Supermoons and Supermoms

I have to give my dear friend Heather kudos for the title of this week's blog. About a week ago, Heather turned to me and said "We're going on a camping trip to celebrate the first day of spring." It was an idea pitched by her adventurous seven year old son and I have to say, I was impressed by her willingness to just run with it. Ten minutes later, I had invited myself and my brood and we were talking logistics, campsites and menus.

Now, those of you who live anywhere near the Northwest probably know that if you have the audacity to head to a  campsite before the month of May, you are just begging to be hit with rain, sleet, cold wind and maybe a grumpy predator or two waking up from hibernation. My incredibly nature savvy friend (who is a biologist, former forest ranger and general bad-ass) had scouted out an excellent camping prospect on the Deschutes river in the desert of Oregon (yes, there are deserts in Oregon) that would be full of wildflowers, steep canyon walls and hopefully some big horn sheep.

Our trip out Saturday morning was beautiful, we found the perfect pair of adjancent campsites and spent the day with the kids checking out the herds of big horn sheep,  spotting mountain goats perched precariously on the screamingly steep basalt cliffs and counting four gigantic golden eagles that circled the valley like huge feathered jet planes.  Since our husbands had to work, Heather and I set up the whole camp and got everything ready for dinner, braving a brief bout of rain to wrestle a waterproof tarp into submission above us. We roasted hot dogs and smores, cooked beans on the stove and ran the camp like clockwork while keeping four children between the ages of four and eight safe and out of danger. We were women warriors out against the elements and it was fantastic.

This trip was perfectly aligned for another reason as well. Saturday night was the closest the moon had been to the Earth for the past 400 years, known as the Supermoon. We were about an hour from civilization in the middle of the desert with zero light pollution. It was incredible. As we watched the moon come up over the black spines of the surrounding cliffs, each stone was perfectly illuminated. I swear there was a feminine energy that radiated from those silver rays bouncing up from the ancient basalt and flowing  back into our camp. A small space set up by women in the wilderness with our children, immersed and independent and fierce. My friend let out a hoot that startled the sleeping children in our arms. For a moment I felt the urge to join her and dance around the camp fire.

I wish I could say that the next morning went well and that we spent the day showing our husbands the wonders of the canyon. After a bitter cold night, the mercurial weather decided that she did not need our company and drove us to pack up in a hurry. Our scrambled eggs were filled with freezing water and our rain tarp broke it's bonds and almost blew into the Deschutes river. While I was proud that we had set up the camp, I was very grateful for my husband who calmly broke down the tent and loaded everything in the car with humor and grace. It's good to know that we did it alone, but I am also just as happy to admit it's nice to have a partner out there willing to do the heavy lifting and help you chase after a tent in a windstorm.

We left behind  hillsides covered with delicate spring flowers and the fresh tracks of mountain goats to follow the winding dirt road back into civilization.  I like to think  that I  took a part of that moonlit canyon back with me, a little bit of fierceness woven into a tapestry of stark and stunning beauty.

Stress Baking and Snappiness

This week  the juggling did not work out so well and I found my plates slipping and shattering around me.  I struggle with a horrific perfectionist streak, which both helps and hinders me. If I can’t do it all in one week, I find myself wondering-why not? Just what is your problem? This was a particularly interesting and challenging week at work and I found myself exhausted and brain dead at the end of each day. Of course, I also recently started a new workout regimen, a blog, and a strict editing schedule for my completed book chapters. Needless to say, there was no possible way to get everything done.

          I pride myself on priority, so work and family commitments come first and then all the rest of it should fall into place, providing there are no bumps in the road-which there invariably are.  This weekend, I found myself stress baking( a terrible and delicious habit of mine) snapping at everyone and passively aggressively cleaning the whole house. I was mad at myself because I blew my remaining weekly Weight Watchers points on a two tier layer cake, grumpy with my husband for well, everything under the sun and frustrated that I had let my writing fall way behind schedule. This week, I only finished three pages of writing when my normal output is ten to twelve pages a week.

          Everything came to a head last night. We had gone as a family to attend the annual anniversary party of a local restaurant and brewery. There was a ton of people and a live bluegrass band with a whole army of kiddos dancing their hearts out in the front. Yes, it was loud and crazy but the kiddos were having a blast. I was so entrenched in my foul mood that I failed to enjoy the adorable silliness of a whole group of munchkins dancing around and bumping into each other and just having a moment of sheer kid joy.

          This morning, I realized that I need to let go and just relax. Enjoy the messy, imperfection of the moment and laugh when it all goes wrong. I am not superwoman. I do not always need to be right or perfect. My goal for the next couple months of this crazy journey is to breathe, dance my heart out when the opportunity presents itself and just enjoy the damn cake!

Research, Reservations and Revelations

There is something about a public Library that invokes a sort of holiness.  I love to think of all the tiny worlds housed inside the glue and paper bindings perched so innocently on the metal shelves,  just awaiting the grip of a new explorer.  This weekend I found myself leaving my happy little mountain perch to visit the immense Central Library in the heart of Portland’s Pearl District. The historic building is beautiful with gorgeous high ceilings,  ornate marble floors and three floors of books to explore.  I have to say that I was very impressed with the lightning fast database that helped me to quickly and efficiently find the subjects that I was researching for my book . The overwhelming amount of information available made me aware of how I have neglected  our Library system in favor of the quick and easy allure of the Internet.

                One excellent feature of the Central Portland Library is that they offer a special room for writers, with plenty of private tables, hook-ups for your laptops and help in finding the books you need for research. This amazing service is free of charge but it does require an application process. I found myself stumbling into a packed third floor reference section weighed down with about fifteen thick encyclopedias  facing the prospect of sharing a table and wishing that I had thought to reserve a private room a few weeks earlier.

                I am a person who appreciates a wide bubble of personal space. I  hate sitting close to strangers on airplanes and feel awkward in the tight squeeze of public transportation.  The place was packed and I gave up on trying to find a small table where I could work alone, settling for the uninhabited half of table towards the back.  I began to wonder, what is it about our modern life that makes us feel so territorial? We are so incredibly connected to each other electronically, but in our face to face encounters we shrink into our personal bubbles, terrified of real interaction.  I am just as guilty of this as the next person.  When the people sitting across from me began coughing, almost in unison, I actually reached for the hand sanitizer in my purse, as if I could designate an antiseptic safety zone behind the thick stack Celtic encyclopedias.

                It was about this time that I noticed the armed security guards walking in slow circles around these tables toward the back, keeping a close eye on the coughing occupants.  As I caught a glimpse of the plastic bags stuffed under the tables and noticed the threadbare jackets, it hit me that my tablemates were possibly part of the homeless population that wander the streets of downtown Portland, always in the corner of the public eye.  The portrayal of America’s homeless in popular culture is that of  crazy, dirty people yelling on a street corner.  The people sitting around me were not any different than anyone else. They were not smelly, or crazy or talking to themselves. They were sitting quietly, respectfully reading stacks of books and keeping to themselves.

                Jasmine and I used to teach a poetry workshop at a local alternative high school in Spokane, WA. Many of the girls that we worked with were survivors, tough young women who had endured more trauma in their first fifteen years of life than I had experienced in a lifetime. We taught these young women that  words can be weapons, tools to break through the barriers that enclosed them. Sitting in the quiet of the Central Portland Library surrounded by the peaceful stacks of books and the grateful concentration of my tablemates, I realized that words can also be a sanctuary.  Our libraries are precious resources  for the shelter they offer us emotionally when we lose ourselves in books. Sometimes,  they are important for the physical shelter they offer as well.  Our Libraries are closing at a record rate, leaving a whole segment of society without the means to purchase books stranded.  Here in Hood River our Library closed last year, and although the community voted to re-open it, I have to wonder how many young minds were left out in the cold this winter without the sanctuary of words and the comfort a warm and quiet space can bring. 

Sleep, Sacrifice and Sweet,Sweet Coffee

                 I spent most of my twenties participating in spoken word poetry competitions and workshops, scamming beers off cute guys in smoky bars and trashing famous poets.  In 2008, I published a book of poetry called The Ghosts of Anne and Sylvia with one of my best friends, the author Jasmine Paul. I had never actually  considered writing a fiction novel until about nine months ago when I found myself exploring  the seeds of a story that just wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard I tried to shake it loose.  There was nothing that could have prepared me for the gripping obsession that powers a fiction writer until I found myself immersed in the book that I am writing now.

                I am lucky enough to have a day job that I enjoy,  working remotely in project management with  mostly East Coast based clients. My office hours are 9:00-5:30 EST which translates to 6:00-2:30 PST, just about the time my kids come barreling down the driveway.  As schedules go, it is early but pretty ideal. I have the flexibility to spend time in the afternoon with my two  kiddos and make dinner for the family.  After working a full day, helping with homework, running errands and picking up the house I am pretty much brain dead when bedtime rolls around.  I originally tried writing in the evenings, but found myself either snoozing in the recliner with my laptop sliding towards the floor or else sucked into the brain numbing  joys of evening television.

My solution to the time crunch? I set back the alarm and changed my writing schedule to Monday through Friday from 4:30 AM to 6:00 AM with time for editing on the weekends.  The problem with being a writer is that the story inside you is always hammering for a way out.  It doesn’t go away because you are tired, or you need to do the dishes or get  just one more email sent out before the morning. Writing to me is more than a compulsion, it is as much a part of me as the freckles on my nose or my crooked pinky toe.  Each morning when I feel the urge to reach over and add just a bit more time to the alarm, I ask myself; “How badly do you want this? Are you willing to sacrifice?”  As long the  coffee pot is set to auto-brew, I know I can push past the fatigue and enjoy the quiet breath of a sleeping house and the sweet staccato of my fingertips on the keyboard.