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never get used to it

the river of my reflection

when i updated my Obsession Chronicles this week after returning from a mind-blowing week full of the Green River i ended up with a spiraling mess of self-reflection * i struggled with it for a while & finally left it messy (whatcha expect, clean reasoning? it's my obsess page!) * i'm not promising to be any neater on this page because i'm still struggling to steer my unquiet little boat *

moving back to Caspar this August got me reflecting on my life, self & how it all relates to home... &, i'll admit it, love, which i have all over my life but not in my bed at night where i want it & i'm not complaining -- waste of time -- but it sure would be nice * while i'm in the mood to admit my truths, i always have enjoyed wasting some time thinking on my meaning in life, my place in the land, that big big elusive love * maybe i do have enough hours in the days after all!

when i got to Caspar i didn't get to settle into my new house (which i adore) before i was off for a September full of the Southwest * visiting Santa Fe, a delightful home, didn't send me spinning like i am now & so maybe it's that i dreamed of a life wanting to be shared in Moab that stirred me up so much * maybe it was just the river * maybe it was spending 7 days without roads, without showers, without knowing what was around the corner * maybe it was all of it, riverboy dream included (not to mention the months of chaos -- not the traveling chaos, which i love, but the moving chaos, which i don't), all the parts adding up to a sum as big as i could face all at once * sometimes you have to hit the wall to break through to the other side * i was lucky because right after i hit the wall (i couldn't have planned it better, & i kinda did plan it) i landed in a canoe on the Green River for a week * getting so intimate with another beautiful place that felt like home tumbled me into a new course, dropping a wandering mile or two, never to return ...or maybe, you never can tell with rivers *

believe me, i never want to move again * this cute white house on Caspar Road (right across from Caspar Street) is the 20th street address i've had (& i'm not counting the repeats, but i am counting this as my second Caspar home 'cause it's a new address & it's really mine this time) * moving doesn't get easier * i got through it this time telling myself it was the last time (unless i get swept away) * i think if i do it again i'll just sell/burn everything & head to Barcelona or just go South as far as i can get, for as long as i can take * though i do still dream of getting swept away to a lovely home to share, or of sharing this one *

see there's obviously something missing in my life & that's why i ramble so much * to paraphrase my idol: if i knew what it was about i wouldn't have to write it *

this is home

i've been looking for home, the place where i'll still be waking up ten, fifteen years later in the same bed * i'm looking for love too but that angle doesn't work, even if you don't push it (maybe especially so, don't ask me, all i know is i don't know) * i wanted to find love first, because my idea of home includes family, a dog, a child, a garden, the whole bit * now i don't want to say i've given up on love (maybe a little bit) but i decided to go for the everything else to see if i can find my destined home from the inside out *

i picked out the dog in January * judging by how in love with Pippin i still am & how much his character is just as i guessed it was in our short time together at the pound i'm thinking leaping in whole-heartedly & sticking together through the adjustments isn't a bad way to love * but don't ask me, pups are easier than boys *

my next leap was the return to Caspar * i thought about what else was really missing & important in my life & that was being close to the family that i've already got * i was too far away from everybody for the last 13 years but i loved the Pacific Northwest too much to do anything about it *

for ten years Oly was the best home i ever had, surrounded by all the mountains, rivers forests deserts i need to keep me content for life * i could have stayed but i'm glad i left * when it was time to go i thought of Caspar but i wanted my very own house & i couldn't bring myself to leave the PNW * Corvallis was the in-between spot & i learned how to fill all the long days on my own -- so well that they don't seem nearly long enough any more * the love in my life became my photography, writing, obsessing -- creativity of any kind just so long as it keeps flowing *

one day i had a bad day & i realized i really didn't have any reason to be where i was * the biggest thing i had that wouldn't travel was my family so i decided to come home if i could figure out how to stay * my family worked that out & here i am *

this has always been & will always be home (my birth home, the come from place) but i have not lived in Caspar for longer than 8 months at a time until now * it's only been since August but i've nowhere else to go & being here feels like taking advantage of the riches i was born to, mainly my family *

i'm not the kind that needs an ocean view & that's not why i moved here, but i sure can't argue with it * it's gorgeous * i can walk to 2 beaches, one almost secret, down Caspar Road & another couple beaches if i head North * every day i take the same walk out on the headlands & every day i love it * it never gets old * it's never the same twice * i'll never get used to it *

there's a market in Fort Bragg (a no-nonsense logger town a bit North with everything you need) on Wednesday afternoons & another on Fridays in Mendocino (a quaint & lovely tourist trap a bit South with everything you'll never need) * my folks are next door (on the other side of the house in which i was born), in "the new house" which i helped frame in 2000 & the old house is scheduled for all kinds of work that i'm thrilled to be able to take part in (see the Caspar House slide show for a few pictures) * nothing like working with your hands (& i don't count tap-tap-tapping, nor scribbling neither, no matter how satisfying) *

this is me

maybe it was the dream journey of the Moab trip that got me going so hard * maybe it was the perfect moment, at the camp below Turks Head, when i was up last, bare feet on soft fine sand & warm orange rock, bare arms tingly in the breeze & with the perfection of the moment, sneaking a write by moonlight, knowing i would go to sleep -- with the full moon shining through the mesh half of my tent -- to strange dreams *

i pay a lot of attention to dreams * i think they're fun to have, tell, think over & eventually sometimes i even learn something * i tell my mom all my dreams & when i got back from Moab it took me 3 phone calls to get them all out * this time they seemed especially related to the real-time journey i was on * sometimes it's all internal & sometimes the outside world creeps in * my mom believes that all characters in your dream are an aspect of yourself * looking at them that way can make a lot of things make sense, but it just can't be that simple all the time...

take my inner male type * i hadn't been dreaming at all in Caspar, or not remembering them * usually i figure that means there's plenny going on in there & it will come up when i'm ready for it * this time it felt more like a block, or a loss * it had me worried about the fact that my head faces West at night & maybe the ocean sucks up the dreams * the first two deliciously starry moonlit nights on the Green River i had ex nightmares * he's the one i call (more simply than he deserves of course) the bad inner male * he's the one i don't want to be & don't want to be with, the one that makes a dream a nightmare * the first night it was the same dream twice * yech * after the second night i realized they were brand new nightmares & hardly even nightmares at all except for the fact that i'm damn tired of dreaming about that boy * he didn't make me cry, he didn't make me angry, he wanted advice * in the second night's dream, with beautiful paintings he'd never really paint, he wasn't even like him at all, he was more like the good ex, the one's a friend * i wrote in my journal when i got, er, took -- there's always something to do -- a rare chance, "gimme back my Viggo!" * i mean, why do i still have these ex nightmares? obviously i'm not getting it, can't ya send me somebody new?

that was the night i wrote by moonlight, went to sleep with a smile & woke up with a smile * "i held hands with Karl Urban!" i told my sister the next morning * now's there's an inner male i can get into * not Viggo but, okay, sometimes i do fall for a pretty face (not to mention that Aussie accent) * & it was better than holding hands: he played with my hand in secret behind the back of our friend * love it, still gives me a giggle thinking of it * pure candy but sometimes i need a tastier lesson to keep going with the crunchier ones *

those dreams, those inner males, were all internal, all me * so was the boy i let pick me up in the diner the next night, the night it stormed * at first i brushed him off & then he was my true love all sudden & i took him to church to meet my family only the church was more like the diner & my 5 brothers (i have one) dosed him so i had to take him outside so he'd have fun with it instead of freaking out * yep, all me *

not the night before we left Moab * after the shower we'd all been dying for (even me, who could have gone at least another week on the river), a good dinner & a few beers (Polygamy Porter, why have just one?) i could not sleep * i dozed a little & "woke" to a fever dream in which a young boy had climbed up to our second floor window (i was exactly when where & who i was in the dream as in reality -- i dunno about you but that's a rare one for me) & was looking in over the top of the blind * i knew it wasn't real but it was exactly as it would have been, with the moonlight flooding into the room & i wanted to wake up Dami so she could tell me the boy wasn't really there but i couldn't get her name out * i woke up to find that the room was pitch dark, blind closed, just as it had been when i fell asleep & i was much relieved * until i felt the weight of the man getting onto the bed next to me (on the right, behind me as i looked toward the dark boyless window) * now i knew i was awake & i knew the man was really there & yet it was impossible * i turned toward him as if i might be able to see him through the darkness & he grabbed my hand & held it tightly, as if desperate for me not to turn away, not to leave, not to ignore him, even if i couldn't see him, even if he wasn't really there *

i was absolutely terrified, heart stopped, but i didn't fear him, not him at all * i was afraid because again i couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't get Dami's attention to tell me it wasn't real * & even more horrified that i wasn't getting the message, that i was leaving too soon, that maybe i shouldn't leave at all * it gives me chills writing it down again & the next morning leaving Moab i got tears in my eyes it felt so wrong to leave *

that man was real, in that wonderful realismo mágico way * he was a spirit of the place or of my own future or maybe he was me, but from so far down & so desperate to get through to me that i had to believe he was real to get the message * but did i? i tell ya, if i were a Tolkien character i'd be heading back to that river to find out * & i will... if i didn't have to get back to work (damn work) i'd get in my truck today & head back *

we drove & drove (Dami did, 16 hours with a 2 hour dinner break in Reno, thank you very much) & all the beautiful things we'd seen on the way out weren't as beautiful after a week in Canyonlands & i wanted to turn around the whole way to go find that man *

with perfect poetic justice, i crashed out hard in the living room & got my Viggo back * now, my Viggo (not to be confused with the real man) is all me but he's the me i wanna be, the me i might become if i pay attention to him * he's the guardian angel, teacher, muse * he brings me guidance dreams, brings me outside myself, or further along * but this time i was not just his equal (he's a very gracious guide), but his hero &, you got it, his true love * i was helping him escape from Cambodia (or Vietnam or some other Asian country i know very little about) with a couple cd's full of music & art that told the story of the tyrant there * the cd's had to get out of the country in order for anybody to get help & Viggo cared more about that than his own life, which was of course in great danger * i took the cd's & made him go but first he kissed me (which he's never done before -- i have the really hot dreams about guys i'd never want like pretty boy Ashton Kutcher & Bill fricken Clinton... we'll just leave that at that, shall we?) * & not just any kiss, neither * he kissed me real nice, all proud & moved & full of love, make out styley, both hands on my face to stop me from pushing him out the door, really love ya baby kissing me (can i just say that i do not think that's an experience that ought to be given up, not ever, no matter how familiar you become with eachother?) * a make me weak kiss & i had to push him away to go get the cd's out of the country & then maybe hope we both survived to get out & get back to it *

so that's me... somewhere on the journey between my unwanted past & my uncertain future * i didn't really mean to write my dream journey as my introduction to myself but i s'pose it's as good as any * i'll have to save the more personal ad styley this is me for another page...

ps

yowza... sometimes i start out with one goal & i take a wild ride on that reflective river * to go back to my idol, i'll leave you with a little scribble-scrap: