Everyday Living

In my conversations with people since I've been home, I realize that it's hard for some of you to picture my surroundings. I will try to show you pictures as I get them developed and digitized.

This is the Island Flavor where I currently do not work but hope to work there in the future. I do spend a lot of time there chatting with Hannah, who is one of two women friends that I have made all on my own. For some reason, wherever I go, I seem to latch on to sassy women with great laughs and here is not exception.


The Flava is at the top of a T intersection. If you follow the stem of that T away from the Flava (it's called Prune Alley; how cool is that?) on the left will be Shearwater Kayaks, which is where Jeff works in the summer and occasionally, I will carry spring rolls from the organic deli over if Tom is there and have lunch with him because the conversation is always interesting.


If you turn around and look behind you after looking at Shearwater, you will see the only true grocery store on the island. The existence of a grocery store has been a popular one, especially for those that think I have left civilization altogether. I even included the parking lot in this picture to show the extent of civilization possible, but I've never actually seen it full. Notice the dominance of VW cars. The VW density is probably the highest in the country here.

Everyday occurances

Things of note that have happened since I returned to the island after the holidays:

-The island received 3 inches of snow, which ground everything to a halt, especially for people at the end of driveways (usually gravel roads) on an incline. Even church was cancelled. Unusually, the snow and ice stuck around for over a week. This hasn’t happened in about ten years.
-My pipes froze but did not burst because the kooky guy that built this place used dishwasher tubing instead of copper pipes.
-My class on memoir writing was cancelled due to lack of participation.
-I had my first choir rehearsal. I like the high standards of the director. Dr. Whitecotton and Alan would approve of her. We’re doing a Benjamin Britten piece using the poems of Christopher Smart. It’s goofy. Although I have been stuck in the front row with the other first sopranos, I’ve made my first outreach to the back row, where all of the fun people are. The high school girl next to me is all stuck up and defensive. A stranger group of men I’ve never seen than in this bass section. Imagine every crazy intellectual outdoor man (Whitman, Hemingway, etc.) and someone that looks like him sings bass in this choir.
-I lost all of my hours at the Island Flavor.
-I’ve applied to substitute at the schools but have so far been ignored.
-I’ve met Owen Lawrence, Rachel’s new baby with a full head of long, dark hair. I needed that.
-I went over to the state-of-the-art animal shelter to spend time with the two pugs that were there waiting for their owners to get back from drug rehab. Although it was fun, neither equaled Retha for personality or cuddliness.
-I refilled the 100-gallon propane tank and bought a cord of wood. This was before I knew that I had lost my hours at the Flav.
-I’ve begun working out regularly with a woman named Mindy. We meet at 7 in the morning so we can listen to regular CD’s instead of work-out cover band CD’s. We’ve been shuffling the Beastie Boys with a 70’s mix of hers so the other day, “Sabotage” was followed by “Me and Mrs. Jones.” It was surreal.
-I’ve begun listing things that I get at the Exchange (mostly books) on the internet for sale. I’ve already made over $20.

I think that’s it. Just a little update on day-to-day life. I hope you enjoyed it.

Bubbling to the top

I’ve been laying kind of low lately; as always during the past two years, some days are harder than others. I seem to have had a slew of “some days” all in a row. Some of this has to do with having lost all of my hours at the Island Flavor, because they have reduced the hours in general for the winter. Since it was my major source of income, I’m a little panicked. Because I have some savings, I’m not panicked a lot. This has given me a lot of time to myself in the last week or so. It’s been pretty intense. Especially since I no longer have free cable or any other sort of television since mine went out. Apparently, the guy who normally lives in my trailer was pirating his cable off of my landlady and when the storms hit, his splice knocked out everyone around and brought the fury of the cable company down on my landlady. Since hell hath no fury like a couch potato denied, I think he’s probably glad he’s safe in Thailand.

For the past two years, I have relinquished my title as The Girl Who Doesn’t Watch TV entirely. I dub the summer after Dennis left as The Summer I Spent On The Couch because very literally every day I would wake up in the morning, go work out, come back, shower, and lay on the couch to watch TV for the rest of the day. Because I had no cable, as often as not, I would end up watching infomercials. It was a sad, sad time for me. I think I developed a little crush on Ron Popeil. After that, I was just in the habit and when I got here and there was free cable, I was doomed. Since having to live in the quiet with my own thoughts and no work, I realize that I have been using TV and busy-ness to keep from thinking. It’s been a pretty intense week. I’ve knitted. I’ve read my epic fantasy series. I’ve listed items for sale on the internet. I’ve worked on my quilt made out of Dennis’s boxer shorts. I’ve avoided cleaning. All with music in the background instead of VH1’s Top 100 Celebrity Overindulgences chattering away in my head. And I think that little bits of passion have begun bubbling up out of the quiet. I’ve begun to want things for myself. I look forward to carving out community for myself in a city. I’ve realized that I still form lesson plans in my head and talk about favorite lectures from my past. I guess I’m not done with teaching even if I’m still not quite ready to go back. I think about dating and going to grad school. I think about living this life as a barrista/used bookstore attendant with no responsibilities in a city environment. I looked at the classifieds in the Chicago Reader. I no longer have that smushed, cottony, distanced feeling when I think about what’s next. It’s intense. I can also draw tears and a panicky feeling just by breathing in too deeply. I think that the resurgence of passion is what’s making some days harder than others. Still, it’s better than betrayals making some days harder than others.

Well, back to my scissors.

Total Girl

Today, I was a total girl and did not change my own flat tire. In my old life, I considered myself fairly competent in that area. I carried fix-a-flat in my trunk, and had one of those guarantees with NTB so that they would fix any flat for free once I bought the tires from them. Well, that just won’t work here on the island. When I tried to use the fix-a-flat, it just wouldn’t come out of the can and even if it did work, the closest NTB is at least a ferry crossing away.

So, here’s how it happened. I had left Jeff’s house and was calmly driving along listening to the dulcet tones of Nick Drake because I had watched the movie Garden State yesterday and heard some on the soundtrack. Also, I’ve had a tough couple of days emotionally and Nick Drake just felt right. It’s raining (of course it’s raining) which is actually a good thing because that means that it has warmed up and the snow is being washed away. So, I’m cruising along, happy not to be driving in the slush and ice that I’ve been driving in lately because, although there are four snowplows on the island, only one of them works. (You know you’ve grown up in Chicagoland, when you have a superiority complex about snow removal.) So, I’m fairly mellow and successfully watching out for rocks that have slid down the mountainside onto the road. In fact, I’m so successful that my hubris causes me to think that this next thing in the road is probably just a big clump of slush. Sorry, Odysseus, you should have paid a little more attention to the gods with that one. I hear a big thud, then a hissing, then I realized that if I let go of the steering wheel, I veered distinctly to the right. So, I pulled over right near the Studio 4:20, which is also a horse farm. The horses looked at me strangely as I got out to confirm, yup, it’s definitely flat.

To give myself, credit, I at least entertained the notion of being a big girl and fixing it myself. Hey, I’ve got a Saturn, the most user-friendly car in the world! I flicked on the blinkers, opened the trunk, pushed the ratty wool blanket, tarp, drop cloth, seal-a-meal and argyle rain boots out to the edges of the compartment and lifted up the flooring. I was off to a good start in that, yes, there was a spare tire under there with detailed instructions on the cover. As I began to skim the directions, however, some other part of my brain began pulling up little bits of remembered conversations. I think I remember someone once saying that you have to be careful where to put the jack or you’ll bend vital parts of the car. That kid yelling, “Oh, fudge!” in slow motion as he lost all those lugnuts on A Christmas Story. The feel of skinned knuckles that I was sure I would acquire since I would have to trial and error most of the screwing and unscrewing in relation to the ground. I realized that I was kidding myself. I’d never even watched someone else change a tire. On a sunny day when I had a recent history of being emotionally stable, sure I could take the time and puzzle it out. In the rain, after several days of crying simply because I took too deep a breath, I didn’t stand a chance. So, I closed the trunk, got out my Kermit the Frog umbrella and began walking back to Jeff’s house, reveling in the good spirits that I, now, wasn’t going to lose.

Earlier, when I attempted to use my fix-a-flat, I also tried calling Jeff to see if he would come out. Since the island is mountainous, there are lots of places where cell phones don’t get signals because those places are in what is called the shadow of the mountain. Studio 4:20 is not, however, one of those dead zones. Yet, still, I was unable to call Jeff. The reason for this I that I had earlier been stupid and had left my phone on while I drove the length of the island and back several times. Every time I crossed through aforementioned mountain shadows, my phone labored to find a signal for the entire length of the shadow, which runs the battery down pretty quickly. Needless to say, it was quite unoperational by the time that I needed it.

So, I’m walking in the rain and several trucks pass going the opposite direction and wave, since it’s that kind of place. After about a quarter of a mile, I hear a car coming up behind me and stick out my thumb. Don’t freak out, Mom, people hitchhike on the island all the time. In fact, I usually pick them up if I can. They make for usually pretty interesting conversations. So, that karma (ha ha, car-ma) must have been paying off because a little old man named Thurmond picked me up in his shiny new red truck. The cab was very warm and we talked a little bit about how he came to the island in 1946 after the war. It also took us a little while to figure out just exactly where I needed to be dropped off.

So, I made some coffee and did some dishes while Jeff got out of bed with barely a grumble. I did get to ride in his VW bug, which I’ve never gotten to do before because my car is so much nicer, we always take it. It has little miniature windshield wipers (read that last phrase in a teeny-tiny voice) and he has a little squeegee to wipe the steam from the inside of the windshield that occurs when warm wet bodies pile into a cold car. It also has no heat, so I was glad that I grabbed a pair of mittens. The rest of the story is pretty anti-climactic. Jeff changed the tire with ease and good-humor while actually instructing me in how to do it the next time, with helpful hints and the like. He was impressed at the engineering of the little tiny spare and the jack. The tire is now at the Shell station. They’ll call when it’s fixed and I assume I will have to put it back on so I’m glad I watched Jeff take it off.

So, another adventure on the island. There is no moral to this one or even many jokes. Just an experience I wouldn’t have had if there was an NTB around or even a house closer to the road than 500 feet.

Meltdown in a snowstorm

I have loved going backstage in theatres ever since Greg Becker's uncle gave us a tour of the Auditorium Theater after a production of Phantom of the Opera when I was in high school. It was glorious and the dominant memory that I have of it is looking up to see a gigantic skirt hanging from one of the booms. They just lowered it onto Christine when necessary! Freaking cool. I guess that I must have had experiences going backstage before that since Dad did so much work in the theatre and I know that my freshman year we must have had a small tour of the new Steppenwolf Theatre because I remember going to see opening night of their first production there. But Greg Becker pointing out his uncle's white sneakers under the curtain at intermission because he was in position to catch the falling chandelier felt like "real" backstage stuff.

Since then, I have gotten to see a three-legged dog in the basement of Steppenwolf, toured the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, and played in the costume shop of Cedar Point theme park, Plus, I've been a studio teacher, so I have gotten to wander through the Schubert with the kids from The Full Monty, I got to see a dress rehearsal of Kander/Ebb/McNally's The Visit at the Goodman and I went on tour with Dragontales and learned quite a bit about the life and smells of real stagehands.

Today, I got to see the wig and make-up shop of the Lyric Opera and to talk to their wigmaster and wig shop manager for a good 45 minutes. They were so welcoming and personable. I was tagging along with my friend Camilla, who is a fabulous fashion and costume designer. (She made my wedding dress, for those of you out there that were impressed by it.) Camilla is in an exclusive graduate program at Penn State University to get her Master's in costume design after getting her undergraduate degree in Fashion here in Chicago. She has worked her ass off and I have so much respect for her talents. She reads the plays she designs for as literature. She does more than read them; she studies them. She does oodles of research on the history of design so her own productions have real depth and authenticity. She has a passion and she has done the work to gain the skills to fulfill that passion. If I doubted her passion, I would be proven wrong by the time we spent together before the opera at the Field Museum's Jackie Kennedy exhibit. She was the perfect person to go see that with since she marvels at the actual construction of the gowns and knows the work of the designers and can understand how the dresses and suits came to be designed. She loved it. She more than loved it; she appreciated it. That appreciation made my own experience better.

When we got into the wig shop, Camilla didn't start right in because she is sometimes shy, so the wigmaster started on his usual spiel for dummies with, "Almost all of our wigs are made from human hair." He got one or two more sentences out and Camilla asked, "So, do you do your own ventilation?" Rick did a visible double-take and then smiled. I had no idea what they were talking about after that. They were absorbed in talking about what they knew because it was interesting to them and because they wanted to see if there was anything they could learn from one another. Pure passion. Camilla had her portfolio and he wanted to see it, out of genuine interest. They had a passion and it was satisfying to watch them share it with each other.

And so, we get to my meltdown. I don't have a passion. That's why I moved to the island: to rest and allow a latent passion rise to the surface. It's getting better; I have hobbies now, at least. That helps. But no passion. No desire that shapes the choices that I make in life. It sucks. But, I didn't realize that that old angst was rising to the surface in its place until I was slogging through the snow walking home from the train station. Frustration at not being picked up in what I believed to be a timely fashion (even though I knew I was rediculous to expect my mom to be a chauffer) acted as a release and I had a slight meltdown with my mom (who's wonderful) when I got home.

I was reading another blog and the man wrote about finding his "Ebenezer" in the town he had recently moved to, referring to the old hymn, "Come Thou Font Of Every Blessing," which is basically a plea to God, asking him to show us the way. Actually, rather than a plea, it's more of a request asked in a tone of confidence that the answer will come. I know that I will find something that I want to learn skills in order to do. I will find my Ebenezer. It just sucks sometimes that I'm not home yet.

Here I raise my Ebenezer
Hither by thy help I'm come
And I hope by thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home

Chestnuts roasting

How was your holiday, Rebecca? Good question. Glad you asked. I spent a good part of the first week with my family, just hanging around the house or running errands with my mother. We made chocolate thumbprint cookies and I worked on making the magnets that were gifts to my extended family. (hint - when making magnets, always glue the decorative part to the side of the magnet that does NOT stick to metal; otherwise, you have to go back and fix like half of them) Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are the best parts of my family's celebration. My brothers arrive sometime in the afternoon of the 24th. Paul made it easy to light a fire in the fireplace and Mom has the tree lit. The night before, Jill, Clara and the twins were over to set up the train around the base (time-outs were involved; I'll not mention who had to take them). In that setting, we just hang out. I am so thankful that I was born into a family that in full of people that have the same perspective on live and what to do with time and into a house that has room for all of us to have our own space. We enjoy just being together. Often, that time involves making fun of my dad. I miss that casual time most when I'm on Orcas. We went to 5:00 church, which is designed for families with young children: only one or two verses of each carol and no sermon.

We are not good role models to the other children, despite the twenty to thirty years that we have of supposed maturity. It didn't help that we were in folding chairs in the Narthex and had no hymnals for the weird hymns that they put at the beginning of the service. We can do all the verses of the traditional ones in three part harmony (it would be four, but I'm the only girl). So, the lack of anything to do during the hymns makes us a little bored and we fill the time making each other laugh. Upon noticing the 5-year-old boy with light streaming pink through his ears, wearing a hand-knit-by-his-mother traditional German folk sweater, David whispered to me, "If he's really lucky, they'll take lots and lots of pictures." When the child with the strangely Cornish accent was reading, "In those days a decree went out from Ceasar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria," he sounded oddly indentical to in his struggle to pronouce the passage as Paul had on a fateful Chrstmas years ago that we've never allowed him to forget. David leaned over, patted him on the shoulder soothingly and comforted, "I'm sure he's a very bright boy." The implication was clear and very funny. Poor Paul, when he went to light his candle from the pastor's, the wick of his hit the wick of Jerry's in just the right way to extinguish the flame that the pastor had carried all the way from the Christ candle while reciting, "In the beginning was the word," and so forth. David leaned over again and asked, "What did Jerry say when you snuffed the light of Christ?" As if the accident itself hadn't already reduced us to silent choking tears in an extremely solemn moment of ceremony. Good thing Presbyterians don't put too much stock in symbolism. :-)

Dinner on Christmas Eve involved shrimp, lobster and crab legs. Woohoo! That kind of interactive food makes much of our own entertainment. We have always woken up on Christmas morning together, although there is always debate and complaining about when the first should and does rise. We snack on whatever is available (trust me, there's lots), have our own Advent ceremony celebrating Christ's birth with candles and songs, then settle into unwrapping presents. In past years, Dad has made us guess and gone about the order of who opens what with some formula known only to him. This year was a little less formula and a little more carnage. As we're all adults now, apparently guessing has been put out to pasture. After the paper was mostly picked up and David's Roomba was set to charge its battery, Mom makes amazing eggs, I make toast with the corners buttered too and Dad made a pot of the coffee that I brought from my store that was roasted on the 20th. We then laze about for the rest of our day, involving each other in our explorations of our presents. We did attempt a movie, but when we got to the theatre, THE LIFE AQUATIc had never even arrived, so we went home to make more of our own entertainment. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable two-day holiday.

Nerds vs. Islanders

I made an interesting connection while talking with people after Thanksgiving dinner. We were in an old goat shed that had been remodeled so that the floors were tiled with terra cotta and the ceilings still showed the original beams and roofing. The walls were plastered and it was brightly lit. I was talking about how elements of life out here would never have been dreamed of in the culture that I grew up in. So many people here have built their own houses with their own hands. So many people use outhouses or have no bathrooms at all. So many people use wood stoves to heat their homes. So many people have water catchment units to provide most of their running water. So many people garden and can and dehydrate and that is their main food source. Sp many people use the barter system whenever they can to get what they need. So many people spend so little of their lives working for money.

That is the essence of the difference of life out here compared to the life I knew in the suburbs. In the suburbs, people work and earn money that they spend on providing the essentials of life for themselves. Here, people try to spend as much time as possible providing those essentials of life for themselves, so they do not work as much. In both places, some people work to live and other people live to work. Essentials of life are food, clothing, housing, warmth. When I lived in Westchester, I paid people to clean my house and mow my lawn and shovel my driveway. I picked up dinner on the way home from work. I shopped a lot. I worked sometimes 60 hours a week and that gave me a salary that made me comfortable enough to hand that money over. I’ve been aware of that mentality because I work about 38 hours a week here and that seems like a lot to most people. I work that much right now, because I do not feel comfortable having less than that amount of money in reserve in my bank account and I have rent to pay. I do not have the time to cut my own wood to heat my house, so I will be hiring someone to do that for me this winter. That is also seen as odd to a lot of people here. I see it as a slow transition. I am attracted to the do-it-yourself lifestyle choice of the islanders because I think it may be more satisfying to me. There is less distance between me and the essentials of life. Mrs. Jakalski taught me that when Voltaire ends Candide by saying, “Come, let us cultivate our garden,” he means much the same thing.

This leads me to the connections I made between the known and the unknown. I do not know this island life. I am learning it. I do, however, know nerd sub-culture. I love them. Most of you know this about me. From Ben Merbitz and Eric Dahl to my ex-husband, I have attracted nerds and have been attracted to the weird little lives that they lead. I was telling the group at Thanksgiving dinner about a guy that I was friends with who makes his living off of Ebay by buying role-playing game paraphernalia in bulk and parceling it out for profit. He was so successful that he was able to move out of his parents’ basement and get his own apartment, which seemed to lead directly to getting a girlfriend. It’s the Nerd American Dream. Bill Gates would be proud. The added bonus to this story is that all of this success was possible from money earned – not by selling his soul and giving up all of his free time – but by immersing himself in something that he loves: games like Dungeons and Dragons. And, he really only has to work 15 or 20 hours a week. I think Alan said, “Wow, that sounds just like my American Dream.” There is the connection between the known and unknown.

Alan lives in a house that he helped his friends build while they are in Florida buying and repairing a boat that they will sail back here. The house has an outdoor shower and no bathroom. An outhouse is available for bowel movements and that waste is turned into fertilizer. Since urine added to the mix makes that process difficult, one must use the great outdoors for urinating. The water for the kitchen is supplied from catchment tanks and the heat is from a wood-burning stove. I’m not sure where the electricity comes from, but he’s looking into installing solar power. He also has a trailer with no power or water that he is going to haul up the hill to the top border of the property so that sometimes he can hike up there for the night so that he can sleep within sight of a beautiful view. He’s looking to buy or trade for this trailer that Jeff has so that he can build another little portable house, like a gypsy’s trailer. In the summer, Alan is a sea kayak guide, which he loves, and then in the winter, he works no more than 12 to 15 hours a week building his own business of taking care of people’s property when they are off-island. This lifestyle in uncannily like that of my former friend’s. The only difference is that nerds can’t really leave the power grid. Other than that, there are striking similarities:

- Both sub-cultures are outside of the mainstream. You could not plop the members directly into the suburbs without causing a situation somewhat like Edward Scissorhands.
- Both islanders and nerds will eschew both hygeine and fashion in pursuit of their respective goals.
- Both groups are dominated by men. A saying here is that when women first arrive, they look around and say, "The odds are pretty good here." After awhile, this reverses itself to,"The goods are pretty odd here."
- The men in both groups are often not interested in the few women that are involved since the women tend to be a little more masculine and can eschew both hygeine and fashion as well. This is a little less prevelant on the island.
- Both nerds and islanders tend to have trouble with authority figures. General examples include the hacker phenomenon for nerds and the blatant marijuana culture on the island.
- Members of both groups are usually pretty fanatical. Moderation is not a word generally associated with someone who eats only organic foods, composts everything and uses his own shit in his garden. LARP is a well-known acronym for live action role playing: enough said.
- Time alone is key in both worlds. Writing code takes hours and hours of trial and error to learn. Building all of the essentials of living in the wild is not a quick or easy process. Simply building the fences for the garden or digging the outhouse is lengthy.
- Both sub-cultures have gathering places for the anti-social to occasionally interact with others. Renaissance Faires, conventions, Barterfest, and Phish concerts are popular.
- As aforementioned, both islanders and nerds have an intense desire not to work but are usually fairly industrious.
- Sub-cultures generally have a jargon or shared inside knowledge. While any nerd can laugh at a story that involves a clumsy elf, he won't recognize the humor in a story about a raki master losing his focus.
- Generally, both nerds and islanders are called to their lifestyle from a very early age.

So, what have we learned from all this? Well, I am comforted that some of my old experiences are valid in this new adventure. I also reinforced to myself that I have a lot to learn yet about island life because it was easier to come up with examples for nerds than for islanders, even though I know that the general comparison was true. IT further refines the mission for my time on Orcas.

Stunning poetry

Many of you know that a man named Vance Gilbert is one of my favorite performers ever. Apparently, while I've been doing my Walden-thing, he has come out with both a DVD and a new CD. Daniel was a great brother and got me both for Christmas, plus he downloaded a CD of one of Vance's concerts at Schuba's that both of us apparently missed. At two previous concerts that he and I attended, I was reduced to tears by the utter poetry of the song "Unfamiliar Moon." For awhile, he did not record it, because he was trying to get a pop singer to buy it. Therefore, when he sang it at concerts, I could not sing along in my head and got to be struck by the words as fresh and new. While the version on the new album is lovely, it is missing the stark simplicity of the live version, which is just voice and guitar and performance, which always brings out nuances of emotion, especially at a Vance concert. As he says on the live disc, "A Vance Gilbert concert is like the elusive butterfly of love. Good luck." I thought I'd share the words with you.

Unfamiliar Moon
from Unfamilliar Moon
Unfamiliar moon
Stars are out of place
Everything is new
Everything is changed
Like a baby child
Just has to cry
When he sees it for the first time
And he don't understand
Now that there's no you
Everything is new
Like this unfamiliar moon

That can't be our song
Those aren't the words I know
The melody's all wrong
But the DJ says
"That's just how it goes"
Like a child has to learn
On his own
You get too close to a bird
And she'll be gone
Now that there's no you
Everything is new
Like this unfamiliar moon

This can't be my house
How can this be home?
I don't recognize it
Anymore
Each step to the front door
Is higher than I've known
It's like climbing up a mountain
'Cause now I climb alone
Now that there's no you
Everything is new
Like this unfamiliar moon

What do you do for fun around here?

Being in retail positions, I have recently been fielding a lot of questions from people around my age that are visiting the island about what it is like to live on the island. I find this to be a lot of fun. I usually give them a brief run-down of my personal history with the island that goes something like this, "Before I say anything, let me first explain that I moved here about four months ago from the suburbs of Chicago." And they say, "Chicago! How did you get here from Chicago?!?" So, I do a little explaining about the anonymous suburbs and needing a change and falling in love with the island after visiting because of it's really dominant sense of community, plus, it's just incredibly gorgeous around here. Then, I answer questions about what's different here than other places because I have that neat newcomer perspective. Often, the conversation comes around to the opening question. The answer, as clichéd as it may seem, is that we make our own fun, especially in the winter. People create events. I thought that for my own sake and for yours, I might list the events that I've attended so far, starting with the most recent.

-Orcas Choral Society Concert featuring Vivaldi's Gloria
-Potluck soul food dinner at Charles's apartment. Charles runs the take-out Asian food place, so soul food made everyone stretch a little. I took cornbread.
-Artisan's Faire
-Happy Birthday Holly and yea-for-you Rhonda potluck dance party at The Grange
-Happy Birthday Bridget and porch-warming. I sang all of the words to Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" around that campfire, leaving the poseurs behind in my lyrical dust.
-Thanksgiving potluck
-Good-Bye Malcolm party at Alan's
-Rachel's baby shower
-Community Halloween Dance at the Oddfellows Hall
-Pre-Halloween party at Callalloo with reggae-funky band
-Various Sauna Nights at Alan's

Meteorology

It's interesting to look at several works of art from the same person and to find recurring themes or types of characters or colors or moves. Once this happens, a signature is created and that person's personality becomes a part of the art. Think of Bob Fosse, chairs and well-placed sequins or Hemingway's barely-there use of language. On Aaron Sorkin's two TV shows, The West Wing and Sports Night, one can see some obvious passions that sneak through like powerful women, nerdy but cute guys, and people walking while they talk. He has also written a character in each who is fascinated by the weather: Sam Seaborn to some extent and Jeremy Goodwin to an extremely dorky extent. I would be interested in speaking with one of them now so that they could explain this freaky weather that exists here on the island.

Let me explain: both today and yesterday I have been walking around town wearing just a wool sweater and possibly a pashmina. That's all I really need for casual walking from place to place. There was a little spitting rain at times and some wind (they all seem to think it's a lot) but not enough that I needed my rain jacket. When I realized this, I started looking around and realized that almost all of the flowers still had blooms. Geraniums, daisies, even roses. Most of the plants have fall evidence, such as the ripening hips of the roses, in addition to the budding and blooming flowers but I walked by a lilac bush today and it looked like a spring bush with all new buds covering it. It's phenomenal. Now, of course, some days it's colder and I need to put on a jacket and certainly I want lots of layers if I'm going to be out for any extended amount of time but it hasn't frozen once here. Jeff is still harvesting kale from his garden. It certainly does not feel like Christmas is next week. Of course, it doesn't get light until after 8:00 in the morning and it's dark at around 4:00 in the afternoon. But, my boogers aren't freezing and I don't have to put on a hat, coat, scarf and gloves to get something out of the car. It's kind of neat.

Don't ask me why all this is like this. It has something to do with being in the rain shadow of a mountain and being surrounded by water, which warms the air. That's the extent of the explanation that I can offer you. If you want more, you'll have to turn to Sam or Jeremy.

Is this what the founders intended for the Grange hall?

This past weekend was the Artisan's Faire at the Oddfellows Hall here on the island. Basically, all of the local artists set up little funky booths (more artistic talent in their displays than in one of my thumbs) full of their stuff and so that islanders can shop locally for Christmas instead of giving their money to the great maws of Wal-Mart. I got to walk around, engaging in a little retail therapy and also getting ideas for what to make for my Christmas presents. (In all fairness to myself, I do try to buy examples of the ideas that I steal.) And, let me tell you, if there is anyone out there who has ever felt envious of my crafty ability and somewhat dexterous fingers, I'm not worth it. I am a rank amateur next to the talents that exist on this island. If I wanted to be fancy, I could call myself a dilettante, but even that word doesn't communicate the wealth of artistic training that I lack. So, I ended up with some beautiful hooks made by a guy that I didn't even know was a blacksmith but who I see at the Exchange all the time; some ceramic ornaments because I'm always a sucker for ceramics; a beautiful little pin that was hand-drawn by Maria, the partner of the guy who started the Exchange; the cool-beaner bookmark that is further building the desire within me to decoupage; a leather wristband from the same lady (she used the scraps from her hand-made books); and three way-cool magnets that Janine (pronounced Yuh-neen) gave me the secret how to make. Now, you'll just have to guess what's for whom. Last Wednesday, there was a porch-warming birthday party at Bridget's house that she built out of a gazebo kit. While there, we were invited to another party on Sunday night. That's the party that I started this blog to tell you about. (It was a similar party to the Halloween Dance, but I never got that one typed. Maybe I'll go ahead and give it to you out of order later.) Basically, two of the women that had booths at the Artisan Faire rented out the old Grange meeting hall (which is slowly being converted to a neat theater/dance hall and which I had visited earlier in my stay for a six-year-old ballet recital of international dances) and hired three DJ's to throw a Artisan's Faire blowout potluck dance party. It was Holly's birthday and Rhonda had just secured a 5-year lease with right of first refusal to renew on a prime piece of farmland where she is going to start a permaculture farm. The invitation flyers were all different with neat images and funky phrases, but lacked a time or date. Those were then spread by word of mouth. :-) They wanted to celebrate so they decorated the hall with tea lights, beaded plastic silver garland (as part of the tea light centerpieces), blue tincture glass bottles with wildflowers and mismatched vintage-like cloth tablecloths. I took the apple dip that my Aunt Janice taught me with six pounds of sliced apples in lemon juice. The last time I took that for someone's birthday at Glenbard, people ate the apples but not the dip because the dip seemed too unhealthy. Here, they loved all of it, which amazed me because it's one of those one-cup-of-everything housewife dips. Here, I guess those kind of Betty Crocker things are a novelty. They asked for $5 at the door, on your honor, provided Wizard of Oz stamps for you to prove your honor and everyone came. Almost all of the people that I am starting to get to know through Jeff were there and some new people whose faces I know from the stores, too. No one got babysitters and all generations were represented. After dinner, there was enough space on the hard-wood dance floor and even the 18-month-old understood that you just have to move to the music. It wasn't even incongruous that people sang along to the original "Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge / we're trying not to lose our heads / uh-huh, uh-huh, ha" since I bet that most of them learned it, like I did, from the Norton Anthology of African-American Literature or as a part of a study of Afro-Global music. The whole evening reinforced to me that this island IS the community I've been looking for.

Grandma wins again

When I was eight, my Grandma Murphy tried to teach me to knit while we were on vacation at Sleepy Hollow in Michigan. We decided upon a sweater vest of alternating stripes of black and white. It was a perfect plan in that it was fairly simple but allowed for some creative input from me. Plus, since it was the Eighties, a sweater vest was not quite so dorky as it sounds now. Of course, my childhood lack of an ability to finish what I started unless it was a book (piano lessons, collecting erasers, cross-stitch of Grover, a complicated plan for keeping track of how many times I had seen movies such as Star Wars and Caddyshack) interfered. I still have the remnants of that project in a plastic shopping bag hanging from a doorknob in my bedroom. The black and white acrylic balls of yarn and a 12 inch by 18 inch square of stripes are all that remain. When it bacame obvious that I wouldn't complete the sweater, Grandma asked for the needles back.

New topic: For as long as I can remember, Grandma has stated that when Grandpa died, she was going back to the Lutheran Church. She always insisted that she only attended the Presbyterian church for his sake. Plus, she would remind us occasionally that the Lutheran cemetary would always welcome her when the time came. The fact that after anyone sings the first line, "A migh-ty for-or-tress i-is our god," any Murphy can sing, "A bul-wark ne-ver fa-ay-ail-ing" is testament to the tenacity of her belief. That song (words and music by Martin Luther) is her only request for her funeral. However, my grandfather died last New Year's and Grandma, to the best of my knowledge, has yet to darken the doors of the Danville Lutheran Church.

So, what's your point, Rebecca?

I have begun knitting a hat and have joined the Lutheran Church here on Orcas Island.

Coasting

Things here are at coasting level. I'm sleeping in much later than I want to because the light stays dawn-y most of the day when it's rainy, which it is quite a bit. I suppose I could set an alarm, but where would the fun be in that? I was yucky sick last week, which actually worked out for the good because it made me stop freaking out so much that I need to fill all my time with meaningful experiences. I HAD to just sit and do nothing much for the better part of a week. Now, Jeff is sick and I spend a lot of time doing nothing much to keep him company. Of course, low and behold, some interesting things have happened over the last week and a half. I was involved in two committee meetings AND I'm planning (not much work actually) Thanksgiving with another girl out here. We're gathering up the loose ends without family for potluck T-day. One guy is bringing a leg of lamb, I'm bringing cookies and everyone else will bring various weird-o vegetarian side dishes. I hope they use lots of cheese. We'll also bring our own dishes and silverware. A new experience in itself. Back to the committee meetings. One was for the Orcas Center for Performing Arts Youth in Theatre committee and one was for the Exchange. I'll be attending my first show sometime this weekend as the kids will be doing a production of The Last Flower. I have no idea what it's about but I wish my head wouldn't think, "Maybe I can get a script for Speech out of it." I'm thinking a little bit about auditioning for Romeo and Juliet but I'm not sure I'm ready to commit that much time to something. I've already volunteered to help coach people to really understand their lines and to deliver them slowly. Maybe that will be enough. So, to summarize, illness has caused some of the angst to dissipate, leaving actual life in its place. Who would have thunk it.

Social Butterfly

So, I get invited to a baby shower, which I was very excited about. I was a little uncertain about what to bring since value systems are so different here and there isn't even the option to have a registry anywhere on the island. Also, I had already brought a onesie and matching hat and booties for Rachel when I first arrived because I was getting rid of that baby clothes collection I had been accumulating in the house in Westchester. Plus, I was invited by word of mouth, through Jeff, so that made me nervous that I didn't have all the information. But, I didn't want to go empty-handed and I didn't know if a plate of cookies would be welcome or not. So, I made some cutie little wire-wrapped dolls with wool clothes and acorn caps that look like the family.

So, I'm all set. I'm going to spend time with just girls. Jeff is nice and all but he's not a girl and sometimes boys just won't cut it for social satisfaction. It's a totally different conversation when it's just girls. So, I figure this will be my chance to charm the women of the island and actually get to know them with an identity as something other than Jeff's girlfriend. Of course, though, there must be some dramatic irony involved because it's my life.

I lose my voice that morning.

I am relegated to waiting for them to show interest in me and then answering questions about complex social histories and belief systems succintly with the most simple words that can be lip-read. So goes my life.

I was lucky in that they did ask good questions and since they were women, they could infer a lot. I couldn't charm them with my witty observations during the present-opening ceremony, but the lesson of today's story is that my illness probably saved me from myself in that area because those social contributions would have probably been conterproductive to charming most women since I have a 55-year-old, somewhat brash sense of humor, which can rub people the wrong way because it just doesn't come off as age-appropriate when people don't know me. (I'm sure that comes as a shock to most of you.) It was a beautiful day in a beautiful setting, with great food. Girls! Yea!

Verisimilitude

I lay in bed, still unable to sleep and think that if it weren’t for phone calls and emails, I could easily believe that my life before moving out here never existed. I mean, was I really that girl with the long hair, pulled back on top with a barrette, wearing jumpers and colored socks with European shoes? Did that first year of my marriage, when everything was full of potential and we wrestled on the couch while he tried to pick my nose or touch my teeth and we had people over to play games in the basement, did I actually live that year? That girl and that life could so easily be stories told to me. But here I am, in a house alone, a woman with short hair, in an extra-large T-shirt and my underwear, trying to fall asleep with a profound sense of disconnection all around me. I have done this before. The walls here are blue. They have been white with orange curtains when the same sense of wrongness kept me from sleeping. For as much as I have sought to have a life without roommates, I am not really supposed to be by myself. There should be someone else in the other room, at least. Nothing was more natural than sharing a room – my life – with Susan, with Dennis, with my family. Madeline L’Engle writes in her published journal about continuing to be every age that one has ever been, all at the same time. Of course, Esperanza in her House on Mango Street says the same thing. But I can’t be. How could that innocence possibly be something that applied to me? I have short hair. I can barely even remember my fierce homesickness of two weeks ago, much less creating rules to games with Daniel, of winning a speech tournament or the thrill of captivating teenagers with, of all things, facts and ideas. Calling Daniel from my bedroom while Dennis waited downstairs to tell him that Dennis wasn’t sure he wanted to be married to me. Waiting on the front steps with a glass of orange juice for Jennifer to come over after Dennis didn’t stay - just one more night, because we’re friends - like I asked him to. Telling my parents when they came home from vacation. All of these things seem to have happened to someone else. That girl with the long hair and big beads. When did I have the courage to tell my coach that those 10-year-old girls were making fun of me and that he needed to stop them? It didn’t seem like courage then. It just needed to be done. When did I have to audacity to berate Malcolm for allowing a football game that was boys-only? It didn’t seem like audacity, either. All of those are just stories I tell: memories of emotions and situations captured in words. They are too removed from the actual experience to be real or true. I could go on like this, sleeping or not sleeping, here in this empty trailer, forever. Stasis. Fugue state. Whatever you want to call it. There is nothing I want. I am not afraid of the consequences of my actions nor do I look forward to them. There is immediacy to my identity? life? experience? consciousness? that is missing all awareness of the past and focuses simply on the moment. All sorts of philosophies and religions point to that as a good thing but I hate it. I speak in the past perfect tense. I have been a writer. I have been married. I have been a bead artist. I have been a singer. I have been a teacher. I want to be all of those girls that I have been. I don’t want to be this woman who doesn’t know what she wants, where she’s going, what she believes or even that belief makes a difference. I am a woman who doesn’t have any hobbies, for God’s sake, only skills. I have no passion – for anything. That is not the Rebecca that everyone knows. If I’m not Rebecca . . .


As I write that, I am sobbing. It is possible that I am being affected by the fact that the sunlight is completely gone by 5:00 here. Seasonal affectation disorder is a medical reality. I haven’t really slept in two days, going on a third. As I go back and edit all of that, I am sniffling. The written communication of emotional irrationality that I am refining bothers me somewhat because I know it is contradictory within itself and also contradicts what I actually know is true. The reality is that this is a necessary stage of transition. I will find a purpose and I have chosen a good course to do so. All of this identity-searching is just so much angst. I like my short hair. The excitement of engaging high school students is terribly vivid; I just haven’t thought about it much while being out here; it’s out of context. Emerson says that consistency is the “hobgoblin” of little minds. I always thought that was bunk and somewhat indicative of laziness, but it’s not. We wouldn’t be human without the conflicting duality of what one’s head knows compared to what one’s heart is certain of. Communicating all parts of that human condition and doing it accurately, using aesthetically pleasing technique is an art to work towards. Whitman existed for that purpose. But I am not entirely comfortable with it. I would prefer that no hypocrisy go out into the world from my confessions. However, it is honest. I feel that extreme sometimes. As much as I want to belittle my sense of lost identity once I’m done crying, I did actually feel that way for a moment. That side of this adventure story deserves to be told alongside the inspirational revelations that are brought about as obstacles are overcome and nature is engaged. Otherwise, the narrative lacks verisimilitude. It would be a story where everyone conveniently ends up with someone to love and no one had to stop to go to the bathroom inconveniently on the entire quest.