The Green Lens has grown up and moved out of it’s dusty, old, flamingo pink mobile home and into a renovated, sparkling clean, LEED platinum certified, downtown apartment. Despite changing it’s name to The Emerald Lens and avoiding walking through or near the trailer park, it still can’t escape it’s roots.
Check out http://theemeraldlens.wordpress.com/ for all future posts!
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
The To Write List
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| Scapegoat Mtn in the Bob Marshall Wilderness |
It's been a crazy couple of weeks, couple of months, and year in general. I'm done with my semester, I'm home with family, I'm just starting to get a bit bored with no responsibilities or obligations, and holy crap do I have a lot I want to write about. WRFI was an amazing experience. I wont pretend I loved every moment or wanted it to go on forever. But I did visit some beautiful places, become friends with some kickass people, and get 12 upper division credits in two months flat. I was home in time to be with Dad during his last couple days, something far more important to me than I had previously thought. Now, I have two glorious months of emptiness stretched out in front of me, and as tempting as it is to do nothing but sit around, eat, and watch 30 Rock reruns my goal is to write about the following:
- Dad's Death (and more importantly, life)
- The Bob Marshall (Wilderness designation, The Bob Marshall Foundation/Montana Wilderness Association)
- The Missouri River (BLM management, Lewis & Clark/Native Americans, National Monument Designation)
- Thrift store-ing in small town Montana
- The Big Snowies (Wilderness Study Areas, the effects of cows on riparian areas)
- Cooking in the backcountry
- The Yellowstone River (Riparian Health, Private Development)
- The Northern Cheyene Reservation (Coal mining/burning, the sweat ceremony, the BIA)
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| Kayaking the Missouri River |
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Wild Rockies Field Institute
Two days and I am headed out on my field course. My brain feels as scattered as a chiuhaha on meth. There is gear to pack, readings to print, people to call, laundry to do, food to organize, more gear to buy, more gear to pack... I'm looking forward to being in a van driving towards our first destination instead of perpetual preparation limbo (Oh shit! Don't forget this, or that, or wait, do I really need it? Guhhh).
As it explains on their website, WRFI is "An independent, nonprofit educational organization that offers affordable, high quality, academically rigorous field courses in some of the most beautiful and interesting landscapes in North America."
My course, called Montana Afoot and Afloat, will start with an 8 day backpacking trip in the Bob Marshall, then move to a 14 day kayak trip on the Missouri River, then another 8 day backpacking trip in the Big Snowies, then a 13 day kayak trip on the Yellowstone. We also visit ranches, Native American reservations and coal plants. By the time the course ends on November 7th I will (hopefully) have twelve credits of upper division environmental studies, Native American studies and geography credits. (Check it out here)
I am excited for the academic portion of the trip, but I am also excited for the recreational aspect. While I consider myself an outdoors goin', tree huggin', dirt lovin' northwestern girl, I have never extensively backpacked or flat-water kayaked (and something tells me it might be slightly different from an eight day rafting trip...). I have also never seen the large majority of Montana. I will be living in this state for at least the next four years, and I'm looking forward to becoming aquainted with more than just the Missoula area.
I can't ignore that the trip comes with rough timing. Dad is still doing relatively well, but no one can really know when things may start to deteriorate. The last week has presented some tough decisions. Is it really responsible to leave right now? When should my family contact me if something goes wrong? How wrong do things have to be? Am I running away from reality? Quite possibly yes. But I'd rather run into the backcountry than simply mope around Missoula, drinking too much beer and eating too much chocolate cake. In the last year (almost a year to the day) I have cut myself off from many adventures and opportunities under the pretense of "being there for my family". Some of those decisions were well founded and necessary, and some were just my way of avoiding pushing my comfort zone and stretching myself.
I can't avoid it anymore, It's time to just say "shit happens" and go. They will call me home if I need to be home, and we will make each decision a day (or week) at a time. Dad and I have always felt closest when we are skiing, biking, hiking, or otherwise exploring, and I don't think this trip will be any different. Throughout the next two months my family will always be at the back of my mind and the front of my heart. They understand why I am going and support me. After all, they are the ones that planted this damn adventure bug to begin with.
As it explains on their website, WRFI is "An independent, nonprofit educational organization that offers affordable, high quality, academically rigorous field courses in some of the most beautiful and interesting landscapes in North America."
My course, called Montana Afoot and Afloat, will start with an 8 day backpacking trip in the Bob Marshall, then move to a 14 day kayak trip on the Missouri River, then another 8 day backpacking trip in the Big Snowies, then a 13 day kayak trip on the Yellowstone. We also visit ranches, Native American reservations and coal plants. By the time the course ends on November 7th I will (hopefully) have twelve credits of upper division environmental studies, Native American studies and geography credits. (Check it out here)
I am excited for the academic portion of the trip, but I am also excited for the recreational aspect. While I consider myself an outdoors goin', tree huggin', dirt lovin' northwestern girl, I have never extensively backpacked or flat-water kayaked (and something tells me it might be slightly different from an eight day rafting trip...). I have also never seen the large majority of Montana. I will be living in this state for at least the next four years, and I'm looking forward to becoming aquainted with more than just the Missoula area.
I can't ignore that the trip comes with rough timing. Dad is still doing relatively well, but no one can really know when things may start to deteriorate. The last week has presented some tough decisions. Is it really responsible to leave right now? When should my family contact me if something goes wrong? How wrong do things have to be? Am I running away from reality? Quite possibly yes. But I'd rather run into the backcountry than simply mope around Missoula, drinking too much beer and eating too much chocolate cake. In the last year (almost a year to the day) I have cut myself off from many adventures and opportunities under the pretense of "being there for my family". Some of those decisions were well founded and necessary, and some were just my way of avoiding pushing my comfort zone and stretching myself.
I can't avoid it anymore, It's time to just say "shit happens" and go. They will call me home if I need to be home, and we will make each decision a day (or week) at a time. Dad and I have always felt closest when we are skiing, biking, hiking, or otherwise exploring, and I don't think this trip will be any different. Throughout the next two months my family will always be at the back of my mind and the front of my heart. They understand why I am going and support me. After all, they are the ones that planted this damn adventure bug to begin with.
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| The family biking in Moab |
Monday, August 30, 2010
Summer
Apologies, this blog has been rather silent for the last couple months. Mentally, I try to give myself a break in the summer. I lived in Riggins, raft guided when there was work, spent long afternoons on the beach when there wasn't, backpacked in the seven devils, ate breakfast at Cattlemens, drank beer in boat stacks with good friends, soaked in hot springs, danced to bad 80s music at Summervilles and skinny dipped off the boat ramp.
There were times when I forgot about climate change, world hunger, biodiversity loss, water scarcity and terminal brain cancer. There were times when I just felt like a regular nineteen year old girl. There were times when I was completely and genuinely happy. Selfish? Probably, but now, back in Missoula, I feel refreshed. I am ready to jump back into the real world, however harsh and hearbreaking it might be.
On Friday, Dad came down to Riggins and went rafting with me. He is not doing well. He is tired, the tumor is growing, and we are out of options for treatment. While we ate dinner he asked me to tell him one thing I would do (just for me) if I could do anything in the world. I thought about it for awhile. And then I realized, I am doing everything I want to be doing. I raft guide in the summer, I go to school in a town I love, I am spending the fall semester backpacking and kayaking for my credits. I have people in Moscow, Riggins and Missoula who I love and who take care of me. I have enough money to eat well, sleep in a warm (ish) house, and drink good beer. What more could a girl really want or need?
(photo by Mark Curry)
There were times when I forgot about climate change, world hunger, biodiversity loss, water scarcity and terminal brain cancer. There were times when I just felt like a regular nineteen year old girl. There were times when I was completely and genuinely happy. Selfish? Probably, but now, back in Missoula, I feel refreshed. I am ready to jump back into the real world, however harsh and hearbreaking it might be.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Serotinous by K.A. Hays
I found a print of this poem as I was cleaning out my closet last week... I think one of my mom's friends gave it to me in a card for graduation last year. Poetry is something that I am not very good at and don't read a lot of, but every once in awhile one catches me.
Serotinous
K.A. Hays
We should learn from them: the copse
of pitch pines leaning into a mohawk, all needle
and warted twig. If someone lit a blaze
out here, they wouldn't blink; they have,
in fact, grown dormant buds made
to open in such terror. Good idea for us
to fashion, like them, root collars - so the body
cooked to the nub, buds gone, another self
might climb out cough, unfold greenly -
though safer still, for the populace, to be schooled
in serotinous cones, to learn to lock our seed
in a resin that melts off only in fire
so if the bud and root and trunk are cooked,
the seeds are saved, and spring from the charred earth
after the dumb maples and oaks, with their studied
aesthetics of leaf and even shade, samaras
and acorns have gone. The pitch pines welter,
clawed on ledges with their roots in near-rock,
fed by the ground's toxic metals. Remember -
if not for the arbitrary crash that startled off
a piece of the planet, forming moon and tilting
the earth off-kilter, there would be no us. How dull
that would be, the hardier insects moping about
without our drama, limp and uninspired, no religion
or politics to stir the blood. Convenient
that we have this creator latent in us
erratic, poised to start a burn
Serotinous
K.A. Hays
We should learn from them: the copse
of pitch pines leaning into a mohawk, all needle
and warted twig. If someone lit a blaze
out here, they wouldn't blink; they have,
in fact, grown dormant buds made
to open in such terror. Good idea for us
to fashion, like them, root collars - so the body
cooked to the nub, buds gone, another self
might climb out cough, unfold greenly -
though safer still, for the populace, to be schooled
in serotinous cones, to learn to lock our seed
in a resin that melts off only in fire
so if the bud and root and trunk are cooked,
the seeds are saved, and spring from the charred earth
after the dumb maples and oaks, with their studied
aesthetics of leaf and even shade, samaras
and acorns have gone. The pitch pines welter,
clawed on ledges with their roots in near-rock,
fed by the ground's toxic metals. Remember -
if not for the arbitrary crash that startled off
a piece of the planet, forming moon and tilting
the earth off-kilter, there would be no us. How dull
that would be, the hardier insects moping about
without our drama, limp and uninspired, no religion
or politics to stir the blood. Convenient
that we have this creator latent in us
erratic, poised to start a burn
Sunday, June 20, 2010
In-Your-Face Environmentalism
Last week I visited my friend Genia in Seattle. Sometimes it feels good to change scenery and get caught up in the hustle of four million people. It's nice to experience the certain comfort of being almost completely anonymous. I spent the week going on runs in the rain, harassing Genia at the coffee shop she works at, dancing, watching documentaries in run down theaters, scouring second hand and vintage stores on the ave, people watching, bike watching, and eating obscene amounts of delicious ethnic and pastry/coffeeshop food. The trip was relaxing, fun, and made me realize (as usual) how much I enjoy NOT living in a city full time. It's good to visit, but there sure isn't any Rattlesnake Wilderness a five minute drive away.
Of course, being in the university district in somewhat decent weather meant that the canvassers were out in full force. This particular week it was Greenpeace, traveling all the way up from Portland, Oregon (surprise) to tell us why BP was shit (another surprise) and why joining Greenpeace (complete with credit card information) could make BP clean up their shit and start taking responsibility for their screw up.
The thing is, in theory, I do support what Greenpeace is trying to do. I DO think BP should take responsibility for the Gulf spill. I DO want our government to invest in sustainable energy. I DO think we need to be more careful with our country's natural resources, I DO agree that by banding together, regular people can make effective and beneficial change.
However, I DON'T think the way to go about this is by harassing shoppers on the street. If they can barely get an environmental studies major to stop and talk with them, how effective can they be with the frat boys, soccer moms and bussiness people rushing to their next appointment or engagement? When I finally did stop to talk to one of the reps, he was a perfectly nice, intelligent human being (if not a bit robotic in delivering his monologue on the evils of big oil... I wonder how he got to Seattle from Portland? Perhaps in a gas guzzling vehicle?).
I agreed with almost everything he said. However the only way for me to get involved was to fill out all my information (address, phone number, e-mail, full name) and give a donation. If he had given me a flyer with information, added my name to an email list, asked me to sign a petition, or given me a letter to send to my senator I would have willingly complied. But letting someone on the street talk me out of my credit card information, no matter how urgent or legitimate the issue, just wasn't going to happen.
I think many Americans are trained to be skeptical. I know that personally, I would like to research and have experience with an organization before I give my money to them. I understand that they probably have issues with people smiling and nodding, saying they will get involved, and then promptly forgetting all about the issue (hence trying to push on-spot signups). But I also think in order to have a successful business, non-profit or campaign you have to appear trustworthy and conversational. Greenpeace has a history of being somewhat radical and in your face. When someone bombastically tells me why their way is the right way, it doesn't make me want to join or help them, it makes me want to argue with them. Even if it is an issue I am completely sympathetic to. While I may not know the ins and outs of the issue, I want to be conversed with, not lectured at.
The whole experience makes me question, what is the best way to get people involved with environmental issues? How do you make a nineteen year old in Seattle care and take action regarding a oil spill in Louisiana? Is it possible to educate people without attacking them? Can donating $15 to an organization make up for the fact that I filled up my gas tank twice to get to Seattle and back? How do you keep people from going into tragedy overload and simply becoming apathetic?
When I tell people I want to work with the social side of environmentalism, I am talking about answering these types of questions.
Of course, being in the university district in somewhat decent weather meant that the canvassers were out in full force. This particular week it was Greenpeace, traveling all the way up from Portland, Oregon (surprise) to tell us why BP was shit (another surprise) and why joining Greenpeace (complete with credit card information) could make BP clean up their shit and start taking responsibility for their screw up.
The thing is, in theory, I do support what Greenpeace is trying to do. I DO think BP should take responsibility for the Gulf spill. I DO want our government to invest in sustainable energy. I DO think we need to be more careful with our country's natural resources, I DO agree that by banding together, regular people can make effective and beneficial change.
However, I DON'T think the way to go about this is by harassing shoppers on the street. If they can barely get an environmental studies major to stop and talk with them, how effective can they be with the frat boys, soccer moms and bussiness people rushing to their next appointment or engagement? When I finally did stop to talk to one of the reps, he was a perfectly nice, intelligent human being (if not a bit robotic in delivering his monologue on the evils of big oil... I wonder how he got to Seattle from Portland? Perhaps in a gas guzzling vehicle?).
I agreed with almost everything he said. However the only way for me to get involved was to fill out all my information (address, phone number, e-mail, full name) and give a donation. If he had given me a flyer with information, added my name to an email list, asked me to sign a petition, or given me a letter to send to my senator I would have willingly complied. But letting someone on the street talk me out of my credit card information, no matter how urgent or legitimate the issue, just wasn't going to happen.
I think many Americans are trained to be skeptical. I know that personally, I would like to research and have experience with an organization before I give my money to them. I understand that they probably have issues with people smiling and nodding, saying they will get involved, and then promptly forgetting all about the issue (hence trying to push on-spot signups). But I also think in order to have a successful business, non-profit or campaign you have to appear trustworthy and conversational. Greenpeace has a history of being somewhat radical and in your face. When someone bombastically tells me why their way is the right way, it doesn't make me want to join or help them, it makes me want to argue with them. Even if it is an issue I am completely sympathetic to. While I may not know the ins and outs of the issue, I want to be conversed with, not lectured at.
The whole experience makes me question, what is the best way to get people involved with environmental issues? How do you make a nineteen year old in Seattle care and take action regarding a oil spill in Louisiana? Is it possible to educate people without attacking them? Can donating $15 to an organization make up for the fact that I filled up my gas tank twice to get to Seattle and back? How do you keep people from going into tragedy overload and simply becoming apathetic?
When I tell people I want to work with the social side of environmentalism, I am talking about answering these types of questions.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Home
This week, I said goodbye to Missoula. I spent time with the remaining friends who hadn't yet left for various summer jobs and international excursions, stocked up on microbrew in cans (no PBR on multi-day river trips for me!) packed my life into my blue subaru and drove over Lolo Pass back towards home.
In many ways Missoula feels like home now too. On Tuesday, I walked along the river at dusk, watching the pearly pinks and oranges of the sunset over the river and the almost full moon rise behind the "M". I thought about how much Missoula has seen me go through, how many new connections and friendships have been created, how the seasons have cycled back to almost the same point as when I first met Missoula, back in August. Instead of just being there by default, Missoula is a home I have created. I went from knowing no one and nothing to feeling like I have a community and a niche.
Yet Moscow will always be home too. I arrived to my mom and brother seated around our red formica kitchen table and a very, very excited head butt from my dog. It was good to sleep in my old room (second story and east facing, a stark contrast to my Missoula basement), catch up with high school friends, hear Josh Ritter on the stereo and go for runs around the neighborhoods I know by heart. Moscow is a place where I can't go downtown without seeing someone I know. Most of the people in Moscow have seen me grow from toddler to hyper elementary school kid, to bratty pre-teen, to semi-normal young adult. There is a certain comfort in everyone knowing your life story, and also certain limitations. Definitely no anonymity here, especially when Mr. La has become the "teacher/mtnbikeguy/renfairking/raftguy/etc. with brain cancer".
Dad is on a Middle Fork trip and is completely out of cell and internet service. It is strange coming home to three (I include the dog as a family member) instead of four. Home isn't quite home without him here making phone calls, reading the newspaper at the kitchen table and kissing my forehead goodnight before I go to bed. When he is gone, even when I know it is just a five day raft trip, I can't help but thinking "This is what it might be permanently".
I don't know how to discuss this topic delicately.
The reality is, my Dad may live for another 6 months, 6 years, or 30 years. There is no way to know. I am not ready for our family to shrink from five to four, but then again, there is no way I ever will be. I guess the best I can do now is be thankful for the present, knowing he IS just gone on a week long trip and that I probably have plenty more goodnight hugs, chance REI encounters, and phone conversations about dry suit features and CFS to come.
In a truly Unitarian Universalist, agnostic-y way, I know that even if my Dad isn't just a cell phone call away, he is still with me. He is in the rivers I raft, the powdered slopes I ski, the swaying pines on Moscow Mountain, the messy morning hair of my younger brother, the laugh of my mom, and the tail wag of my dog. My Dad has taught me how to love and recreate in the natural world, to stop and watch a swirling rapid, to find spirituality in wild places, to climb just one more ridge over, to bike instead of drive. He has taught me to love the home we all share in common: the earth under our feet.
And he will always reside somewhere within me, letting me know I am loved and will be okay. Even when he simply 200 miles away in the Frank Church wilderness, this is a consolation.
In many ways Missoula feels like home now too. On Tuesday, I walked along the river at dusk, watching the pearly pinks and oranges of the sunset over the river and the almost full moon rise behind the "M". I thought about how much Missoula has seen me go through, how many new connections and friendships have been created, how the seasons have cycled back to almost the same point as when I first met Missoula, back in August. Instead of just being there by default, Missoula is a home I have created. I went from knowing no one and nothing to feeling like I have a community and a niche.
Yet Moscow will always be home too. I arrived to my mom and brother seated around our red formica kitchen table and a very, very excited head butt from my dog. It was good to sleep in my old room (second story and east facing, a stark contrast to my Missoula basement), catch up with high school friends, hear Josh Ritter on the stereo and go for runs around the neighborhoods I know by heart. Moscow is a place where I can't go downtown without seeing someone I know. Most of the people in Moscow have seen me grow from toddler to hyper elementary school kid, to bratty pre-teen, to semi-normal young adult. There is a certain comfort in everyone knowing your life story, and also certain limitations. Definitely no anonymity here, especially when Mr. La has become the "teacher/mtnbikeguy/renfairking/raftguy/etc. with brain cancer".
Dad is on a Middle Fork trip and is completely out of cell and internet service. It is strange coming home to three (I include the dog as a family member) instead of four. Home isn't quite home without him here making phone calls, reading the newspaper at the kitchen table and kissing my forehead goodnight before I go to bed. When he is gone, even when I know it is just a five day raft trip, I can't help but thinking "This is what it might be permanently".
I don't know how to discuss this topic delicately.
The reality is, my Dad may live for another 6 months, 6 years, or 30 years. There is no way to know. I am not ready for our family to shrink from five to four, but then again, there is no way I ever will be. I guess the best I can do now is be thankful for the present, knowing he IS just gone on a week long trip and that I probably have plenty more goodnight hugs, chance REI encounters, and phone conversations about dry suit features and CFS to come.
In a truly Unitarian Universalist, agnostic-y way, I know that even if my Dad isn't just a cell phone call away, he is still with me. He is in the rivers I raft, the powdered slopes I ski, the swaying pines on Moscow Mountain, the messy morning hair of my younger brother, the laugh of my mom, and the tail wag of my dog. My Dad has taught me how to love and recreate in the natural world, to stop and watch a swirling rapid, to find spirituality in wild places, to climb just one more ridge over, to bike instead of drive. He has taught me to love the home we all share in common: the earth under our feet.
And he will always reside somewhere within me, letting me know I am loved and will be okay. Even when he simply 200 miles away in the Frank Church wilderness, this is a consolation.
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