Four years ago today we left our old home in Spanish Fork, UT and headed Eastward towards our new home in North Carolina. I say "our home in Spanish Fork", but by that time, it was no longer ours ... By the time we reached Moab that night, it belonged to this other couple who already had plans to expand the garage and finish the basement ... Such is life ...
When we lived in Utah I longed for the South. I missed my friends and the gentle rolling hills, covered in green for most of the year. I never knew I liked green so much as when I lived in Utah and I didn't have much of it at all around me ... I longed for the Southern food where every restaurant parking lot smells of bacon.
Now, that we have been here, we hardly ever see our friends - we're all too busy and then, there has been the pandemic ... With my vegan diet, I can hardly ever have any food that's appropriate for me and I can never truly dodge someone sneaking butter or cheese in my food or frying my fries in lard or bacon drippings in North Carolina ... I never stopped missing The Rockies. I miss my doctors who were small-town doctors that cared for the patient more than their career ladders, like they do in the big medical world of The Triangle. Sometimes I have doubted whether we made the right move ...
We always want and crave what is not right here, in front of us.
Four years later, missing the mountains and all, I still think we've made a good move. There is not a day that goes by where I don't gasp "wow! I am so happy we live here" when I look at the massive trees in my back yard or drive for 15 minutes through NC hardwood forests and don't encounter another car.
I love the people, even my neighbors, I love the green, I love the fact that you drive for 30 minutes and you're in a different city, with a different history, different landscape, different restaurants, and culture. I love the slow pace my heart is beating at right now, as compared to the way it was jerking around in my chest at 11,000 ft in Utah! I don't miss the Utah air, and not much about the Utah culture in general. I never felt like we really belonged there, gorgeous mountains, breath-taking sunsets, open spaces and all ...
I love a lot about NC still and NC still feels like home. I can hardly believe it's been four years, though. I look around and I feel like we didn't accomplish much, although, my husband has had two jobs since we moved here, we made tons of home improvements, we've made new friends, and reconnected with just a handful of the old ones, we traveled plenty around the area and out of the country (and even went back to The West a couple of times), we lost a cat, and got another one more than a year later, we welcomed family in our new home from all over the planet ... And just like that time flew. I guess this is how you know we made a good move: when time flies by fast because you're having too much fun.
No regrets and all, life is what you make of it with what you do have in front of you. Four years later, we're still taking one day at a time and making the most of it, right here, in the middle of the green North Carolina ... We are home. I have no doubt about that.
Leaving Spanish Fork and arriving in NC - October 18-26, 2017
All blogs have been past due this year. It's no one's fault but my own. I seem to find little time just to chill and write anymore, much to my heart's discontent and desperation. But delay no longer …
We returned to the Southwestern desert about a month ago. Lucky as I have always been, I have reasons to go back for work, and because work would be no fun without play, I plan to see a lot more of the desert when I embark on these mandatory trips. Although I love the trees of North Carolina, the rivers, lakes, and ocean, too, my soul craves the desert every so often. Just like you crave a sunburn in the dead of winter.
We drove down from Utah into Arizona, to see The Grand Canyon for the first time together. We made Page, AZ our base-camp, and we traveled from there to The South Rim the first day and to the North Rim the second day.
I have said this before numberless times: anyone should experience driving through the desert at least once in their lifetime. The open space, the desolation, the solitary confinement between you and God, the hopelessness of hitting nothing but red and dust and rock and short and spikey prairie grasses does things to your brain and your heart that you can only feel; I cannot put into words well enough to tell you what that feeling is like. Not to mention that it is probably different for each one of us. One thing that I know for sure is that the desert will never leave you untouched, unstirred to your core, and unmoved... It's one of those experiences that I guarantee will change your life, or at the very least your perspective.
Every time when I drive through the desert and I take it in through my eyes, and nostrils, and ears, my mind brims with its vastness and never-endingness. There is some similarity, in my head, between the vastness of the ocean and that of the desert. No wonder that they tell us that the desert was once an ocean … I don't find that impossible one bit.
Page is a little bedroom community, it seems, for folks vising the Lake Powell and Glen Canyon areas, or The Grand Canyon. I know one person who grew up there, but even he says “it was only temporary.” This is the land of The Southwest, where adobe houses and Mexican food are good friends, where Navajo Indians hail from, and where peachy-pink sunsets are born. If you're quiet enough, you can hear the many centuries of history this land endured, from the territorial wars with Mexico, to those of The White Men submitting The Indians. The thousand years of traditions that the Colorado washed by, most of them unknown and undocumented, but only undug and guessed at by curious, lonely, university savants.
As many millions or billions of people in the world, I had seen The Grand Canyon in many pictures, magazines, movies, commercials and the like. I had some idea of what it would look like. But of course being on the edge of this big gaping hole, seen even from Space, is different than looking at a postcard. The one thing that shocked me was the incredible difference between the South and the North Rims. They are truly as different as the Yin and the Yang of a Chinese symbol.
Grand Canyon - South Rim
The South Rim is what we saw first. This is the Yang, full of light, screaming bright red and orange hues, and flooded in sunlight. This is the poster child of Arizona, as we all imagine it. It was also the most crowded and busiest. As gorgeous as the landscape was, I would not be fair to not tell you, it was also the most touristy and somewhat cheesiest. If you looked past the human factor, it was as saintly and majestic of a cathedral as all the other God given beauties of the world!
Grand Canyon - South Rim
Our world got darker the second day, and not just because it started raining pretty much as you left our hotel in Page. Driving to the North Rim was incredibly similar to driving towards Yellowstone National Park or maybe Glacier National in Montana. We could tell we were much higher than when we were at the top of the South Rim, the day before: the pine forests and the ashes never seem to grow lavishly and freely under 8000 or so feet. Once we stopped at the Visitors' Center for the North Rim, it all seemed dead. Deserted and locked away for the winter. No facilities were open, and the handful of visitors were pretty quiet and reserved. Not the cackling crowd of the day before, on the Yang Rim. It was also cold. Bitter windy and cold.
Grand Canyon - North Rim at Bright Angel Point
You cannot park right next to the rim in The North, like we could the day before. After you park you have to hike a ways through the parking lot, and then through trails to actually arrive at the end of Bright Angel Point and see the canyon below. The canyon walls here are closer to each other, and much, much darker: the landscape turns from the brilliant red and orange into dark greens and blacks in The North. It is as if you are not even looking at the same formation anymore. The Colorado is down there, you think, for you cannot see it, and the terraces slope down towards it, just like you would expect. Yet, the closeness of the two cliffs and the dark colors make you wonder if you are standing at the top of the Going to the Sun road in Glacier National, or truly at the top of The Grand Canyon.
On the North Rim you are in the midst of the Yin of The American Grand Canyon: dark, secretive, hidden, obscure and remote. If you ever saw The North Rim out of the context of its state, and were asked to place it in any American State, Arizona would never come to mind. There was a bluish – grayish haze in the air, maybe the earlier rain that day, or maybe the cold breath of the canyon vegetation. Who knows?! If the South Rim looked like a Florida naked body, scorched in the sun and ready for the next fruity drink, the North looked like an old, grumpy bear, heavy and dark, wanting to be left alone, back turned towards the world while entering its caverns.
There was a strange mystery about The North Rim, a secrecy that one could not decipher. There was an eerie silence and no sound except the breeze through the trees around us echoing into the deep, dark valley below. You could stand unmoved and think the world is dead around you. And then, a baby snake crossed our path reminding us the world is still very much alive, yet.
One thing you cannot help but wonder about when you oversee such ancient, wild, and untouched beauty is the passing of time. I always wonder what such land looked like millions of years ago – I am sure it was different, but I am also sure it was just as gorgeous as it is today. What I hope for the world is that we are smart enough to keep this incomparable beauty untouched, keep its secrets hidden, its trails crooked and trees afresh for the millions of people that will come after us.
What I felt at the top of this huge gap was lucky: to be alive, to be able to move and get there, to be able to see, and smell, and taste the cold, dry air of the desert. I also felt grateful and moved that I am equipped with the right emotional package to understand the depth of the world in front of me, literal, or otherwise.
I could write volumes about how I felt and what I saw and not a word of it would help you understand the same that I understood when I was there. All I can advise you to do is make time from your busy life and go experience it: drive through the desert, search for the spots the most hidden and let your heart listen; let your eye watch. And come back transformed.
My sister and I have talked for years about how we must go away for a while, periodically, remove ourselves from our routines and recharge our batteries. If we don't do this a couple of times a year, just go, hide, and listen to the wind in the trees or a river, or the sound of the ocean waves, or the sound of deep, unshattered silence under the starry skies, whatever … we would never be able to get out of bed and do our daily routines ever again. We would never be able to face this crazy world with all the bad, disappointing news in it. This was one of those purging trips! Recharged and life counter is now back to 0.
I will close with some wiser and more talented words than mine, just to give you a better description than I could put together of this wide-open, universe-famous, all American gem:
“It seems like a gigantic statement for even Nature to make all in one mighty stone word. Wildness so Godful, cosmic, primeval, bestows a new sense of earth's beauty and size. . . . But the colors, the living, rejoicing colors, chanting morning and evening in chorus to heaven! Whose brush or pencil, however lovingly inspired, can give us these? In the supreme flaming glory of sunset the whole canyon is transfigured, as if the life and light of centuries of sunshine stored up in the rocks was now being poured forth as from one glorious fountain, flooding both earth and Sky." (John Muir)
Grand Canyon - North Rim Click the picture to view the entire album from this trip
I am writing this as I am sitting in my hotel bed somewhere in The Rockies after climbing up the elevator while listening to the hotel radio playing “Linger” by The Cranberries. I remember where I was the first time I listened to this song and fell in love with the Irish band: I was in Romania and the year was probably around 1990 something ... How long I have come! How far I have traveled! ... This life truly is a trip!
This is my umpteenth hotel in the past two months which have had me traveling from the Atlantic to The Rockies, to the Atlantic and back to The Rockies again ... How I could manage to do so much travel while dodging two hurricanes still boggles my mind, but that is a topic for another blog...
For this one, I just wanted to stop and remember the fun times we have had, the new places I found and the old ones I have rediscovered during these past few months.
We started this marathon with a return trip to Asheville. We had not been there together for 11 years. Just saying that sounds wrong, but it is true. Asheville seems both stuck in a timeless warp and anew and fresh with new blood at the same time. The streets are filled with hippies, Krishnas, dirt, music, joy, laden with history and memories; a bon vivant-ness flows in the olden streets at dusk on a Saturday; the breweries abound and lure the traveler in with summer brews waiting to be savored, the mountains are a stone-throw away, ready to be explored. At the end of August, Asheville was still very hot. The city seemed a lot more crowded and a lot more happening than I remembered it ... That was the new part.
The Biltmore was gorgeous, in its everlasting beauty. The only thing that rivaled its beauty and richness this time around was an exhibit of Chihuly’s works of art - stunning beauty creations of massive amounts of glass and steel. The glassworks paired with the natural beauty of the gardens and the mountains, juxtaposed with the carefully detailed architecture of The Castle gave us a wonderful escape from our daily grind into a world all its own - grandiose, rich, timeless.
Chihuly at Biltmore was one of those things you'll remember as long as you'll live. It was not on my bucket list, but it so should have been. If you ever have the opportunity to see this artist's work, don't hesitate! How something so fragile can withstand so much nature and abuse is amazing to me. A great reminder of every one of us: we're so brittle but we all weather storms.
We had brunch at The Grove Park Inn, and that was hands down the most varied and plentiful brunch I have ever had anywhere. I thought for years that the brunches in Sundance or Snowbird, Utah were well done, but The GPI has them beat. Till proven otherwise - the best. I usually go for the smoked salmon at these feasts, but I had not one but three choices of smoked fish with this one: salmon, trout, and mackerel, alongside any other seafood you can imagine, from shrimp, to oysters and lobster ... This just to name one kind of the many kinds of dishes they offer.
The majestic stonework at The Grove Park Inn
It’s amazing that we did so much in Asheville just in a one-night weekend. I am so glad we are back in these parts where we could escape to so many places within driving distance from us, on impulse and be able to see and do so much!
In September, we went to our first Triangle Heart Walk, which benefits the American Heart Association and gives the money to the research in our communities. I have participated in it before in other communities, and this has been a cause which I have supported, for obvious reasons (if you know me) for years. All I can say about this event is that it ... was ... hot. Not just hot, but exhaustingly hot ... We were wimps and walked 1 mile instead of the 3 because it was brutal! As a heart patient, it was a great meet: I always like to hear the stories of other people “like” me - we’re really all unique and every heart condition is different. This was my first time meeting a heart transplant patient and being every bit as amazed, in awe, and overwhelmed as I always thought I would be when faced with such an individual. He was an inspiration. There is something special about people who get to die a little and then come back, there is no doubt about this. None.
Also in September I got to jump on a plane and come to Park City, UT for a conference. It has always been melancholy to travel back to the place I called home: my first married, happy home, for seven years. A place where I had always dreamed I would live. It’s a bitter-sweet feeling to go back: I miss these parts but I know, in my heart, that I don’t belong here anymore. Park City was cool and bright gold from the changing aspen; a perfect backdrop for the start of the fall.
Aspen mountains on the lake in Park City, Utah
Back on the East Coast it was time to take my sweet, amazing nephews to the SC beach - one of them for the first time in his little 7 year-long life! Call me crazy, but for a childless person, I have always enjoyed traveling with kids. It is amazing to see how they step out of their comfort zone and explore a world they didn’t know that existed. We started by barely being able to pull them out of the house, and pry them away from their devices with more or less force, and we ended with not being able to round them back up and bring them back in the room when they discovered how much fun jumping over the waves or floating in the lazy river, or sinking in the pool is. For two kids raised in the frozen tundra of Canada the beach was “pure paradise.” They said as much. To see the sparkles in their eyes with every new “different” restaurant experience or shopping adventure is rejuvenating. Reminds us, old, and cynical people, that the world should never cease to wonder us, as long as we stay open and come out to meet it.
First time together jumping the ocean waves - a breathless moment in time. So grateful to have been able to give them this and share this with them.
In Park City, I wore sweaters and scarves. In Myrtle Beach, SC, I wore a bathing suit and thought I was literally melting, decomposing, surely dying from sun exposure ...
Again, Myrtle Beach is one of those trips back in time for me, but I always make a point of finding something new to explore even in my old timey places. This time was the Pier 14 Restaurant which is literally on the Ocean (on stilts, part of a pier) and which did not exist 20 years ago when I lived there. The grouper filet and the mashed potatoes were to die for! I can say I got my seafood fix during this trip, for sure, and as any respectable coast town theirs doesn’t disappoint.
Blaga (look him up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian_Blaga) says that "eternity was born in a village." I say that we see eternity with our own naked eye in every sunset we watch.
There is something of that when the sun is being born from the immensity of the sky and it's reflecting its birth into the immensity of the ocean ... Time just stands still forever ...
And after all that adventure, I am back in The Rockies for more work and maybe some play, too ...
As exhausting as these past two months have been, and as much as I still miss home, I am very fortunate, lucky and blessed beyond belief to be able to do this much. Not just financially, not just through the grace of my employer, but also through the grace of God and the knowledge of all my doctors who keep me going at this speed in my advancing age (aren’t all our ages advancing?!), with my advanced health problems.
I am also grateful that the world we live in is, still, allowing to some extent for us to mov about freely and explore it deeply. This is no small gift especially nowadays! I will continue to push on, open more doors, discover more of what this life has to give me. One page at a time.
“ ... if you could return, don't let it burn, don't let it fade...” (The Cranberries, Linger)
It
feels like an eternity since I wrote this
(http://wander-world.blogspot.com/2010/05/going-west-3.html),
and in some respects it feels like yesterday. In some sort of a weird
transhumance ritual, we came up to the mountains of The West in the
late spring, seven years ago. And now we are going back to lower
ground, in the fall.
We
don't have the three cats anymore, and the Toyota Echo that brought
us across America has long been gone. We have one cat, who is getting
to make the journey back, to his home state of North Carolina. Gypsy
is sixteen and five months. This time, I will drive alone, if you're
not counting Gypsy, and my husband is driving his truck which will be
pulling our camper. Our camper will be our hotel throughout the trip.
We will start the journey back in two days, but I wanted to get this
out there, before my internet dies on us, tomorrow. Tonight is the
last night in this house. It will feel weird, and lonely and empty, I
am sure, but in many ways we have zero regrets, and are so excited
about what lies ahead.
We
have learned and grown beyond measure in the past seven years and we
have seen a part of the world which many millions of people only
dream of seeing. The Rockies have been our back yard, and we have not
taken them for granted even once.
It
it surreal, really – that we are not going to be able to jump in
the truck, hitch the camper and drive to Nebo for the weekend or camp
on the side of the road in Diamond Fork, jump in the Toyota and have
dinner and see a concert in Park City at the end of a busy week.
Surreal that we won't be spending any more weekends at Snowbird in
the summer. But alas, the road is waiting and we must go. New
adventures, new states to see, old friends to visit, and new ones to
make.
I
will try to post a little something every day once we hit the road,
from all of the many stops we'll have across America. This land is
wide open and waiting for us. Till next stop, from yet another state,
perhaps … stay well, all, and for those of you in The West: thank
you for seven years of friendship, neighborly love, and memories. We
will miss you!
Gypsy supervising packing and wondering when are we ready to leave already.
I
started this a few days ago, as I was mentally playing a slideshow of
favorite places I have acquainted with in the past seven years of
living in The American West. It was supposed to be just a few words,
but it took on a life of its own. Hope you have the patience and the
time. Here we are …
If
spring makes my heart sing, fall makes my heart be quiet. And listen.
Listen to the swoosh of the leaves lazily, unconvincingly floating down
from trees towards the eternal grave of the earth. Listen for the
rain violently hitting the dusty desert windows, in rage and hunger.
Listen for the time to pass, the days to shrink, and the nights to
swallow us whole for six more gray months. Fall makes me quiet and
makes me listen to my life passing and my time being left behind me.
Rear view mirror, but no rear drive. This is my last fall in The
Rockies, and it's extra special for this reason.
Even
people that know me well might not know this about myself, but I had
two dreams amongst the many I grew up with. I told myself that if I
ever were to move to America (which I did, with the Good Lord's
mercy) I was going to have two experiences: one would be that of
living in The South. I wanted the diversity, to be close to that
history, to that dialect, to the food, to the sweet and gritty
people, to the “Gone with the Wind” days of the past. The second
one was that of living in The West. I wanted to roam aimlessly across
the plains of The West, listen to the enormous silence of the desert,
put roots where the soil was too harsh to harvest, climb the majestic
Rockies, and step on the same trails where the white man and The
Indians met, where the buffalo roamed and the antelope skittishly
but confidently called home. And again, by His grace, I
did this, too.
And
now it's come to the time when I close this second chapter of my
American life. We're saying 'good bye' to The West. My husband wrote
(http://aaronkuehn.net/tol/?p=825)
about all the reasons why, so I won't go into details. I will just
say that there comes a time in everyone's life when things must move
on. Naturally and without effort. We must move forward. And this is
our forward time.
I
will have to say that The West has proven to be everything I was
expecting and dreaming about for decades, and at the same time
absolutely nothing I was expecting. It's bigger. Larger than life,
really. Overwhelming. Much louder and faster than I expected it. Less
American Melting Pot and more American Puritanical. It's tough, but
this was no surprise. I am convinced now that you need more grit to
make it out here than you do in the South. The South welcomes you and
patches up your wounds. The West digs the dagger into them deeper and
makes you bleed more. Makes you a stronger human, for sure, but a
more scarred one. People are colder and more aloof here. Their gaze,
lost in the red dirt of the desert, looking for that chimera that
might never come; dreaming in an abandoned resignation for a
forgiveness that might never come. The West is purging. The South is
the absolution.
If
I have loved The South like I love my mother and father, if I have
loved it like the safe, balmy heaven that I need to rest my body and
find comfort in when it is tired and unsettled, I have loved The West
like you love a sexy, crazy, abusive, but passionate lover. The
temptation is huge, the luring is powerful, the scars deep. I love
The West like you love a drug that you cannot quit.
The
West is made up of stuff the movies, and the legends are made of, and
I got to see it, smell it, taste it with my own senses – a bigger
privilege and adventure cannot be possible.
Life
has not always been easy for us here, if at all. But we made
incredibly beautiful memories in this part of the world. I am beyond
words grateful to have been given the opportunity to have lived here
for seven years! What was but a dream has been my seven (7!!) year
reality now. I have the gray hair and the wrinkles to prove it.
I
can firmly say that we made a life here, a life that was very
different than the one before, but very good, albeit very tough. We
had almost no friends, for the most part. The ones we had left sooner
than us. We will remember long, lonely years when we reveled into
just being on our own, learning the land, camping alone, hiking in
search of the next beautiful corner of The Rockies (and that was
always plenty!), and finding each other, stronger and more in love.
There
are things I won't miss, for sure: I have never used this many
bottles of lotion to keep my skin moist as I have in the past seven
years. The dry air, and the harsh mineral waters cut your skin. I
probably aged faster because of how quickly and often my skin lost its moisture.
Traffic
is insane, at least in the part of the country we're in (Utah
Valley). Pollution is incredibly and surprisingly high in lots of
Western cities, not just in Utah. It's depressing. Services are
mediocre at best.
And
then there are the people, again: they never answer calls. Waiters
and waitresses never acknowledge a woman is sitting at the table.
Employers, at least in Utah, severely underpay women for the same
jobs (or harder) than men. As a woman you really don't exist in this
state, especially as a childless woman.
I
never did understand neighbors here, either: they are not friendly
enough to come over for dinner, or invite you over for a bbq, but
they do leave stuff you don't need nor ask for at your door in
secrecy. I am not sure I'll ever understand that,
even if I were to remain here 20 more
years.
But
warts and all, I am desperately in love with this place, and I will
sorely miss it! There is something surreally cathartic about sitting
on the porch of a log cabin overlooking The Rockies, and taking in
the rocks, the pines, listening to the trickling river, watching the
wild creatures come for a sip of water, and hearing the wind
sheepishly crawling through the trees. Like I said: like a strong
drug you can't quit, I will crave it painfully. I will miss jumping
in the car and driving for 10 minutes to stare at a valley from a
high peak. I will miss the camping in crisp cold mountain air, the
buffalo on the prairie, and the vast lands, with limitless mountain
ranges. I will miss having a mountain view from every window in my
house. I'll even miss the snow peaks in the middle of June!
There
have been hundreds (with no exaggeration) of memories we have made in
the past seven years, and I really would like (another dream) to sit
down one day and write my Big Fat Western Memoir. But I will mention
just some of them here, just in the hope that someone might need some
reasons to move up here. Like I said: it started out with just a few
thoughts, and it grew into this …
In
no particular order, these have been some of my most favorite moments
in my seven years of living in The West:
… being
able to go on a road trip to Napa Valley and winery hop for our
honeymoon. Sipping the best (my husband says) Long Island ice tea on
the San Francisco Harbor. Eating at Morimoto's
in Napa and experiencing California – every bit of its diversity
and noise.
… driving
on a whim to Vegas for some world famous cocktails and a show.
Tripling my money at the penny machines.
… playing
Bingo in Mesquite, NV, and then getting lost in antique stores down
there, full of memories of The Western Past, a mixture of Native
Indian art and Old Frontier paraphernalia.
… eating
at old timey saloons in Park City, Cody, WY, or Jackson Hole. You can
smell the stinky leather boots to this day, and trip on the warped
wooden floors.
… sipping
hot toddies at Hotel
Monaco
in Salt Lake City on New Year's Eve, waiting for the fancy dinner to
start at Bambara's
and for the fireworks show to begin at midnight.
… eating
the best Thai food in America (to date, for us) at Sawadees
in Salt Lake, right before going to see Saturday's
Voyeur
at Salt
Lake Acting Company.
How we're going to miss that
show!
… riding
the chairlift at Sundance during a full moon. Coldest summer night
you will ever experience! Watching the moose lazily bathing in Silver
Lake on Big Cottonwood Canyon, or sipping a cold brew at Solitude on
a lazy, Sunday afternoon in July. Just us, the mountains and the tall
skies – the Nature's Cathedral just for us.
… we
went to this tiny little town of Afton, WY one summer for the
weekend. Never in a million years would I have wanted to go there –
why Wyoming?! What's in Afton?! But they have some of the best cabins
to rent and they have the best trails on the edge of Bridger National
Forest – gushing rivers and tall firs, rocks and peace, deafening
peace everywhere. And believe it or not, some of the best seafood you
find here, in a mom'n'pop store in the middle of downtown.
...lakes
are deeper and cleaner here – except for Utah Lake. I do believe
that there is a huge monster, maybe a whole family of them, living
in Utah Lake that spew out neon waste every hour to give it it's
gloomy, dirty, neon glow every other day. Outside of this lake,
however, the lakes out here are pristine, cold, crystal clear, and
deep.
… wandering
the streets of Ketchum, ID, where Hemingway scattered his last steps
before he died. Ketchum has the best breakfast potatoes at Bigwood
Breakfast Cafe – a
sure sign you're in Idaho.
… sampling
absinthe in a gourmet store and eating elk chili at the brewery in
Jackson Hole, WY. Walking under the elk antler arches in the downtown
– nothing says more “wild” and more “West” than that! Afton
had the antler arches, too. Or maybe I am wrong: there is at least
one thing that says more “wild” than that: wandering in the
middle of the desert and running into hungry hawling coyotes and
wolves in the middle of the day, or seeing horse, cow, or deer
carcasses in almost every hike. Vultures and crows feasting on naked
bones in a melting summer mid-day.
...we
will probably not run again into many establishments with names that
bring ghosts of the past and John Wayne movie memories to mind –
places with “wild”, “cowboy”, “lonely”, “ranger”,
“Indian”, “saloon”, “claim jumper”, “desert rose”,
“one eye”, “buffalo”, “shooter”, “gun” , 'barrel”,
“rain(dance)”, “sun(dance)”, “wind”, “last chance”,
“trading post” in the name.
… going
up the Provo Canyon to Sundance on a whim: whether it was a long
weekend, a boring weekend with nothing to do, a dinner craving, a
Sunday brunch – we could always rely on Sundance to be there for
us. And once we were there, the views, the peace, the chill in the
mountain air took all the pains of the everyday life away. Bob (as in
Redford), we will miss you!
… going
down to Zion or Moab for the weekend and shooting the moon-like
desert life for hours. Getting lost in the redness and getting
speechless in the face of a nature like no other on Earth. The red
rock is as unique as the limestone mountains of Turkey, the jungle of
the Amazon, and the vastness of Antarctica. There is nothing like it,
nothing compares – it just must be seen with your own eyes to
understand. Or to puzzle upon.
… speaking
of Moab: if you can only go there once, make sure you eat dinner in
the sunset, on the Colorado River at the Red
Cliffs Lodge
– about 14 miles off the main drag. Leave time and the world behind
you and go die for a minute – just you, the mighty Colorado, the
red rocks and the sunset. If you still believe that God is bogus, you
have no feelings, really …
… getting
lost in the desert was still my favorite past time here. Going to
Bluff, UT in the winter, when no one is there and there is only one
restaurant in town open and one gas station with a cranky host gives
new meaning to the words “lonely” and “desert”. You
understand why the Navajos are not people of many words in these
parts: they don't dare disturb the serenity of nature and God. Their
turmoils are internal, just like the riveting life of the desert –
all under wraps and in the shadows.
… I
will equally miss the salmon supper in Payson, UT – best, largest
wild Alaskan salmon cooked on an open fire - and the Indian food at
Bombay
House
in Provo. The people at the Bombay
House
were the best hosts I have met in my stay here. The friendliest, most
efficient, and most passionate about what they do.
… I
will miss shooting. Shooting (as in camera) is so easy here: you just
point the camera and make sure you have a steady hand. The light is
almost always perfect and the landscape is begging to be shot. You
can never run out of things to shoot here, but my most special
moments were when we chased the buffalo on Antelope Island, on the
big Salt Lake, or the birds, frisky with frost, in the deep winter,
on Utah Lake. Utah Lake in the sunset goes apey! I will miss shooting
sunsets …
… I
will miss the skies here, mostly. There are no rainbows I have ever
seen anywhere bigger and brighter than here. The sunsets and sunrises
are glorious odes to God and to Earth, painted canvases in search for
an audience. Such show-offs!
… I
have loved all the trips we took from here – from California to
Washington State, from Colorado to Nevada, Montana to Arizona. But
the one place in my heart that will remain like the ever-burning flame
of my life here, and of my memories of The West will be Monument Valley
in the heart of the Navajo Reservation. That place, between the
buttes, in July, at sunset, is the place where all of the energy of
the world and the universe comes for supper. Time truly stands still
and is visible, so you can see it sitting down and having dinner,
chewing ever so slowly till the sun dips into the red dirt. If I have
to take one picture and one picture only from The West with me, snug
in my heart and my sinews, it would be that piece of land right
there.
… Montana
had always been my Mecca. Unlike any other European person that
dreams of coming to America for New York and L.A. and Miami, I wanted
to come to the US for Montana. The untouched land, the wilderness,
the candle-like trees bordering the rocky cliffs – it's all there,
and it's what I think about when I think of The Rockies. For a while
we thought we might even move there, but alas, altitude got the
better of my heart, and we can't anymore, for wanting to live.
Glacier National Park was like coming home, finally. Everything I
have ever dreamed about and loved about mountains, mountain absolute
perfection is achieved there. There is a feeling of reaching an apex,
like I felt when climbing the Twin Towers in New York in 1999, of
achieving something great when you cross the Continental Divide and
stare into the immense valleys below. When you watch olden glaciers
melt into water and air right before your eyes. There is also a
feeling of smallness and unimportance about yourself, in the grand
scheme of things. Montana is all that and so much more.
… when
I think of more Old West reminders, I think of every other eating
place in downtown Park City, I think of The
Lodge at
Bryce, Irma
Hotel
in Cody, WY, The
Mahogany Grill
in Durango, CO, or The
Cowboy Grill
at The Red Cliffs Lodge in Moab, UT. You step into any one of them
and you're expecting that Buffalo Bill is sitting at the bar, Bourbon
in hand.
I
know The American West stops at the level of family photo albums as
far as history is measured, but it does have its own history and its
own character, to be sure, unfound elsewhere in America, I believe.
It's a land of cowboys, hunters, law breakers, women who had to
either make it on their own or hide between the husband and 10 kids,
and maybe even 2 or 3 other wives. If I had a dollar for every time I
said “Wow! We really do live in the Wild West” because someone
shot a cop, or made their own justice somehow, I would be rich now.
History has caught up with these parts, in some ways, but some people
still think the gun and the land run supreme, and nothing and no one
will stand between them and those sacred treasures!
… some
of my favorite time has been spent enjoying the small towns we live
in and near-by: going to the rodeo or buying the annual funnel cake
at Fiesta Days in Spanish Fork, or going to Park Silly in Park City,
or to Oktoberfest in Snowbird. Solitude is such a gem of a resort,
and as deep and powerful as the name itself. Pure, crystallized …
solitude.
… I
will miss the mountain streams skipping step from rock to rock in the
spring. Camping on the mountain tops in the fall and hearing the
tired, not so full sound of the springs running towards the valleys
in rest, waiting for the winter snow and ice to mute them.
… I
will miss the sweet tomatoes my rocky, sandy soil yields – sweetest
I have ever tasted in this hemisphere, because dryness makes sweet.
Same for grapes. Harvesting tomatoes, grapes, pears and cherries was
as close as I ever got to being a true Pioneer woman and taming these
dry, stubborn, rock-full lands. I never did learn how to make apple
pie, neither here, not in The South. I did learn a thing or two about
funeral potatoes. It's not any kind of special recipe, really –
it's just whatever potato dish you want to bring to a funeral to
share. Why not a wedding, or a christening, I have not a clue!
… you
get used to driving long roads here, because there is nothing for
hundreds of miles but the desert and a few bad barns, leaning on one
side. Nothing but beauty and nature, that is. Nothing but wilderness
and the almighty sun. But as long as the drives were, I will still
miss taking them and being in very different climates, and flora and
fauna zones. I will miss planning road trips to places like Lake
Tahoe, CA, Yellowstone National Park, Whitefish, MT, Sun Valley, ID,
Durango, CO, Vernal, UT.
… the
winds in The West are what I underestimated the most. I don't believe
the tornadoes of the South will make me wince anymore, after having
lived here, where 60 mph gusts are the norm. Especially at my house,
at the mouth of the canyon. Winds will always carry me back here, on
their swift wings …
There
are still places I have not seen and I am kicking myself for not
having done so. Would you believe that I still have not see The Grand
Canyon, or the Sequoia Forest in California?! Or Yosemite? Or
Portland, OR? Or Grand Staircase Escalante? For these and many more,
I will be back. That is a promise, health and money not being an
issue.
I
quiet down now and let the wind take my memories away and scatter
them across the plains. I came of another age in this place, both
wonderful and mean. I am older, stronger, tougher, and I probably
used to being lonely, just me and Aa., more than before. We have
grown into a couple here, strong and loving, from the two entities we
came here as, when we had barely gotten married. Some say that no
toughness is built unless there is loss, and as much as we have
gained in these past seven years (us, our love, our marriage, our
travels, our many hundreds of thousands of photographs, our lives
stronger and more accomplished), we have also lost. We lost jobs, two
adorable, amazing kittens, money, even (and not in gambling), health,
patience … It made us stronger and it shaped our road from here, so
zero regrets and much looking forward to the door that is now
opening.
Oh,
I could go on for another 10 pages, but I am looking at my count and
I am into five of them right now, so I better stop! These are all
things that came to mind as I am sitting here, on a windy Tuesday
night, all alone, pondering upon the recent past.
It
is somewhat poetic that the end of such an adventure comes in the
fall for us: it's when my heart gets quiet and can think and reflect
on things past, somewhat melancholy, somewhat longing, but always
accomplished.
I
am already longing for some of the places I stopped to document here,
for posterity. As much as my heart is filled with the apprehension of
what my next chapter back in my beloved South might bring, it is also
filled with the memories and the emotional baggage I have stored in
these past seven years.
And
speaking of my heart: there will forever be a more organic, more
material connection to this place than to any other place in the
world: when they took my aorta and my aortic valve out of it last
year, you could say that a piece of my heart will forever stay in The
West. Quite literally. The West is not for quitters, that's for sure.
And we are not that. We're just ready for the next road trip.
So
long, Utah, and Montana, and Wyoming, and Colorado, California,
Nevada, and Arizona, too … Till next time …
Besides
making me chuckle and making me feel like I am looking into a mirror
(she is born one day after me, after all) Anne Lamott's books always
make me evaluate my life. They always make me ponder upon such things
like “where am I?”, “where am I going?”, “have I made the
right choices so far?” (in case you are wondering, they are all
“right” choices), and “are my thighs the right size?”. You
know – the important stuff.
But
this one time in particular, recently, I was reading an Anne Lamott
book (“Some Assembly Required”) on a flight from Montreal to
Toronto and I was not only forced to ask the questions, as usual. I
was forced to answer them, too. After all, I had plenty of time. That
plane was not going anywhere.
So,
by now, you probably think I am crazy, because the flight from
Montreal to Toronto should not be long enough to ponder one's
existence. Oh, but you are mistaken. Pilots and airports lately can
make the shortest distance seem never ending. The Toronto airport, as
big and international, and “key” as it might sound, had only ONE
(it calls for all caps here) runway open. ONE. That was it. When we
arrived in the Montreal airport, several flights to Toronto were
canceled because of early morning fog. Then, later flights (ours
included) were being delayed, because they could only fly one
airplane in at one time, and let one fly away, after that one. Given
that Toronto is a super busy and super international airport, there
were tens of planes queued up to land and take off.
We
boarded the plane in Montreal and waited for the go from Toronto that
we could leave. We waited for an hour, I think, on the ground, in
Montreal. Then, the pilot let us off the plane because there was no
sign that we would be given the OK to approach Toronto any time soon
(the flight is about 35-45 minutes, if that!). We waited at the gate
for another hour. Then, we finally boarded and we flew towards
Toronto. We're all giddy with life and anticipation by then.
And
we make it, we are told, to the capital of Ontario, but we cannot see
land. We are all en-wrapped in clouds, and we are hovering. We can
really feel like we are not moving forward, but just going around in
circles, or just hovering. And we hang there. For another hour and a
half, or more. A flight of 30 minutes took about two and a half hours
from gate to gate. I have flown over the Atlantic many a times, but a
flight never seemed so long as this one. When you're thinking you're
there in a spell and you're not, the seconds linger and extend like
balls of warm chewing gum between a finger and a thumb … So, then,
during this time, with nothing to look at but sleeping people all
around me, I am forced in mandatory confinement, just me, myself and
Anne Lamott. Pondering life and meaning of it all.
Many
a things came to my mind. Things I am happy about – like the fact
that I made it on this other side of open heart surgery and I lived
to tell the tale with only two or three maybe brain cells missing;
like the fact that I have shelter, and a job and food good enough to
eat at the end of every day; and the fact that my husband is there to
catch me every time I fall, on my face, or otherwise; the fact that I
had just visited my nephews who take my breath away with possibility
and unbounded dreams; the fact that the war has not started just yet.
But
then, there were the dark thoughts, too. Things I am not so happy
about. Like the fact that some days I feel physically exhausted with
putting up an appearance anymore – to live in Utah as an 'outsider'
will do this to you after seven years. For those who know me well,
you'll wonder why I bother with the appearance, since I never seemed
to get the hang of it before. I am not sure I do now, either, but I
have to earn my living, so putting up an appearance it is; or at
least trying my damnest to do that. Some other things that I
questioned during my confinement were: I miss my friends, I miss
North Carolina, I miss the Ocean, and life is too short to not have
what you want nearby, especially when you could, theoretically.
I also am tired of having no friends, no real friends, close by …
you know the ones you could call in the middle of the day on Sunday
and just go out to the drive-in for ice cream, or something …
I
never live for regrets, so being here in Utah for the past seven
years has not been a bad thing at all, but it's like a circle that
never completed. It's missing a big chunk of it, and it's starting to
collapse into itself.
Then,
I questioned my job, my role on this planet. I have felt a book,
maybe several coming to me over the years, but now, that I have
literally seen death, I should get the memo and the ultimatum that
time is precious. And books are not written from the grave. Lots to
think about it here. Huge sigh!
Like
any Lamott book would do, it made me reconsider and redefine my
relationship with my parents. As always, there is a lot of
complicated “stuff” there. Lots and lots of love, with many a
disappointment mixed in. But to quote my mom “it's a sad day when
your kids judge you.” But what if they don't leave you any choice
but to judge them? What if they can't see that? I know, I know …
there is always a choice … blah, blah, blah – it does not make it
easier, because we're human and they raised us smart and questioning,
so we judge them … I know now not to let their lack of care for
themselves make me cry and make me lose sleep. It's still hard,
because, like I said, there is lots of love and lots of wanting them
to live forever, but … I cannot pity them anymore. That is just it:
my pity meter has gotten stuck on empty. And the refill station has
closed for business. I hope for the best, but I have a life, one
fragile, solitary life of my own to live, too … so I won't poison
it with my frustration to their disregard of theirs. But it hurts,
and it bleeds, and it makes me sad …
When
we made it to the other end of the runway, I felt like I used to feel
after confession: like all my worries were left behind me, washed
away by some divine hand. And it's only going to be the straight and
narrow from here on out.
Doubtful.
But one thing I know for sure now: when in doubt about your life,
impose some kind of confinement on yourself, and focus on something
that centers and anchors you. Leave those waves alone to wash you
clean of good and bad. And just remain solid, pure and unmoving –
like the Gibraltar rock. Just cleanse your system and restart. With
all the thoughts cleansed, your mind, your heart, the core of your
being will be ready to fill up again with new possibilities. And just
like that: restart.
After the smoke starting clearing - above Toronto, ON
So,
essential oils. That's a thing nowadays, if you didn't
know it. I have friends selling them, and till recently I have worked
in a building where one full floor was taken by a billion dollar
company that sold them. Their floor smelled like someone
intentionally broke about a million bottles of perfume and the
ceilings and the floors and the walls were coated with it.
Me?!
They're too strong for my taste. I cannot see how you can be around
even one little bottle of the smelly stuff and not be high. And, as
you know, control freaks like me do not do “high”. Anyway …
this billion dollar company around here harvests their lavender for
their oils on this farm, just South of where we live.
I
don't do essential oils, but lavender has always fascinated me. Since
high school, reading French novels about sachets of lavender being
stuck in ladies' purses and in between sheets, I have thought of
lavender as the equivalent of pure gold in the aromatic and herbal
industries – rare and coveted by anyone who knows style. Since then, it's always symbolized the very essence of femininity and grace.
I am picky
about my lavender “products”, but I love the plant pretty much
unconditionally – the smell, the look (it's purple, for crying out
loud!), the said French history (in my head), the frail, gorgeous
wreaths it yields, everything.
This
past weekend, the said company celebrated Lavender Days on their
farm, an event that I have been wanting to go to since we moved here,
over 6 years ago. The whole experience, though, left much to be
desired.
The
grounds were beautiful – pristine landscaping, peaceful setting, a
stream running through it, tall trees lining up the trails. The
lavender fields were gorgeous, too, as I expected – with lavender
bushes mathematically laid out equidistant from one another, gently
swaying in the prairie wind, like a huge sheet. The air smelled like
lavender and chamomile, and by the time you got into the middle of
the grounds you could almost feel the smell enwrapping you, like a
magic aura.
The well manicured groundsat the foot of our mountains.
Since
it was announced as a festival, I thought local artists and merchants
will be present, too, or maybe their own folks would show us the art
and the craft of making things out of lavender, as a celebration of
the plant. But almost no one was there. For food, they had just a
couple of booths with food (one with watermelon, one with burgers and
one with lavender ice-cream and lemonade), but I was expecting
something savory cooked with lavender – which I know exists. The
lavender lemonade that I had was a very weird mixture of very sweet
and very bitter. My jaws hurt from too much flavor.
They
had a jousting competition with actors dressed up in Queen
Elizabeth I era costumes which played on a backdrop of 90's disco
music. Connection?! I could not find one, other than maybe lavender
being an age old herb?! They had a buggy ride around the farm, which
I guess could have been entertaining, had it not been for the 10 kids
to 1 adult ratio inside the buggy.
The old time-y castle and the horse drawn buggy/ cart
The
Visitor's Center had some interesting artifacts, which showed the old
distiller barrels, and they run documentaries about the industry of
harvesting lavender and distilling the oils, but the building could
only host 20 people at one time, so there was a long line to get in. The line also deterred one from watching the documentaries, as we had to rush in and out of there.
I wanted to buy some 'products', you know, just to support a local
business, but it took two cashiers about 20 minutes to figure out
what the prices were – they only knew the prices for the members of
this multi level marketing business that was running the show, there
were no retail prices easily available for us, mortals.
Artifacts in the Visitors' Center
Probably
the most disappointing bit was that no one was giving anyone a tour
of the grounds or the distillery. The latter was all but abandoned,
with not a soul in sight, when we went to visit it. I do thank them
for leaving it wide open and accessible so I can see the huge
distillers up close. They smelled like soup.
The lonely distillery. I loved the pile of harvested lavender spread out to dry in front of it. Reminded me of my childhood, when my sister and I made hay in the mountains. This smelled the best, out of everything else.
The bottom of the huge distiller. This is what smelled like an herb-y soup.
The old way they did the distilling, back in France.
The only thing that explained how everything is done.
It
was a gorgeous day, hot, but windy – which helped make it very
pleasant. I got as close as I ever wanted to be to lavender, and I am
glad we went, for this reason. If you took the practical out of it (lack of explanations, lack of easy access to 'product', poor organization and disconnected activities), it could have been a beautifully quiet and natural experience. The loud people and the disco music contributed to ruin that, too.
I am in no rush to go back. Maybe
try another farm like this, but not this one. Not for a while. I will
still buy their products at the Farmer's Market downtown, just to bring home a token of that femininity and age-old gold. For some
reason, the people they send there seem to know the prices on
everything.
Gorgeous fields of purple.
And because I am not good enough to say it better myself, I am quoting The Bard: "Forgiveness is the smell that lavender gives out when you step on it". (Mark Twain)
