Chicken has Landed

By Lisa Connors

(Non-fiction with an asterisk)

An open letter to my beloved Rainier Writing Workshop Cohort 11, the magnificent RWW Community, and Explorer, Literary and Literal Eco-Activist and my Mentor (thank Rick and the Gods), Gary Ferguson.

SCENE

Thursday, August 14, 2014. 9:44am. Chicken and I have been awake for several hours. Tucked in this 240 square foot cabin perched on a hill, grounded, solid yet through the bare window of the alcove cradling the bed it appears we are hovering in this thick stand of Alders. We are 1.2 miles from the Goose Community Grocery on South Whidbey Island, a twenty minute ferry ride from Seattle and ten more by car, but the siting of the cabin, and the utter silence are such that I feel like I’ve slipped through a curtain, arrived on some other side I hoped existed, bereft of the gift to describe it for you. I remember Gary Ferguson’s gentle counsel from early last week, Monday I think, “The first time I write it down, it is never as good as it was in my head. Don’t worry about it.” He said. So I won’t, or I’ll try anyway. And while Chicken’s crazed eyes and gawking, silent-scream mouth would suggest otherwise, he/she sits serenely, and worries not one bit. Gary wasn’t my official mentor when he offered those words about crafting story on paper, but I have been learning, in a rush, fiercely, hungrily, from him since January of this year when I discovered his books and essays, out of all of the faculty’s auspicious work, calling me, not only as a writer but an explorer and even better, a daughter of this vast wilderness called Earth - belonging and thus bearing the responsibility of living into the laws of a co-active community that as a human member I struggle to both understand and live up to. You try. And forgive yourself when you don’t get it right, when what you believe in loses something in translation from your heart to your head and again through your hands as you pull more toilet paper off the roll than is sufficient. Then you try again. We are awake, Chicken and I. Wide awake.

SUMMARY

My bid for Chicken at the fundraising auction Tuesday night, the last event of the ten-day sprint called Residency, was a bid to belong. As the youngest of three kids, transplanted when I was midway through kindergarten by city-raised parents who dreamed of a farm into a tiny rural village in Southeast Michigan teeming with Baptists and combines and cousins and dynasties whose names were plastered on the grain mill and shops, belonging was something not granted to me in the ways ‘most people’ get. My family shed our religion (Lutheran) back two generations, and our European ingredients are so varied that sifted together over our bodies and sensibilities we were simply coated in flour bleached white. My grandparents stayed behind as my folks followed wanderlust and my Dad’s job with Sears, along with the pictures and stories and mealtime rituals bequeathed to the few cousins I have. As I have moved into the middle lands of my lifetime I work to slip out of the cloak of not-needing-anyone-much I stitched for myself, squatting in the lean-to I built out of small rotting tree trunks. That last is not a metaphor, although it is metaphoric I guess. Between the ages of five and ten, after which magic wears thin, I ruled the slight stands of scrap trees and burry brush behind our house, the crown princess of the forest and the fields beyond, assisted by my little dog, Bertha - half Black Lab and half Dachshund. Not a mix one would choose for beauty or speed, but unmatched for devotion and squeezing under fallen down things. I belonged without question to the land and myself. A cast of imaginary animal friends, (including a raucous black bird named aptly if not elegantly, Dum Dum Dee Dee) were my clan. I watch the world of people thrum by from the edges while I pretend to be one of them. So Cate (G) I argued against your bids for that piece of ridiculous rubber, not to compete, not even to give cash for the cause, but to take one more step out of the shelters I’ve made.

SCENE

It is now 11:23 am, still Thursday I think, and I am still laying in my pajamas in this white cloud of a bed, down stuffed and draped with deep red plushy curtains, nowhere to be, reading and writing and occasionally sipping tea, and thus padding into the bathroom I share with no one, five steps away over polished wood floors, tamping my toilet paper usage down to a minimum. I say this not to brag, I am keenly aware of the gift of this space against the work and the families and the sprouted potatoes and the NOISE you all face now, but to make the comparison and follow some thread back to Gary’s example in his life and his work that is helping me name just what it is I need my writing to be in the world. And then I ask you, in the name of Chicken our Muse, to share more of your story and who you are becoming with me as you find the time and inclination. Perhaps inspired, as I assuredly am, by the mere presence of Chicken. I have to pee. Back in a minute.

SCENE

On the way back to bed, just a step or two in, I pause in the kitchenette to make a yogurt parfait. Yes, there is decadence in this cabin I highly recommend. As I spoon yogurt into a wine glass, then layer in organic vanilla granola, then blueberries then start over again, I am reminded of Gary asking us to notice how skilled writers spoon out bits of story. I an drawing spoons in the margins of his 2003 book “Hawks Rest,” eyeing the dollops of personal history, eco-imperative cause, good-plain-folk language, lyric interludes, science that makes one feel smarter - not dumber, character quirks and philosophies, and flat out action-adventure in quantities and textures measured and chosen to draw certain types of readers out of their own encampments, (la-z-y-boys worn against large bodily masses and rent vinyl or perhaps even leather patched up with duct tape; downy white beds in cabins on islands in sounds off the coast of real life) to join an expedition as part of an American legacy of defining self and collective against the harder edges of the outdoors. Chicken is eyeing my parfait and AWKs at my choices. “Sprinkle on a few bugs.” He/She suggests. Chatty now, having heard that a rooster is up for grabs in the wilds of Pennsylvania he/she asks lustily to visit Cate (H) next. “Who knows where that might go?” He/she croons, through a throat ringed with pearls. The arrow shot through the tramp stamp quivers just so. In a pinch might this serve as one of my critical papers? If I edit out the tramp stamp part? 1:32 pm Thursday, August 2014. The first day of something I will write my way into, but right now it’s time to shed the comforts of this beautiful cabin and rub up against some hard edges. 

Ruin

She sits with herself since the attack, with no work to do but fall apart. At first she raged and writhed with her losses. The fire burst on her and tore at her, hungry and drunk on its own power. The heat quickly undressed her. Flames careened down her halls, banging on doors and smashing windows with fists. The door to the stairs was heavy, thick metal and glass built to withstand this very battle. “Keep this door shut against fire” engraved on a plate. Live in this neighborhood, you best have a plan. Fire seethed and roiled in place for a time, building its strength to just blow this shit up.

Someone was watching. And did the right thing. 

Firefighters arrived on the scene bearing the weapon that trumps fire. They went to war and eventually won.

Then they all left.

Conversations were had. Some laden with grief. Others voiced the reality. No money. We leave it.

Laid nearly bare, stinking and scorched she stands alone.

For a time there are others who arrive almost daily. Scavengers ripping out fixtures and fittings and furniture. They need them, want them, and she doesn’t. No matter.

This is what happens. The natural order of things that have fallen, by choice or by chance or divine intervention.

Attacked. Abandoned. Stripped by the scavengers. Falling silent. So very slowly crumbling and peeling backwards in time. If you look closely beauty arises. Light shines on darkness.

Darkness gives way revealing galaxies floating in the black of decay.

It all falls to ruin. It has to.

A Few Minutes in South Africa

Back to Africa. Waaaayyyy Back.

My Mom and Stepdad are on sabbatical. Technically. They are really just full-on doing what they have always done - caring huge about the state of the world and working to make it better through meeting people, being in awe of what people can do when they put their mind and hearts to it, and teaching others what they learn along the way - stuffed into an employer-granted framework of time and general expectation for ummm, something? to come out of it. So they are on a world tour of transformational leadership practices. Meeting, being awed, taping interviews, being awesome themselves. They've mapped a trek through their vast network of friends/colleagues turned family that takes them right through South Africa. Yeah, you heard me. South Africa. Dang.

You KNOW how badly I want to go back to Africa. Need to go back. My since-childhood impulse to go there made stronger, rather than sedated with one visit. People often ask me, so casually, "are you going back this year?" Well intentioned, supportive, interested. My reply of "not this year" polite shorthand for a dissertation of whys and why nots. Of course it is possible to go back. It's just money and time. Limited resources, yes, but not impossible to figure out. Truth is, I've chosen not to go. And in that choosing, another way back has opened up.

Two ways back, that I know are all bound together in a way I just need to patiently discover. The first is writing. I've been attempting to write myself back to Africa. It's all in me somewhere, tossed in a box underneath the stuff from my Dad's dying and death. The second is testing my DNA. Did you know that National Geographic has been tracking human migratory paths via DNA testing across thousands of years and thousands of miles? The Genographic Project has determined what they believe to be the original source of each and every one of us back to human DNA in Africa. One male and one female ancestor for all of us. An Adam and Eve that makes sense to me. The amazing thing is that for $107 you can have your DNA traced to key points on the path that your ancestors made from these roots in Africa to where you are in time and space today.

No bags to pack. No itineraries to book. No insurance, no shots, no back-up childcare plans. I'm going back to Africa and I am so excited to see what's there.

The Genographic Project

Mom & Dave's Sabbatical Blog

Sarro's Balloon

When I am paying attention to only the notion of paying attention, and nothing else, I am always always stunned by what rolls out of the ether to rest at my feet, my ears, my heart, my soul. On days when I risk cracking open the door in the floor, risk being knocked flat by the tsunami of the collective beating, breaking, elating hearts of this world, I am transformed. Not without cost.

Yesterday I drove to my parents' house alone. An hour and a half along familiar roads from suburb to the lake country where I grew up. From day-to-day familiar territory to the places that have always known me. And I was listening to this little piece of radio - mesmerizing art of sound called Sarro's Balloon. As the story ended and I exhaled the extra breath I was holding - letting just enough come and go while listening to stay alive - I glanced to the shoulder of the road to see exactly what I had been thinking about without thinking. A white cross with the artificial flowers and other icons that have come to be familiar on roadsides where a life has been lost.

I was driving on this road with my husband the day after Christmas. Returning home, having left our daughter to hang out with her cousin. My sister would take this same road to deliver her to me later - a handoff in a restaurant parking lot. Convenient. Logistics designed to maximize my time on a busy busy day. In that small slice of saved time, a family lost control of their car on this very pavement, this very spot, and their little boy died. My sister was late to our meeting, the road closed between us for some unknown reason.

The radio story, the moment, the place. The door in the floor ripped off it's hinges. I pulled over and had a much needed cry. Hey Dad. There's this little boy, just arrived. I didn't know him but he has people near our people. Maybe you could teach him to fish. I bet he'd like that.

Listen to Sarro's Balloon at http://www.atomsmotion.com/uploads/amv32.mp3

The Tracker Seat

Choosing The Tracker Seat is best done without too much thought. One of those moments best just seized, if you know what I mean. Don't let the photograph fool you. Fourth row at the twelve screen cinema they just opened down the street, being all still and situated in front of a cool view that's doing all the work for you it ain't. No popcorn or diet coke. Being in The Tracker Seat is more strap yourself to one of those big exercise balls and shove it over the edge of a thorn filled ravine, with um really big spiders and stuff, oh and lions in the bushes as you careen down the hill. And you have RESPONSIBILITIES.

Keep your eyes glued to the immediate foreground and notice, while bouncing in forward motion at say 30 miles per hour, a shadow of a pawprint barely making a dent in the dirt while ignoring for sanity's sake the Golden Orb spider the size of your fist. Keep your ears attuned to some frequency that allows the huff of some wild thing to cut through the roar and clatter of an under-serviced volunteer-outfit-in-Africa hand-me-down jeep engine. And breathe, through your nose please, to pick up any musky stink, and discern if that stink is carnivore, or third-day safari socks.

It is also peaceful in a way that only being in the wide open, your line of site unedited by anything man or manmade, while enjoying the completely underrated comfort of being in a chair, with padding and a seatbelt, can be.

I chose The Tracker Seat one time in Africa. Barely felt I'd earned the right just yet. Crazy and sort of dangerous that it is, it is a coveted position. You won't get the chance if you pay the big bucks for one of those tourist safaris. Liability and such. Volunteer in some back-bush preserve and you might. Don't think. Take it.

Porches

The house in my heart has porches. My Dad loved porches. Observe. Sit. Be. Dabble in your comforts with a privacy that says 'this is my house', knowing you can always step inside even with the excuse 'I'll be just a minute, getting coffee' and return at your own given speed. Or not.

On the porch the wild and the tamed play with boundaries. Gently. The potted flowers. The swatted flies. The ferile cat tempted to a store-caught meal. A head rub. Triage space - does this wound require some attention? Something more than sitting on the porch and being cared about will heal? Then come inside my friend and be warm. There are a lot of other creatures here in this house, some gentle, some fearsome, some goofy and lovable. But all will call you family. Find your corner and rest my love. You are safe here.

Fair warning, it takes a very brave soul to venture down the basement stairs. The furnace burns and clangs down there. Often we find its easier and just more efficient to keep the house comfortable with the pellet stove up here where we can all see it. Keep it going. Poke the furnace in the wrong spot and she could blow the whole damn thing up.

There are sunny window nooks here, filled with jungles of plants, tendrils and spikes. Mysterious pots of dormant life waiting to try at living out loud above the dark blanket it rests in. Lots of chairs to try - move around or stake your claim. And there are always always the porches. The back where friends come to rebuild the world as you know it, recalling this and that. Inviting you to share in something new. Words at the gate. A paper you don't take shows up on a chair. The wave as the mailman walks by on his way to the front porch, where the world is more easily let in. A dish of this, a vial of that comes to the door. Creek, clang, "hallooooo?" Cats of all colors, except black and white, slip in and out.

When life gets hard the front porch bustles. The house a vast territory keeping most at bay from the porch in the back where the rhythms and breath and peacefulness of those who have come to call this house home sit and watch and think and be safe.

Dear Judy, you saved my Dad's life when you coaxed him out of the wild and onto your front porch. You invited him to stay if he would. To love and be loved - welcome to bring his bags and find a place to settle in. He had a lot of wounds to heal, and an insatiable drive to ride around and make some noise and partake of the pleasures and thrills to be had on this earth. And you were wildly beautiful and an explorer with a fiery heart and an intoxicating, soothing hearth. Share my house, share my heart you said. And for many years he did so - spending many hours on the front porch. And something slowly, suddenly both - shifted. He joined you to restore the house - to something you envisioned and needed together. And his heart found its center with you. And he moved to the back porch.

Daddy. Thank you for giving me the wildness in you, that so needs a center. And for this lesson you taught me, not by telling but by living it - about the importance of porches.

James T. Hannan born Feb. 10, 1942, left us to fish the big waters Aug. 4, 2010.

Faces of Africa

Sitting outside enjoying the cool evening air at a restaurant in South Africa, Terry warned me that it would be nearly impossible to share my experience with anyone. "They mean well, and are interested, but their attention span will be about ten minutes and you will be frustrated at your own inability to capture your experience with words and even photographs" is the gist of his wisdom.

The stories I have. Entertaining, insightful, pithy - well under ten minutes. The photographs prepared - set to music even. The sincere and loving openings from friends and family to share - all there. I am profoundly living in the 'own inability' part. Jet lag long gone, I am wandering around in caverns of exhaustion just underground. Poking my head up, squinting at the shards of light to make conversation, dinner, piles of clean laundry, then sinking - relieved - back into the cool dark. In between, or perhaps lurking in yet deeper caves, is grief I think. And a choice.

We hang on so tight don't we? To the part of our experience that we just call memories for short. That damned time-space continuum thing that makes us perceive the past as gone. The unsettling knowledge of just how untrustworthy the conscious memory banks are, forever losing our most precious deposits.

I can't really tell you how it was for me. Sit here totally humbled by my lack of words for how it is for me now. But I am grateful that you were willing to sit and listen. Because I am now clear on this much at least. I can choose to float in the sweet quiet of the middling caves, or I can truly face the ferocious depths of dark and loss and warm myself in the light of living and trust that it will be alright.

This is five minutes of what I miss...

Thin Lines

Do places that enclose wild animals in the name of education, service, research and conservation - such as wildlife rehabilitation centers and zoos, who also generate funds by charging people to view the animals in 'marketable ways' help or harm wildlife?

Is the water infused with the bark of a Baobab tree to make 'skinny' babies grow and thrive when bathed and fed with it Shangani myth and legend, or powerful medicine?

Is the Spider Hunting Wasp who captures its prey, paralyzes it with its sting, lays its eggs on the still live body so that its newborn babies will have fresh meat to eat upon arriving in this world a vicious killer or a good provider for its family?

Is a man who tracks and shoots animals to be able to feed his family a hunter, or a poacher?

Is being absolutely sure of your beliefs about your god(ess)(es) the bedrock of a good and satisfying life or damnation embodied as the suredness of others is denied?

It depends, one might say. It is so clearly this or that, says another.

Its both - all of these things, says another.

Intent? Perception? Harm done? To whom? In it's nature? The way of nature? The way of the world? Is the world not all natural? It's shades of gray, says another. Is what man makes from the resources around him less natural than the cunning construct of twigs and grass the caterpillar carries on his back to shield him from predators? A cheetah in a zoo who no longer has to hunt for her food less of a cheetah? A man who no longer has to farm for his food, less of a man? Thin lines. Gray lines. Hard lines. Blurred lines. I've always preferred circles myself.

In South Africa there have been these conversations and more. The time, space and companionship to dance with these notions, and fall in love with the mess and the beauty of not being sure of any of it again and again.

Siyafunda Sunrise

5:45am. Sunrise. Outside my room at Siyafunda the sky is growing lighter and I step outside in time to watch the sun come up, backlighting the tree branch sculptures. When I turn around there are four giraffe munching their breakfast in the next door field. Gorgeous. Surprising, and not. Most people at camp have been here at least a week and giraffe and zebra, kudu and impala are common sightings for them so soon. I'm still jumping out of my seat with a huge grin on my face pointing - there! There!

Of course everyone was excited when we encountered the Rhino 'family' of four on the road yesterday. The baby was 'whining' at it's momma in this high pitched voice...whhhhnnnn wwwhhhhnnn. Pay attention to me. Let me suckle. I want ice cream. Oh, that last was a remnant of my own memories! There is nothing like the time and distance difference in the African bush to both want to make you stay forever, and at exactly the same time, give anything to hear your child at home ask you if they can have some ice cream. Of course, honey. Moose Tracks or Mint Chocolate Chip? Chocolate on that?

My Room in Africa

This is my room in Africa. Inside it feels much like a lovely guest room in the home of a friend with really nice taste, and who has the kind of organization and sensibility to provide visitors with a selection of pillows, a cozy down comforter and the kind of sheets that are worn to just soft ripeness but perfectly clean without being all bleachy. Whistling Trees lodge has been my home in Africa, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

SAFE is the word you hear most here in South Africa, as in 'be safe', 'travel safe', 'are you safe'? Safety it seems has become a new thing to yearn for - the next nirvana after the fall of apartheid. John, our trusty gentle and funny grandfather of six who drives us everywhere tells of how things were so much safer during the apartheid years. No violence in schools. No killings on the streets. Why I asked? Having immersed myself in books and videos before traveling I thought on this I was clear. That apartheid was the time of violence and killings. John tells me that with separation of the people came a sort of safety within the areas that were for your people. That teachers could discipline in schools. That now he doesn't care to venture out to the beloved soccer games of this country because there is fighting in the game, and out.

I don't say these things to have you avoid South Africa. Exactly the opposite. It is a place now of great opening. Of turmoil awaiting a new form of what is possible when people demand equality where so much history has denied it. Where such diverse people are piled atop one another so closely around the cities that you bump up against difference each minute. And it is wonderful and alive. And in my room in Africa, and exploring South Africa, with the friendship and care of Daniel and his staff I am also SAFE.

In My Country

I awoke this morning in my country. I have been awakening for some little time now. And for the last week or more it has been with the story of South Africa in my mind and the rhythm of Maggie Soboil pouring the prose of "Cry, the Beloved Country" into my heart. Another Meg, the most traveled of my family and dear friends to offer me tips and advice, simply said get to know something of the country and the people you will visit. The most traveled indeed. Yes. I will get to know something of these people dear Meg. I will get to know something of their country.

Do you think you know the story of their country? Something of her people? I did. As it turns out I knew nothing. As it will turn out, even after reading so many books and watching so many movies and following impassioned cyber-debates between her countrymen - posts as fresh as today, I will still know nothing of their country. Nothing of her people.

And I will go there and hope to then know something. For on this trip I will try so very hard to be wide awake.

I was not yet born when my European ancestors 'discovered' my country in their name and that of their god and,
I was not yet born when exploration and progress of white men tangled up with tribal tradition in my country and,
I was not yet born when the natives were corralled into reservations so meagerly parsed in my country and,
I was not yet born when the natives of Africa were captured and enslaved in my country and,
I was not yet born when they were on paper set free in my country and,
I was not yet born when the rising up of those who were not truly set free won their legal rights in my country.

I was born when the reality of legal rights together with what lies in the hearts of some and not in others is messy and painful.
But I was not awake.

I was born when the natives were rising up from legal and systematic de-humanizing in their country. But I was not awake.
I was born when the rights of all citizens were won and declared equal on paper in their country. But I was not awake.
I was born when new leaders set about to help all men women and children tell the truth and reconcile in their country. But I was not awake.

I was born when the reality of legal rights together with what lies in the hearts of some and not in others is messy and painful.
Don't go back to sleep.

Mystery Solved

We have been having a lot of fun speculating about elephant contraception. If you are ready to have the mystery solved and see some amazing footage of the project I will be volunteering my time with in South Africa next month - hit the play button. It's about 2 minutes - plus a wee bit of patience for buffering.

The Tree of Life

Where in the world would a skinny white girl growing up in a tiny farm town in the 70s American midwest get the idea that Africa is the one place she loved and had to see? I think the trees told me. Seeped it under my skin where I scraped and shimmied up against theirs to get as high as sense would let me. Held me in their web of tangled roots and canopies stretching round the earth while I spent whole afternoons at their feet making little villages from the parts of themselves they shed.

In Africa is where it all begins. The tree of life. The birthplace of human. Later I discovered scientists hypothesize about it, archeologists dig up evidence and African folklore tell its tales. I just knew because of the trees. Is it a coincidence that the first time I saw a photograph of a baobab tree I was shocked at its beauty, struck me as profoundly perfect, mesmerized me. Or was it calling me home in the secret language spoken amongst trees?

However Do I Find the Time?

For the use of those who may find this someday as they prepare for their first trip on a volunteer project to Africa, and for those who find entertainment in those strange components that make me, me... the answer to the question "However Do I Find the Time..." to figure out this trip AND bring home bacon AND fry it up in the pan is Project Management geekitude of course.

A bow down to Jim and Martha who have taught me well. You can see my 'network and time plan' here. I will be sharing this example with my new batch of Time & Project Management guinea pigs - I mean students Wednesday and Thursday - so you see I took advantage of the SYNERGY! For those playing 'workplace bingo' I believe you get double points for that one. If you don't have workplace bingo and you REALLY WANT IT - I got mine at Borders in clearance calendar form for only $1. Yes that's right One Dollar. (Quick, how many rand is that?)

In my efforts to provide useful information - although I may be the last to discover this - if you go to Google and just type in for instance 'dollars to rands' or 'ounces to kilos' the conversion just pops up! Will wonders never cease I ask you!

If you are now dying to be as Project Management geeky as me, following is the recipe for your very own network and time plan for your big project - going to Africa, or even bigger cleaning out the basement.

1) Brainstorm ALL of the 'deliverables' you need that together get you the end - 'clean basement' such as Waste Disposal Plan and Tasty Snacks & Beverages.

2) Write each one on a sticky note and estimate how many minutes/hours each will take to complete

3) Kind of organize all the sticky notes into categories that lead up to the 'big' chunks

4) Missing anything? Go ahead and add sticky notes.

5) Draw on a big piece of paper or your basement wall a calendar with columns for weeks

6) Layout the sticky notes in the order that makes sense to you across the weeks from your target COMPLETE date backwards - being realistic about the amount of TIME you have each week to spend

WAHLAH! and TA DA!

Now just get 'er done. Got 10 minutes - grab one of your 10 minute sticky notes and DO IT!!!!!

7) Invite us all to your cool clean basement party! I'll bring the bingo game.

Something Old Something New...

Something borrowed... I mentioned in my last post my burgeoning packing list. When Claire faces a math problem that she hasn't encountered before I tell her "do what you know". Africa? No clue. Making lists - that I know how to do. In fact I am entertaining myself with an app I downloaded that lets you make packing lists! I have a big basket going of the things I am gathering. Take a close look, there will be a quiz later.

In my 'favorite new' category so far is an item not pictured here. An olive drab super heavy-duty canvas duffle from the Army Surplus store on Woodward. I'll admit I was a little frightened at the 'vibe' in this place less than a mile from my house. (And next door to a shooting range, I might add). But within 20 minutes I was seriously eyeballing those curvy knives they use to skin stuff! Recovering rationality I decided to leave any stabbing or skinning that might occur to the professionals.

In my 'favorite borrowed' category so far there is a tie between my Mother's 'tilly' hat - the cream-brimmed beauty at center of the basket, and the little plastic compass on a red string from my stepdad Dave. The hat has been to South Africa so I figure it will know the way, and the compass will lead me home.

So here comes the quiz part. After perusing the contents of my basket (click on the picture to view it big - then hit your browser's back arrow to return), what ONE thing would you suggest I add. And ahhh, can I borrow it?

TROUBLE posting a comment? Sometimes you have to hit post through a couple of error messages and perhaps type in some words to make sure you are a nice person.

Elephant Contraceptives, Oh My!

Lions too, I hope. This will be the first of the "I'm off to South Africa" entries. Yay! And ummm, no the title of this post is not referring to an item on my burgeoning packing list, rather the focus of the volunteer project I have signed on for. WHAT? If you are like every single person I have mentioned this to, you are now imagining the various ways in which one might, to put it delicately, intervene in the natural goings on of the reproductive activities of a VERY LARGE mammal. I'll give you a moment...

All interesting thoughts (feel free to post your guesses to the comments for our entertainment) but no, I have NO idea. I'll let you know when I return on April 24th, or can get to an internet cafe in the Limpopo region of the South African bush. In the meantime, my new travel advice internet buddy Jim the Shoemaker suggested I write about what it is like to be a first time 'voluntour'. Okay, so the idea is that instead of being driven around a big national wildlife safari park and take pictures of 'The Big 5' between drinks and your spa appointment like NORMAL people possessing large doses of sanity do, I am instead volunteering to spend my vacation time working on a research project on a private game reserve. I've heard it described as going on safari with a clipboard and homework. Take a peek at the place I'll be if you have a second, the Siyafunda Conservancy research and bush camps.

So I'd love nothing more than to have you follow along for the ride and of course offering all of that advice and witty commentary I know you have in you. I figure the more people I have following this blog the better negotiating position my 'abduction consultants' will be in when a band of elephants hears what we're up to and take matters into their own hands - or um trunks.

Want to join the web warriors and try your hand at following your favorite blogs via the mysterious RSS? I posted a 'what the... and how to" here.

Different Kind of Quiet

The stillness of my house on the day of her return to school. Deep. Abiding. Nourishing. Lonely. Full of the pull of what is possible and the inertia of the possibility of doing nothing. A pilgrimage of sorts.

The Great Turning by Mark Nepo

I have returned to this cabin year after

year. To sit before this very window and

wait for the same trees to sway when no

one’s looking. As if this year, I might

listen better and hear more.

Something in us wants to make a

pilgrimage of everything. As if there is

always more. Always some stretch of wonder

we turn away from at the last second. Because

we can’t hold our breath any longer. Because

we can’t keep awake long enough. Because

we can hold our heart like a hand over

the open flame of truth only so long.

And so, we must go back.

Somehow, in God’s time, what we need

is just beyond what we can manage. And

what is fleeting to the eye and lasting to the

soul calls to us while we sleep. It waits

beneath the noise for our return.

It doesn’t matter where we return to.

Any opening will do. A cold snowy morn

off the old highway. Or a patch of heather

bending to a yellow wind. Or the shimmering

sea along the coast of your eyes which I have

always known but never seen until today.

Something in us wants to return

without repeating, the way the earth

turns on a fire no one can see.

A Lesson in Grace and Beauty

My daughter and her classmates, a merry band of 12, competed in the Pentathalon Games yesterday. They tested their will, their strength and their form against the standards of excellence set forth in Ancient Greece. The dawning days of man reflecting the heavens by recognizing that what lies with the gods, strength, speed, endurance and truth, beauty and grace, lives in us too. They spent a glorious day moving with their City States - Athens, Sparta, Delphi among them - showcasing their powers in six events.

Claire's team drew discus as their first event. Her best, she knew, and everyone said. Her form flawless when she could get out of her head. Coach, who earns his title in every best sense of this word, stood by her and helped her stay light and loose as the tension of waiting grew. 

Her performance was transcendent. Fluid and strong. The disk floating between her fingertips as if made of light, rather than 500 grams of dense rubber, today's answer to lead. You could see it on her face. She'd never done better. She was filled with all that is possible, ever was and could be. A moment inscribed forever on her eleventh year heart.

This day is truly something you should see. Every single child, a god and goddess, focused, determined, playful and one. 100 fractals of perfection sprinkled like wildflowers across a grassy field. At the end of the day, crowns are awarded, golden mantles woven from branches of willow trees. Two each per team for every event. The first for Strength and Truth, the second for Grace and Beauty. Four of the classmates won crowns for discus, each one of them deserving for their amazing performances. I would not have wanted to be a judge forced to rate and choose. Claire was not among them.

When the last crown was placed on these god-children's heads, every one of her classmates had one, every one but Claire. Let me say this again. Every single child in her class, together since kindergarten, as close as siblings, had a crown but her. An unprecedented event. I held my breath and ached inside as I watched her struggle with jealousy, sadness, rage and despair. For awhile it engulfed her, swallowed her up. Threatened to overtake all that was good about this monumental day, dull her brightness for a good long while. But she fought. And her friends stood with her, wouldn't let her drown.

This photograph is taken less than an hour after the last crown was bestowed on a silky head. I think you know which one she is. Her strength and truth, grace and beauty winning out over darkness. What more could one ask?

Writing Madeline Part 4

There is a disturbing tension, redrawing a life. I set out innocently to write my way into the unknown terrain of my great aunt Madeline. With a curiosity that had become an insistent invitation, bubbling up at a moment in time when I was more than interested to see if I could, I took up this endeavor to Write Madeline. From a few photographs, a poem, a bit of family lore plus some need in me I sit in the soup of knowing I am taking great creative license with a very real life. The question comes up, would I want this done to me?

If all history is revisionist, which it can't help but be, given the nature of how we think and the tenuousness of memory, then what is the harm? Doesn't it help to draw from the past? To make sense of it, let it speak to you, tutor you across time about who you could be? Another question comes up. Is it fear or love, that drives my desire to take thousands of photographs, and write and make art? To be, or to not be forgotten. 

I think it's good to do, documenting my life I mean. But maybe not too much. I think I would like to leave for my great grandsomeone the thrill and hard labor of mucking around in the mystery.