Set the Stage For Greatness

The Christmas has zoomed past, like I knew it would while expecting it also. Now it's that limbo end of the year week in which we wait for new and do last minute things to end the year and do not a lot, too, because it's the end of the year in which we anticipate a lot of new things for the new year.

Marking time like we do. Comparing to where we were a year ago, three years ago, upon turning 30, upon buying a first home, upon graduating university, upon leaving parents' home for the first time. How far back should I compare and contrast to now? How much change and how much money and how many experiences or college degrees or clothes sizes or cars or new perfumes or passport stamps or cities lived in or favorite new bands or friends that have come and gone - how to mark it all as something that means something?

I still retain a little bit of that preposterousness longevitous wish that I've always harbored since I learned how to consider my own legacy. What happens when I die? And what do I leave behind? How I will not be forgotten? (Good god.)

Upon leaving university I was certain it'd be the novel I published within two years. After this passed a few years later I was certain it'd be a couple more years to make that mark, mark my words. Years passed and instead it's a lot of other added up instead, tallied like precious unrecorded chapters making a plot I could have never crafted and might even write someday.

I'm looking at my hands in this dark room typing away and I see this gold ring with a red stone on my finger and it's writing and marriage that I see. Something else that I've gained in the last year, writing about symbols, is this Christmas necklace from my husband. Gold filigree drop with a mauve stone on a gold chain in the center, something to wear everyday, to sleep in, and to accustom to one's body chemistry, body wash and body odor. Symbols that I wear because I love someone. I think about giving them to some daughter or niece someday, maybe even a granddaughter, and in a way that could be just as satisfying to me as a book. One piece for one good young person. Does it seem a tad insular almost, too much of my own blood, desire, history, line - too much subjective, not enough objective?

Ah but maybe in the very distracting very busy future world we'll be remembered fleetingly, we will be captured in little mementos. Stories or necklaces, they will all be the same.

I remember a long time ago, in college perhaps, a very good friend telling me that growth for growth's sake was the philosophy of a tumor. Meaning - that just because we wanted to grow as artists, writers, musicians, humans then... I needn't finish. Life happening. The years going by - losing love, finding love, growing up, exploring new places and interests, knowing new people, trying new things, learning to accept yourself as someone worthy and meriting of a good life and healthy decisions - all of the lessons adding up to experience. That I will ponder, you know, and most likely I will overthink and overprocess, grind all this happening and history into an existential penumbra to the point of near obfuscation in which I think everything must elude, but really in fact I've failed to turn on the fucking light and see it all. It's just life.

I'm not a poet. I think I can safely and confidently aver this now without any question. Even though I see the world poetically, belying the truth of what we all really mean to mean, actions more meaningful than words, words more beautiful than sentences. I think real life really isn't the stuff of poetry. It's too hearty and raw I think, not so gentle - if that is indeed poetry. But that is the safe pretty side, I think. My poetry, how I understand it but don't write it, is these beloved too gritty daily characters moving banal plots forward, inch by inch the lessons learned shedding slits of light, and sometimes no light at all. Forgoing truth for acceptance, and only sometimes letting it slip for exhausted reality's sake, hoping to still be loved the same even so. Presenting as big, needing validation, asking approval, shrinking into self, requiring aloneness, begging companionship - all of these super human, contradictory, annoying, fallible, forgivable things as part of. I do know I sometimes claim guilty of those reflexively unkind and instantly sorry reactions, sparse but loaded words, poorly hidden and secretly lovely intentions that represent the every day human condition. That's why I keep hoping anyway - that everyone means beautifully despite the jerkiness of humanity. Like I do.

More than anything this year has year taught me (and here's the end of the year summation) that human relationships do best when we observe, report and accept. Watch those you love carefully, pick out their likes and patterns to understand them, to help them be better and bigger humans; report on their moods to help them know that they are seen and heard; and accept those things you see and know because those are the people with whom you are choosing to spend time and know above all the billions of others now living. Set the stage for everyone's (and your own) best performance, making all of this your life's real work. All the other legacy kind of work it will come in time when you figure out the first kind.

Another To Love Like That

There's a brand new human in the world and I get to claim her, a little bit, and that is something of an incredible feeling, a stupendously proud and wonderful thing. My niece, Julia Paz, is this tiny, precious, big lunged baby girl who was just born a few days ago while I held her mother's, my sister's, head as she pushed her out and into the world - small and wailing and needing and instantly lovable. I cried like a 33 year old baby when that happened, like a human who'd forgotten about where we all miraculously came from seeing where we miraculously came from.

My sister was so strong through her extended, so long, labor to bring this baby girl into the world. There was my little sister breathing through these contractions and dissolving at times into tears and frustration, other times puffing and gritting through, awaiting the end result which would be so much more than all this. It took so long, poor sister, 70 hours of breathing, contracting, waiting, checking, frustrating, contracting more, discomforting, waiting, the maybe birthday turning into another maybe birthday into another and final birthday. Three days later, and so much hard and sleepless work, there is this moment come when everyone who knows about dilation and effacement is ready, scrubbed and poised to catch, and we are pushing this little one out and into and there she is, coming into sight.

Magical, is what it was, to see the birth of a child - my sister giving birth to this life. In that birthing room I kept thinking how I was the big sister and so I'd be strong and there like I'd always been for her, but I had nothing for her on this occasion. She'd surpassed me in this, and I watched her in awe, figuring out as she went, getting through and so focused, pushing even when I was sure she had no strength left in her body. But she pushed, knowing it was almost done, her baby was almost here, and being able to support her a little in this major endeavor blew my mind. Her strength was incredible, bringing her daughter into the world.

I knew I'd cry. I cry when people give birth in sit-coms in ridiculous screaming scenarios. This wasn't even like that - there was no screaming. It was pure focus instead, I even encouraged her to make noise - let it out, yell, make noise! She was so tempered, like she is always, my serene sister.

You know, I loved my niece the instant she was born, possibly even before that, but reflecting back on the event I realize now my immediate love for her was an overflow of the love that I have for my sister. I have already loved my sister for all the years since she was born at home 31 years ago, when I'd made her a birthday cake and jumped on the bed where our mother was in labor, and I've always wanted to protect her and help her and advise her since, and then she has a baby and then there's this new extension of her. Another baby sister, perhaps, but one to love as an adult sister which is the very definition of aunt, I understand and define that now. The daughter of my sister - we won't play or grow up together, she and I, instead I get to care for her, protect her, make her life so good, teach her the things that her mom and I already figured out together many years ago. I get to take her into my arms, this little innocent, and tell her that I love her (because I know how to speak in sentences now), and that I'll always be here for her and you can count on me baby girl.

Welcome to the World, Baby Niece!

Julia Paz Reed

Born 11-20-2010 at 3:23am

6 lbs 15 oz

19 inches long

Baby Time! (Almost)

My baby sister is due with baby Julia Paz in exactly one week! I head down to Reno on Thursday, dayafta tomorrow, to be with her. So graciously she's made me part of the birth plan. I'm extremely thrilled, to say the least, to be present at the birth of a baby, and the first baby of my only sister no less!

I'm taking this privilege most seriously. I've pulled out our copy of "The Birth Partner..." something something tips for dads, doulas and others in the room. I've already read this book and understand the concepts, but just to be hilarious I joked to my sis that "isn't a doula like the person who juggles and does magic tricks during labor?" That would be the court jester, and apparently her birthing class teacher already covered "humor while in labor" a couple weeks ago - it's not funny at a certain point, she says, and Jamie says Matt looked somewhat disappointed hearing this while he drew "battle goats" on his class notes. In the room will be Jamie (of course), Matt, our mom, me and of course, the assorted and sundry birthing professionals. I'm there to just encourage, support and probably play nice music and, also, cry and look agape while I stand in awe. And cry.

That is, of course, if the baby comes on time. They are notorious for being early or late, showing up to the party naked and crying. Oh, babies!

Whenever this little girl makes her grand entrance, I know that she is coming into a world of love love love to surround her. I can't wait to meet her, hold her, make silly faces at her, and also, see my little sister become a mother. It will be beautiful, and leaving in a couple days to not only go see my sister, which is exciting, but also to go in order to await of the coming of a new person whom we already adore is unique, astounding and absolute joy. I love the whole idea of surrounding family, being near to and helping women while bringing a new human into the world - it seems old as time, yet its new to me. J'adore participating in new-old life tropes. Hurry up baby Julia Paz!

Fall Photos

Boeuf Bourguignon fills the house with a delicious warm aroma so perfect for chilly Autumn days.

The view from our suite in Seattle. Looks a lot like Alaska.

Bridge over the Missouri River.

The LOVE pumpkin.

For our Zombie Prom Halloween fete, we projected B&W zombie flicks over the fireplace. I got really excited about watching movies in the living room and I think SOMEONE is getting a projector and pulldown movie screen for xmas.

First snow on November 1 covers the Halloween pumpkins and fake cobweb decorations on the front porch.

And, speaking of Zombie Prom, the hosts with the ghosts: Jim the "Pox Zombie" + Sarah the "Totally 80's Zombie" posing for their "Night to Remember DISmember" prom photo.

A little bit closer if you dare.

New Banjo Rock + Kitchen Utensils!

In my ongoing hunger for more uptempo banjo/rocking folk music since falling hard for Mumford & Sons, I've just come across the Canadians known as Elliott Brood, a so-called "death country" band (which is as dumb a label as, well, as it sounds), and I'm heartily enjoying their album Mountain Meadows, a foot-stomping rollicker.

Below, a video of "Write It All Down For You" - in which they hand out kitchen utensils to the crowd in order to bang along. I appreciate this wholeheartedly - the all-around utility and DIY-simplicity of kitchen utensils is something very well acknowledged in this house that absolutely deserves heightened recognition. Just ask anyone who has been over here late when the homegrown karaoke/dance party starts - it's whisks, potato mashers and spatulas all around!



p.s. and re: my previous post in which I couldn't figure out how to sort by newest addition, my whipsmart hubs explained that if you control-click on the iTunes category bar there will appear a whole host of sorting options. Of these, the "Date Added" option did the trick. Brilliant!

Ain't For Metrical Reasons

Tonight I downloaded a very good album, Colorblind by Robert Randolph & The Family Band, coming a bit late to the RR&TFB circle of fandom, but I was only just introduced. Then I got a couple more albums after that being in a musically desirous mood this first snowy eve of the season. Then again experiencing how these new musical additions tend to get so totally lost in the vast vacuum de iTunes when you download more than two things and then can't remember what you just purchased or figure out how to configure the blinkin' application to sort by "Newest Addition" which would seem obvious, clever and defaultish...

Anyway, remembering that on the first album I bought - Colorblind - there's a song Ain't Nothing Wrong With That which is a fun, jammy, danceable blues/gospel tune, I search "ain't" and lo and beholdsky, what an absolute goldmine of songs include the notword "ain't" in their titles within my very own confoundingly unsortably giant iTunes liberry!

The online free Merriam-Webster Dictionary tells me that ain't "is flourishing in American English" despite being "widely disapproved as nonstandard" and commonly used by the "less educated" (than what/whom?) to mean: am not, are not, has not, did not, etcetera and other things you already know... Not included in the definition: "works really good-like in song lyrics being monosyllabic while lending a certain unpretentious low poetry and downtobusiness twangy familiarity." It does concede, however (and this is for reals): "...also used for metrical reasons in popular songs..."

Herewith, the "Ain't For Metrical Reasons" Playlist:

Don't Mean a Thing if it Ain't Got That Swing - Nina Simone

Things Ain't Like They Used to Be - The Black Keys

Ain't No Easy Way - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Diana Ross & The Supremes & The Temptations

There Ain't A Girl Alive - Joan Armatrading

I Ain't Got Time - Fern Jones

I Ain't Proud - Langhorne Slim

Ain't No Cure For Love - Leonard Cohen

Ain't Going Down to the Well - Tom Waits

Ain't it the Truth - The Gossip

People Ain't No Good - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

The Backstory

It's nearly the HOLIDAYS. All around, full blown holiday season is upon us and I feel like I'm just barely coming down from this summer, for serious - planning and executing a wedding, launching a radio show, and everything that went along with both of those two big life events... Yes, months have passed since both, and in the in between there have been dinner parties and house painting and serious life planning sessions involving future all around. Also, in there and just recently, was meeting my love's extended family, his father, his grandparents on both sides - and a trip to Seattle and Kansas.

Last Thursday we flew south. We overnighted in Seattle at the Inn at the Market - so highly recommended, five stars - it's actually in Pike Place Market. I'd corresponded in advance with the hotel manager for a restaurant recommendation and he was beyond accommodating to my request for a great city evening out, even had their own celebrity chef email with his thoughts on the matter, very impressive. We booked a dinner reservation at the hotel's restaurant, Campagne, tres delicious. We arrived and found that our basic city-side room had been upgraded to a water-view suite that was absolutely gorgeous with a wide view of Puget Sound, the market below, the ferries coming and going. We walked around downtown and ate MANY oysters at The Brooklyn, downed a drink at the brick-lined, tucked away Alibi Room on Post Alley, and then had dinner at Campagne where the chef came out to talk to us for a goodly amount of time, then later we enjoyed his cooking. Fabulous foie gras, lamb and wagyu beef burger.

After we went dancing! First we found a live Brazilian band, shook it there for a little bit, and when all the songs started to sound the same we moved on across the street to a billiards place to play pool. However, once inside, we found that this place had great dancing and we had such a great time there getting down which is made all the more free and enjoyable when in an alien city knowing that you'll mostly likely never see any of these people ever again. Much lip pursing, hands in the air and sweet move busting ensued.

The next morning we flew to St Louis, hopped in our rental SUV and drove to Kansas City where we met Jim's positively kind, welcoming and wonderful family. The three nights there were a whirlwind of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and kiddos all under the same hotel roof, always someone to talk to, to learn more about, and from which to hear great stories about when "Jimmy" was little. This was a party to celebrate his (maternal) grandfather's 90th birthday. Grandpa and Grandma are incredibly dear, supremely joyous, surprisingly funny ("Well, it's good to be seen, honey... I'm still alive.. get it?"), and endearingly adoptable. They made me feel so welcome. In addition to meeting this side of the fam, I also got to meet his father and paternal grandfather who lives in the same town. Jim's dad is great - so witty and smart and very well-read. Experiencing this whole family tapestry all at once really allowed me to see where he comes from, how he was put together (as it were) and who his people are. I loved the whole experience of getting acquainted with them, and because of this, understanding my husband better.

Family is important - I've heard this my whole life and the older I get the more I understand the how and why and because of this statement. It doesn't and needn't define everything about an individual, but it explains some things about where we each come from - how we came up and why we are, a little or a lot, who we are now. In an age of lonely individualism and when even one generation previous is "history" it's so comforting, really I think, to see people who resemble, have something in common, share traits and are tied through real blood. For me, newly joined to a new person and by extension, a new family, it was as though watching the prequel to a movie I already and devotedly adore, remarking "ahhh," and just, really, finding more things to love about the original.

Sideways

I stared at this photo of a new coffee shop in Manhattan until my mind started to go a little vertigo. Then I couldn't imagine actually eating there, however totally awesome it looks, because my equilibrium was all wonked out which spells doom for my general ability to not barf in most situations. And this, alas, makes me sad because how much would I love to sip an espresso in a sideways library-looking joint? Like, venti much.

Aging, Or Turning 33 and Not Wanting a Car or a Ph.D.

I'm 33 now, as of last Saturday.

Years past, starting in the elementary school days, I used to write up a storm on each October 2, my birthday, and it continued for years. In whatever locked, unlocked, tattered, new, paged or electronic medium I wrote in, I'd determine what I would accomplish in this next year of my life. It ranged from "getting a cat" to "getting a car" and "finding a boyfriend" to "finding a house". These desires all got written down, and they are somewhere still, archived for my own later-in-life indulgence when I'll consider it amusing and sweet to look back at how I resolved to stop nervously throwing up before swim meets or how much I wanted to publish a novel by the time I was 30.

This year I didn't write anything for the first time in years. Being someone who overthinks absolutely everything, I feel two ways about this. Am I finally settled and there's no need to write about what comes next? Or am I too complacent and I'm not taking the time? Either way makes me anxious, and unresolvable as this situation is based on a lack of anything with which to determine everything I hope, I'd better get resolving something in order to remedy this.

The pressure of everything I used to feel seems lesser. I remember being about to graduate from Berkeley and preparing applications to Brown for a Ph.D. in brain science, and also to Columbia for a MFA in creative writing. Clearly I didn't know what I wanted then, but I was really drawn to how people think and also how they create, I wanted to know the "why" and "how" behind everything that drove meaningful human existence. I ended up being a journalist and a writer. In the years since then these occupations have fit me well, I suppose, I'm curious and I like to write, so I get to ask others about how they think and how they create. A mini-academy of the same, perhaps.

I do think that the older I become, the less I care about focusing on myself. I think about spending time contributing to greater goods like family and communities and a marriage, things that involve others in collaboration. So these recent birthdays haven't been spent considering what I want and how to get them. I have what I want - a loving and supportive husband, a lovely home, meaningful work, dear friends and family who infuse my life with gratefulness - so that these yearly landmarks seem less like a pressure to measure accomplishment and become something and more like a time to reflect and realize all the good things that I do have.

Someone, I wish I could remember who because I reference this all the time, told me once that being successful in life is not about how much money you make or how much fame you garner, instead its about how many options you have at any given time. The more you have, the better off you are, and I think that any 30-something birthday is a great time to tally up these rich, rich options.

The Earth and the Mammals Do Move

Just when you think that the universe might finally be cooperating you necessarily must realize that you are dead wrong. Inevitable. Being reminded of the larger picture of oh, you know, history and seismology and life cycles, comes with a jar. Not like a delicious container of fruit preserves, no, like a JAR! (imagine that in a big crazy broken-y font) that shakes and wakes and reminds that you are but a teensy player on an enormous stage. A walk on, if you will, in this play that is called "Here on Earth: A Living, Breathing Planet with Many Species of Fauna and the Humans Who (Hilariously) Think They Control Everything". (A great name for a play, I do think.)

Today sitting on my well-worn sofa, doing my thing where I internet and write and respond and generally commute my head's thoughts via my computer's keyboard, an earthquake rocked the house. I heard it before I felt it - like a really loud truck passing by + a really loud toilet flushing. Then a WTF? moment of my heart jumping into my ears, then a serious shaking. I am terrified of earthquakes having lived through the 1989 San Francisco quake, they strike ultimate fear into my heart and render me sissified like nothing else in this world. It shook, I jumped and ran for a doorway, I stopped halfway there took note of the wine glass rack clinking and glass tchotchkes clanking, ran back to the sofa and slipped on flip flops (broken glass and bloody feet imagined here), then ran back to the doorway farthest away from anything breakable. The quake stopped, yet for a full minute I stood clutching my shaking hands in front of me, waiting for another jolt. What happened was the parrot jumped off his cage (he can't fly, sadly) and this moved me to action - some being was possibly more freaked than I.

I breathed deeply and moved from this solid doorway to pick up the bird. He jumped off my finger. I picked him up again, but he wouldn't dismount my finger back onto his cage, however, with some sotto voce coaxing (it's all okay... possibly) he stepped off and life, earth, the house were still again. To the UAF Seismic Website Place! But, overloaded with instant interneter looky-lous and unable to load! Hours later I would learn it was a 4.9, epicenter 13 miles SW of here. That's just too close for comfort.

And yet, speaking of comfort levels of closeness, just minutes before I write this I'm standing in the kitchen with the window open and I hear something (someone) clearly crashing through the bushes out back. (Interesting that I'm braver in these possible intruder situations than in houserocking moments which present no threat of a possible baddie coming in through the back door.) I turn on the back porchlight and let my eyes adjust waiting to confront.

Moments. Then - there are, not more than 20 feet away from where I stand, a momma moose and two baby moose. A single-mother family just cruising through my backyard, munching on the yellowing fireweed, all familiarly touching at their flanks as they graze and then suddenly aware of me - the crouching tiger on the porch outstretching her very weak and inept iPhone camera that refuses to capture this little dinner outing because it's too dark - so they stopped and looked back. It was a staredown. I felt like a bit of a paparazzi there in the glare of their very large mammalian eyeballs staring back, so I blinked first. "Sorry," I actually said to the mooses three, turning off the porchlight, letting them go on about enjoying their late-night snack.

I think I needn't point out the moral of these nature stories - the quaking, the four-legged beasts - except to say that I do recognize that these things happened very really, and then they also happened to others, not just me. I assume this based on a lifetime of empathic humanity. A 4.9 earthquake causes things to rattle in other people's houses, and moose families gallop on to eat the fireweed in others' backyards, and don't these crazy occurrences of nature just make some of us glad to be a human who reads much into their happening? Indubitably.

Sweet the Sound

It's been awhile since. I just watched a documentary about Joan Baez "So Sweet the Sound." We listened to Joan Baez records when I was growing up and her voice to hear it now reminds me of an old two-story in Spokane, Washington on Atlantic Street in 1982 or thereabouts. The vinyl collection then stored in the same piece of antique furniture in which my mom now keeps the tablecloths (I think it's the same one). Joan Baez and Bob Dylan were everything music to me, the height of cool - she was long dark hair and a guitar singing about frustrated love, about peace, impersonating Dylan with whom she was once in love - that guy on the album cover next to her's in the antique bureau - of the mad hair, dark glasses and the dangling cigarette. I was six years old.

I didn't know then that they were before my time. I would hear them later in life, as a teenager, a 20-something, now, and say I listened to them growing up, as though I were a child of the 60's. I was too young for Selma and MLK, the Vietnam war, the space race and the British Invasion. That was my parents' time, it belonged to them, 20-somethings playing the records that were their lifetime.

There is a distinct memory of sitting on the wooden floor with my little sister, under the dining room table, and we perhaps 4 and 5 are looking at album covers, splaying them out all around us on the floor. I clearly recall Jim Croce's moustache, a quartet of bearded men holding instruments, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Joan Baez in soft 70's yellow light and a v-neck sweater, Dylan in a flower covered fedora, a "mixed LP" (as it were) containing one of my favorite songs to listen to up through high school - White Room by Cream (I loved the syncopation and it made me think of Alice in Wonderland for some reason - white rabbit?), Aretha Franklin and Al Green, and this album which we thought was hilarious - Steve Martin in LIPSTICK!:

p.s. you can now get here by simply going to musemaria.com

Brushkana River

Brushkana River

It's the strangest ending to a summer I can ever remember. Yellow leaves are on the ground, the geese have been flying southerly for two weeks, it hailed yesterday - and yet the sun is out again, however briefly in between wet dark outbursts punctuated by thunder and lightning. After 32 straight days of WET, we saw blue skies, rainbows and the 60-degree clarity burned my nose just enough to feel hotly vindicated after so much sog.

This past weekend dad, Jim and I went on a fishing and camping trip up north to Brushkana River, about 200 miles north of Anchorage off of the Denali "highway" (quotation marks because this route was much more akin to an "unmarked backcountry road" - washboard, unpaved and deep gravel for many stretches). We left Friday and packed the minivan to the absolute gills, picked up dad in Wasilla, and continued north in the clear weather, espying the big Denali around a couple bends in the road here and there, amassing its own weather system - fat coronal clouds about the peak, and a wet cottony blanket pouring over the lesser peaks surrounding it like fog rolling in over skyscrapers should this mountainscape have been a cityscape.

We arrived and of the 22 campsites available, three or four were left. We met the extremely charming camp hosts who suggested site 1 for the best spot left, and we took it. We settled in, erecting tents and blowing up air mattresses - this was luxury car camping - and whilst we did this set up masses of cars and RV's poured in and we could only gloat that we'd left earlier. The creek was just a few feet behind our tents, on a brushy bank thick with blueberries. Dad casted a bit and we made dinner, had some drinks and enjoyed the campfire while talking about the world's problems, namely water shortages and other ecological concerns while feeding more logs to burn and to watch burn.

Dad fishing in silhouette

The next day Jim and dad woke up and took off to the river, upriver, to fish while I slept a bit more. I forgot to mention this totally humbling element of MY trip - the Friday morning before we left Anchorage, I went on the back deck to drink some coffee, sat in a chair which had but three of the four legs firmly planted on the decking, and then proceeded to fall ass-over-tea kettle onto the very hard and wet ground three feet below. It was one of those moments where you know exactly that something awful and unwanted is about to occur (looking over my shoulder, shit, there's the ground and I'm heading for it...), and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. So I fell hard, landing on my right shoulder, ribs and hip. So all weekend I felt sore and bruised and incredibly lame knowing that my present physical limitations were caused by own oblivious clumsiness - I fell off a deck, good god. Which is why I was moving so slowly Saturday morning, my arm wasn't working. What can you do?

Jim's grayling

I made lunch for the fishermen - Julie's delicious duck hot dogs that she has made from her solo duck hunting ventures each year. She is such an awesome human, I aspire to be more like Julie - hunting and fishing and general adventuring in her 60's - what a brave maven. Then I hiked up the hip waders as high as they'd go, which wasn't high enough as they were too big, and we hoofed it up the river and on my second cast I caught a grayling! Jim was taking it off the hook and it escaped. It took many more hours (and many lost bobbers and flies) to catch two tiny guys, but the sun came out and warmed my skin and the river was gorgeous and the air was clean. Each attempt went so relaxingly like this - casting not too far into the current where it bubbled up white and foamy, landing the bobber, letting it float downriver just a little, clicking over the reel to stop it spooling out, then the hypnotic tracking of it slowly (and sometimes rapidly) floating down downriver (while "Downriver" played ad nauseum in my head, see previous post- but it sounds MUCH better here: "Downriver, downriver - doh-uh-don't-stop!") until the line became taut (or became snagged) at which point I'd do what dad showed me - tug the pole a bit to jump the fly upriver, let it float a bit downriver, tug again, float away, tug, float, until it was too close to the shore and I would reel in and do it all again, between sipping on a Tecate.

Jim fishing in silhouette

I got into it, working my way downriver alone, spotting a quiet pool some feet away down there, thinking that was the place to be after only a few casts in my present place, realizing I am impatience personified but still going, picking my sloshy way through the river slowly over the slippery rocks, catching myself from falling a few times, until I got to this new place, precarious on a bank, or with feet wedged in between boulders to steady myself, giving a thumbs up to them up the river - I'm fine, I'm only on my knees right now because I'm trying to untangle myself from this bush, I'm good!

We got some good use out of our new Walkie-Talkie's from Trent - we'd separate and then radio about location, biting, etc. Funny - at one point Jim was upriver singing Creedence Clearwater's "Proud Mary" over the channel, minutes later some strangers come through - "Hey babe, you there?" and "I'm here, what's up?" - So, obviously channel 1 is tres popular and I do hope that these other adventurers enjoyed Jim's serenade as much as I did. We switched to channel 9 thereafter.

Two tasty grayling about to be cooked

We caught scads of grayling, and saw no grizzlies, thank god. We kept two of them and cooked them in the fire wrapped in foil. They were pretty good, could have used some herbs perhaps? I probably skimped on the butter... That night we made delicious steaks and baked potatoes in the fire, drank enough and fed the rest of the flammables into the flames - cardboard and logs - and talked and talked until we got uproariously giddy talking about "toilet monkeys" and that is all I will divulge about that topic. To bed with us.

It was really nice to get away, again, away from email and phone and to be under the bare sky, wading in the water, hiking up and down stream, catching fish, but mostly watching the river rush by, and coming to understand, maybe, how a fish might navigate through these currents, around these giant mossy rocks, where they might stop behind a crop of granite or bankside for a bit of rest and I almost felt like I shouldn't bother them there, in that peaceful place, but then I thought that is exactly where I need to focus and find them. So strange to find this predator in myself, not so much a bloodlust however, but more like wanting to win a game. Really, now that I think about it, it's a desire to outsmart nature.

Imagine this deck-fallen, novice fisherwoman in the too-big boots, looking over her shoulder for bears, trying to focus on catching a fish - attempting to outsmart nature in this way with very little acquired skills yet - sore and unsure and new, and part of me hopes that I never feel so confident in this, as much as I desire to be outdoorsy extraordinaire, the tough make-it-anywhere person. Which is a wholly new desire for me (in nature, that is, I've been focusing on the make-it-anywhere in a city for years which I think I've got down...) - it's just recently that I care about this enough to register on my personal desire scale of "who I am" and I'm adding in there "an outdoors capable person" who can exist, subsist and mostly, just enjoy the time exploring, cooking outside, getting some sun when it chooses to finally come out and talking late at night around a campfire. That rates pretty damn high on my scale at this point, and maybe in a few years I'll apex mountains with Jim like the peak he inspiringly bagged a couple weekends ago while packing a giant pack - straight up in 50 mph winds. First though, much before that happens, I'll be concentrating on keeping a solid footing on the back deck and perhaps locating some new river fish recipes.

One More Song

This makes me happy beyond belief - hand on my heart grinning wish I coulda been there in person, in fact. This new band that I really love right now (Mumford and Sons) coupled with a band that I've loved for some time (The Temper Trap) playing together. It's like double epic (I only wish the sound was better).

Roll Away Your Stone, I'll Roll Away Mine

I'd written this post about my favorite music at the moment and then accidentally deleted it. I don't even know...

Mumford and Sons. This is a band I am really digging on right now, and I played some of their videos for Jim tonight and he watched and said, semi-agape, "They just rewrote the book." Which means, in his opinion (and in mine, and probably lots of others') they are redefining our generation's music. Thank god, let's hear some real music, instruments and feet pounding wood and let's not lose any of the poetry, or any of the adamance. They are bluegrass punk, hillbilly rock, epic banjo, and as Jim says, "make your heart swell" - said so well. For me, they blend Arcade Fire's youthful exuberance with the temperance of Fleet Foxes' throwback bare instrumentation of the spare 70's and a bit of Jack White's solo defiance recording in a broken down house. Also, they can break your heart with a raw honesty that is rare these days.

We don't often agree on music - he's very country and I'm very... not. We, in fact, abhor some of each other's music choices from time to time. I can't stand literal rhyming songs about coming of age sung in a Tennessee twang and he's not the biggest fan of atonal pounding on a piano, synth-y backbeats or poetical hard-to-decipher lyrics, for instance. So when we agree on something, it's a coup and we get excited. These Mumford boys have enough country for him and enough loud and poetry for me to satisfy us both. An example from the lyrics of the song above - "Darkness is a harsh term don't you think? Yet it dominates the things I see" - but in a major key (read: happy) with banjo - perfect balance.

An evening of listening to music while we cooked pizzas on the outdoor grill was a really nice after-day as we'd both had trying times today. For him, it was presenting his university-wide project idea, now a reality, he'd been working on for years to the muckety mucks. For me, it was one of those days when I leave my handbag places, rude weird people and everyone cuts me off in traffic and I wonder if my car is invisible, then I wonder if perhaps I'm invisible to the point where I am pinching my thigh while I drive to make sure.

But then I go home (coming home is so nice), and I put on my music and put away my groceries and talk to a couple three friends on the phone and prep dinner, then Jim gets home and we talk about what to do this weekend - fishing, camping, what? I called my dad and we talked about fishing ideas whilst Jim called his bro and talked about the same. We decided that we'd buy a little boat in the off season, I think, for use next year - something with an outboard that we can load up with gear for camping on islands and also fish from, obviously. This weekend is still undecided, maybe the biking trip to camp ten miles out on Eklutna Lake, or maybe I'll find us a nice little cabin to rent, I don't know. Everyone I talk to, and I mean everyone is catching salmon right now - dip netting and now bait fishing - and I am so jealous. I want some salmon.

I have to pause for a sec and realize the perhaps, seeming, absurdity about me writing about fishing and camping. I have come around to these things in the years I've been returned to Alaska, with fondness and desire, absurd that it was nothing I used to enjoy or seek out, and now I really do. It feels adventurous and independent and self-sufficient - to go out and exist, to catch fish - all on my own, our own, while knowing that people pay hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars to do the very same things that we do for the price of a local fishing license, a campsite sometimes and food for the excursion. And then, on top of that, you get some fresh air and some fresh fish and some good times in utile outfits like sweatshirts, fat wool socks, rain gear and waders with others in the same, all of us just talking looking at the water, the mountainscapes, knowing that we live here amongst all of this, and it sort of belongs to us, belongs to me.

This is exactly how this grace thing works.

And it keeps being exactly what it is - this outdoors, nature that appeals - it is not a fad that will pass and be replaced by the next hot thing. It will keep being and being and being (as long as we take care). The fish will come back to run and spawn and the snow will move down the mountains in the fall and up in the spring, the bears will run out in the road in the summer and hibernate in the winter, the raspberries will hang low the bushes in the backyard in August and go bare and come back a year later, it all repeats, this very assuring and beautiful cycle of things to depend upon. But even without my reliance and hope they will be back anyway, doing their constant thing.

The music we cannot agree on, he and I, it's because of how we see the world. He is marinated in this good cycle of wax and wane, and I am new to the trust of fluxing things that go away and come back. He's always saying things like "give it four seasons..." or "it's the circadian rhythms..." and I've thought for all this time we've known each other and he's been saying these things that it was the country music in him or something, what is he talking about - changing moods and ideas with the seasons? Aren't we always the same?

Now I grasp this as I adapt - I see how we go mad in the dark and then how we go glad in the sun, and we are still the same person. I understand. But for me it's about all the little bits in between - the deep introspect in the dark and the sudden explosion of glee in the too-much sun - this is how I connect the dots that make up the big picture. We are both doing the same - he is overall, the overarching story from beginning to end, and I am plot points, the nitty gritty poetry of days, of nights that add up to meaning, and either way they both eventually add up to a beginning, a middle and an end.

Music and Mountains, Rain or Shine

The weather has been relentless this summer - exactly opposite of summer weather, wet and gray when instead in a perfect world it ought to be dry and golden light. In the fleeting moments when the sun peeks out from time to precious time from the low dark clouds I run outside to squint my eyes and feel a bit of sun on my face. I do. I am seeing photos of others on beaches, basking, and it looks so foreign, like another planet where there is hot sticky summer worlds away.

A couple weeks ago we decided that this was just it - the rain - and we'd better deal with it and get outside anyway or else the snow would be here before we knew it and then it'd be a whole different story of ice. So we've been sucking it up and packing the rain gear and just going outside to be outside. Rain or shine.

Like last weekend: we'd read that it was supposed to be sunny south of here, on the Kenai Peninsula, and we flew south. Not so much - mud and water and very wet brush like horsetails and fireweed as we hiked through the meadows and trails on the way to lakes and mountain tops, soaking our pants that would not dry over three days of trying to dry them in the tent and near a campfire.

It was very nice to get out despite the cold humidity exacted and the exertion expended. The surrounding mountains and lakes and rivers and wildlife that we have near us are always out there, even in rain, so beautiful and available to be seen like some enduring and hard-hitting, but ultimately beautiful and human, documentary film that stays with the viewer for years whenever you can bring yourself to watch it. I already mentioned night one and night two, and then Sunday when we packed up camp we hiked up a mountain trail and it was HARD for me. I'm not in ideal shape, but I still feel like I will not, cannot give up, so I trudged through the pain and I whined a few times on the way up on these endless switchbacks, clutching my sides and breathing hard. One of the terrific things about my husband is he just lets me whine and then he says something like, "Alright, sweetie, are you ready to keep going now?" And as much as I want to say "no" I do because he loves this and because I love him, I endure it. We summited and I was indeed, breathtook - bare rocks above the treeline and we could see the wide, too-turquoise winding Kenai river emptying in the lake below via a crazy monkey puzzle delta, slim creeks snaking into the lake, snow spotted mountains all around and maybe two volcanoes, which I'm not sure we actually saw on this gray overcast day. We did watch bald eagles soaring on the wind, they were below us.

One of my favorite parts of going somewhere is the music in the car on the way there, singing looking out the window at everything passing for now that will repass again coming back, feet beating downbeats up on the dash, hands keeping time on thighs. There and back and in the week before we left I'd been constantly listening to this Florence + the Machine album - sort of Lorena McKennit with drums, or Stevie Nicks more adamant, and I'm guessing influenced by both Tennyson and PJ Harvey (so my cup of tea), and it became my personal soundtrack. It was uncanny how this music proved to be so apropos while hiking trails and ascending mountains. I'd be breathing hard, stitch in my side, other hikers coming up behind and there was NO WAY they were passing me and I'd hear in my mind these words from Rabbit Heart: "I must become a lion hearted girl.../ This is a gift/ It comes with a price!" And I'd think, yes yes, it is and it does - keep going, self, get up there and pay for this gift of health and vistas. Later, going up a mountain, calves wanting to burst with lactic acid and my soaking head pounding, I'd pause and hear these lyrics from Between Two Lungs: "The air has filled me head-to-toe/ And I can see the ground far below/ I have this breath/ And I hold it tight/ And I keep it in my chest / With ALL MY MIGHT/ I PRAY TO GOD THIS BREATH WILL LAST!" I know. Perfect.

One Last Look

Fire in the Rain

Plastic to keep the rain away, poles to hold the plastic up high, socks to keep the poles from poking through and ruining the whole dry effect.

I Call This "Nice View 2"

Night two, Upper Skilak Lake and noisy gull island off to the right.

Let it Rain

The weather outside is frightful...

Night two at the walk in site on Upper Skilak Lake- we weathered the rain by doing some MacGuyver sheltering - tarps over the table, and some plastic sheeting, rope, extra tent poles from the small tent and two cashmere socks.

...but the fire is so delightful.

Nice View

Little Tent, Big Lake

Friday night: on the shore of Skilak Lake in the very small old school tent.

Skilak Wildernesss

It's 5:30pm and I'm sitting in the tent on the shore of Upper Skilak Lake in the Kenai National Wilderness Reserve. It's pouring rain and framed outside the unzipped door of the tent are three big bundles of firewood, staying dry under a table until the small chance that it ceases to pour and we can light a campfire. It doesn't seem likely.

Jim is snoring next to me while I now write this, and before that - play solitaire, eat cheese and drink wine to the soundtrack of plippitity ploppiting on the stretched nylon and the unceasing squawks of gulls that are amassed on a tiny island about half of a mile off shore.

I'm also being bear aware because I'm in "Bear Country!" as the signs everywhere like to tell me. There's a bear locker at each site and I'm wondering if they A) even come out in the piss ass rain, B) are attracted to the smell of aged Gouda, and C) have enough to keep them busy eating elsewhere what with it being both the sockeye salmon run AND early berry season. I'm betting - yes, maybe and yes.

Yesterday we backpacked in to another spot on Skilak lake a few miles from here. It was gorgeous and serene and there was no one around last night. Our small backpacking tent is on extended loan to a friend, which we realized right before leaving. So we borrowed Ray's very old Eureka tent which, as Jim put it, looks like the tent in Bugs Bunny cartoons - green and triangular - or as I think of it, like how a child would draw a picture of a "tent" - green and triangular. This morning we were awakened to people walking past the tent, like a steady stream of them. Turns out we camped in a tres popular fishing area, indeed we saw copious amounts of fish jumping in the lake, both of us so mad we didn't bring poles. But god knows, had we caught something and gutted it there, I'd be off the charts nervous about bears scenting that because we all know how they love them some fishes.

The hike out this morning was une peau dificil, steady upwards the whole time and then steeper at the end. It was short, but with a heavy pack that originally belonged to my tall skinny brother in law and so didn't fit me so well, I was feeling the burn.

Our plan today was to hike up a mountain to stay the night, and after hiking out this morning I wasn't super excited about going 2 miles straight UP. Then it started to pour, and I got chilled and cranky, so Jim made me some miso soup and we started cruising for car camping sites until we found this place quite by accident, and were it sunny today it'd be paradisical. Right on the lapping shore of a giant blue-green lake in this very nice, walk-in tent-only campsite. So we still did a bit of hauling as it turned out - the 200 yards to the van, 200 yards back to the site, repeat...

But we'd prepared in the case this happened as this entire summer so far has been one constant downpour - we brought the "big ass" 6-person tent and inflatable mattresses just in case. Would that I'd thought to throw some pillows in the van too.

Despite the rain and chill and sitting in a tent when we could be hiking or swimming or at least sitting by a campfire, this is really nice. I'm dirty and damp and there's nothing to do but think and stare and play cards and write. Which we identified at last night's campfire as one of the very nicest things about getting into the wilderness - all those terrible multiple options for things to do at home, to get done, to accomplish, to entertain oneself - are all removed, and instead the basics of staying warm, dry and fed become wholly satisfying pursuits that remind us of how human we are, which is to say: very.

Sent from my iPhone

Northern Sky

It took a long time to choose the perfect wedding song, and then we did choose one, and it was, indeed, perfect. Northern Sky by, Nick Drake, sitting there all this time in my music library, unbeknownst to me until I thought - hmmm, I love Nick Drake, and "northern sky?" that's pretty apropos... Then we listened, googled the lyrics, and were blown away about how it pretty much said it all. This was the one.

So I sent some chords to Matt, who'd already agreed to play and sing whatever we'd chosen, because he's terrific like that, and he learned it, came up here for the wedding and called a couple days before to say that he'd lost his voice, maybe his sister could sing while he played guitar? Yes, sounds lovely, anything you devise, maestro. Turned out that they sang together, his voice was a-ok, a beautiful duet of them together, more than I'd hoped, both smiles and tuneful serenade.

Today as Shana, his sister, and I embarked on our first radio show endeavor together, just minutes before, Matt's email arrived with this recording of the song, the two of them singing together this song, an aural and enduring gift of music. When I got home Jim and I listened to it and were just two happy people hearing dear friends sing for us:

Northern Sky by, Nick Drake, sung by Matt and Shana

Starts and Sunsets

Tonight Jim and I went to dinner downtown to celebrate the first radio show I produced which Shana and I recorded today. It won't air for another 3 weeks on the big NPR affiliate station, but it was live on the college station and there I was on the controls sliding volumes and turning mics off and on and counting down to back on the air, switching to station ID and playing phone calls, and I was so nervous I'd screw something up. It was all pretty exciting and it all went perfectly. For this all to be happening after a year of working to get to this point is pretty fantastic, and I can't wait for August 31 when we have the big debut on KSKA 91.1 at 2pm. :)

After dinner we walked out of the restaurant around 10 pm and it was a beautiful summer night. It's been WEEKS of nonstop rain and low gray skies, that is to say - no sun for seemingly ever - instead days upon days of suffocating cloud cover and low light and this acute awareness that your skin is not sun warmed and you are not squinting your eyes for the bright light. Instead, this year it has set a rainfall record, and for me, it's been wedding and radio plans so I've gotten to do little outdoor enjoyment which seems moot anyway when the weather has been so ick.

Anyway tonight, seeing that sky - soft and blue and just a few wispy pink clouds way up high, not low or encroaching as per the last few weeks, it feels like someone took the top off Anchorage to let it breathe a little bit, let it dry out. We walked a few blocks to the coast, to Resolution Park, where there is a statue of Captain Cook in his brass pantaloons pointing at something in the distance, and in this instance it was the beautiful sunset:

Time, Space, Love Poem

A lot of wedding guests have asked for a copy of the poem that I wrote and that Sarah read at the wedding. Here it is:

Time and Space and Love

Obstinate time, but for the seconds I see you, moving, in which your hair grows in between my fingers.

Incalculable space, but for the moments you come close, press against me and are not somewhere else.

See how the rooms in which you move,

See how the seconds in which you are near

Are everything about space, are everything about time?

We know something about the glorious dichotomy of collision,

The creation destruction of meeting the necessary other:

How universes do shrink,

How cosmos do expand exponentially.

Oh, this age-old defiance of comprehending one without the other.

Oh, this frustrating stasis of energy without explosion.

And so desiring resolve, we experiment with

Approximations like when and here and close and now,

In order to order, to make sense of sense.

And so resolving love, we express

Ideas like always and promise and forever and all. Yet,

All of them lacking the true capture of

Time ever aging,

Space ever expanding,

Love ever growing.

How slippery are these moving precious constants.

Failed by words, we look and move closer,

Taking time in this silent space,

Now suspecting the meaning of everything:

How time cannot be defined by anything except for space.

How space cannot be defined by anything except for time.

How love cannot be defined by anything except for you.

The Wedding: An Epic

Before we went on that roadtrip and after all the posts that led up to the wedding, but then suddenly dropped off, there was a major event tucked inside of that time that is now burgeoning with memories and begging to be told. It took some time off and a bit of reflection to let it all congeal into the meaning of what it all was - so much more than the hectic, amazing blur of activity and favorite people over the course of a week, and into the day that couldn't have been any more perfect - our wedding day.

It all started on Sunday, the week before the wedding - Jim and I are packing up our stuff out at my parents' house after working all weekend with them to ready for the wedding. We drove home, stayed up very late and picked up Jamie, Matt and Grandma Mary at the airport early Monday morning, meeting my folks there who took Grandma home with them. Jamie and Matt came home with us and in the hours before they arrived, I was pacing and needing my sister here NOW and wanting everything to be perfect, and then there she was looking so beautiful, so glowingly pregnant, so happy and we came home and chatted and realized it was soooo very early the next day and finally retired.

Monday saw Jamie and I running wedding errands that included visiting Forever 21 for hair flowers and where I, for reals, found my wedding dress. It was the 6th one I had bought, the first five white and long and very (did I mention?) white. So I found this long multicolored strapless number for $30 with the plan that it'd be my fun reception dress, changed into after the serious white dress from the bridal shoppe. But then we got home and I put it on and I was all, "Yo sis, what if I wore this for my for reals dress?" She goes, "Totally." And then I sent a frantic text to mom and grandma - "Don't cut up my other dress! I found yet another one!" Luckily, they had not yet removed the padding from the breastual area and so I could return it, and the $30 dress from the cheap-o store it became. Seems like these things always happen last minute and when the pressure is off. It's so much more me anyway.

Tuesday Radiah arrived and Jamie and I picked her up from the airport while Matt and Jim did a mountain biking excursion. Jamie, Matt, Radiah and I went to Costco with two cars and three carts and bought all the food for the wedding while Jim picked up his parents and got them settled into their condo. I can't even express how grateful I was to have shopping buddies for this trip, it was insane - not only was it MOUNDS of food, it was also doing math - "Wait...why do we need 15 pounds of butter again?" (everyone gets out iPhone calculators) and "So there's 5 ears of corn in each package, and we need 100 HALF-ears... Jamie! How many packages???" It was like word problem shopping. So, hours later, we loaded up Matt's rental HHR and bless his father-to-be heart, he took it all back to the house and put it away while Jamie, Radiah and I went shopping for lingerie - Jamie: "Do you think the sirens are going to go off when we three walk in to buy bras?" : ) About Face Boutique is really a wonderful store and I can't recommend it enough - Leeann, the owner, is fantastically able to know your size from sizing up and very adept at picking out the perfect brassiere. Radiah, of course, kept us all in stitches the entire time.

That night (still Tuesday) - everyone came over to our place for Moose's Tooth pizza and it was so fun to see Jim's family - parents, brothers - and to have our people start to meet one another in advance of the wedding. After Jamie and Matt went to bed, Jim, Radiah and I stayed up by the new fire pit out back that we'd built and chatted and drank too much wine. I'd missed Radiah so much, it was so so so much fun to have her here - not only does she have an incredibly spot-on sense of humor, she also makes me feel normal and tells me what's appropriate and what isn't, sort of my own personal litmus test. I trust her implicitly.

Wednesday arrived and saw Jim picking up Kent at the airport in the morning while I stay home and showered and then he's here with his matching luggage and his sweet grin and his eyes full of wonderment about being in Alaska again, eating some leftover pizza and quaffing some vino. I love that dear, sweet, thoughtful man! Dearests Jamie and Matt took all the tons of Costco food out to Wasilla with them that day, on their way to make the wedding cake (which was absolutely uniquely gorgeous and so delicious). Kent and Jim went biking, and Radiah and Nora and I went to get our nails did - sweet Nora surprised us by generously treating us to mani-pedi's (I chose purple to match my dress), and then we did a Fred Meyer's run for all the rest of the food. That evening it was Jim, me, Kent and Radiah all sitting around the firepit until late in the night, laughing our asses off and doing some much required catching up. Oh oh oh, how I love me my friends!

Thursday was facial and computer day - all four of sitting around on laptops - Kent researching his new job offer, Radiah designing the photobooth prints, Jim helping with that, me printing out the menus, the fajita spice bag seat finder things, and in there somewhere Kent and I went to get facials which was quite relaxing. Later that afternoon it occurred to me that I still had not found wedding shoes, so R, K and I went off to the mall and totally struck out - shocking - there was nothing! Whilst at the mall I realized Sarah Kolden, Kari and Mark and Mateo got in in 15 minutes, so we drove straight to the airport, having Jim meet us there with the van. However, Kari and fam were delayed, so we picked up my beautiful Sarah Anne who was also glowingly pregnant, she looked so absolutely gorgeous just standing there with her baby bump, cheeks radiating, patiently waiting for her luggage with a smile- made my heart swell up to see her. We came home and Sarah, of course, immediately started cleaning the kitchen unbidden while we finished up computer things, and then picked up Kari, Mark and Mateo a bit later. OMG, how absolutely adorable is Mateo?! He is a little cherub - curly brown hair and giant blue eyes, chubby cheeks, just staring around, taking it all in, rarely crying, he is so precious. Kari was everything she always is to me - calm and beautiful and sweet - only this time she was wearing a beautiful baby. Mark is such a good father, totally and obviously in love with his boy, taking such good care of Kari, the ultimate strong family man. It was really wonderful to see them all together like this, doting on one another, so happy, adhering to their schedules (really, Mateo's schedule) and absolutely loving their baby boy. :)

That night Sarah and I shared a bed, while Jim slept downstairs in preparation to wake up early for flower picking. We woke up at the same time the next morning and laid in bed for awhile recalling our crazy dreams (we both have crazy colorful dreams), just lying there was like so very many times before for us when we were younger, maybe single or not, sleepy and waking up and snuggly under the covers up to our chins facing each other slurring morning talk to one another, exchanging dreams, yawning, not yet making sense probably but making sense to each other. Then brushing teeth, nodding silently that we're up for this day we're about to embark upon. God, I love my Sarah!

Friday was the day. It began with Jim and Kent picking wildflowers at 5am for the wedding, coming home to drop them off, and wrangling Mark to come out for round two. I packed the car with Radiah's help, and Sarah's although I was very reticent to let her carry anything because she was preggers (and she totally hated that because she is so capable). Sarah and I drove out the fully packed minivan, stopping to pick up rental champagne flutes, chafers, and plates and then to Costco on the way out to buy pink peonies and white roses and lilies for our bouquets where we saw Jim's parents shopping for the rehearsal dinner. It seemed like all of Anchorage was preparing for the wedding the next day! Sarah and I talked about everything except wedding on the drive out, and it was calming and lovely to have my oldest friend by my side. We arrived, unloaded the van and everything from that point until late that evening is a total blur - all I can say is that I've never heard my name called so many times in one day - Sarah, how do you want the flowers? Sarah, does this look okay? Sarah, try this. Sarah, where're the signs? Sarah, what should we do to help now?

Running up and down the stairs in the house a million times, up and down the beautiful stairs to and from the lake that my dad built, setting up, directing, preparing, and pausing from time to awesome time reveling in all the people who were there for us to help - rolling up their sleeves, doing anything that was required, seriously running themselves ragged to make our day so incredible. There was Matt Sheehy who just arrived! There was my Aunt Sue preparing food, there was Grandma Mary sewing straps on my dress, there was Mark, Matt Sheehy, Radiah carrying borrowed garden furniture over from the neighbors, there was Deborah cutting my hair after adorning a gorgeous arbor with willow branches under which we'd get hitched, there was mom so tired working her heart out, there was Nora and Kim putting flowers together, there was Lavada making flower chandeliers and guacamole, there was Jake filling salt and pepper shakers, there was dad finishing up the steps from the dock with neighbor Eric for our grand landing. It totally chokes me up as I write - to remember these wonderful friends and family cooking, decorating, setting up, cleaning - and to think it was all for the purpose of marrying Jim and me - such a loving and wholly unforgettable memory.

It started to pour rain that evening and underneath the tents we gathered with the wedding party, practicing the ceremony in rain jackets, running through the whole thing Jim and I had written months before in our kitchen only imagining then how it would all turn out with everyone we loved participating. Kent was our officiant, he read his stuff, Jim's dad read a poem, the 13 members of the wedding party read their "Love Always..." interpretations of ours from Corinthians, and we were already tearing up, especially Deborah so sweet covering her mouth to cry a little when we talked about the ring warming we'd planned - "everyone's going to hold your rings and say a blessing?!?!". We finished, did a big WOOT! and got down to eating the rehearsal dinner Rich and Nora had brought for us. After that, I left with my girls and Kent for a bit of a girly night at Deborah's house - we ate more, did some nails, drank some champagne and mostly sat around and told stories and laughed until we were bushed and went to sleep. But not before Radiah snuck into Jamie's and my room and gave me a very long and hilarious bedside talk about what to expect on my first wedding night! I fell asleep with ribs aching, Jamie snoring and my mind racing about everything still needing to be done the next day.

Saturday was the real day. I woke up, showered, and like every day for the past two weeks - checked the weather (rainy, shit) and said I'm going to the house to get ready - probably totally strict and frenzied and serious. Jamie had made scones and coffee for me, what a sweet sweet sister! And bless their hearts Radiah, Sarah and Jamie got ready super fast and came with me, stopping on the way to buy donuts for all the workers at the house. Again, blur of activity, name being called over and over, there's Jim (Hi baby!), back to work, pausing for seconds to love and record in my memory all the people working - Larissa making food with Aunt Sue, Jamie finishing up the cake, mom decorating, Mark hanging tissue paper flowers, Kari and Kurtis doing last minute food, Erica ironing Jim's clothes, Rebecca running to the market last minute, Rob putting out booze and tapping kegs, Matt Reed doing absolutely anything that needed to be done (he was such a rockstar!) like putting out all the hay bales for seating 30 minutes before the wedding started with me and Ray, Deborah doing all the women's hair so beautifully, Brandy and Jason peeling stickers off wine glasses and washing them, Sarah painting signs, Kent pounding signs into the ground, Kari and Radiah and Zoe and Gretchen helping me to set the tables, Brian making coffee in those giant mysterious rental urns, Shena setting up the tequila bar that was such a crowd pleaser. Again, so incredible to witness all of this activity - everything I'd imagined and planned and crafted in the months leading up was in effect - and it wasn't until those last hours before it began that I realized how much I needed all this help, how I could never have pulled this off without everyone just doing anything and everything that had to be done.

In the trailer where we got ready for the ceremony - imagine throngs of women, Kent doing my makeup while I sit on the corner of a bed, all of us changing into our clothes in a tight space, semi and totally naked, drinking champagne from martini glasses and paper cups, my beautiful bridesladies choosing jewelry from the things of mine they'd brought from the house, picking hair flowers, earrings, necklaces, all of them looking so totally beautiful in shawls, jewelry, flowers, swapping lip glosses. All the while my dad waits outside with our chariot which is a party barge - a dock with a motor on it - that will take us around the bend to the ceremony where Jim and his posse will be waiting for us, and all of our wedding guests.

We get on the barge while Mark takes our pictures, sail around the corner, see everyone and whoop and holler and then ride a little bit longer in quiet, all smiles, to the new dock dad has built upon which we disembark and the men escort all us up to the arbor. Everyone was there, sitting on the hay bales I planned! In their festive clothes! With their glasses of wine! Waiting for us! All of this is in the not-rain! It was all happening and even though I was so very exhausted and looking so very tired, all I could do was smile and feel too much to contain. I lasted through the ceremony pretty much intact until my vows which I'd written months before and forgotten to print out; I winged it and spoke about how Jim was my miracle and with the first sentence I was crying - I went on to say something (hopefully meaningful) about how miracles require acknowledgement and careful tending and I planned to do that for the rest of my life because he had my heart and I would take care of his. Jim's vows were beautiful - anywhere we are will always be home, and he promised to always take care and to make me laugh. Matt and Shana sang a beautiful song we'd chosen (Northern Sky, by Nick Drake), the wedding party read their bits about love, we planted a tree with our mothers, Sarah K read a poem I'd written, and then my dad came up to do the final blessing. He stood in the middle of Jim and I, took our hands, and said that he knew his daughter loved fiercely and that he could let go now knowing the kind of man that Jim was and there wasn't a dry eye in the house, seriously - everyone was crying, the wedding party, the guests, Jim and I, everyone. Then it ended on that note and poor Kent, also crying, pulled it together and said something about kissing and the party to follow and then it was on!

The afterward was so fun - so many wonderful people, such good food that we'd prepared and Wally cooked on the two big barbecues, the amazing cake that Jamie made from scratch, all the wine and beer and tequila, the photobooth with all the props that mom had bought, the pinata, the boats that people went out in (and capsized!), the dancing, the thoughtful toasts, the kids and dogs running around, the late night skinny dipping (!) in the lake, the singing around the campfire and all my best friends there hugging me, mugging for photos with me, my family loving on us, it was such an incredible day. And it never rained - it was as if the weather truly listened to my prayers and threats and stayed the hell away, letting us have a wet-free day to be outside in order to enjoy all of this. Magic.

And in the middle of all of this wonderment there was Jim, looking so handsome, finding me and me finding him from time to time, looking at each other, taking it all in together when we could grab a moment, and just amid the whirl of it all knowing that not only had we married the right person, we'd also thrown a kickass party (with mucho help), and we reveled in it like two people who'd found each other and who deserved a celebration exactly like this with everyone that we love and who love us.

Pictures of this lovely day can be viewed here. And photobooth pics are found here.