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This Vacation-Vision Quest-Expedition Thing

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This is not a vacation. It is an expedition.  Maybe a vision quest. Or an adventure. I have a tough time hearing the word “adventure” lately. It has just a bit of a condescending edge to it. Like the whole EPL thing. “Oh, you’re going to have such an adventure!”  I suppose. I wonder if President Jefferson said those words to Meriweather Lewis and William Clark. Sounds like I’m off to go tobogganing or something. Or have become a character in a Dr. Seuss book. Yet, despite my hypersensitivity, the word is accurate; its definition “an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity.” Sounds about right.
I contemplated this as I was sitting near Gate 38 at Los Angeles International, waiting to board V-Australia’s flight 008 on 10 Oct, seat 42A, with service to Brisbane and connecting to Sydney for an arrival at my final destination at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, 12 Oct. (You notice how I’m already using that funny way of writing the date? I’m so down with this whole Commonwealth Country thing.) I look around, and anywhere that there’s an electrical outlet, there’s a person between the age of 12 and 22 with a laptop or cell phone plugged in. And me.  I managed to exhaust my iphone battery by not knowing how to get logged out of Skype, and returning texts and calls to all of my friends who wants to speak with me “one last time” before I go. I love you all, but please, I have a phone number you can call. Free. Almost like I’m not gone at all.  I did that on purpose. So you don’t have to talk to me one last time. That feels a little bit creepy. I’m not going as a convict, for Pete’s sake.
A note to those who bring their own  water with them. TSA agents who are on their game will in fact have you pack up your laptop and quart-sized bag of toiletries and escort you back out to try it again. I had that opportunity in LA. The agent was nice, yet very serious about her instructions. As we exited, I asked her just how she stood the smell of feet every day. She sighed and said, “It’s worse when they spray air freshener.” Note to self: do not apply for a TSA job.
Oh, and a brief digression:  I found out that I can suspend my cell phone number for up to six months and pay very little-like, $10-during the suspended time. That eliminates the entire issue of accidentally bumping my phone off airplane mode and receiving a cascade of text messages and voice mails, and paying a six-digit telephone bill. For which I would bill each of you individually. Anyway, just a note to those who might want to try this whole expedition/adventure/vision quest thing.
I say expedition because I’m going to be gone for 107 days. And will go to several different places with the intent of discerning whether I consider these places inhabitable. Isn’t that what Lewis and Clark did? Maybe instead of analogies to “Eat, Pray, Love,” we could perhaps look at Ambrose’s “Undaunted Courage” as well. The title is a bit grandiose, but, that aside, I feel more like L&C than Elizabeth Gilbert.  Except I don’t have a crew of men pulling a boat upstream on the Missouri. And I don’t have a Newfoundland dog with me either. And I brought nothing to trade with the natives to keep them from killing me.  Aside from that …it’s exactly the same. 
The flight boarded promptly at 11:20 p.m. (or 23:20 as they track here in casinos).  I was back in steerage, 42A, window seat, making it awkward to climb over the nice couple from Brisbane sitting in 42B and 42C.  The woman had the center seat, and immediately put a neck pillow on, covered up with her blanket, and fell asleep. So much for conversation.  I immediately started watching movies. When was the last time any of you watched three movies at one sitting? (Okay, maybe Tod Goldberg has done it recently …) Anyway, I finally saw “The Hangover” and had to be careful to stifle guffaws to not wake the woman next to me. All I have to say is Bradley Cooper, call me. Soon.
I dozed for a while, noshed on cashew clusters, stayed hydrated, a bit too hydrated, and then didn’t want to wake anybody to go pee. Problematic. But I know now just how strong my bladder is, and it’s information that I’m sure will come in handy at some point. 
*
Staring out the window in the wee hours after some dozing. I assume these are the wee hours. I can’t tell being in this suspended state, floating along between hemispheres in an airplane where the glow of intermittent video screens dot the darkened cabin. A man snores behind me. The clouds float, charcoal over a black sea, and Orion shines over it all. I feel an affinity for Orion. He blazed away early mornings when I lived with my Lugg-dogg in Leawood, Kansas. He hung low in the southern sky, the feel of midnight hanging around him even at 5 a.m.  By the end of my run, he disappeared as the sky turned cobalt, then robin’s egg blue.  He stood over the desert, too, just outside my bedroom patio door, a colossus that the planes from Phoenix flew by to land at Palm Springs International.
Not everything is foreign here, not yet.

This Vacation Vision Quest Expedition Thing.

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This is not a vacation. It is an expedition.  Maybe a vision quest. Or an adventure. I have a tough time hearing the word “adventure” lately. It has just a bit of a condescending edge to it. Like the whole EPL thing. “Oh, you’re going to have such an adventure!”  I suppose. I wonder if President Jefferson said those words to Meriweather Lewis and William Clark. Sounds like I’m off to go tobogganing or something. Or have become a character in a Dr. Seuss book. Yet, despite my hypersensitivity, the word is accurate; its definition “an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity.” Sounds about right.
I contemplated this as I was sitting near Gate 38 at Los Angeles International, waiting to board V-Australia’s flight 008 on 10 Oct, seat 42A, with service to Brisbane and connecting to Sydney for an arrival at my final destination at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, 12 Oct. (You notice how I’m already using that funny way of writing the date? I’m so down with this whole Commonwealth Country thing.) I look around, and anywhere that there’s an electrical outlet, there’s a person between the age of 12 and 22 with a laptop or cell phone plugged in. And me.  I managed to exhaust my iphone battery by not knowing how to get logged out of Skype, and returning texts and calls to all of my friends who wants to speak with me “one last time” before I go. I love you all, but please, I have a phone number you can call. Free. Almost like I’m not gone at all.  I did that on purpose. So you don’t have to talk to me one last time. That feels a little bit creepy. I’m not going as a convict, for Pete’s sake.
PHOTO OF LAX TERMINAL HERE
(A digression:  I found out that I can suspend my cell phone number for up to six months and pay very little-like, $10-during the suspended time. That eliminates the entire issue of accidentally bumping my phone off airplane mode and receiving a cascade of text messages and voice mails, and paying a six-digit telephone bill. For which I would bill each of you individually. Anyway, just a note to those who might want to try this whole expedition/adventure/vision quest thing.)
I say expedition because I’m going to be gone for 107 days. And will go to several different places with the intent of discerning whether these places are in fact inhabitable. Isn’t that what Lewis and Clark did? Maybe instead of analogies to “Eat, Pray, Love,” we could perhaps look at Ambrose’s “Undaunted Courage” as well. The title is a bit grandiose, but, that aside, I feel more like L&C than Elizabeth Gilbert.  Except I don’t have a crew of men pulling a boat upstream on the Missouri. And I don’t have a Newfoundland dog with me either. And I brought nothing to trade with the natives to keep them from killing me.  Aside from that …it’s exactly the same. 
The flight boarded promptly at 11:20 p.m. (or 23:20 as they track here in casinos).  I was back in steerage, 42A, window seat, making it awkward to climb over the nice couple from Brisbane sitting in 42B and 42C.  The woman had the center seat, and immediately put a neck pillow on, covered up with her blanket, and fell asleep. So much for conversation.  I immediately started watching movies. When was the last time any of you watched three movies at one sitting? (Okay, maybe Tod Goldberg has done it recently …) Anyway, I finally saw “The Hangover” and had to be careful to stifle guffaws to not wake the woman next to me. All I have to say is Bradley Cooper, call me. Soon.
I dozed for a while, noshed on cashew clusters, stayed hydrated, a bit too hydrated, and then didn’t want to wake anybody to go pee. Problematic. But I know now just how strong my bladder is, and it’s information that I’m sure will come in handy at some point. 
*
Staring out the window in the wee hours after some dozing. I assume these are the wee hours. I can’t tell being in this suspended state, floating along between hemispheres in an airplane where the glow of intermittent video screens dot the darkened cabin. A man snores behind me. The clouds float, charcoal over a black sea, and Orion shines over it all. I feel an affinity for Orion. He blazed away early mornings when I lived with my Lugg-dogg in Leawood, Kansas. He hung low in the southern sky, the feel of midnight hanging around him even at 5 a.m.  By the end of my run, he disappeared as the sky turned cobalt, then robin’s egg blue.  He stood over the desert, too, just outside my bedroom patio door, a colossus that the planes from Phoenix flew by to land at Palm Springs International.
Not everything is foreign here, not yet.
PHOTO OF SUN RISE AND PLANE WING TIP

Down Under Tour 2011-12

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A year ago June, just before I graduated with my MFA in creative writing from UC, Riverside, I had a chat with my friend Michelle. Since she was the person who could make sure I graduated, I had stopped by to make sure of just that. After we cleared up the details, I told her I wasn’t sure what to do next – that there was no fabulous job yet, and staying in the desert did not fill me with unbridled joy. The truth? I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and, whatever, it was, I didn’t want to do it here.

Now, if you’re a person who is discontent about your situation in life and yearn to change it, do not talk with my friend Michelle. She’ll just ask you questions like, “Well, if you could do anything, what would you do?” And she asks so disingenuously and openly that a person can’t help but tell the truth. She pulled that on me.

“Well, travel. I would travel.”

“So go to work up in Santa Cruz again, make some money, and travel.”

Well, that was easy. So I did go back up to Santa Cruz and work with an academic summer camp program, after which I embarked on my Western States Tour 2010 – 7,000 miles in six weeks. This blog is a product of those weeks on the road.

After I returned, Michelle and I met for dinner. Her daughter had just returned from world travels to points Asian and Pacific, and I listen with envy as she listed the countries and the cool things she had done (including being evacuated from the path of a cyclone in Australia). I, however, had still not secured a job, had not moved to either Santa Cruz or Missoula, Montana. Here I sat, once again, ambivalent about what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go.

I wondered aloud if I could possibly take off for a few weeks. Six weeks, maybe, or a couple months. How could I do that?

“Well, why not?” Michelle says. Or something to that effect.

Months passed. It was nearly a year past graduation and still I had no job and no plan.

In May, I started getting serious about going to New Zealand. A friend of mine told me to make a pro/con list. She looked at it.

“That’s not a con. Neither is that. Those are fears.”

Ok. So I’m fearful of taking off to the other side of the world. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to.

“Do the thing you’re afraid of.”

This woman has hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, and large parts of other major cross continent trails. She knows of what she speaks.

So I decided. I have another friend who says that we are deciders, not doers, and once we decide, the doing becomes easy. (Why the hell do I listen to these people?)

Before this gets to sound like a Marianne Williamson retreat, let me just say that it finally occurs to me that if I’m serious about doing this, and not just wishing that I could, I had probably do a little research about travelling, how much it would cost, how much hostels cost (could I really room with three 20-something backpackers and share a bathroom?) Turns out a person can travel with little money and impose upon the kindness of strangers. Housesitting. WWOOF-ing (more about that once I get to New Zealand). The bottom line is that you don’t have to do guided tours and stay in really nice hotels in order to travel. That is perhaps the difference between being a tourist or being a traveler. (More about that idea and Paul Bowles’ book later.)

In June I put all my things in storage and left for Santa Cruz once again to work with academically gifted kids. In August, I came back and imposed upon the hospitality of a friend until my departure from Los Angeles on October 10.

Various friends in the know advised me to pack light. One of them who worked in the diamond trade and carried a little pistol in a thigh holster (just in case) said, “One black bra, one nude bra, a few pair of panties, you can rinse things out in the hotel sink. Black clothes, and pick a color to accessorize.”

Okay, well, I packed more than that (a couple more bras and panties, for sure) but I didn’t pack a lot. Note the flatness of the suitcase – expander panel reserved for the way back. Also note all the room in the duffle, allowing me to bring my Dr. Martin boots, a stylin’ choice. All in all, my luggage consists of the duffle, the rolling suitcase and a messenger bag that holds my laptop and some books. If need be, this messenger bag can be packed into the duffle.

Off I go.

Children, children

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The first day of class, half way through the afternoon session, one the 16 students in my writing class raised her hand and said, “Can I go home now?” The word “querulous” was invented for this girl.
Caught off guard, yet ever articulate, I asked, “Home as in back to the dorm, or home as in home home?”
She collapsed onto the table, her arms out, head down. “I don’t care. Just not here.”
Springing up again, she went on. “I just think I don’t deserve to be here. I should be home swimming at the pool, playing Pokemon and writing my fan fiction. I’m being held against my will. I didn’t want to come here in the first place. I …”
I cut her off. Told her that if she would please wait until three o’clock, I’d be pleased to let her talk to someone about it. But until then, we are in discussion. My thoughts were, “You bet. I’ll call home for you. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”
Yet I resisted.
She was back that evening for study hall and the next morning. She took exception to John R. Stilgoe’s essay, “Beginnings,” from his book Outside Lies Magic. The piece urges the reader to “get out,” as in get out of the house, go wandering (not power walking or jogging) go alone, and go without your ipod plugged into your head, without your cell, without texting. The same student declared that Stilgoe “has a serious grudge against technology, and I don’t get what’s wrong with technology, I love technology, that’s why I hate being here, without my technology. I want my …” And once again the instructor cut her off. “Thanks. I understand how someone might think that.”
She sat and fumed. Interrupted another student in our discussion.
“Do I have to stay here?”
Well, yes, actually you do.
“I’m not going to listen, then. I’m just going to sleep put my head down on the table and sleep.”
Which she proceeded to do.
Things got even more interesting when we started to read Thoreau. Any writing that implied that humans might do well to reconnect with the natural environment and rid themselves of material trappings as well as technological gizmoes set off alarm bells in her head. This time it was, “I’m not listening. I hate this guy.” And she proceeded to shred the photocopy of “Where I Live and What I Lived For” from Walden.
At some point during the discussion, she rebelled further, informing us that she’s always right and anyone who disagrees with her is always wrong, and she hates people who are wrong and disagree with her, and this book should be burned.
Wouldn’t be the first time that someone suggested burning a book by Thoreau. The novel part was that this was coming out of a 13-year-old. Quite a bright 13-year-old. But still.
It occurred to me that perhaps I have neither the demeanor nor the temperament for the classroom.  My immediate reaction was to get rid of her, get her out, there’s the door, here’s your hat what’s your hurry. Go. Devil – git out!
 *
Most writers that I know agree that algebra class was a painful experience. I secured a passing grade in college algebra by missing the first test, stealing the answers, acing the make-up test (with the stolen answers), attending all the labs (for which I earned points), and ending up with a solid D. Helen Johnson drove me to this. As the high school math teacher with a 30-plus year tenure, she taught all of us Westersons and Petersons and Andersons and Swensons and, and, and. Baffled by anything describing one train leaving a station at 3 p.m. the other at 2 p.m. etc., I sought her help. The meeting ended with her shooing me out of her classroom with the admonition that I understood this perfectly and quit wasting time and get back to study hall. I still believe that I could score 100 percent on an algebra test with the right tutoring. In fact, I believe that I could learn calculus with the right tutoring. These beliefs, these delusions, they persist.
*
Defacing books was never a sport. Coloring in letters, the spaces in the O or the P or the A or B – that was the extent of it. Purely innocent. It took me years to actually highlight or underline in books, and I remember thinking what a great idea that was, especially if the author was not considerate enough to provide boldface, italics or vocabulary words at the end of the chapter. In this classroom, kids are encouraged – yea, instructed – to read with a pen or pencil in hand. Not a highlighter – you can’t write questions or comments with highlighters. Use pens. Use pencils. Question. Participate.
*
Right now we have three days left of the second three-week session. Today, we went on our last field trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a fabulous place located on Cannery Row in Monterey (yes, we’ve been reading Steinbeck). The Aquarium has preserved part of the Hovden Cannery and provides interpretive information about it. This group could not have been more bored with the entire thing. I don’t recall ever seeing 14-year-olds who preferred to play in the sections designed for 5-year-olds. They would rather have done that had we not urged them on. No, I don’t think I’m particularly well suited to the classroom. I can’t say “come on, let’s go” one more time. Obviously with this current group I’ll have to say “get your asses over here.”
Four days to go. Just four days.

Dislocated Buildings

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McHenry Library Terrace – complete with smoker.
Today I lost the McHenry Library. Strange, especially since it’s a building that has such a large footprint (as the architects say) and I could swear I hadn’t moved it when I departed UCSC last August. Yet, I walked from Bay Tree Bookstore, took a right up the road, kept going even when it looked like it was going into the forest primeval, kept going until I saw the sign for McHenry and Classroom Unit 1 (clearly someone needs to step up and claim naming rights for that one), headed toward where I thought the footbridge was, and yes, it’s still there, and over the bridge and …no library.
However, I did manage to find the Earth and Marine Science classrooms. And another sign directing to the library back the way I had come. At that point I could see a silver something or other (roof?) through the trees, and hear the hum of something that was either a large hover craft or multiple air conditioners cooling a five story building. It was the latter.
Teeny, tiny sign which directed me back from whence I came.
Despite my dismay, I’m not particularly surprised that I lost the library. The entire campus of UCSC looks much like a state park. In fact, the signage on campus is of the brown painted wood variety, with engraved letters highlighted in white. Very Smokey-the-Bear-ish. So everything looks the same, and buildings are cleverly hidden in the natural environment.
That said, the McHenry Library has at least a couple unique features. The first is a terrace complete with smokers. Two of them as I passed by. And an ash tray, which implied permission to smoke less than 30 feet away from the entrance of the building. Or maybe the structure is cleverly designed so that the smoking area is 30 feet away, which would imply that someone intended for it to be there. At any rate, smokers in California are a dying breed (literally and figuratively) because they’ve been chased out of most public places, including bars (!?) and restaurants. Turns out that inhaling second-hand smoke is a health risk. Too bad. As a former smoker, I enjoy a good hit of second-hand smoke every now and again.
Speaking of smoke, the second singular feature of the McHenry and UCSC in general is that it is the archive of the entire Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead archive, donated by the band in 2008. In fact, a couple years ago, right before I got my master’s from UCR, I saw an advertisement on the AWP web site for a chief archivist. Too bad I haven’t ever been a Deadhead or I would have applied.  In fact, UCSC was awarded a National Leadership Grant of $615,175 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) – the primary source of federal funds for the nation’s museums and libraries. The grant enabled the UCSC library to digitize materials from its Grateful Dead Archive and make them available on The Virtual Terrapin Station web site. (Not up yet. I checked.)
My mission at the McHenry was to secure a temporary library card because writers and readers need those sorts of things. I also went to reintroduce myself to my friend Alex who helps manage the Media Center to finagle permission to check out DVDs. We aren’t supposed to be able to do that this year, even though our classrooms have no Internet capability so we can’t stream excerpts of video for our students. I guess that our administrators expect us writer types to retire to the classroom, draw the shades, light a few candles, trim our nibs and get our parchment stacks ready.

More to come about Santa Cruz and its numerous attractions. Maybe even some classroom drama.

McHenry Library camouflage.

Back in the Cruz

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I have returned to where I started. The first blog entry on Run North / Go West featured a photograph of the Monterey Bay at Santa Cruz. I took it the evening before I left on what I now call my Western States Tour 2010. I’m back again, for the third summer, working with an academic summer camp for gifted kids.

The photo above is a view from the University of California, Santa Cruz campus, overlooking Pogonip City Park. The word “Pogonip” means icy fog in Shoshone, by the way, and yes, the park is covered in fog most mornings. But that makes for a fabulous walk or run on a trail that in places consists of so many layers of redwood duff footsteps are all but unheard, and sound is muffled in mist.

I have never professed to be a desert rat, and at times in this blog I have been downright hostile toward that inhospitable environment. The Coachella Valley seems to be dominated by those who profess to love the desert, but really love the desert climate in January and February. They don’t love the desert, or they wouldn’t waste precious groundwater irrigating turf. What they really want is their northern surroundings (green, lush, turf, grass) in an arid, temperate setting.

One of the neighbors.

The difference I find in northern California is that the people seem to really love their place. And it is regarded as place, not just space to fill. Conservation is real in this city. Environmentalism is real. And whether or not it seems like a movement or a thing to do or a lifestyle really isn’t important. It’s the way so many respond to this place – with a desire to keep it the way it is.

UC Santa Cruz campus is a miracle in itself. Founded in 1965, I believe. Reagan was Governor at the time, and arranged the place in separate colleges with no traditional quad, the idea being to avoid the demonstrations that eastern campuses were experiencing. The campus is truly in a redwood forest, confusing to navigate for newcomers because everything looks the same – like trees. Actually, like tree trunks, because it’s not possible to see the entire redwood. I get a pretty cool deal here: room and board, on-campus housing.

On the right is the view from my balcony the first morning that I was here. Fog moves in shortly after dark, and dissipates by noon or so. Evenings are 50s or 60s – days have been around 80. Perfection. Even with the killer schedule (8:30 a.m. – 9:30 p.m.) it’s worth it to be here. Oh – and I teach middle-schoolers, which is a mixed bag, but generally quite interesting. More about that soon.

And now…about Porn

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Today I learned that I do not have to be concerned about my age. Not only does an 18-year-old have a crush on my soon-to-be 46-year-old ass, but Tod Goldberg has assured me that, “people still do porn at 46.”

De’Bella, starting a new career in
porn at the age of 50. Who knew.

Tod Goldberg, Administrative Director of the UCR-Palm Desert
MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts.

Getting my Bump and Grind on

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Once more, it’s not what you think. And I’ve never been a first-thing-in-the-morning person – for that, anyway.
Not quite halfway up the B&G, trail in the foreground, Rancho Mirage beyond.
The Bump and Grind is actually a hiking trail on the border of Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage, quite close to where I live. While it is within walking distance (about a mile) of my place, I usually drive there because I get up later than I want to and end up rushing to get there before the day gets too warm. The hike has a 1,000 foot elevation gain (my ears usually pop a couple times on the way up and down) and is a good 1.8 miles up and 1.8 miles down, but I’m not sure if it’s that far from where I start. Takes me about 45 minutes to get up, and about 20 to get back down again.
Don’t ask me why the trail is named the Bump and Grind. Other names for it are The Mirage Trail, Desert Drive Trail, Patton Trail (because some people say it was built by General Patton’s troops), Desert Mirage Trail, and the ever-popular Dog Poop Trail. Actually, it’s not the Dog Poop Trail anymore because dogs have been banned from the trail in recent years to preserve endangered species habitat, including that of the Peninsula Big Horn Sheep. I’ve met a couple dogs along the way, but their people assure me that they speak fluent English and usually walk on two legs, so are not considered canine. Of course.
The cool thing about hiking in the Valley is that all the mountain systems are fault lines. The Bump and Grind is located in the San Jacinto range, where the Pacific plate slides under the North American plate. I’ve also hiked up onto the San Andreas fault, which sounds a lot scarier than it is.
But the B&G is an urban hiking trail, and since the distance is so manageable, those who crave a good cardio workout are regulars. I’ve also noticed that the women who I see into regularly on the trail have great legs and butts. Not that I’m looking that close, but, you know, I’m just sayin’.  I look at the path as a much more interesting extended version of a StairMaster. The vantage point from the top is fabulous – overlooks the whole valley. And even though the track is well-traveled, I can count on having large stretches to myself if I get there by 7 a.m. at the latest.

Teens and 20-somethings that (attempt to) do the trail are the most fun to watch, and usually easy to spot. Often I seem them in couples, sometimes by themselves with ipods plugged in their ears but still loud enough to hear 10 feet away. (Really quite annoying. I don’t get people who go out by themselves but have music blasting in their ears.) Today I saw a young girl, maybe 18, Latino, deeply tanned, white flip-flops, a belly button ring sparkling from between the waistband of her white low-cut short-shorts and a oversized cut-off shirt (Flash Dance, anyone?).  One hand resting on her jutting hip, she gesticulated with the other to her silent boyfriend, indignant, out of breath. She had just finished the first 10th of the trail.  “I don’t get how people do this. I mean, old people!” Her hand swooped to encompass those of us in her vicinity. Uh-huh. I’ll kick your ass on this trail anytime, young lady.