I spent Thursday in Portland hanging out with some really good friends. Some are long-time city dwellers like Jason, while others are newbies to the big canyons of concrete, glass and steel.
It was a rainy and damp trip up the I-5 corridor. The perfect drive for contemplating the future. The drizzle melts everything into a boring turn-of-whatever century Dutch landscape, so you can focus on anything other than the scenery.
I found a parking spot on 4th and Couch and walked the half-a-block to my friend Jason's studio. One of dozens of artist dens in an artists' collective building, I could tell his distinctive touch on the wall outside his suite.
Surrounded by SUGs and other collectible plastic figurines and bottles of Schlitz beer, and in a veritable shrine to Apple computers, Jason is about as at home in the city as anyone I've ever met. He fits into the mess of humanity as well as anyone and yet stands out as an artist in a city full of wannabes.
We walked six blocks in a heavy drizzle to The Roxy. It's not great food, but it combines two of our favorite things, breakfast and Steve Buscemi. We've been fans for a long, long time.
He drinks coffee and I drink green tea. We both ordered the Steve Buscemi, a wood chipper's favorite of corned beef hash and fried eggs.
He's disappointed I'm moving to Alaska, and I don't blame him. We've been best friends since fifth grade, and our families have vacationed together in Montana the last few years.
But our conversation runs to other matters and the grittiness of city life in a town known for its roses.
We walked off the Steve Buscemi in a hard drizzle that was trying for rain. Downhill and across Burnside to the south end of the Pearl, a haven for hipsters and artists who are sometimes one in the same.
I told him we'd see them every year still, we hugged and I drove to southwest Portland.
Jordan is a lot younger than me, but we've been friends for many years. He suggest we meet for coffee at 5th and Stark. He suggests we meet in half-an-hour. I don't want to wait that long, so I go on a wild goose chase looking for his apartment off Barbur Boulevard.
We venture back downtown to Stumptown Coffee and sit in low-back chairs and sip on large cups of coffee and tea as the rain falls in earnest outside. These new Portlanders show up one by one and we chat about life in the city. Having all come up in Salem, a mere 45-minutes and a world away south of Portland, we're fascinated by life here.
Anya rides up on her bike and takes off her skater helmet and shakes out her long blond hair as the boys tease her about tire spray.
Jordan sips an Americano while David drinks tea. Jordan check his iPhone while I ask David about the new ink on his wrist.
They are young and in the heartbeat of society. The big city is their playground, their backyard and their workplace.
I'm envious in the tall foyer of Stumptown Coffee. The smells of coffee and leather and maybe a little cigarette smoke and patchouli oil on the dress of the girl who brushes past me. I love the smells and sights and sounds in the big city. The traffic moving by and the way rain coats swish and heels sound on metal grates.
I love the way they relax in too tight clothes and plan their next social interaction. They've been friends for a long, long time, and it reflects in their gracefulness. It's a city dweller's peace in the chaos, and I'm forever hoping to experience it someday myself. I get a taste now and then, but it's in these moments that I live vicariously through their innocence and exploration.
There is nothing like a day in the city. Sure, throw in a visit to Powell's City of Books and a late-afternoon beer at Henry's, and you'd have the perfect day. But a Steve Buscemi and a few cups of green tea and hours of conversation on a rainy day are just as good sometimes.
Tim
Friday, October 29, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Hitting the reset button at home
Home is a feeling, a state of being.
My mother is the queen of hospitality. After just a few days in her care, all troubles seem to melt away as the good food, fellowship and rest start to brighten one's outlook and revive the soul.
Home is a familiar place where dark troubles in the distance, the great unknowns are reduced to a light drizzle on the windows rather than pelting cold that doubles you over in fear and confusion.
My family is a family of wanderers and virtual vagabonds, resistant to a lax existence tied to place. But we have a home, at least a place of congregation where we've gathered for many years.
In driving up that familiar, deeply sloped driveway lined with pine needles and oak leaves, I am aware of where I am. But its warmth and welcome are experienced only when occupied by the members of my family.
This week my little sister Aimee is traveling the Middle East for work, and though our dinner conversations are alive with stories and fellowship, it's not the same without her sitting at her familiar place at the table. My brother-in-law is away as well, and his conviviality is missed.
I've often thought about how one creates that sense of home. Especially in light of moving my family around as much as we have these last 16 years. My mother, as I've said, does this with an unswerving sense of hospitality and care. My father is the patriarch, the storyteller, the passer on of wisdom. Together, they are the sense of home I most want to emulate.As places go, our little enclave along Battle Creek Road is not the quaintest old building or the most pristine hillside. The one-and-a-half acres are slightly overgrown, and the tall pines block the view for the most part.
It's a place created and recreated as our family grew. A hillside manor, of sorts, a place we come to gather where the marks of our former existence make us feel welcome but which do not hold a candle to the necessity of having family present. Without the players, this little world would not matter at all. Except to my brother, of course. His penchant for place is perhaps far more developed than the rest of us. His handy work is seen in the jungle-like back yard, where a fish pond and cold-hardy palm trees soak up the rain showers like sponges.
The old tree fort my dad built for us has been replaced by a new tree fort named the Dawn Treader in honor of our love for C.S. Lewis' famed children's books "The Chronicles of Narnia," but mostly because a tree fort in the imaginative state of being a ship is the most fun a kid can have. I think.
Life in our house happens around the dinner table, where we sit close together eating from myriad dishes like a tasty carousel circling in front of us each night. We spend long hours sitting and talking, going from dinner to late-evening tea and cookies through dozens and dozens of conversations.
It has always been this way. Only today there is more laughter and mirth as the house is filled with grandchildren running and playing as we fellowship.
The remnants of our attempts to farm the land are evident in the old chicken coop falling into disrepair, the old goat fences clinging to rotting posts and a rabbit or two eating grass on the lawn. We are not farmers, though I believe we're nostalgic for some trace of it in our history.
My mom travels the world with my father, she is savvy about the bigger picture and can converse about almost any topic with ease. But her pioneer roots are evident in the ceiling-high shelves full of canned goods in the garage. I don't know when she has the time to accomplish these things, but over the last few days we've tasted amazing brined pickles and fresh horse radish as well as dried peppers and other examples of her harvest.
There are many reasons to love the comforts of home. Mine are nearly all found in the individuals who make up my family. But we've carved out a bit of a comfortable Hobbit hole here on this hillside. When we're not adventuring around the world, we gather here and fill it with warmth and the smells of good food and conversation that resounds for me like cathedral bells long after I leave.In moving to a place that is as far away as moving across the sea somewhere, I feel a sense of loneliness already, and it makes me want to grab up every last moment here as if I won't be back for some time.
Home is the place you come to reset all the settings. As I revive here with all that I love, I realize that this is what I will need to create for the next generation of us. Place is only as good as those who inhabit it.
Tim
Monday, October 25, 2010
The hardest drive
I wrote this in my head as I drove today.
That will have to serve as an apology for what follows.
I sat in the cab of the big U-haul truck and wondered how many emotions had bounced around the interior during the course of its life.
We pulled out of a cold and rainy Missoula at noon. Carson rode shotgun with his leopard gecko Morris. Carson cried for the first twenty minutes or so, especially as we passed through the neighborhood.
My closest friends came by to see us off, and it was all I could do to hold it together to keep thinking about what needed to go in the truck next.
I don't cry much. In fact, I shed tears so infrequently that my wife freaks out a little when it happens. All I wanted to do today was find some quiet place to be alone and think about all I was leaving behind. Instead I fought wind and rain behind the wheel of a big orange and white truck, stacking emotions like clothes in my suitcase.
The cab was a cathedral of sorts. A noisy, bumpy place to try and reflect on the events of the last two months. Carson and I tried to chat off and on, but we were both aware of how easy it would be to totally break down.
Missoula is apparently located in some state of mind people call the last best place. Sometimes I think certain situations are the last best...
Our goodbye get together on Friday served as a last chance to enjoy a beer with good friends. A last best party. Saturday evening was an impromptu last best dinner with a few close friends who had helped us move the detritus of our Missoula existence into that U-haul.
This morning when we were packing, I just wanted to be done and on the road. I knew that if I stopped long enough, all the emotions that have been building up would come pouring out, and that wouldn't be a pretty sight.
And still, in spite of keeping my mind focused on my task like a brain surgeon must, when my friends showed up for one last best goodbye, I felt myself slipping into that familiar pre-cry moistness. I looked the other way instead of making eye contact, and when I'd catch my wife losing it after hugging our neighbors goodbye, I had to start talking to myself out loud to keep from going there.
I wanted to harden all the soft parts and numb anything that felt sharp and uncomfortable. I don't have time to grieve right now. The hum in the cab of the U-haul was cathartic in a way. Like monks chanting. I started to try to match the tenor, but I found myself easing into memories too swiftly when I wasn't focused on something other than everything cascading into whatever pit that is within me that collects whatever fuels those stormy emotions.
Eastern Washington is cathartic too. Something about the way it has been scoured out by the many Glacial Lake Missoula floods stirs up sediment in my soul that keeps me from feeling much. I think about ancient floods and how so much land owes so much to such powerful forces of change outside of its control. I thought about Lewis and Clark and the fact that I've spent much of my life along a big portion of the trail they carved across the country. I thought about adventure and overcoming adversity, but too much thought like that shrinks you next to the giants of the past.
Somewhere along the way I tried to cap the bottle by making notes about the future. This is what needs to be done by tomorrow. I need to finish this task by Thursday.
Then I got a text message from a friend in Missoula, and my world tilted a little bit, loosening whatever fastener I had tried to seal in those emotions with.
The kids all cried their little hearts out in the morning, and by late afternoon, they just wanted to be somewhere familiar. By the time we rolled into the driveway at grandma and grandpa Akimoffs' place, the kids were onto something new.
The sadness of leaving people you love is a very individual emotion. Everyone suffers something privately. There is no collective feeling that can be understood. For some it's visible, like tear-stained cheeks. For others it's a very personal piece of heart luggage with few visible signs of existence.
Long drives are good for sorting out thoughts and feelings. I've always felt collected after driving. Today was different. I should have let that U-haul-cab cathedral be my confessional, but I'm not quite ready to suffer. I know that will come. Like a good journalist, I like to put off the suffering until right before deadline. Somehow it sharpens the wit and creates beauty.
But my heart still hurts tonight. My longing for what used to be kept me from listening to certain songs I knew I would feel too much.
Ah, I miss you!
Tim
That will have to serve as an apology for what follows.
I sat in the cab of the big U-haul truck and wondered how many emotions had bounced around the interior during the course of its life.
We pulled out of a cold and rainy Missoula at noon. Carson rode shotgun with his leopard gecko Morris. Carson cried for the first twenty minutes or so, especially as we passed through the neighborhood.
My closest friends came by to see us off, and it was all I could do to hold it together to keep thinking about what needed to go in the truck next.
I don't cry much. In fact, I shed tears so infrequently that my wife freaks out a little when it happens. All I wanted to do today was find some quiet place to be alone and think about all I was leaving behind. Instead I fought wind and rain behind the wheel of a big orange and white truck, stacking emotions like clothes in my suitcase.
The cab was a cathedral of sorts. A noisy, bumpy place to try and reflect on the events of the last two months. Carson and I tried to chat off and on, but we were both aware of how easy it would be to totally break down.
Missoula is apparently located in some state of mind people call the last best place. Sometimes I think certain situations are the last best...
Our goodbye get together on Friday served as a last chance to enjoy a beer with good friends. A last best party. Saturday evening was an impromptu last best dinner with a few close friends who had helped us move the detritus of our Missoula existence into that U-haul.
This morning when we were packing, I just wanted to be done and on the road. I knew that if I stopped long enough, all the emotions that have been building up would come pouring out, and that wouldn't be a pretty sight.
And still, in spite of keeping my mind focused on my task like a brain surgeon must, when my friends showed up for one last best goodbye, I felt myself slipping into that familiar pre-cry moistness. I looked the other way instead of making eye contact, and when I'd catch my wife losing it after hugging our neighbors goodbye, I had to start talking to myself out loud to keep from going there.
I wanted to harden all the soft parts and numb anything that felt sharp and uncomfortable. I don't have time to grieve right now. The hum in the cab of the U-haul was cathartic in a way. Like monks chanting. I started to try to match the tenor, but I found myself easing into memories too swiftly when I wasn't focused on something other than everything cascading into whatever pit that is within me that collects whatever fuels those stormy emotions.
Eastern Washington is cathartic too. Something about the way it has been scoured out by the many Glacial Lake Missoula floods stirs up sediment in my soul that keeps me from feeling much. I think about ancient floods and how so much land owes so much to such powerful forces of change outside of its control. I thought about Lewis and Clark and the fact that I've spent much of my life along a big portion of the trail they carved across the country. I thought about adventure and overcoming adversity, but too much thought like that shrinks you next to the giants of the past.
Somewhere along the way I tried to cap the bottle by making notes about the future. This is what needs to be done by tomorrow. I need to finish this task by Thursday.
Then I got a text message from a friend in Missoula, and my world tilted a little bit, loosening whatever fastener I had tried to seal in those emotions with.
The kids all cried their little hearts out in the morning, and by late afternoon, they just wanted to be somewhere familiar. By the time we rolled into the driveway at grandma and grandpa Akimoffs' place, the kids were onto something new.
The sadness of leaving people you love is a very individual emotion. Everyone suffers something privately. There is no collective feeling that can be understood. For some it's visible, like tear-stained cheeks. For others it's a very personal piece of heart luggage with few visible signs of existence.
Long drives are good for sorting out thoughts and feelings. I've always felt collected after driving. Today was different. I should have let that U-haul-cab cathedral be my confessional, but I'm not quite ready to suffer. I know that will come. Like a good journalist, I like to put off the suffering until right before deadline. Somehow it sharpens the wit and creates beauty.
But my heart still hurts tonight. My longing for what used to be kept me from listening to certain songs I knew I would feel too much.
Ah, I miss you!
Tim
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Hot Springs Eternal
My favorite getaway will always be to a hot springs somewhere. Something about soaking in hot mineral water is embedded deep within me. I almost always ask if there are hot springs whenever I travel somewhere.
Montana isn't what I'd call a hot springs Mecca by any means, but I've found some of my favorite springs within an hour or two of Missoula.
"It's a beautiful day in Paradise." The typical greeting when you call Quinns Hot Spring's Resort is one of my favorites. The web site asks you to check in and make sure the pools are not taken up by overnight guests, so I look forward to their fun greeting whenever we get ready to go.
Seemed appropriate to begin one of the busiest weeks of our lives with a trip to the springs. I find hydro therapy to cause the most relaxed state I believe I can achieve.
The drive to Quinns is one of my favorite Western Montana trips. My daughter and I looked for deer on the summer-baked hillsides and on the backside of the National Bison Range while Cheryl took a nap.
The rolling highway reminds me of driving through parts of Sonoma County, where I first fell in love with hot springs.
My great grandparents owned a small piece of property in the town of Calistoga, which was nothing more than a little hippie enclave at the time. My great grandfather made wine and spent summers at the cottage known as a dacha. My father and his brothers and sister spent summers at Pachita's Hot Springs. And years later, that is where I first fell in love with soaking in hot water.
One of the lasting memories I have of spending some good time with my grandmother before she died was at Nance's Hot Springs in Calistoga. After Pachita's was renamed Indian Springs and transformed into a very high-end exlusive resort, we'd spend more and more time at the lower-end Nance's, and my grandmother reveled in the healing hot waters she had learned to love after almost 50 years in America.
Quinns reminds me of the old Pachita's Hot Springs. It's rustic and unrefined. It's woodsy decor has not yet been stuccofied and palm treed like the California resorts.
The pools are quiet as we arrive. After changing into our swim wear, we heard a lyrical language coming from the far end of the cool pool. My wife smiled at me knowingly as she recognized the Russian words for "more people are coming."
I laughed at her, because no matter what hot springs we visit, we'll almost always find kindred Slavic spirits abounding. Slavs love hot water. Visit Lolo Hot Springs any time of year and you'll hear a beautiful symphony of byelaruskaya spoken as you enter the pool. The same goes for Fairmont Hot Springs near Butte.
We settled into the warmer pool next to two couples wearing knit caps and conversing casually about coming to Montana from Canada. I can follow along with Russian to a point, but when native speakers are speaking to each other, the speed at which they communicate is often too much for me to catch more than a gist of their conversation.
At one point, one of the men moved over into the hottest pool and sank down to his neck, his knit cap looked like a black mushroom on the pool surface. After a few minutes, he stepped over the wall into the cold pool, which felt colder than the air temp, which was 36 degrees when we arrived. He sat in the cold pool up to his neck for about two minutes as his companions discussed how many minutes he should spend in the pool to reap the benefits of hydro therapy. Most Slavs believe that soaking in pools with different temperatures is really good for the circulation.
The method the man used is one of my favorite soaking techniques. I like to start out in the middle warm pool and spend about 5 minutes soaking before moving to the hottest pool for 3 or 4 minutes. When I'm ridiculously hot, I get hop over the wall into the cold pool.
The water is so cold it numbs you instantly, and if you do it quickly enough, you won't feel a whole lot until you are completely submerged. If you're completely still, the cold water won't feel like anything, and your breathing becomes very deep and your oxygenated blood causes your body to rise to the surface.
I like to float in the ice cold water until my breathing normalizes. If I can make a full five minutes, I feel completely refreshed. Once you start to move around, you begin to feel the cold water. Panic sets in, and all you can think about is getting into the warm water again.
After soaking in the cold pool, I ease into the larger warm pool for a brief swim to increase the already beneficial circulation effects. My daughter starts to chase me, and I begin the cycle all over again.
Quinns is not always so quiet and peaceful, but as I sat back and craned my head up to watch the sun come over the jagged hills behind the resort, I couldn't help but be grateful for one last quiet soak.
After a bison burger and a Bloody Mary for lunch, we cruised back to a completely empty set of pools for a few more rounds of hydro therapy. At times I relaxed to the point of falling asleep in the warm pools. A good shot in the cold pool revived me, and when new swimmers showed up, they remarked that I must not have any blood in my system to be able to completely submerse myself in the cold pool.
Knowing that the closest hot springs I can find to Anchorage are in Fairbanks is bit disconcerting. But my plan is find the first Slavic person I can find and ask where closer hot springs are hiding. Slavs always know where to find a good place to soak.
Tim
Montana isn't what I'd call a hot springs Mecca by any means, but I've found some of my favorite springs within an hour or two of Missoula.
"It's a beautiful day in Paradise." The typical greeting when you call Quinns Hot Spring's Resort is one of my favorites. The web site asks you to check in and make sure the pools are not taken up by overnight guests, so I look forward to their fun greeting whenever we get ready to go.
Seemed appropriate to begin one of the busiest weeks of our lives with a trip to the springs. I find hydro therapy to cause the most relaxed state I believe I can achieve.
The drive to Quinns is one of my favorite Western Montana trips. My daughter and I looked for deer on the summer-baked hillsides and on the backside of the National Bison Range while Cheryl took a nap.
The rolling highway reminds me of driving through parts of Sonoma County, where I first fell in love with hot springs.
My great grandparents owned a small piece of property in the town of Calistoga, which was nothing more than a little hippie enclave at the time. My great grandfather made wine and spent summers at the cottage known as a dacha. My father and his brothers and sister spent summers at Pachita's Hot Springs. And years later, that is where I first fell in love with soaking in hot water.
One of the lasting memories I have of spending some good time with my grandmother before she died was at Nance's Hot Springs in Calistoga. After Pachita's was renamed Indian Springs and transformed into a very high-end exlusive resort, we'd spend more and more time at the lower-end Nance's, and my grandmother reveled in the healing hot waters she had learned to love after almost 50 years in America.
Quinns reminds me of the old Pachita's Hot Springs. It's rustic and unrefined. It's woodsy decor has not yet been stuccofied and palm treed like the California resorts.
 |
| Gabbers and I enjoy a soak in the warmer pool at Quinns |
I laughed at her, because no matter what hot springs we visit, we'll almost always find kindred Slavic spirits abounding. Slavs love hot water. Visit Lolo Hot Springs any time of year and you'll hear a beautiful symphony of byelaruskaya spoken as you enter the pool. The same goes for Fairmont Hot Springs near Butte.
We settled into the warmer pool next to two couples wearing knit caps and conversing casually about coming to Montana from Canada. I can follow along with Russian to a point, but when native speakers are speaking to each other, the speed at which they communicate is often too much for me to catch more than a gist of their conversation.
At one point, one of the men moved over into the hottest pool and sank down to his neck, his knit cap looked like a black mushroom on the pool surface. After a few minutes, he stepped over the wall into the cold pool, which felt colder than the air temp, which was 36 degrees when we arrived. He sat in the cold pool up to his neck for about two minutes as his companions discussed how many minutes he should spend in the pool to reap the benefits of hydro therapy. Most Slavs believe that soaking in pools with different temperatures is really good for the circulation.
The method the man used is one of my favorite soaking techniques. I like to start out in the middle warm pool and spend about 5 minutes soaking before moving to the hottest pool for 3 or 4 minutes. When I'm ridiculously hot, I get hop over the wall into the cold pool.
The water is so cold it numbs you instantly, and if you do it quickly enough, you won't feel a whole lot until you are completely submerged. If you're completely still, the cold water won't feel like anything, and your breathing becomes very deep and your oxygenated blood causes your body to rise to the surface.
I like to float in the ice cold water until my breathing normalizes. If I can make a full five minutes, I feel completely refreshed. Once you start to move around, you begin to feel the cold water. Panic sets in, and all you can think about is getting into the warm water again.
After soaking in the cold pool, I ease into the larger warm pool for a brief swim to increase the already beneficial circulation effects. My daughter starts to chase me, and I begin the cycle all over again.
Quinns is not always so quiet and peaceful, but as I sat back and craned my head up to watch the sun come over the jagged hills behind the resort, I couldn't help but be grateful for one last quiet soak.
After a bison burger and a Bloody Mary for lunch, we cruised back to a completely empty set of pools for a few more rounds of hydro therapy. At times I relaxed to the point of falling asleep in the warm pools. A good shot in the cold pool revived me, and when new swimmers showed up, they remarked that I must not have any blood in my system to be able to completely submerse myself in the cold pool.
Knowing that the closest hot springs I can find to Anchorage are in Fairbanks is bit disconcerting. But my plan is find the first Slavic person I can find and ask where closer hot springs are hiding. Slavs always know where to find a good place to soak.
Tim
Monday, October 18, 2010
A sense of place
There will be a lot of lasts this week. This is in fact our last Monday in Missoula. Last kickball game tonight, last flag football game for Carson, final cross country practice for Cole. Next week at this time we'll be in Salem, Oregon meeting up with our trailer that will ship our belongings to Alaska.
Today we are going to take a few hours and go to one of our favorite hot springs. We have a long week of packing our life up into boxes, so I want to spend one last day enjoying the good life of Western Montana.
There are few places like this, and after three years I understand why people carve out a life here despite a poor economic base. The amenities in this region of the Northern Rockies are like nowhere else. Mountains, lakes, rivers, hot springs, national parks and wildlife better than the best zoo are just a few of the reasons people move here.
The adventures we've had here as a family can only probably be rivaled by some time spent in the last frontier, but we won't know that until we have lived it for awhile. Place is the great forgotten character in the story of life. Missoula is a place where people are in touch with that primordial notion of the home pond more than anywhere I've ever visited before.
A sense of place defines Missoula so much that people are willing to make less money in return for living in proximity to places like the Rattlesnake wilderness or the Bitterroot Mountains. People carve a life out of some very meager economic sediment. Many of our friends have multiple jobs or cram their families into tiny apartments in order to live somewhere many call the last best place.
I struggled to see this when I first moved here. In fact, for nearly three years I was frustrated at the idea that anyone should earn less because of some nature tax. I still think the idea is absurd, but I'm less inclined to blame those who choose to reside here in spite of the nature tax.
But I will gladly blame city officials and those leaders of the largest industries, including the university, for continuing to make Missoula Poverty With A View. A nature tax does nothing to improve this city, nor does it keep people away as you might hope. Californians continue to move to Montana every year.
Place is integral to our story. When my grandparents told their story, place was a character that shifted with them. It was a trail through mountain passes, a city in northern China, a refugee camp in the Philippines, a boat sailing across the Pacific Ocean. It was an apartment on Geary Street in San Francisco, and I caught up with their story when place was a lovely little house in Pacifica, California.
For others, place is a still point, like every 4th generation Montanan I've ever met. They are in tune with the fenced parcel of land back to their great grandfathers who homesteaded these parts. For Native Americans, place is a 10,000-year-old continent finally free of ice where they could roam and have their being.
I don't have a strong connection to place. If I did, it would be a cedar-lined ocean shore with thundering surf and a salty nose. That's as close as I can come to identifying with place. I love my parents' wooded home in the Willamette Valley, but it's a stop for me. My birthplace of Santa Rosa, California is one of my favorite places. My grandfathers plowed those grape-seeded hillsides and valleys. Richenau an der Rax is where I think I fell in love with mountains, hiking, skiing and life in a quiet woodland. Pasadena, California is where I learned to love big, ugly, sprawling cities teeming with humanity. Salem, Oregon is where I found my best friend. It is also that which is most familiar to me and therefore that from which I most readily flee. Honolulu, Hawaii is where I fell in love with the crossroads, those cities that blend life from many different pathways.
In Missoula, I fell in love with community. No other city exhibits community the way Missoula does. From weekly gatherings for lunch or dinner in Caras Park to First Friday art walks and community runs along the river, I've never seen a town so aware of its identity. That I could readily talk to the mayor, leading citizens, long timers and newcomers at any point of any day speaks volumes about how tight this city is.
I don't have a sense for what Anchorage will be like. Four days there was not enough to get even a small feeling about it. But I can't wait to find out what I think about it a year from now.
Maybe place moves with me, as it did for my family as they emigrated across the vast Eurasian Steppe. Maybe the cities I've lived in collectively add up to place for me. I don't know. All I really know is that I've yet to find that stretch of cedar-lined coast with roaring waves and salty air.
Tim
Today we are going to take a few hours and go to one of our favorite hot springs. We have a long week of packing our life up into boxes, so I want to spend one last day enjoying the good life of Western Montana.
There are few places like this, and after three years I understand why people carve out a life here despite a poor economic base. The amenities in this region of the Northern Rockies are like nowhere else. Mountains, lakes, rivers, hot springs, national parks and wildlife better than the best zoo are just a few of the reasons people move here.
The adventures we've had here as a family can only probably be rivaled by some time spent in the last frontier, but we won't know that until we have lived it for awhile. Place is the great forgotten character in the story of life. Missoula is a place where people are in touch with that primordial notion of the home pond more than anywhere I've ever visited before.
A sense of place defines Missoula so much that people are willing to make less money in return for living in proximity to places like the Rattlesnake wilderness or the Bitterroot Mountains. People carve a life out of some very meager economic sediment. Many of our friends have multiple jobs or cram their families into tiny apartments in order to live somewhere many call the last best place.
I struggled to see this when I first moved here. In fact, for nearly three years I was frustrated at the idea that anyone should earn less because of some nature tax. I still think the idea is absurd, but I'm less inclined to blame those who choose to reside here in spite of the nature tax.
But I will gladly blame city officials and those leaders of the largest industries, including the university, for continuing to make Missoula Poverty With A View. A nature tax does nothing to improve this city, nor does it keep people away as you might hope. Californians continue to move to Montana every year.
Place is integral to our story. When my grandparents told their story, place was a character that shifted with them. It was a trail through mountain passes, a city in northern China, a refugee camp in the Philippines, a boat sailing across the Pacific Ocean. It was an apartment on Geary Street in San Francisco, and I caught up with their story when place was a lovely little house in Pacifica, California.
For others, place is a still point, like every 4th generation Montanan I've ever met. They are in tune with the fenced parcel of land back to their great grandfathers who homesteaded these parts. For Native Americans, place is a 10,000-year-old continent finally free of ice where they could roam and have their being.
I don't have a strong connection to place. If I did, it would be a cedar-lined ocean shore with thundering surf and a salty nose. That's as close as I can come to identifying with place. I love my parents' wooded home in the Willamette Valley, but it's a stop for me. My birthplace of Santa Rosa, California is one of my favorite places. My grandfathers plowed those grape-seeded hillsides and valleys. Richenau an der Rax is where I think I fell in love with mountains, hiking, skiing and life in a quiet woodland. Pasadena, California is where I learned to love big, ugly, sprawling cities teeming with humanity. Salem, Oregon is where I found my best friend. It is also that which is most familiar to me and therefore that from which I most readily flee. Honolulu, Hawaii is where I fell in love with the crossroads, those cities that blend life from many different pathways.
In Missoula, I fell in love with community. No other city exhibits community the way Missoula does. From weekly gatherings for lunch or dinner in Caras Park to First Friday art walks and community runs along the river, I've never seen a town so aware of its identity. That I could readily talk to the mayor, leading citizens, long timers and newcomers at any point of any day speaks volumes about how tight this city is.
I don't have a sense for what Anchorage will be like. Four days there was not enough to get even a small feeling about it. But I can't wait to find out what I think about it a year from now.
Maybe place moves with me, as it did for my family as they emigrated across the vast Eurasian Steppe. Maybe the cities I've lived in collectively add up to place for me. I don't know. All I really know is that I've yet to find that stretch of cedar-lined coast with roaring waves and salty air.
Tim
Thursday, October 14, 2010
The kids aren't alright
The question I get most often now is: "So what do the kids think about moving to Alaska?" The second most common question is: "How are the kids handling the move?"
Those are fair questions, but as a parent, I find it tough to answer for the kids. So I asked them about how they feel about the move.
My oldest son, Cole, answers that he does not wish to leave Missoula. When pressed for reasons, he'll say that he'll miss his best friend Grant, running cross country and his school friends.
Cole is a focused kid. When he was born, people would remark about how calm he was. As he grew up, we realized we had a little man on our hands and not a toddler. He always prefers to hang out with the adults. He likes to be part of the conversation, and he hates to be left out.
He wants to attend Stanford University, after which he plans to get a master's degree in computer design. His goal is to be the next CEO of Apple Computers. To that end, he works very hard at school and serves on the student council. I sometimes wonder where on earth this kid came from.
Alaska is all right, he says. He's looking forward to the adventure, but he's sad to be leaving all that he put so much energy into these last three years.
As a parent it's sometimes difficult to quantify all that a child has seen and done in the same period of time. I have to learn to value those things that my kids value in order to assess the cost of moving them away.
Our middle child, Carson, is a dreamer who lives inside his imagination at least 10 hours a day. He doesn't vocalize things well, so I can only assume he's struggling with the idea of moving. He's 52-pounds soaking wet, and he dreams of playing football for the Griz, because his best friend Dylan has the same dreams. Carson plays flag football and absolutely lives for the game.
When I've asked him how he feels about moving, he shrugs his shoulders and throws his surfer-length blond hair out of his eyes. "Ummm, I don't know. It will be cool," he says.
That's about as far as I've progressed with him. But I can see other signs of nervousness there. He's struggling with leaving what he's become comfortable with. Carson has huge dreams, but he, more than any of us, needs a firm foundation on which to have those dreams. Unstable ground means he lives more in the here and now, and when you live in the here and now, it's very difficult to fly. I know this, because Carson is me. I was once the very 9-year-old he is. I dreamed the same dreams and lived in my imagination as much as possible.
In some ways, I empathize more with Carson than anyone else, because I see some of this through his eyes. I can remember how he feels, and I feel bad that he can't express himself through what adults consider normal pathways of expression.
Gabrielle is, like most four-year-olds, along for the ride. She doesn't seem to show any anxiety, and she's legitimately excited about some of the things she's heard about. Almost every park in Anchorage has a frozen field for hockey and ice skating. She's excited to see moose in town, and this will be her first airplane ride.
Mostly she just asks questions about those things that affect her day. "Mom, what are we doing today?" I don't think she has a concept of leaving friends behind. She certainly didn't when we moved to Montana three years ago. It bothers me a bit that this move will teach her about the pain of losing friends.
Mostly I tell people that the kids are doing just fine. Fine is a relative term when considering that we're packing up our lives, leaving our own house and moving to the last frontier, a place from which we have to fly to visit family instead of the one-day trips we used to be able to do under cover of darkness so I could drive in peace.
The easiest explanation, and the one I struggle with the most is this: The kids aren't alright.
As the Offspring song says:
Chances thrown, nothing's free
Longing for, used to be
Still it's hard, hard to see
Fragile lives, shattered dreams
But kids are resilient in a way that adults are not. Those shattered dreams change up a little bit. Everyone wants to be a garbage man, an astronaut and a firefighter at some point in their lives. Relocating can push dreams around a bit, like puzzle pieces, but kids are nothing if not masters of putting those puzzle pieces back together. And often as not, they'll get a new picture and a new dream out of the deal.
This is my chance to learn something about rebuilding from those little master craftsman of dreams.
Tim
Those are fair questions, but as a parent, I find it tough to answer for the kids. So I asked them about how they feel about the move.
My oldest son, Cole, answers that he does not wish to leave Missoula. When pressed for reasons, he'll say that he'll miss his best friend Grant, running cross country and his school friends.
Cole is a focused kid. When he was born, people would remark about how calm he was. As he grew up, we realized we had a little man on our hands and not a toddler. He always prefers to hang out with the adults. He likes to be part of the conversation, and he hates to be left out.
He wants to attend Stanford University, after which he plans to get a master's degree in computer design. His goal is to be the next CEO of Apple Computers. To that end, he works very hard at school and serves on the student council. I sometimes wonder where on earth this kid came from.
Alaska is all right, he says. He's looking forward to the adventure, but he's sad to be leaving all that he put so much energy into these last three years.
As a parent it's sometimes difficult to quantify all that a child has seen and done in the same period of time. I have to learn to value those things that my kids value in order to assess the cost of moving them away.
Our middle child, Carson, is a dreamer who lives inside his imagination at least 10 hours a day. He doesn't vocalize things well, so I can only assume he's struggling with the idea of moving. He's 52-pounds soaking wet, and he dreams of playing football for the Griz, because his best friend Dylan has the same dreams. Carson plays flag football and absolutely lives for the game.
When I've asked him how he feels about moving, he shrugs his shoulders and throws his surfer-length blond hair out of his eyes. "Ummm, I don't know. It will be cool," he says.
That's about as far as I've progressed with him. But I can see other signs of nervousness there. He's struggling with leaving what he's become comfortable with. Carson has huge dreams, but he, more than any of us, needs a firm foundation on which to have those dreams. Unstable ground means he lives more in the here and now, and when you live in the here and now, it's very difficult to fly. I know this, because Carson is me. I was once the very 9-year-old he is. I dreamed the same dreams and lived in my imagination as much as possible.
In some ways, I empathize more with Carson than anyone else, because I see some of this through his eyes. I can remember how he feels, and I feel bad that he can't express himself through what adults consider normal pathways of expression.
Gabrielle is, like most four-year-olds, along for the ride. She doesn't seem to show any anxiety, and she's legitimately excited about some of the things she's heard about. Almost every park in Anchorage has a frozen field for hockey and ice skating. She's excited to see moose in town, and this will be her first airplane ride.
Mostly she just asks questions about those things that affect her day. "Mom, what are we doing today?" I don't think she has a concept of leaving friends behind. She certainly didn't when we moved to Montana three years ago. It bothers me a bit that this move will teach her about the pain of losing friends.
Mostly I tell people that the kids are doing just fine. Fine is a relative term when considering that we're packing up our lives, leaving our own house and moving to the last frontier, a place from which we have to fly to visit family instead of the one-day trips we used to be able to do under cover of darkness so I could drive in peace.
The easiest explanation, and the one I struggle with the most is this: The kids aren't alright.
As the Offspring song says:
Chances thrown, nothing's free
Longing for, used to be
Still it's hard, hard to see
Fragile lives, shattered dreams
But kids are resilient in a way that adults are not. Those shattered dreams change up a little bit. Everyone wants to be a garbage man, an astronaut and a firefighter at some point in their lives. Relocating can push dreams around a bit, like puzzle pieces, but kids are nothing if not masters of putting those puzzle pieces back together. And often as not, they'll get a new picture and a new dream out of the deal.
This is my chance to learn something about rebuilding from those little master craftsman of dreams.
Tim
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The neighbors
We didn't know our neighbors had a kid the first six months we lived here in Missoula. Our middle son kept telling us they had a kid who was the same age. We thought he was talking about his invisible friend.
Then one day we saw him. A portly child walking along the fence. We only noticed him briefly before his parents whisked him inside. We had to apologize to our son for not believing him.
We are no longer tribal. We live close by others without knowing the first thing about them. My wife and I like to go over to our neighbors' houses unannounced, often with a bottle of wine or maybe a loaf of bread in hand. It was this way when we lived in Hawaii.
Northern climates are different. I feel like many people are isolationists living 10-feet away from their neighbors and trying to ignore that fact.
We didn't always have to force the issue though. Within a few weeks of moving to Missoula, we met some of our favorite people in this town. They lived in the cute corner house with the nice landscaping. They had a daughter a little younger than our middle son, and a son the same age as our daughter.
They'd say hi, and we'd say hi, and pretty soon we'd talk or bring a bottle of wine over. We'd talk at school functions and on Saturdays after mowing the lawn. They let us borrow their job stroller, and we let them borrow our child bicycle seat.
I'll never forget the first Christmas season in Missoula. Chris and Valerie, who are both talented pianists, invited us for an evening of Christmas carols with other faculty from the University of Montana school of music. Voice teachers and other musicians filled the room, including the symphony director. Beautiful music and new friendships characterized that night. In the years to come, we would gather at their place to play Guitar Hero with the piano professor, the voice professor and the director of the Missoula symphony. It was surreal fake playing music with three musical geniuses, but they were gracious, and we laughed and jammed until the early hours of the morning.
Chris and I would mountain bike together and catch the latest guy movies with another friend, Creighton. We'd play out what-if scenarios and laugh almost until we cried. At least I did.
As neighbors go, you could not ask for more. As friends go, you won't find better.
Then we moved, and I didn't see Chris and Val as often. We popped in from time to time leaving off as if we just saw each other the night before.
After a year in the new house, I couldn't describe the lady across the street to you. I've only seen her once or twice. The neighbors to either side of us are very nice. She works nights, so we say hi once-in-a-while. He is a U.S. Marine, and we have a beer together every so often and talk about house projects.
But our backdoor neighbors have become like best friends. Walking over unannounced and sitting on our front porches sipping drinks or playing guitars or smoking cigars are just a few of the things I consider bounty from our friendship.
They are the reason we bought a house in this neighborhood. Mike was a co worker whom I didn't know well, but I'd heard through work that he bought a house in a new neighborhood near where we'd both once lived.
As our house was being built, we'd hang out with Mike and Michelle at their place. Theirs having been built several months before ours. We'd dream together of backyard barbecues in summer and our kids playing together across the alley.
Soon summer rolled around, and I'd amble over to Mike's place to get a rake or a broom or just shoot the breeze. It's the idealistic kind of neighbors you see in the movies.
But it's something much more than that too. Mike and Michelle are there in the difficult times. They are friends beyond the common. When we needed someone to take our daughter for the weekend so we could get out of town, Mike never even flinched. When we needed advice, they gave it unselfishly, and when we get together, there is an easiness that is not easily found. Conversation is smooth and the laughter is contagious.
I remember growing up having difficult neighbors. People who just liked to make life hard on my dad. There was no good reason for it, just a plethora of cantankerous people. I always hoped for a good neighbor some day. When we first moved to Missoula, I thought I was going to end up with the same cantankerous people. What I found are neighbors I'd do anything to take with me. People of such quality that they make you want to be more like them.
Good neighbors are hard to find. You can't always pick them. But if you get lucky enough to have good friends to live next to, you have found the best you can expect in life.
Mike and Michelle and Chris and Val, you are some of our favorite people in the world. We feel privileged to have been able to call you neighbors and friends.
Tim
Then one day we saw him. A portly child walking along the fence. We only noticed him briefly before his parents whisked him inside. We had to apologize to our son for not believing him.
We are no longer tribal. We live close by others without knowing the first thing about them. My wife and I like to go over to our neighbors' houses unannounced, often with a bottle of wine or maybe a loaf of bread in hand. It was this way when we lived in Hawaii.
Northern climates are different. I feel like many people are isolationists living 10-feet away from their neighbors and trying to ignore that fact.
We didn't always have to force the issue though. Within a few weeks of moving to Missoula, we met some of our favorite people in this town. They lived in the cute corner house with the nice landscaping. They had a daughter a little younger than our middle son, and a son the same age as our daughter.
They'd say hi, and we'd say hi, and pretty soon we'd talk or bring a bottle of wine over. We'd talk at school functions and on Saturdays after mowing the lawn. They let us borrow their job stroller, and we let them borrow our child bicycle seat.
I'll never forget the first Christmas season in Missoula. Chris and Valerie, who are both talented pianists, invited us for an evening of Christmas carols with other faculty from the University of Montana school of music. Voice teachers and other musicians filled the room, including the symphony director. Beautiful music and new friendships characterized that night. In the years to come, we would gather at their place to play Guitar Hero with the piano professor, the voice professor and the director of the Missoula symphony. It was surreal fake playing music with three musical geniuses, but they were gracious, and we laughed and jammed until the early hours of the morning.
Chris and I would mountain bike together and catch the latest guy movies with another friend, Creighton. We'd play out what-if scenarios and laugh almost until we cried. At least I did.
As neighbors go, you could not ask for more. As friends go, you won't find better.
Then we moved, and I didn't see Chris and Val as often. We popped in from time to time leaving off as if we just saw each other the night before.
After a year in the new house, I couldn't describe the lady across the street to you. I've only seen her once or twice. The neighbors to either side of us are very nice. She works nights, so we say hi once-in-a-while. He is a U.S. Marine, and we have a beer together every so often and talk about house projects.
But our backdoor neighbors have become like best friends. Walking over unannounced and sitting on our front porches sipping drinks or playing guitars or smoking cigars are just a few of the things I consider bounty from our friendship.
They are the reason we bought a house in this neighborhood. Mike was a co worker whom I didn't know well, but I'd heard through work that he bought a house in a new neighborhood near where we'd both once lived.
As our house was being built, we'd hang out with Mike and Michelle at their place. Theirs having been built several months before ours. We'd dream together of backyard barbecues in summer and our kids playing together across the alley.
Soon summer rolled around, and I'd amble over to Mike's place to get a rake or a broom or just shoot the breeze. It's the idealistic kind of neighbors you see in the movies.
But it's something much more than that too. Mike and Michelle are there in the difficult times. They are friends beyond the common. When we needed someone to take our daughter for the weekend so we could get out of town, Mike never even flinched. When we needed advice, they gave it unselfishly, and when we get together, there is an easiness that is not easily found. Conversation is smooth and the laughter is contagious.
I remember growing up having difficult neighbors. People who just liked to make life hard on my dad. There was no good reason for it, just a plethora of cantankerous people. I always hoped for a good neighbor some day. When we first moved to Missoula, I thought I was going to end up with the same cantankerous people. What I found are neighbors I'd do anything to take with me. People of such quality that they make you want to be more like them.
Good neighbors are hard to find. You can't always pick them. But if you get lucky enough to have good friends to live next to, you have found the best you can expect in life.
Mike and Michelle and Chris and Val, you are some of our favorite people in the world. We feel privileged to have been able to call you neighbors and friends.
Tim
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