recharge your batteries. I'll decide for you. You're coming with us! We will have the most fun ever!"

So that's what I'm going to do. Have the most fun ever.

Band Practice

Packing your CDs to move is almost more procrastination than progress. You can make it take forever, and it does, if half your CDs are in your car, in the glove box, or in the back seat or passenger's side floor in those big black cases, but in my car, they're also under the floor mats, in the side pockets along with a bikini and some sunscreen in a ziploc bag. There are some in the back map pocket, with the atlas Susan and I used on our road trip and a bunch of Polaroids of Bobby from when we drove up to Whidbey and got in a fight (my fault, that one), and there are a bunch in the trunk, with my old rubber riding boots and a roadside assistance kit that Brady and I discovered does not contain jumper cables. You can bring CDs for whatever car trip we're taking together, but I've got CDs.

I don't even remember all the CDs I've got. I realized this when I found two copies of Nada Surf's Lucky (which I still haven't really listened to) and two copies of Sky Blue Sky, which I bought twice because it went missing for 15 minutes one time and I didn't want to wait to hear it again, and an unopened copy of a Gourds CD that I bought at a show, and forgot I had, because I haven't always been the guaranteed designated driver and I was fond of bourbon around the same time I was fond of the Gourds. I don't have an explanation for why I forgot about my unopened copy of that Rolling Stones album that has the song Lady Jane on it. I think I was with Susan at the Farmer's Market one Sunday and made her go to Sonic Boom with me when I got that one, sober as a judge. I was glad to find the Stones, never get sick of them. I've been loving all this stuff about the rerelease of Exile on Main Street, the old videos from the south of France, Keith shirtless, Mick messing around in the recording studio with some kid who belonged to one of their entourage, or with Bianca on some jet somewhere.

When I was meeting people in college, I always wanted to see their CDs first. Nate liked the Sugarcubes and Dawn played AC/DC's Back in Black as loud as it would go before seminar on Monday and Thursday nights, and Diana played me this song by Ten Hands that Susan and I listened to on repeat when I went home for the summer. Susan used to send me packages when I was in college, always with a mix tape, some of them with themes, like songs with Love in the title, or Body Parts, or songs to cure a broken heart.

I still do that when I can, check out people's music collections when I first meet them. A lot of times it's iTunes now, standing in front of someone's computer with them while they scroll through their playlists. That's actually the ideal way to see someone's music, since you can get them to throw a few songs into a folder and burn you a CD that will change your life, a preview of the new world that person will turn out to be. Some stuff you knew, heard before, recognize by sound but not name, others things you couldn't have imagined on your own.

Sometimes at the Lucky Dumpster, Jessica knows exactly what she wants to play. Jenny Lewis, or Go Slowpoke or The Sadies. James and I were at the shop together one day and he played a bunch of Tom's stuff, and that was funny because it made it feel like Tom was visiting, or on the phone or something. Sometimes none of us know exactly what to put on, and Jessica tries to make me do it, or Tom. We both tend to defer. But when I was sorting through CDs tonight I kept thinking about which ones I wanted to take in to play for Jess in the store some Sunday. Avett Brothers, the Aretha Franklin Tribute to Dinah Washington, Let It Bleed.

I'm getting these weird little habits up in Edison, like waking up in the morning and hearing James in the other room, going to the kitchen in my pajamas to say hi and then not going back to my room to change until well after noon. It's just that James is always doing chores. Like the dog walk in the morning, or going to Tweets to get his tea. Things I want to do, so I don't change out of my pajamas, because it would take too long and I don't want to miss anything. Then I've got my sweater on and my red clogs with green pajamas and James and I are back in the shop, and Jess wanders in and laughs at me but likes my shoes and it's time for breakfast so we go back to Tweets again to share eggs benedict and lemon pear tart. When Todd tells me how good the Edison cafe is for breakfast, I find myself wondering if I'll ever spend enough time in Edison to be willing to skip breakfast at Tweet's for one day to try it.

On Saturdays or Sundays, at some point in the day, either Jess or James goes back again to the shop to open it up. James does the stop and talk all the way down the street but it doesn't really matter that much because you can see the door of the shop from anywhere he might linger. All day long, the table behind the counter is in a state of flux, James rearranging it, tidying up, Jessica making tags out of old file folders, me dumping one or more cameras off, all of our mugs of tea being filled and drained and refilled. Lots of tea. In Edison, even I forget to drink coffee.

This last Sunday, it was rainy all afternoon. The shop was open, but quiet, and Jess and I looked through all the new Karie Jane stuff that had come in, and tried on Jessica's new earrings, wings made out of beer cans, long grey leather feathers. I chose two finger puppets for the twins and a necklace that I wore to the Daffodils show at the Longhorn that night and forgot to pay for before I left. All of us drifted between the studio and the shop, the kitchen and the two orange couches upstairs. Jess, James and Tom all practiced for a while, and when people came into the shop, James told them to just let him know if they wanted help and went on playing.

The show they were practicing for was at the Longhorn that night, for Will's birthday. Will had enough beverages to forget which burger was his and accidentally eat the rest of James' but no one really cared. Christina and I sat together and tried not to get distracted by the National Spelling Bee which was on mute on all the TVs in the bar, but it's hard when those moms are so intense. Even on mute, the tension is nearly unbearable. Still, that seemed sort of appropriate, since Jess got so nervous for the show that for a straight hour she looked like someone had just run an ice cube down her spine, and when someone asked Tom if he wanted a drink, his blue eyes went all saucery and he said "NO!" and when someone asked him why, said "Would throw up!" James just wrote a bunch of copies of the set list and I begged him to play the quiet quiet song but when he told me he wanted to keep the stress level down for Tom and Jess, I had to agree that was probably a good idea.

Their set was great though, they sounded so good and dear, and the bar, which usually closes early on Sundays, was packed. After they played, the crowd called for an encore and Tom looked like he was having just about the most fun I've ever seen him have. Klaport was there from Vietnam and he recorded the show on his little digital camera in between the bobbing heads of two guys at the table in front of him. Tofe surprised them by showing up and Brandin popped up at one point during the show to ask if the band would play at his place next weekend, and James said Sure! as though Tofe's birthday party hadn't been planned there for months already. But it felt like that kind of night, where you could ask for what you wanted and get it, which is why the beer pitcher that was passed around with a sign that said "The Hat" got passed around and filled, only to be emptied again to pay for everything else we wanted, fish sandwiches and fried oysters and salads and Jameson on the rocks or Bud Lite or in my case, more ginger ale.

Not Final

The darkroom is not pitch black. After you've been in there for a while, you feel like you are seeing everything and it's almost hard to believe that you can take your photo paper out, change the filter in the enlarger, slide the paper in, press the button for the timer and not have the whole paper go dark in the developer tray as a result of what seems like all that light. 

The last two nights I've been in there at the very end, tonight my last print dried at 9:32, and the darkroom closes at 9:30. After everyone is out of the last tray of chemistry and into the first wash, time set for five minutes in your head, and all your black plastic sleeves of photo paper are shut up tight in boxes or envelopes, they turn on the lights in the darkroom, and it's a surprise what light looks like. 

Plenty of things are still black, but other things are yellow, lots of things in there, it seems, are yellow. Red too. It's a shock, really, when you see them turn the lights on. You can understand how it all seems black, but isn't. 

In the real darkroom, the film closet, I always catch myself closing my eyes. It is pitch black in there. A little closet, with black walls, a black wastebasket, a pair of orange handled scissors tethered to a waist high counter and an ordinary can opener tethered there too. The can openers are for prying the lids off your film canisters, and the only one that really makes it easy, for some reason, is the one in closet three. It's also the only one that isn't tethered to it's counter, so I'm always tempted to steal it. The rooms get warm and a little claustrophobic though, so doing anything to make anyone else at all cranky just doesn't seem like a good idea. Mostly, I leave the good can opener where it is. I've been told that the door to film closet three comes open even when you think you've got it closed, and I have had enough film accidents for one quarter, so I don't use closet three even though it's can opener is the best.

What is it about closing your eyes in the dark that makes prying those little lids off seem so much easier? 

Contact

Black and White I ends this week. I've cleared the calendar every night this week for darkroom time. Last night was sink time, and contact sheets from the last rolls of film we were supposed to take for class. I've been a terrible student this quarter. No, really. Haven't spent nearly the darkroom time prescribed, didn't study for the final and as a result missed some of the easiest questions, and I think I had nearly every film/camera accident combination possible. Failure to load film so that it advances? Check! Film stuck in camera? Check! Warped film due to forceful unloading? Incorrect exposure due to dead battery making light meter deceptively balanced, broken film for god knows what reason, light leaks, film exposed to light before processing, underdeveloped film, etc. 

It's fine. The one thing I can say is that I was always learning. I was certainly learning what I'm not good at, but also learning how much I love the mix-ups and the accidents and I was learning to let go of the heartache of those mistakes, not cling so much to each of those little moments I had captured on film, since they might not be there later. Any image I try to make might desert me. It might emerge before my eyes in the shallow tray of developer and then vanish just as quickly, as the paper goes dark and swallows whatever showed itself to me for a moment. What I tried to keep might be ripped in half or warped or ruined in some other way I haven't even thought of yet. 

The darkroom slowed me down this quarter. In a good way. When I was there, I could only be there. I had to say no to things, stand and wait, try my own patience on for a change. It's always meditative to be in there, gentle slosh of the trays of developer, stop, fix, the running water of the wash, the little sound the enlarger makes as it goes on and off, everything punctuated by the cheery sound of people calling "corner!" as they enter the room. There's always someone nice in there. I have been outrageously gregarious, talking to whoever is in the darkroom or at the sink next to me. No one seems to mind. Last night the darkroom monitor was generous to me, answered more questions than needed, took her time with me. Towards the end of the night, she looked at the contact sheet from my first self-developed Diana shots and said "film probably needed to be developed a bit longer." The shots of my favorite barn fared better, in her estimation. I thought the images looked light on the contact sheet, was lamenting that, but no, she said, they were probably better than the images that looked darker, with a little more development time they'll yield more detail, might be lovely. 

The final project is due next Monday, three images, something you love, whatever drove you to photography. That's the only guidance, other than of course, the best print possible. I love the Diana shots, but it's the barn that has the most potential for technical success, so that will go in the enlarger first,  shots I took last weekend before anyone else was up. 

Kate was in the master suite at the Lucky D, sleeping away her long night of dancing and kitty petting and skort wearing. The light coming in the front window woke me, so I put my cowboy boots and grandpa sweater on over my red union suit and took Mo out Farm to Market road to spend a roll of film on that barn I return to over and over, and never tire of. It was beautiful, a rare moment of clarity in a rainy weekend, and there were no cars in the road so I stood on the lane divider and took a photo looking down to the road to Allen West before I got back in the car to head back to Edison. When I parked next to the store, James opened the little kitchen curtain and grinned at me. He and Champ were doing their morning routine. He makes her breakfast, holds it while she eats, years of love and companionship coming tenderly to an end. James is resigned to losing her some time this summer, and talks about these days as some of their last. He'll drive her the few blocks to the good walk, and chops and mixes her meals by hand for her, holds the messy slop in his palm if he has to, to get her to finish it before she gets the bone that she'll spend the morning on, laid out on the shop floor while James works. They sleep with the light on now so they can see if Champ needs him up in the night, and his devotion to her is so willingly given, without resentment or compromise. Love as a practice, meditative, habitual. James understands tenderness as tending, tea for me, fires for Jessica before she wakes in the morning, all his care for Champ. When Jess and I go into the city we bring him back more loose tea, his favorite kind, and dinner, tending back, tending towards more love, all hot meals and warm beverages and wood stove heat. He looks at Jess and says "I like your style" and back in NYC, Robert comments on the photo of the two of them, saying it could be a portrait for that song "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and he can't imagine how very right he is.

After I parked my car, I came and stood in the kitchen with James and Champ. James made me tea and we talked about the party the night before, and I was so content with the way it all hung together. The happy parts as well as what grieves us, all the people and creatures and places we love or try to. Kate sleeping in the master suite, Jessica in the little room like a nest off the shop, Tom and Emmy in the trailer, guarding the yard. The yard, with its I Love You banner in the window of the door, the little piece of wood with the word "love" painted on it by Tom's friend Tofe, sitting on the trim on the back wall, the bench James made that curves around the fire pit, the geese decoys, the little piece of wood in the shape of a house that sits on the shelf under the giant roof with it's moss and light leaks and faded old wood. Things falling apart and clinging together, all of us holding on. Things coming into focus and things fading away. Images and projects and music and every single thing a treasure, transient or not. 

Okay, Once A Week

painting by Todd Horton

I just thought I'd look, when Todd said "You know, there's a pretty cute house for sale just down the road." I just wondered about it. Then I started using possessives, and taking steps, and after the offer was made, and accepted, people asked me where this came from. "Was it a dream of yours?" they said. 

At first, I didn't know what to say to that. I knew they meant, Did you plan this? How did we not know? Where was this, when we saw you in the city? When you wore those shoes, and were never in the kitchen, or at home? Where were we, when this happened in you? 

It's true to say that it was a dream. Not like a goal, though, not an ambition. Really, a dream, something hazy and half-held, the way after a dream, you have the sense of who was in the dream with you, what the place felt like, even if you don't know the names. You know it as a good dream, one you want again, somewhere to linger, or a bad one, something to wake up from. You don't need to know the names. They are self-evident, in dreams. It's only when you wake up that you want to know.

I used the possessive for the mini-farm, but that wasn't adequate, really, saying, my greenhouse, my mini-barn, my bedrooms. There should be a term for mutual possession, for the things you hold, and that hold you in return, for the way we might belong together, the farmhouse owning me as much as I own it. I will be in debt for it, indebted to it. Beholden. The way we are in love.

I Don't Know What It Is Today

James

When I woke up, I had a migraine again. What happens on those mornings feels like a routine, but more from the grinding quality of it all than from any actual repetition. Get up, out of bed, take something, drink a full glass of water. There's a decision making process about what to take. How much time do you have? How bad is it? Over the counter for days when you have time to make buttered toast, when eating it doesn't sound too bad, when you've got time to get back in bed and wait. This morning was leave by 8:30 or else, so it was Rx right away, then back in bed but for twenty minutes only. Forget the shower, can't be helped. 

Even so, in bed, I sent text messages to Susan in Hawaii about my bad dream, and she wrote back, "Still, just a dream." That helped. Then the mini-farm came to me, and I thought of everything that might be there, hammocks and tea lights and extra shawls and a big basket of hand knit socks and maybe for once in my life I could keep a houseplant alive. At work, I was invited to lunch and later a lot of people I like will sing to me, no instruments, just voice. I'm hoping for perfect imperfection. I'm hoping. I'm hopeful.  

Too Early To Tell

I love this photo of James. You can't tell at this size, but the focus is sort-of lovely, nice and crisp on James, blurry elsewhere. The kind of depth of field I like. We took it this weekend, when Jess and James and I spent an afternoon poking around the little acre that the mini-farm sits on. We couldn't get into the 1928 farmhouse, but when mom gets back this weekend, we will. From the outside, the house looked a little sad. A few remnants of the former owners, including a fantastic wallhanging sculpture thing, slightly abstract plant-like shapes, in a copper color? Plus a paint job in the kitchen that featured sunflowers and sky blue, so happy it looked like it was overcompensating for something. 

I realized I was a goner when it started to remind me of Pam's ranch, how elated I am for the last  thirty minutes of the drive up to the place, the feeling I get of wanting long days of wandering around the yard photographing every little nook and cranny. There was a little dead sparrow in the hay in one dark stable, a greenhouse filled with luminescent weeds, a wall of photogenic garden tools, and lichen on the fence rails, just waiting for me to load a roll of color film. I didn't take those photos just yet though, instead, the ones I took that day were of Jessica, and James, and Todd, who saw my car parked in the drive and pulled up in his VW van, grinning at the sight of me, Jess and James in the yard of the house he told me about just the weekend before. Who knows what will happen, but as I took those photos, I thought about how much I might one day like looking at them, that first day at the mini-farm with some of my dearest friends, back when we were young, and foolish in the happiest ways possible, and had no idea all the things that would follow. 

Just Realized

I have to come back here.

Haven't Been Here For a While.

This was the first photo I scanned from photo class. Tom likes it, which is nice for me. "This man likes hot chocolate" is what he wrote next to it, when he made it his profile photo on Facebook. The scanner makes it look a little weird here, purpley or something, and Jahnavi says I still need to do some burning on the left side of it, bring in more tone on his left hand, in the sky. "Paper white isn't that attractive," she says. She also says "You're working some things out," and she's right about that, even the print above is  still a lot better than the first prints I made. I'm learning. 

The other photos I scanned are also of people, of course. One underexposed shot from when the battery was dead in my camera, Jessica up in Edison in front of the gorgeous raindrops she filled the shop window with. That was such a good day we had, driving around in her little truck, eating the best eggs benedict in the world at Tweets, and I got the very last chocolate chip ice cream cone.

I've taken photos of Jason before, but never like this one. I think he looks so dear here, all rough and vulnerable, curls and beard and sweet clear eyes. It's enough to make a girl want to throw together a blog post. It has always been the photos that made the posts easy, lured me into the writing. It's the words that are the hard part. I have to work hard to forgive myself the awkwardness, just be okay with typing, telling you a couple things, saving other things for later. I remind myself that faith exists, and just like that, it finds me.

What Is Typical of Me

In photos? People, backlit. In Black & White I, this doesn't work so well. I think tonight Jahnavi told me my highlights were blown out. Sounds good, right? Like, if it was your hair, that would be good? Well, no. The evaluation part of camera class has been a little disheartening, so far. The rolls I took last week, just not that interesting, not what I pictured, but no interesting mistakes, either. Decent film camera? Just not that forgiving. 

But I get so excited in class! We learned how to make prints tonight. and I squealed when the TA chose the negative I would be allowed to print, then again when the light from the enlarger first shined through the negative in its carrier, giving me my image, large for the first time. I squealed again, multiple times,  as Amber's wry smile emerged from the tray of developer. I probably squealed as much as I agitated. My classmates ask me "Are you excited?" as a joke.

So I've been thinking, as is typical of me - what's up with all the classes? And I got it, last night. It's just progress. Always something that shows progress. That's what I care about most.

Sharing

Sometimes the twins are like this



And sometimes they are like this



It's pretty entertaining.

Kate Served Pie

I would have told you that, once upon a time. I would have told you about that, and I would have told you about camera class, and Cafe Presse with Letch, and dinner with Kirsten and walking the grey beach with Court and sitting in Caffe Fiore watching the light hit Karl's familiar hazel eyes a certain way, and a hundred other things I've done since I last wrote something substantial here. I have taken so many photos lately that I would not have known which to post here first but all of them would have given me an idea of what to write. 

The photos are different now. The point and shoot was broken and not replaced. Instead, I bought the good camera, big and time-consuming and memory-absorbing. The photos are more precise, more light-filled, but they yield themselves less easily and become just one more hurdle to using this as a notebook, a place to come and spend a few minutes, dash something off and let it be just what it is. Now there is converting to do with the digital SLR, scanning to do with the toy camera photos, and developing and printing with the Pentax K1000 I have on loan from Chris for my Black & White 1 class. 

The writing follows suit. Fewer words, and fussier. More fiddling.

And still. Something good is going on. It feels like investing. It feels like those first runs before you get comfortable, acclimated, strong enough to wake easily for the short few miles that leave you feeling good all day. Something in me is strengthening and getting better, I learn and grow more patient and know better what to do with all this light. 

I Saw A Lilac Tree In Bloom Today

Seemed wrong. But then, so does close to a month without a single blog post! This won't be much of one either, I'm just here to say, Hey, I'm here. The world right now is all classes and change and staying the same. All those things, mixed up in a blender. Those earrings, worn again today, almost a year later, and the sweater I was wearing in that photo is the sweater I was wearing yesterday, at the Farmer's Market, which may very well have been exactly where I was that Sunday a year ago. In the coffee shop this morning, the barista told me she had seen me at the other coffee shop, and that the camera I had was cool, and I had to think for a minute, because I was in the same coffee shop both days this weekend, but with two different cameras. 

For the new part, there's camera class tonight, though the camera is old, and the friend who loaned it to me is an old friend as well, and the restaurant across the street where I'll be tempted to go after class is the same restaurant that was a favorite last year. Still, it all feels different. And good.

The Two at Two

See? Still sleep deprived - even on vacation.

Recently the boys had their second birthday. I can't really believe its been that long since they were born - but here we are. Still vaguely sleep deprived, but making it work!

We were vacationing in the Dominican Republic with Eugene’s family, so no big party (like the insane 60 person extravaganza last year) but I was okay with that and, honestly, I think the boys liked their birthday breakfast party just fine.

They have changed so much in recent months, that sometimes I see photos from only six months ago and I think ‘when did you look like that?’ Almost every day they have some funny new thing that they are saying or doing and it is fascinating to watch.

Max still loves him some cake.

The boys are picking up words and phrases like little sponges - Thomas moreso than Max, but I theorize that Max just likes to make sure he has a trick down pat before he trots it out for everyone. Thomas just likes to put it out there.

They are walking and running and constantly want to be outside. ‘Go Outside!’ is usually the first request of the day. They will spontaneously will start dancing or running around their playroom like crazy little monkeys.

They go through brief periods of intense obsessions with particular things. One week, Baby Einstein, the next week, a ‘Please and Thank You’ book, currently a Lego tractor that Dad sent. Unfortunately, they seem to want the same things which is fine when it is a video but not so great when it is a singular toy.

We are learning a lot about negotiating with two-year-olds. Haha.

They like to request whichever parent is NOT around, and if they see that the computer is on, they immediately start requesting ‘call Papa!’ or ‘call Beba!’ Though they frequently clam up once they get on the video call with Dad or Mom. They are weird like that.

Thomas is a cutie-patootie and a tart

Thomas will insist that he sees the moon, even on the most moonless nights, or when he is indoors. It just has to be night time and I get ‘I see the mooooooon!’ Over and over.

Max likes to wake us up in the morning by sitting in his crib singing. It’s actually quite lovely.

They cannot be trusted with crayons or play-dough. No matter how icky it tastes, those are the two things that go straight into their mouths.

So far it seems like we haven't broken them yet! But we still have time...

What Shows Up

I woke up early this morning, before the alarm, writing already. There was nothing to do but go to the computer and start, and when I had to leave for work, the sentences were still coming so I typed a paragraph and a half into my phone while I stood in line at the coffee shop.

I don't know what I'm writing. It isn't fiction, and there's no such thing as writing the truth. For me, writing is what sometimes creates the truth as I know it, and this feels like one of those times. Something is catching up to me, and on the drive to work I found myself crying and relieved to be crying, and I know what it's about but I can't tell you without telling you more than a day's worth of words. Instead, I'll tell you a few other things I'm remembering at the same time, and believe me, I'll keep working on the other thing.

I love this world and what is in it. I love what color is, and tasting things, and walking and time. I could write you a list every day of things I loved that day, and all the places where things were beautiful, and the longer I stay in one place, the more I find to love there. I used to keep lists on Facebook, in the notes section, Ten Things I Loved Today. This weekend it would have been easy, I could have told you I loved so many obvious things, like the bracelet my sister gave me when I turned 30, which I've worn every day since, or donkeys, or telling someone about one of my tattoos for the first time, or people who make pies, or friends who accept help, or the sound of 47 people all making the same song at the same time, or grey days in the Skagit Valley.

I'm keeping track of all of those lists of love, even as I write this long thing about the things that make me most sad in the world, and about the hardest part of writing. I'm thinking about the people who keep us together, and how they do that, and why, and I'm trying my best to be one myself.

So Many Kinds of Sunshine

It wasn't the kind of weekend you write about. Everything felt like something close, something private, and quiet. Nascent. Home mostly, the Olympics, a new houseplant, blankets on the couch, a certain kind of housewarming consisting mostly of using dishes, then cleaning them, getting ready to do it again. Everything felt made for sustenance, for comfort and connection. It was like putting down roots in a place I always meant to live. It worked. Things took hold, and I felt so attached, and fed. I have so much. In bed one night, I couldn't sleep from the thought of all of it. I lay there thinking about what it was like. A heart filled with helium and feathers, sparkling.