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.

Bread

I love the earthy smell of the yeast as it mixes with lukewarm water. I love watching the sponge change from water, yeast, honey and flour into a frothy, bubbling, bowl of life. I love working the gooey mess first with a wooden spoon and then with my hands. I love the way the dough transforms into a smooth, fragrant ball, simply because I knead it back and forth across the counter. I love the way flour dusts everything I am wearing. I love the way it makes me stay at home for an afternoon, instead of rushing off to here or there. I love the smell that consumes the kitchen as I pull the tray from the oven. Most of all, I love eating, eating, eating.

As many before have pointed out, creating bread is a type of meditation. I am hopeless at sitting still and thinking. Kneading bread gives my hands something to do while my mind wanders. My thoughts, as they usually do, started drifting towards Dad. He, Jasper and Mom called me from a sunny park in San Francisco this afternoon. Tonight Dad has an MRI, tomorrow morning a meeting with a neuro-oncologist. It feels strange to not be with them. I'm not sure I have ever missed a major family vacation, especially spring break (usually filled with mountain biking, skiing, or rafting). Yet I have class and tests this week, and in two weeks when I have my own spring break I'm heading up to an organic farm.

It sometimes feels like living a double life. On one side, I am your typical almost 19 year old college student. I go out and get drunk on St Patrick's Day when I really should be studying. I get angry at "the man", frustrated with the government, and complain about boring gen eds. I love the town I am going to school in and want to try everything and do everything I possibly can. I still believe I can change the world in some way, however small. I worry about boyfriends. I worry about friends in general. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with my life and who I want to do it with.

On the other hand, I'm a daughter and a sister.  On the logical level, I know I am doing the right thing by being in college out of state and doing what I love. Yet I don't want to miss a moment of my family as four. A small part of me feels guilty and selfish for staying in Montana and having fun when I could be going home for the weekend and spending time with Dad. I am trying to create a new life in Missoula and sustain my normal family life in Moscow, and sometimes it is all just too much.

So I turn off the cell phone, log out of facebook, put on sweatpants, and bake bread. And you know what? It helps.

The Mom Post

Last night, in a kitchen overflowing with 10 friends, 2 sizzling pans of oil and 3 lbs of veggies (soon to be stirfry) my old roommate Erika made an announcement.
"Emerald is writing a blog, and you should read it! Because... it is good!"
If you ever need any PR work done, I'm pretty sure she is your girl.
Inevitably, someone posed the question. "So, what is the blog for?"
I shrugged, thought about it for a couple seconds, and answered (semi-sarcastically), "It's for my mom. Facebook stalking isn't quite enough... she wants to know what I am learning too".

At the time I was joking, but as I sped down 1-90 en route to Moscow (my hometown) this afternoon, I started pondering it more. My mother, for reference, happens to be an extraordinary woman. She is sweet, spunky, intelligent, kind, and has the muscled body of a twenty five year old. She is one of the strongest (physically and mentally) women I know, but she is also only human.  I like having a mother with her own set of flaws, however, because it demotes her from "superherowhocanfixeverythingplease...NOW!" to my friend, someone I can relate, laugh, cry, problem solve and fight with.

In class we have been talking about our ecological identities, or how we construe ourselves to the natural world and where these values come from. A huge amount of my environmental ethic comes from my parents. One part is from my dad and his unrelenting pursuit and love of being outside (he is, hands down, my best rafting, skiing, and hiking partner).

However, my mother has taught me a lesson equally important: how to be passionate about a career. My mother works as a physical therapist with children with disabilities. It is a stressful, exhausting, relatively low-paid job. Yet when she talks about helping a child learn to walk, or problem solving with a school to put in a handicap entrance, or rearranging an insurance form (this is when I generally start zoning out...) she has an undeniable spark in her voice and face. She is genuinely excited about what she is doing. And it only takes talking to a parent of a child she has worked with to see that she is making a small but beautiful difference in the world.

A huge part of my ecological identity and motivation is an underlying feeling that my lifework should effect some sort of positive change for the world. I am just one person, and I know I wont be able to reverse the damage already done to our planet, slow down global warming, or convince the world's leaders to set aside their greed and work towards sustainable economies. However, my mother has taught me what that spark of passion looks like, and it makes me determined as hell to give this "saving the world" thing a try.

This blog, as a whole, is dedicated to her.