The unfamiliar pressed down, pressed down, pushed in, all sides,

and made life (for the time being) vibrant.

Where’s our color?

Perhaps it was ironically appropriate that I didn’t have my camera this weekend… just when I really needed to take a photo.

We started our run out the back of Quality Inn off State St. in Santa Barbara. Less than 12 hours of my 7th Ben Harper show (had to throw that in there).

The next 13 miles catapulted us through downtown, accross the shoreline, over an unknown but massive river, and finally, landed us in wealthy-wealthy-uppidy-up extension of Santa Barbara County. Charles and I had no idea where we had ended up, and it’s actually pretty hard to gawk and run at the same time. Houses so big they required their own street sweeper. How does one own a peice of the beach? I don’t know, but apparently it’s possible. And apparently still, owning the beach requires a gate with a combo. We kept running; gawking, heavy breathing, way out of our league. “Look at THAT!” was the best I could come up with. Charles didn’t say anything, at first, his eyes bulging out of his head / neck craining had absorbed all his energy. But then, oh-so appropriately in Chuck-like fashion, as we passed a valet lot,

“that car is expensive.”

Profound baby, profound.

In the hot afternoon, from the curbside, it looks like no one lives here. The neighbors are at work, air tight, in an office, or car, or warehouse. In the cool evening hours you can see blue glow from half-drawn windows; television residue soaks the walls. In the morning, as the sun reflects on the layer hovering bad air, my neighbors move to their cars… shuffling keys, reving engines. The day starts when everyone disapears.

I walk in the sun. Heat from the hard-surfaced landscape sucks me down. My city is desolate. It is silent here.

I think of other places.

They followed us everywhere.

Back then it upset me, unnerved me, outraged me. Even.  

Now I am wishing the eyes were gathered around me again. I miss their provision, and I feel sorely alone.

“Receiving is often harder than giving. Giving is very important: giving insight, giving hope, giving courage, giving advice, giving support, giving money, and most of all, giving ourselves. Without giving there is no brotherhood and sisterhood.

But receiving is just as important, because by receiving we reveal to the givers that they have gifts to offer. When we say, “Thank you, you gave me hope; thank you, you gave me a reason to live; thank you, you allowed me to realize my dream,” we make givers aware of their unique and precious gifts. Sometimes it is only in the eyes of the receivers that givers discover their gifts.”  -HN

Thank you to the late Henri Nouwen to the words that brought us through our Guate trekk.

I feel luckier than ever to be alive.

Climbing the great Huayna Picchu mountain was the “to do” before me at the time. She stood towering, breathing on me, her winds and clouds circling, a challenge. Her name means “young peak” in Quechua. When you place her next to the mighty Machu Picchu, you understand the interpretation. Machu is “old mountain.” The differences are like mother and teenage son– Huanya is straight up and down, defined by a sharp pointed top, covered by clouds but in all senses physically smaller than her counter part. Machu is thick, stiff, massive, a giant dirt clod is the cosmic order of the world, obvious in nature.

From the first step to the last, I felt that I was ascending a ladder to the heavens taking on Huayna. She was very literally straight and to the point. I like that. Each step was carved from stone. Solid. You pick away at a mountain like this– you must, rushing it will surely make your heart burst with exhaustion, 9000′ above sea level. Slippery steal cables, nailed to her sides provide only comfort for the masses of foreigners come to see what they can accomplish. She is indifferent. And when you reach the stop, huffing, puffing and anticipating some sort of ecstasy, you find that there is yet another qualifier; a hole, slightly wider than the opening of a 55 gallon drum, two inches or so from the floor of the trail. There are no real choices; move forward, into the hole or don’t reach the top. Exhausted, wet from climbing in the clouds, you get down on all fours and empty yourself into the tunnel. Once fully immersed, you can see blinding white clouds displaying the finish line. You drag yourself to the sight, out of the darkness. There is no space at the top and the citizens “police” take most of the standing room. Standing is like standing on telephone pole anyway, so it feels good to crouch and grip Huayna’s body. So it was that way with me.

Three days, and I embark on another southern journey to Guatemala. I know that this trip will be marked by biodiversity (14 different ecoregions!), fauna and flora, and beans and rice. The details, although I haven’t been able to avoid briefing on all, will be a surprise. And I love surprises. I hope this trip feeds my adventurous spirit and heals, and within the context of summer-time freedom, the sore muscle ache of the year’s work.

dropped to their death.

Peach tree. Not so peachy this year. The fruits of this summer giver were too sour… bitter beyond adding sugar to resurrect in a crusty cobbler.

OK. One attempt at summer bliss didn’t go through as planned. But what camper wouldn’t glow at the prospect of a weekend in the Santa Barbara mountains?

Come to find out, Los Padres National Park is really Spanish for “hell hole.”

A few Friday mornings ago, I began packing up all the gear. I remembered everything from water containers to propane for the stove. As I packed away, like a happy little chipmunk storing away nuts for the winter, I talked myself out of checking the gear, you know, just to make sure everything was working.

Hours later, just before sunset, we arrived at the park. Chuck set up the tent while I unpacked other things, ate some brownies, looked around, checked the toilets. I returned from the restrooms to report that the toilets looked like those you’d find in a motor home, propped on a concrete slab. Interesting. I realized then, standing in front of the tent, waiting for Charles to come out, that the campsite must have a bit of a fly problem. The buzzing in my ears was not normal. And, were they trying to get up my nose? Must be horse flies. Charles emerged, and I described the toilets as he laced up his boots, no socks. It was then I thought to bring up the flies… because there were about twenty crawling around his head, trying so desperately to find moisture patches, and maybe twice as much swarming his crotch area, which in his defense, he had gotten wet from spilling Nalgene water in the car on the way over. He had noticed the flies, he said, as he swatted the swarm from his crotch.
We both agreed that taking a walk would ward off the pests. We went to fill up the water cube. At the water head, awkwardly positioned in front of someone else’s tent, we discovered that there were exactly four holes on each side. It looked like someone took a knife to the thing. Happy chipmunk girl should have stopped to check that before she left on a long journey without water.

We walked back to the site, discussing some alternatives, I noticed then that the brownies were laying in the dirt– hole ripped through the middle. The Tasty Little Crackers, propped up, lid open. Within ten minutes of our absence, we had had visitors.

That night, after a hike cut to a short, 10 minute walk, due to a local surplus of Poison Oak, the flies traded places with the mosquitoes and every campsite filled to the brim with college students and liquor. KISS FM blared from someone’s car stereo and we cooked hot dogs over the fire, simultaneously picking flies from our eye sockets, swatting mosquitoes. We would have had a nice spaghetti dinner, maybe to make up for the blood sucking insects and noise, but the stove must have been in accord with fate, because it did not want to cooperate. We ate what brownies the squirrels left for us and went to bed, hoping, in vain (hate to ruin the ending for you), it would be better in the morning.

We spent the next day in the city, watching a movie, watching people, wandering consignment stores, laughing at the campsite from hell. It was great. That night, perhaps fueled by inspiring sounds of drunken neighbors and bad hip-hop, we had a lot of fun messing with the ISO on Charles’ camera…

I just couldn’t wait to get there— no school to go to, no school to teach… no school! I counted down the days, I made vacation plans, I set up a summer reading list, made a list of things to do.

And now, the free days are here. And I feel sad, in the underworked sort of way.
It is a challenge to enjoy the time off– to resist guilt and the temptation to keep my hands busy. When I bring up the guilt my friends, the respond as only the best of friends do, “Jen, you deserve this!” And to this, I feel the same way I feel when, after a long run, I devour some fattening meal or chocolate cake. Deserve. That word. Do I deserve to sit around all day watching Desperate Housewives, driving to the beach, reading Steinbeck, attending two Coldplay concerts in a row? Whatever the verdict, I will be in for a shock come mid August when I return from Guate to prep for the 2008-2009 school year.

Stick around for the show. Should be interesting

In a Cambria fog and dreamland. I feel misplaced here- but more than grateful for the feeling that I’ve left Earth.

When I twisted downstairs to make the coffee I found a little deer friend from the kitchen window. He was spying in on me- big ears on my inside movements. We stood still listened, watched each other, looked for the smallest queues.

We are going on a run through the ranch and along the coastline in a few hours and I can’t help but think it will be the perfect medicine for a residue of rush and worry left splashed and soaked into me from life back in the real world.