Letters from Home

Daniel says he’s going to go look for treasure.

It made the national news lately that a local eccentric has put much of his life savings (in the form of gold nuggets and gems) into a box and hidden it somewhere in the mountains. He’s written a 24-line poem with clues to the treasure’s whereabouts. His motivation, according to the interview, was to encourage people to get outdoors and enjoy the wilderness.

I forwarded the article to Daniel because I knew he was fond of treasure hunts. I did not know how fond. Daniel wrote back immediately and informed me that, while he was visiting me, he would be searching for treasure.

Of course, this was not the outcome I desired or anticipated. I have not seen Daniel since Christmas and I imagined we might spend some time doing something other than hunting for a 42-pound metal box. But Daniel is very excited. He has designed a number of treasure hunts himself, and participated in others. He tells me we will have a marvelous time.

I am not a fan of treasure hunts. In general, I don’t get excited about looking for anything that hasn’t been lost. It is a different mindset entirely, as far as I can tell, to find relaxation and enjoyment in searching for something that you may never find. Bird watchers do it. Rock hunters do it. People hunt for wild flowers and butterflies; my grandmother could immediately spot a four-leaf clover growing her yard. Daniel will lose himself for hours hunting for agates along the North Shore. He doesn’t want the agates. He is a sort of catch-and-release agate hunter. It is the hunting for agates that he enjoys. This is the part that is hard for me to understand.

My first reaction to the treasure-hunting plan was mild annoyance. I don’t want to have to work on vacation and that is what this sounded like— work. The thing that tends not to be discussed about teaching is that a lot of time is spent correcting papers and correcting papers is not a lot of fun. Reading half a dozen papers that are not particularly well-written is tiresome. Reading several dozen papers can be exhausting. I am ready for a vacation— one that does not involve looking for things that I didn’t lose.

I was thinking this as I finished up the most recent pile of papers. My students are writing proposals and some of them are not very persuasive. In some cases I am not at all sure what is being proposed. I was reading a paper like this when I suddenly encountered a really good idea, hidden in the middle of the third paragraph. The middle of the third paragraph is not where a good idea belongs, but there was no denying it was a good idea. I circled it and wrote, “You buried a very good idea!”

And then I sort of got it— the whole treasure hunting thing I mean.

I wasn’t reading that paper expecting to find a terrific idea, but it was wonderful to find it. Daniel isn’t going into the mountains because he wants treasure, but because he likes the mountains and the wilderness. The idea that he might find treasure just makes the whole thing a little more exciting. I wasn’t sure if Daniel was completely serious, but I wrote to tell him that I’d be happy to go treasure hunting with him.

He wrote back to say he’d ordered a metal detector and was having it shipped to my house.

Till next time,

—Carrie

All the stuff they say about Facebook is true.

Facebook wastes my time, invades my privacy, informs me of trivia I could have lived my entire life without, spreads false rumors, tries to sell me things I don’t need, and inundates me with cute cat videos. I love Facebook.

There are lots of people who don’t like Facebook.

There are people who wisely don’t spend enough time on a computer to bother with Facebook and don’t miss it. They may not even have e-mail. I totally respect these people. I envy their computer-free days and computer-free lifestyle— even if I have no intention of trying it.

There are people who don’t like Facebook because they used to love Facebook too much. They post so frequently there appears to be no time left for real life. Suddenly, they will announce that they are taking a Facebook sabbatical. They have to make an announcement because, if they went for two hours without a post, close friends would call in paramedics to see if they were still breathing.

Then there are people like my friend Andy who think Facebook is too invasive. Andy thinks that supermarkets are also too invasive and will only pay in cash to prevent them from tracking his purchases. I figure if someone wants to monitor what I am consuming and, based on my buying history, give me a coupon for soy milk, so much the better. Andy considers this a gross violation of his privacy. He gets the willies just knowing that there is a record of his vegetable consumption out there on a server somewhere. (He’d probably be annoyed to know I was writing about him right now. Oh well.)

But I love Facebook. I like seeing what people are up to. I like the photos, I like the clips of programs I would never see, the editorials that I would never otherwise read. I like the cute cat videos. And I like Facebook because it presents me with a lot of different opinions.

The fact is, I spend most of my time with people who see the world in very much the way I do. But my Facebook friends include cousins and high school friends, nieces and nephews. There are a fair number of people among my Facebook friends who do not see eye-to-eye with me, and Facebook gives me some practice in dealing with this phenomenon.

Facebook is not real life— but it is a lot like real life in a lot of important ways. Trying to prove that someone is wrong in the hope that I will change their mind is just about as effective on Facebook as it would be in real life— in other words, not at all.

When I read about a new conspiracy theory or support for some legislation that I find abhorrent, I feel this immediate compulsion to get my ducks in a line for a vigorous debate. But, after a few protracted arguments, I have realized the obvious: I am never going to change anyone’s mind. My job is not to be a teacher, but a friend— a Facebook friend and, more importantly, a real one.

It is only when I respect someone enough to be their friend that I will be able to really listen to them and understand their point of view. Maybe then we might find some places where our values intersect. I like to think that, on its best day, Facebook can lead to a little more civil discourse.

That, and the cat videos, make it worth my time.

Till next time,

—Carrie

Milo loves the park.

Milo and I go for a walk every night at sunset. Milo can tell when the time is nearing. He starts to whimper and whine. When I put on my shoes, he starts to dance. When he sees me go for my jacket, the dancing turns into leaps in the air, often accompanied by barking. He becomes so jubilant that it’s hard to get his leash on. But I do, and we head out the door in time to see the mountains turn an embarrassing shade of pink every night. We walk down the residential streets, past dogs we have gotten to know quite well. They bark at Milo from their backyards. Milo keeps walking. He can’t be bothered with these behind-the-fence dogs; he is headed to the park.

When we get to the park, instead of leading Milo, I follow for a while. His head to the ground, there is so much information to gather that he loses himself in sensory overload. It all looks the same to me. But apparently great changes occur each and every day that are, judging by his body language, very exciting and extremely important. He sniffs the ground in a frenzy as he follows new scents that wander off the right and then to the left and then, abruptly, seem to end.

Finally, satisfied that he is up-to-date, we head home. Sometimes I stop in my tracks to look at the clouds filled with the reflected light of the setting sun. Milo glances around, obviously bored. He has as little interest in sunsets as I do in the smells at the park, but we wait for each other, both a bit mystified as to what the other could possibly find so important.

I was thinking of Milo this week when Daniel and I had a misunderstanding.

It is surprisingly easy to have a misunderstanding when you are fourteen hundred miles apart and working long days. The funny thing about a misunderstanding is that they almost always begin with the conviction that I understand everything. I understand everything that is going on in Daniel’s heart and mind— and I don’t like it. It doesn’t become a misunderstanding until I gain enough understanding to realize that I don’t understand a darned thing.

And that’s what got me thinking of Milo.

Because as I was impatiently dismissing all the things that I didn’t understand about Daniel (knowing perfectly well that I understood everything and he was clearly off-base) I was taking Milo for a walk and patiently accepting that there are things Milo knows and understands that I will never know or appreciate.

Yes, I can do this for my dog, but not my boyfriend.

I guess I figure, given the gift of speech, everything that is in Daniel’s heart and mind (fourteen hundred miles away) should be immediately apparent, and any failure on my part to understand is clearly his fault. Verbal communication is great but it often fails us, especially when we’re tired, especially when we don’t have the benefit of seeing a face or feeling a touch.

Milo and I went out again tonight. The park was less interesting than usual, apparently there was not a lot of news. But I waited anyway. I watched his nose quiver and his nostrils flare and I thought of Daniel and the world of unseen things that I must take on faith are important and real to him.

Sometimes that’s all I need to do. Just stand still long enough to realize there is something I’m missing.

Till next time,

—Carrie

I’ve been taking yoga again.

I enjoy practicing yoga, despite that fact that I have very poor balance and terribly weak arms. I fall over a lot. The poses I do successfully are the ones that could be achieved with cooked spaghetti— I do well with anything that involves folding into a limp pile on the floor. I do not do as well when I am expected to stay upright. The students around me are all younger, stronger, and seem to have better balance than me. But I do like yoga.

The best thing about this yoga class is that I can take it for free. I might have a hard time justifying taking yoga three times a week on a teaching assistant salary, but I am able to take yoga as an extra class with a room full of undergraduates and so I do. In the morning I am a teacher then I take yoga and transform into a student. It works out very well.

A fellow graduate student is also a yoga instructor. She was the one who explained to me that yoga meant a “yoking” of mind and body. Practicing yoga is the practice of getting my mind and body to work in sync. I like that idea very much.

Lately our class has been working on something called “muscle energy.” The idea behind this, as I understand it, is to be a little less liked limp spaghetti and a little more like energized spaghetti. I’ve got a ways to go, but I like the concept. I especially liked the way our teacher explained it.

She said it was: “finding a balance between flexibility and strength and between stability and freedom.”

Well, duh.

If that’s muscle energy, I’ve been working on muscle energy for the better part of my life— I just never applied it to my muscles.

Much too often, I rely on strength and tenacity when, if I were a little more flexible, I could change plans and have a better outcome. Constantly, I am torn between my desire for the freedom to live out of a backpack, travel without an itinerary, live for the moment, and my need for the stability to put down roots, plant a garden, and make a five-year plan.

The funny thing is that my reaction to perceived shortcomings in my life is the same reaction that I experience in yoga class. I look to my right at the young woman with the pierced nose balancing on one foot as though it were the most natural thing in the world, and then to my left at the young man with the shaved head resting comfortably with the weight of his whole body supported by his wrists, and I feel dreadfully inadequate. It seems to me I should be better at this business of living inside my body by now.

But I know that practicing yoga isn’t about being perfect. It’s about finding that balance, striving to become better aligned with the person I am inside. I also know that yoga is about the practice itself. It’s about doing a thing day after day until it becomes a part of who I am. As John Dryden said, “We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.”

So I’m working on my habits. I wobble off balance. I drink too much coffee. I doubt my choices. I wonder if I have wandered off track.

But now I know that it’s okay. Now I just remind myself that I’m practicing my yoga.

Till next time,

—Carrie

I am not living an exciting life.

My friend Lanni lives in Paris. She has a very exciting life. Her career takes her to destinations around the globe. She is dating a series of men in rapid succession, ruefully noting the scorched path she leaves in her wake. (Dating Lanni is a bit like having a meteor land in your backyard; it’s very exciting with a rather messy aftermath.) She just adopted a new kitten, which I thought was a bit peculiar since she is currently uncertain on which continent she will land in the coming year. The kitten is named Hermes: the patron of travelers, bringer of dreams, and trickster. He sounds like a perfect companion.

My life is very dull in comparison. The most exciting thing that happened to me all week was that I crashed my scooter. Even this is an exaggeration to make my life sound more interesting than it actually is.

The truth is that there was a broken water main on my way to school and the temperature was hovering right at freezing. The pavement was sprayed with water and, when I hit the icy pavement with my moped, I spun out and landed in a heap. Traffic stopped. Some helpful young men ran over to see if the middle-aged woman with the shredded tights was able to get up off the ground. (She was.)

The moped’s mirror was catawompus and I had a scraped-up knee, but no more harm was done. Meanwhile, Lanni is flying around Paris on the back of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle with a nuclear physicist when she isn’t dashing around London in her “gold skinny jeans” and impossibly high heels.

I realize it is foolish to compare my life to any other— and especially to compare my life to Lanni’s. With her international jet-setting and rapid-fire romantic liaisons, she would make nearly any life appear a bit pedestrian. And yet, when I honestly compare Lanni’s life to my own right now, I don’t actually feel jealousy. The emotion that overcomes me is… relief.

Yes, I wish I was closer to Daniel. I wish I could see my family more often. I sometimes miss inviting friends over to my house. Alone in a 12 x 17 room with my cat and dog, my life often is a bit dull. I read, I write, the sun goes down, I go to bed. It is a little life.

But it is a life that I created. It did not happen by accident. There is nothing in my life right now that I did not invite in. And that, all by itself, is very satisfying. Because, while I suspect I will never roam the streets of London in skinny gold jeans (and I flat-out hate high heels), I also know that my life will be less austere in the future. It will not always be quite so simple or quite so dull. This time with minimal obligations and hours of quiet has given me a sort of clean slate and I recognize what a rare and unusual opportunity this is.

I have removed all the things that used to demand my time and attention. I have time that is not obligated to anyone, work that is directed towards the things I choose to do, quiet that is not filled with noise or distraction. It is a very dull life— and a precious, precious gift.

And, of course, when I get really and truly bored, I can always check in with Lanni to see what she is up to.

Till next time,

—Carrie

Daniel tells me it’s cold up north. The temperature dipped below zero; then it got really cold.

I don’t miss the cold.

Here in the Southwest it’s been chilly. I wore gloves. I left my moped at home and drove my truck to school for a few days. I put on a jacket. But it wasn’t really cold. A delicate dusting of snow fell one day and everyone was delighted. It wasn’t enough to shovel; it looked like campus had been decorated for a movie shoot.

My former sister-in-law and her husband came to visit. Since she was a sister-in-law by marriage— and I’m not married anymore— she has decided that she’s my sister, which is just fine with me. Her son is working on the North Slope in Alaska. She said he had heaters in his boots.

“In his boots?” I asked, thinking perhaps I had misheard.

“Yup, in his boots. He has a control panel on his belt and he can turn the heat from one to three. One is good for 20 below. Two is good to 40 below. Three will only stay on for five minutes at a time, otherwise you might start your socks on fire.”

I thought about that for a minute. That is cold.

Apparently there is a whole industry I didn’t know about. There are electric heaters in boots and jackets and gloves.

“You can get electric underwear!” My former brother-in-law exclaimed. (He’s prone to exaggeration, and I thought he might be making that up, but I checked it out and he’s right.)

I don’t miss the cold. I don’t even want to think about combustible socks or electric underwear. I don’t think that cold builds character, or courage, or community. I like warm temperatures. I went hiking in shirt sleeves with my newest sister. The sun was shining in the mountains. A little snow remained, but the air was warm and the sun was hot. It was nice, in January, to feel a pleasant breeze on my face.

But I remember earlier this month, while home for the holidays, skiing in the forest frosted with heavy snow, watching ice crystals blow off the trees, catch the late afternoon light, and make a golden haze that drifted to the blue-white ground. Here, at the end of January, I don’t quite believe it’s winter and I have to confess a little unease.

Perhaps it’s because I cannot appreciate even the most beautiful sight if it remains static. Only in change do I seem able to comprehend the absolute magic of the moment. Where I live now, the sunsets are amazing and the desert has a magic and mystery all its own. But this landscape does not utterly transform itself every few months as it does in the Midwest. Maybe I am spoiled.

I don’t miss the cold, but I might miss all that comes with the cold. The glorious autumns that herald winter’s coming, the riotous mess of spring, the mad impatient green of summer, and the almost holy stillness of a snow-covered day.

I was raised in the cold and, perhaps, I do miss it, just a little.

At five o’clock this evening Milo and I went for our sunset walk. I put on a sweater and grabbed my jacket. I tied the sweater around my waist one block down the road and ditched my jacket two blocks later. The sky turned pink as I walked in a t-shirt. I reminded myself it was January.

And I thought: I really don’t miss the cold.

Till next time,

—Carrie

I used to have a lot more things.

Last night, my fellow students were discussing what they were reading. Apparently they were all reading several books at once. This amazed me, as I have difficulty keeping the plot of a single book straight in my head and could never manage more than one.

“I have a book I’m reading in every room!” exclaimed the student sitting next to me.

Then I realized that I did as well.

I rent a single room while I am here in the Southwest attending graduate school. At first I thought of it as a temporary measure, a place to land while I got to know the city. I thought it would spare me the bother of either bringing a U-Haul back and forth or buying a duplicate of everything I have in the kitchen of my farmhouse.

But now that I have been here a semester, I am finding that a room is exactly what I need. It is enough.

I have a bed, a desk, a desk chair, a dresser, and a side table. I have two lamps. I have a bookshelf and since, my return from the Midwest, I have an easy chair and a footstool.

On days when I do not have to hurry off to teach, I commute to my office: approximately forty inches from my bed. When I am through writing for a while, I may retire to my lounge and sit in my new easy chair: roughly seventy inches away.

In my Midwest house, I have a lot more entertainment and a lot more distractions. Here the walls are bare. The floor is bare. There is a long window in my room, high on the wall, it faces east. I can see the tops of the mountains from my desk, but only if I stand up. I should stand every so often, and so I do, to see the mountains. Prior to winter break, I would go out to the kitchen for a cup of tea, but I have now purchased an electric kettle which sits on my dresser. Tea bags are in the second drawer.

Of course, I am not alone. My dog, Milo, spends nights in my room. He has his own bed, water bowl and food dish. My cat, Lucy, spends all her time in my room. She also has her own bed, but prefers to sleep on anything belonging to me. She has her own food and water dish as well, but prefers Milo’s water. Milo does not like sharing his water with a cat. If he suspects that Lucy has been drinking from his bowl, he will go all night without a drink, then race out to the kitchen in the morning to drink from the communal dog bowl. (Apparently, a cat contaminates water to the point where it is undrinkable.)

As I sit drinking my tea, I look around my little room and wonder what it was I did with all the other things I used to have. After school is over, I imagine I’ll enjoy the distractions and space. But for now, I think it is good to get a taste of less and feel it is enough.

At night, I turn off my two lamps. Milo goes to his bed, Lucy shares mine. After a few moments, I hear Lucy jump off the bed and pad over to Milo. I hear Milo growl.

“Milo,” I scold. I hear him grumble.

I hear Lucy lapping up his water and I smile. It is enough.

Till next time,

—Carrie

I am sitting in my living room, stoking a lovely fire as I write this. I am not supposed to be.

I am supposed to be driving, certainly across Texas by now, a dog and a cat in the cab of my truck and a newly-purchased used chair and footstool in the back.

Instead, my truck is at the mechanic’s having something urgent and dire repaired that was discovered by another mechanic, who was only supposed to be giving me a last-minute oil change and checking the air in my tires. Instead, I got Big Trouble, the kind of Big Trouble that means postponing my trip across the plains, missing orientation, and sitting with no vehicle in my farmhouse enjoying a nice fire.

As I nibble away on my snacks intended for the road, I am watching white pines that I planted many years ago sway in the breeze. It is sunny now, but storms are coming, they say. (“They” meaning my friend Judy, who tells me that I had better get across Texas while the getting is good).

But right now, there is nothing more I can do. I pack my bags. (And by “bags” I mean bags, having determined that garbage bags are far more practical than either boxes or luggage in the back of my truck. And who would want to steal them?) I remove a portion of the cobwebs that have accumulated in my absence. I stack more firewood for when I return. (It may still be chilly in May.) I walk Milo one more time along the path in the woods that he has walked since he was a small puppy.

The path is snowy now and snowshoers have made occasional improvisations in the path, taking it to the left of a small hill or tree where, in the summer, it would go to the right. Milo is not fooled. He does not bother to watch either the blazed tree markers or the snowshoe tracks, but follows the trail by memory, the way it is supposed to go, the correct direction around every boulder, every fallen tree. He remembers it all.

At home, my eyes fall on the familiar as well and just as instinctively: the portrait of my grandmother on the landing, (hello grandma), the heavy-lidded eyes of the women watching me in the artwork over my desk, the small, temperamental gas controls on my old stove as I heat water in the teapot, the faucet in the bathtub that always lets out one last splash of very hot water after the tap is closed if I am not careful. I remember it all.

And while I know the white pine outside is really not much taller since I left in August, it seems taller to me today, swaying in the wind, because I can remember planting it, a fluffy little bush in a basket. It seems as if that must have been only a month or two ago, but the tree stands 20 feet tall today.

While I wait for my truck to be repaired, this time before the trek across the plains is like a breath. It is like the time when my coat was already on and my friend called to say she would be late.

I left my coat on and made a cup of tea. I took out a camping chair that had been put away since last August and I sat on the porch. I drank my tea and looked at the trees and I wondered how they ever became so tall.

Till next time,

—Carrie

Milo and I have been checking out some really old trees.

While Daniel is at work, Milo and I have gone cross-country skiing. I break a track through the experimental forest outside the community college. The college specializes in agricultural and forestry subjects. There are cattle outside that eye Milo with interest when we come through the gate. Milo keeps one eye on the two-year-old steers, large black animals who follow us along the fence line, blowing steam from their frosty nostrils, moving together in menacing groups. Milo stays close at my side so that (in case the fence doesn’t hold) I can protect him from the herd of thousand-pound animals.

Once safely past the steers, Milo runs wildly beside me, dips deep into the forest, catches up, stops to remove the snow accumulated between his toes, and tears off into the woods again. We follow a trail through a man-made forest. (I would say “human-made” but, judging by the straight rows, I suspect it was mostly men doing the planting.) Trees have been planted in little mini-forests going back to the turn of the last century to monitor the rate of growth. A neat wooden sign tells when the red pines were planted. I ski for a bit and then come to another group of trees planted later or earlier.

As I ski deeper into the woods, I come upon a group of trees that was planted in the year I was born. I was born in the summer, so I imagine these trees went into the ground within a month or two of when I landed on earth, in soil not very far away. We both got our start a half a century ago and the red pines are big trees now. I look up at their branches stretched against the winter sky and wonder if I have grown as much.

Standing in the snow, I know that the time is running short before I head back to the Southwest to continue my life as a student. I know the experience is helping me grow and stretching me in ways that would not be possible without the effort. But as I look up at this forest of my contemporaries I wonder, for a moment, if it matters.

I am happy here— with Daniel, closer to my family— in the soil I was planted. There is a temptation on this cold winter day to stop reaching and allow one day to blend into the next and a few more years to pass.

As I have grown more comfortable in my skin, I realize how little relation there is between what I do and how I feel. After a couple decades of battling to do things better, I finally conceded that contentment was not found in anything I accomplished, but discovered in the moments of peace, quietly living inside me. I know all this and I also know I’ll go back.

Because, as I look at my contemporaries in the forest, I see that I still have a lot of growing to do. I am growing more quickly now that I have outgrown the competing undergrowth and distractions, I am growing with keen pleasure now that I have found a place of unimpeded light.

Standing motionless for several moments longer, I look up at the frosted branches waving in the sunshine. Milo doubles back and looks at me quizzically and we start off again, skiing deeper into the woods. The forest grows darker and the trees grow taller and I am filled with joy.

Till next time,

—Carrie

I’ve been chatting with my girlfriends about the new year.

Two dear friends I met while living in Africa are now living on two different continents, while I live on a third, yet the wonders of modern communication keep us in regular contact. They are both scheming about what this new 2013 will bring. Nora is evasive, promising only “big changes and surprises.” Lanni is more forthcoming, promising career and financial improvements. Of the three, my prognostications are the least interesting. I expect more of the same, which is fine with me. Right now, my biggest ambition is to finish off the last of the 2012 cookies which, as far as I know, may well have an end-of-the-year expiration date and pose a danger to those with a less robust constitution.

I remember a time, not that many years ago, when I had a relatively long list of wishes for the new year as well as a fierce determination to make significant changes in my life. Part of becoming a little older and a bit more at peace with myself is looking at the new year a little differently. Instead of a series of challenges to overcome and changes to enact, I look at the new year with a renewed sense of wonder.

The past year was filled with so much— both pleasurable and painful— and very little of it was anticipated. A year ago, I didn’t know I was going to school, much less how that would feel or what it would look like. While my old persona of student slipped on like a well-worn glove, the new identity of teacher was more exciting than I ever imagined it could be. My ideas of the Southwest were vague and romantic; they are now detailed and specific. My struggles to find comfortable accommodations, the curious process of being accepted by fellow students half my age, the quirky, annoying, and delightful people that have crossed my path— all this was unanticipated and all has colored and enriched this full and fulfilling year.

Now, back in the Midwest dutifully polishing off dangerously-old Christmas cookies, I wonder if it is too late to have a resolution in this untasted new year. It seems as if I should have at least one.

Unlike my two girlfriends, I am not contemplating new jobs, new homes, or new relationships. I don’t have any really terrible habits that I am longing to quit or new ones I am eager to take up. When I think of the year past, I can’t imagine how any self-improvement plan would have altered or enhanced the experience of the year, or made it more meaningful.

So, instead of trying to change myself this year, I am going to resolve to keep my eyes open and simply pay more attention to what is already surrounding me every day. I want to see the changes and surprises as they happen— whether welcome and unwelcome. In 2013, I want to give myself permission to savor the new, the unexpected, the never-before-experienced. I want to grieve the disappointments without a barrage of “what if”s or “might have done”s clouding the experience of loss. I would like this year to be less about conforming to any idea of what it should be, and more about really seeing the new year for what is: the incredible privilege of getting one more year to cavort on the planet.

And now, feeling newly resolved, I think I will try to fully savor one more leftover Christmas cookie— before it’s too late.

Till next time,

—Carrie