Memories: Installment 4

This is one from the vaults. It was something I wrote several years ago when I was in college. I had been to too many funerals in too short a time, too many of them for people my age and younger. I began to suffer from terrible, mind-consuming panic attacks.

Not all my memories are pleasant recollections of starry nights.

I'm happy to say the panic attacks are nowhere near as bad as they were, and come infrequently at best. My faith has become much stronger. That said, the scars remain.

If you have the stomach, I give you this memory.

--------------------------

What the hell?

No seriously. What. The. Hell.

Death didn't use to bother me.

Now it causes me mental anguish every time I even think about it.

I'm used to death. I really am. I mean, anybody who knows me at all knows how many frikkin' funerals I've had to attend. Uncle Cecil's when I was eight, that was my first one. At least, the first I can remember. I don't know whether or not dad brought me to Gramma's funeral. I was really too young then. I do remember him sitting in a chair and when I asked him what was wrong, he said, "Well, sweetheart... my mommy just died."

But I really recall Jonathan's. I remember mom coming down the hallway to tell me that the eleven o'clock news had revealed the second drowning victim's name. I remember crawling, shakingly, out of bed, and walking down the hallway to confirm it for myself. I remember how trance like it felt. I remember the way his face looked swollen, having drowned, at the funeral home. I remember all of it.

I was sixteen.

Kids shouldn't die that young.

In fact, kids shouldn't die. Michelle shouldn't have died. She was only four for fuck's sake. A four-year-old shouldn't have to be buried.

But they do.

I will, someday.

And even though I was "Fearless" when I was three, I am older now, and know better. I know I am mortal, and will die.

And that thought, the thought that someday, my life will end, scares the living piss out of me. Not because I'm afraid of the pain. Not because I'm afraid I'll have lived an incomplete life. But because of what happens after that.

Nobody really knows what happens after that, you know? A lot of people THINK they do, but nobody can agree on it. Ask any Catholic and God is sitting in the Heavens upon his great Throne. Ask a Hindu and he'll tell you that you'll wake up in a whole new body. A Jew will tell you that Abraham will hold you to his bosom, and a Muslim will tell you that Allah will grant you a great reward. Some of the zealots believe you'll have a harem of virgins. Everybody's got their own idea.

But we can't reconcile them all.

I mean, I used to believe that all religions stemmed from the same Source and thus we would all end up going to the same Place afterward. But we just can't. We can't. There are too many stipulations and secret handshakes and hoops to jump through to get to "the Right Place", which differs depending on who you ask. What if we've just made it all up? What if we, as a species, when we discovered our own mortality, had to adapt a means of understanding and justifying life so as not to instantly lose our minds?

What if there is no Heaven, no Hell, no Valhalla, no Happy Hunting Grounds, no rebirth? What if, when you die... that's just... it?

THAT'S what scares me, and keeps me awake at night. It's what gave me a mental breakdown when I was fourteen and has reared its ugly head again to tear at my psyche. It's what has made me look over my shoulder every hour for the past six months, and why I've gotten so short with people. I'm scared. Plain and simple.

I'm scared that I'm not even real at this very moment. I'm so very, very afraid that what I am right now is nothing more than someone else's dream, and that when they wake, I will be gone. As though, and for all intents correctly, I was never here. I can't distinguish reality and dream anymore. Sleep brings dreams that are so real I forget they were dreams WELL on into the day. I'll dream that I talked to someone on the phone, or perhaps bought cereal, and later that day I will be shocked to learn that no, in fact, we are out of cereal or that conversation never took place.

And reality itself has become a dream. I no longer really taste my food, nor my drink. Sensation is so fleeting I can barely call it real. A moment passes and I wonder: was that a moment in which I created a memory, or am I simply dreaming, and that memory that I think I have made is simply made up? What if there is no future to this exact second, and the only reason I'm sitting here RIGHT NOW is because somebody's dreaming that a girl my age, my height and my nature is sitting in front of a computer having a mental meltdown and all of her memories leading up to that point are just filler?

What if that's the case?

Why can't I feel real anymore?

I know I used to. I know I used to smell the grass and taste the popcicles and feel the sunlight and hear the leaves and see... gods, the things I used to see! I cannot see anymore, I have grown blind. And no matter how I strive, I still cannot see. I can't look people in the eye because, in my mind, somehow, they aren't there. They are no more real than I. I am related to dreams, friends with figments, and in love with a phantom. None of the people or things I know and love are real, nor am I.

This is what frightens me.

This is what has cast me on my downward spiral of late.

If you know the way out... throw me a rope.

Memories: Installment 3

Given that my last post centred around my animal-affinities, I might as well continue the trend. I'll take you back a bit further, so you can see why my dad sort of gave up on arguing with me about the "can we keep it!?" argument.

I was in 5th grade, and it was May. I know this because the school uniforms allowed us to switch to our "summer" outfits, which is to say the particular navy-blue shorts and usual collared shirt. Normally we girls had to wear these - well, very typical for Catholic school - plaid pleated skirts. Skirts suck for kids, unless you like feeling girly, or play a lot in the sandbox. (No seriously. We used our skirts as giant sand-carrying implements. My mother never said a word about the stains, either. I figure because she probably did the same thing, being a tombody herself and all.) Boys were stuck with corderoy pants. In the summer of the Central Valley? They melted. In the winter? We froze. Nobody won. Unless it was the shorts. They were ugly, but we loved them.

I had a bad habit of not changing out of my uniform, either right away or at all. I was just so happy to be home I'd immediately go play in the dirt without changing, which wasn't the easiest for the clothes. On this particular day, I was more focused on my new kitten than I was my clothes. Our cat Tigger had a litter earlier that year, and the kittens were all weaned and most of them adopted out... except the one I kept. Because... well, see previous "can I keep it?!" argument. (I had this discussion a LOT with my father.) Tigger had stayed long enough to wean her kittens, get spayed, and then took off. So all my attention was on my new pride and joy, my kitten, Callie. She was only like eight weeks at this point, but our cats were indoor-outdoor, and, well... she was outdoors at this time.

I came home, dropped my backpack on the floor, and immediately went in search of my fuzzy friend.

There was a creek across the street, and the cats LOVED to hang out there. The banks were steep and pretty deep. I'm terrible at estimating distance, but I'd say a good 30 feet to the water most summers, with slightly more than 45-degree incline in some places. In some, it was a sheer drop. And this was to a creek that was about 30-feet wide as well, and goodness knows how deep. It moved fast, too. But there were frogs and bugs and snakes and berry vines down there, so of course I went down there a fair bit myself. I had no fear of sliding down that steep embankment, and so my search took me to the water's swift-moving edge, calling for my kitten.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, I heard an answering meow.

I kept calling, louder, and got the same echo-location response. I couldn't place it. It was far off, but definitely responding, so I wasn't going to give up. Just then, mom popped her head over the egd of the cliff above me. Ostensibly to make sure I hadn't drowned or done something stupid.

Which I was about to do.

See, as though on cue, in that precise moment, a tiny fuzzy object lept from the berry vines on the other side of the creek. It was a kitten, all right, but not mine. My kitten was a marble-fudge tabby-tortoiseshell. This one was a white ball of fluff with grey splotches. And she was making the heroic swim across this enormous, fast... moving... um...

Mom saw her too. She called down to me, "E, she's trying to swim to you! Can you get her?!"

Some people hear what they want to hear, you know that? I heard "can you" as "go". "Go get her." So I said, "OKAY!!" and lept into the water - still in my school uniform - to swim out and retrieve this tiny kitten, who was travelling dangerously fast downstream.

I say "dangerously" because this area of the creek was just upstream from a bridge. Fun Fact: cities will dump lots of rip-rap (broken cement chunks) under bridges to keep them from eroding too much near the pillars keeping the bridge up. Rip-rap is no fun to go over. At all. Ever. Even in an inflatable raft. And it was only maybe a minute's distance from us to being drawn forcibly over tumbling rapids and very sharp rocks. So I swam like hell to get to this kitten, which was actually pretty easy. We had a pool, you see, and in the searing summer heat, you had to drag me out of the water. I was practically part fish. Swimming out to get her was no problem.

I grabbed onto the soggy furball, clutched her to me, and swam back to... hey, where'd the bank go?

I knew enough to get to the side of the creek, regardless of what the side looked like. But the bank I'd been standing on was far away now. I'd drifted downstream enough to have reached past the point of no return. This was sheer cliff all the way. Mom called to me in a strained voice, telling me to stay put, and ran for help. I clutched some weeds, clinging to the side of the creek like driftwood. I looked around, finally assessing the situation I had bounded gleefully into, found myself in a fast-moving river with no escape route and really nasty rapids not far away.

But also, I found myself cradling a tiny, helpless, 5-week-old-at-best, totally calm kitten. She was only barely applying pressure with her claws, just enough to velcro to my shirt, but not enough to hurt me. She didn't meow, didn't fuss, didn't struggle. It was as though she trusted me to get us out of this mess, that this was the worst it could possibly get and nothing could make it any less appealing than it currently was. And it was looking pretty unappealing. But there, clinging to muddy weeds in muddy water, we were together at least. She looked at me with those violet-blue eyes that kittens have when they're not old enough to be on their own, and she trusted me.

So I sang to her.

What else could I do? I couldn't go anywhere, so I figured I might as well just sing. Nothing in particular, just a little nameless made-up melody. Just me, her, the sound of the river, and a wandering song.

My brother poked his head over the edge of the cliff and said he and mom would try and catch me just before the rapids. The bank scoops down at the bridge and for a couple yards before the sharp rocks; there was just enough room to pull me out. If they could catch me. So I waited until they positioned themselves downstream - one grabbing the bridge support, one holding their hand and reaching out. And slowly, slowly, I bobbed downstream to meet them, arresting my momentum with the cliff wall as I could.

I was successfully hauled out of the water without being dashed against the rocks, and mom wrapped me in a towel as my brother held the kitten. He held it by the scruff, a dripping, sorry, sodden creature, and said, "... you risked your life, for this?!"

I did. And I'd do it again, too. I regret nothing. And I don't say that because it's an awesome story or even because I feel awesome about being a hero or something silly like that.

I say it because a year later, I got a picture from the nurse who adopted that kitten, whose name became Cleopatra. There she was, a big, sleek, beautiful cat, with ice blue eyes and smooth coat. She lived for many, many years in a happy, loving home. I made a difference. And that is reason enough.

Memories: Installment 2

It was never any secret that I love animals. Always have. Probably always will. It's ingrained into my identity and personality to such an extent that it may very well be impossible for me to survive as anything else. I save little lives. I save big ones, too, if opportunity presents. I nurse wounds. I cuddle. I pounce. I wrestle and play tug-of-war. I discipline and teach. I call command, I reward good behavior, and I have relied on them with my life. I've even saved other human beings with their help. (That one's for another time, if ya'll want.)

It's not an exaggeration to say I've always been this way. One of my first words - according to my mother - was "bug". There was a fat praying mantis on the wall, just chilling out, right above my crib. I've never been anything shy of obsessed with horses from the time I knew what they were. And of course: cats. Cats forever. Always. There is a cat shrine in my heart. There always will be. Everyone who has ever met me for more than an hour knows it.

So I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised.

It was a typical day in high school. I was in Mr. T's history class. I loved that guy. He was this eccentric old guy with a great sense of humor, and he had a gift for making history interesting. If my memory serves, both my older brothers had him as a history teacher. I know my oldest brother did. I digress. I'm sitting there in class, watching "Stalin". We were studying the end of WW2. All of a sudden, over the entire school loudspeaker, my name gets called.

"Ms. W., would you please come to the front office? Ms. E. W., to the front office please."

... which of course made everyone turn and look at me wondering why the hell I'm being called in.

Some context: I was NEVER in trouble in high school. The only time I ever got sent to detention was for not having my PE clothes with me. Add to that the fact that this was a small-town - and my high school wasn't exactly huge either - and my reputation preceded me as 1.) being the youngest sister of the Smart Guy at the rival high school, 2.) the kinda scary girl in tie-dye clothes on top of the theatre hill at lunch who hung out with goths and underclassmen, and 3.) the weird chick who got along better with teachers than she did her own classmates. (All true, for what it's worth.) Me getting called into the front office was like someone investigating the Dalai Lama for saying cross words to a small child. The number of faces with the confused expression of, "... the HELL?" was oddly flattering.

I looked at Mr. T with my arched eyebrow and ducked head - if you know me, you've seen it: it's my silent request for permission. His face bore the same, "wtf?" look. I would have laughed if I wasn't so self-conscious. He gave me the nod, and I quietly ducked out of class.

Walking down the eerily empty hallways of the school to the front office, my mind raced with possibilities. I obviously wasn't in trouble... at least, it was obvious to me. Hell, the staff knew me well enough and liked me well enough where even if I HAD done something, I could have gotten away with it. So it was pretty well impossible that I was in trouble. But then why call me in? Questioning? Had I see something recently, or noticed anything out of place? There were fights at school sometimes, maybe they were going to ask me if I'd witnessed one and could place names to faces. But I surely wasn't in trouble. What on earth could it be?

I walked in, a bit apprehensive, and quietly approached Ms. I. She blinked at me kindly through her tiny wireframed glasses and smiled. "Oh good, you're here!" she said happily. This only confused me further.

"Uh, yeah," I said, "what's up?" (Give me a break. I was a teenager.)
"Oh, nothing major, but we have a request."
A request? I thought to myself. I really hope they aren't going to ask me to volunteer for something. Ugh. I hate saying no, I mean I'm not sure HOW to politely decline, but I really could care less about-
"See, Mr. S is getting married, as you may know."

I did know. Mr. S was the principal, and, well... like I said. Small town. Everybody knows this sort of thing.

"It turns out his soon-to-be stepdaughter is terribly allergic to cats. He has a cat. We were wondering if-"
... oh god are you serious?!
"-you'd adopt him, because nobody wants him to go to a shelter and we don't know where else to ask."

Turns out, word around town included that I was a big fat softie. Anyone who had pets knew about the County Shelter. I KNOW those people are doing the best they can with what they have, and as a state shelter they don't have the option of being no-kill. But having been in there... all it takes is one visit, and you'll cry even thinking about that place. The terror, the loss, the heavy sadness weighs down on you the moment you park in the lot. It lays like a blanket over the entire establishment. I don't know how those folks work there. It would break me. I would never allow an animal to go there if I could help it. Stray kittens were adopted out personally. Dogs were re-homed through friends and family. The shelter was never brought up... unless we were going out to adopt a new animal.

So, yeah. Of COURSE they went for an easy target. One who wouldn't let a poor, healthy, no-fault adult male cat with almost no chance of being adopted from a shelter, go to meet his untimely end in the cold confines of the state's cages.

I... probably never told my parents this, so I apologize if you're reading this mom and dad - I agreed before I even discussed it with them.

Did I mention I hated saying no? I must have. Read back a bit.

The relief on Ms. I's face was immediate and genuine. I don't remember the conversation after that, since I was then scrambling to find a way to present a case to my folks that we needed ANOTHER cat when we already had like three at the time. My teenaged brain was going over the scenarios in rapid-fire possible outcomes, first mom (I knew she'd be easier to win over, so I'd start there) and then dad (who thought cats were about as close to useless as you could get). I went back to class, still trying to figure out a way to argue  for the cat's life when I'd already said yes.

Going for mom first was the correct choice. She stuck by me when I presented the case to dad and - being dad - relented in the face of two confirmed cat-lovers. I can still see the rolled-eyes, hands-in-the-air capitulation. I think at this point he was kind of used to me bringing home everything under the sun and might not even have been surprised if I'd tried to adopt a stray rhinoceros. And so, my principal came by some while later to drop off "Cougar" (named after our school mascot), whom we promptly renamed Tom Cougar Mellencat.

Oh shut up. It was awesome.

So the next day I was of course accosted by half a dozen people asking about what happened. Most of them actually didn't believe me at first, but then they remembered that this was me they were talking about and DUH they would call in Nature Girl to come adopt out the principal's cat. I mean, obviously. Who else would they call?

It's a fond memory, if silly. It makes me giggle still to think that the staff felt it necessary - appropriate, even - to call me in from class on the PA system, letting the WHOLE SCHOOL know. Tom lived with us for many years, turning from indoor-only to strictly-outdoor by his own volition. He never did learn proper hunting, and eventually developed a nasty habit of biting people. He also had a weird proclivity for running up to people, even total strangers, and throwing his entire weight into their legs in an... affectionate? rub. It was the most aggressive affection I'd ever seen from a cat. It was like he wanted you to love on him but also wanted to knock you onto the pavement to split your skull open.

Weird cat. But then, with a back-history like that... who can blame him?

Memories: Installment 1

I've been itching to get these out, so I'll start with the one that's been screaming the loudest to be free.

When I was a child, I was plagued with a variety of nighttime issues. The majority of them were innocuous things brought on by the simple process of growing rapidly, things like bone-deep aching pain in my calves as the sinew stretched and lengthened in the quiet evolving hours. These would send me creeping softly to the corner of my parents' bedroom door, where I would cry barely audibly in hopes that I would wake my mother (and only my mother) for help. She was a light sleeper, dad was not. And dad was much more surly when woken at odd hours. But I digress.

What I liked the most - if I can say honestly that I liked any of these things - was the inexplicable wakefulness that occurred every few months. No reason or rhyme to these episodes: I would be peacefully asleep one moment, then suddenly I was as awake as if it were noon. Sometimes it would happen a few times in the same month, sometimes I would go nearly six months in between. But came it did, without cause or provocation, like an old friend sneaking in through the window to take you out on the town.

In the winter time, there were often fires in the fireplace. I would creep from my cozy flannel sheets to tiptoe into the livingroom, where the soft glow from the dying embers would cast dim shadows to dance on the furniture. I would tuck my knees up inside my long (and usually hideous) nightgown as I sat on the brick hearth, trying to thaw my frozen feet. My feet were always bare, even in the dead of winter, and the fire was always a relief for numb toes. I would dreamily watch as the last remnants of flame snuggled into the coals, not really thinking about anything in particular, simply enjoying the hushed silence of the house surrounded by a sleeping world.

Other times, I might simply sneak to the refrigerator. My family had two growing boys and my mother often bought large quantities of things from Costco, like chocolate syrup, maple syrup, whipped cream, and sour cream. All things I coveted jealously and would gobble up without hesitation or second thought. So, knowing I oughtn't, I would pad lightly to the kitchen as stealthily as my bare feet could carry me, and gulp down highly sugared and fat-laden foods like a giant invading mouse. Nibbling a bit of cheese here, a pastry there, drinking syrup straight from the bottle, and eating sour cream by the spoonful. A can of soda, a half-eaten candy-bar, even a few of my favorite vegetables weren't safe. Then, having gorged myself, I would almost always wash it down with several gulps of cold, creamy milk, and furtively make my way back to bed, half-blinded by the refrigerator light.

But best of all was the summer.

The summer time was hot, even at night. There were days when the lowest temperature of the day was still in the 90-degree range. And sometimes it was humid along with it, forcing us to kick off our covers and sleep with the fans on. On the nights when I would suddenly wake in the summer, it was as though the very air was beckoning me outside. And so - in bare feet - I would make my way through the house to the back door, where I would sneak outside to our enormous back yard. Often as not, the moon was brightly shining, and I would walk onto the wide grassy lawn, often wet from the sprinklers, enjoying the cool sensation on my burning soles. I would look up and wave. I don't know why I waved at the moon. I do it still. And then I would dance.

It was only dancing in the loosest term. It was more like holding my arms out and spinning, face turned to the heavens, dipping and weaving with imaginary music. Sometimes I would hum little tunes, or make up lyrics on the spot to a song that didn't have any flow or rhythm to it at all, but always quietly so I didn't wake anyone. Sometimes the dog would join in the dancing, slowly and sleepily, having been roused by my sudden appearance. The wet grass would coat my naked toes, which was always a challenge to wipe off before going back inside, to avoid arousing suspicion.

But even better than dancing in the moonlight involved the water.

The pool was respectably sized, though not the largest by any means, and deeper than I was tall at its lowest point. If I was awake when everyone else was, and it happened to be dark out, the underwater light would illuminate the whole thing. But for some reason, with the light on, I held this terror that an impossibly-sized shark lived in the deep end and would chase me as I got to the shallow end. As a result, when I went to exit the pool - even if it had been a perfectly relaxing swim to that point - I would race through the shallow end. It terrified me, this irrational and non-existent shark.

But if all the lights were off, there was no threat of an unseen imaginary shark. And so it was that - sometimes, just sometimes - I would slowly wade into the dark waters. I only did this on starry nights, when there was no moon. I would move slowly, secretively, feeling the cool water caress my skin where the hot air kissed it only just before. I played a little game to see if I could get into the water without making ripples, feeling almost guilty about marring the glass-smooth surface. And then I would turn, floating on my back, and fall into the Milky Way.

There are no words to describe proper night swimming. It has to be quiet, soft, and tender. Oh, certainly, there is skinny-dipping and other night-aquatic activity, both innocent and risqué. But there is a sacred art to the night swim, wherein the breath becomes a hymn, and bouyancy a prayer. There is truth beneath the surface that will bear you up, and an echo of the womb sleeps in the depths. The stars would rain down on me in their eternal dance, sheltering me like a canopy and yet being as wide and far and welcoming as only they can manage. There was never a coldness to them, only a silvery journey across the endless sky. It was me, the water, and the stars. Nothing else existed. I might as well have been floating in the constellations myself, just a little speck in a quiet, dark river.

Now, the night sky is often hidden by the harsh glow from street lights, and I seldom have the time to indulge my old night-time habits. But somewhere deep within me, there is a little girl, still floating in the starry sky, still dancing in the moonlight, still sitting by the firelight, and who still loves sneaking foods from the fridge. I wonder sometimes if one of my own children will do something similar. I want to be able to give them that gift. But I cannot explain why I would wake in the middle of the night, and cannot predict that they will also. Perhaps this gift was given to me only.

I feel sorry for the world if I was the only one to share in the joy of the gentle night.

The Long and Winding Road

This past weekend, I visited a friend in Bonny Doon. I crossed 17 (it wasn't anywhere as narrow and frightening as I remember), and wound my way through the mountains and trees with a strange reflex in my hands and feet. It was as though the corners of the highway still lived in my muscles, the anticipation of the banked curves, weaving through the living mountain like a river that had never been dry.

My heart sped up a little. I was reaching the end of Scotts Valley. A bizarre excitement swept through me. How to describe... but alas, there are no words for it, nothing in this pathetic human tongue to fully encapsulate the lightning that raced through me. Only feeling. A tightness of the throat, a pressure in the lungs, a fatigue in my quads. A shiver down the spine. A twitch of the ears.

There, in full view, burst Santa Cruz.

Some say a bell went off in their head when they first laid eyes on their soul-mate. Some people say that accepting a certain job that later becomes the career they were always called to do fits as comfortably and immediately as a favorite shoe. Here?

My immediate thought, like being smacked full-force with a gust of fresh air... was very simply:

"My god. I'm home."

A familiar buzz surrounded me, an energy with a mind of its own, the shadows shifting between the trees with the little spirits that I once called by name. The air itself was alive, whispering to me in a thousand voices unheard by the human ear. The branches of the redwoods reached out overhead like banners, waving to me as I passed by. The familiar windows, the old houses, the grumpy little shops, all smiling back at me through the rain. I found myself laughing out loud, almost insane, drunk with the feeling I never knew I'd lost, the feeling of being for once and for truly home.

I had reached the conclusion not more than three weeks ago that I could never go home again, for I had no home to return to. My childhood home was long gone, corrupted and changed beyond recognition. My heart broken, my friends scattered, my family living in some remote place that I had no real connection to and that refused whatever roots I DID try to put down. The very land itself rejected me, softly, gently, in that insistent but sad way someone who does not return your sentiments will politely decline your affections. I could almost hear the wind breathing into my ears that I could stay as long as I liked, but I would never truly fit in. And so, it was with a regretful determination that I shouldered the mantle of Vagabond, reasoning that I came from a long line of Wastrels and Nomads, surely this was simply a lesson to learn. And so, setting my jaw, I wandered to the Bay Area again, hoping that at least the familiarity would be some solace, the friends I could find would be enough to sustain me.

The shocks do not stop coming.

Not only are my friends coming out of the woodwork, and not nearly as far from me as I feared, but the land itself seems to rise up to meet me. The sun warms me with a friendly touch, the breezes caress my skin with what I can only describe as the tenderness of a lover, the earth laughs with me as I walk. And the profound loss I felt at being ripped away from the familiar was filled up to the brim and overflowing with a joy that refuses to subside.

And that moment hit me square in the chest, with all the force of a brick but yet with a fluid softness of a sudden deluge.

Home was here, the whole time, waiting for me to come back.

And my god.

Here I am.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - Why I Do What I Do

One of my favorite books as a kid was "50 Things Kids Can Do To Save The Earth". I didn't really understand at the time, but it truly shaped my perception of recycling. It started out simply: aluminum cans, plastic bottles - both easily identifiable, plentiful considering that our family drank a fair amount of soda, and recycling centers gave out money for them. But I noticed that the centers had bins for newspaper, tubs for tin cans, and several bins for glass. Even if they didn't pay much for them, or even at all, I started to wonder at the waste that could be averted with some careful sorting.

The word "green" wasn't really in use until I was well into high school. Our school - like many newer facilities at the time - was outfitted with receptacles for recycling, particularly bottles and cans. Though my friends sometimes scoffed (or were even just grossed out), I would remove soda cans from the trash and place them in the recycling bin. I realized that, sure, one can might not make a huge difference... but if I saved one extra can a day, that was 364 cans a year. Even one a week was another 52 cans that didn't end up in a landfill. That meant a lot more to me than most people.

See, my parents worked for the Forest Service in their youth. They would maintain trails, repair signs, and clean out fire pits. Sometimes campers left trash everywhere. Even as campers ourselves, sometimes we would find old cans sticking out of the dusty ground, where we could easily step on it and cut ourselves. It was an eyesore, a hazard, and it was certainly no good for the environment. Nothing breaks up the beauty of a sunrise by the South Fork of the Stanislaus River like a floating beer can that some careless fisherman tossed aside. So litter was a personal thing to me, on top of knowing that cleaning up after myself was the proper thing to do. And being fond of the wild places, wanting to preserve them, I knew recycling what we already have in use was the best way to keep the wild places pristine: turning in as much recyclable material as possible meant less waste in landfills, meaning they filled up more slowly, meaning they needed less space and less frequently. It also meant that fewer mines and refineries would be required to acquire new material. There was no drawback. It was logically the correct thing to do.

The only issue is one of effort. Sadly, a number of people find it to simply be too much hassle to separate bottles of glass, take it all down to a recycling center, and wait for someone to parse through everything. The time commitment and effort to maintain a recycling habit is often enough to make some people simply throw out their recyclables. That became even easier as the trend caught on, however, and by the time I was in college many dining facilities, bus stops, and public parks were outfitted with recycling receptacles. For the home-residents, garbage pickup services started offering at-home recycling pickup. Sure, you didn't get paid for it, but it almost eliminated the effort required.

Every time a new method was introduced, I incorporated it into my personal habits. Now I set aside recyclables at home, everything from newspaper to regular batteries; at the office, I help maintain the receptacles by keeping them clean and tidy, and emptying them as appropriate into the outside collections; when I go out on a hike or on a road trip, I make sure to pack out all my trash, and have a separate bag to collect things we can recycle when we get home. I try to help the practice gather momentum as well by educating kids on what can be recycled (my niece was ecstatic when I told her that she could recycle batteries), I encourage my peers to start up the practice, and I also set a positive example by being consistent.

I hope that I will eventually be able to whittle down how much I actually have to throw away to nothing. These days I'm even composting organic materials, so there's even less waste going into the garbage can every week. As time goes by, more and more efficient methods of manufacturing produce less waste, and our methods of reusing material become even more diverse. It is my fervent hope that we will eventually be able to completely self-sustain as a species, and no longer find it necessary to acquire more resources in order to maintain our lifestyles.

Brain Dead Drivel

(WARNING: Contains Strong Language)

Recently I found myself gainfully employed.

Now, unlike most other jobs I have possessed, this one is neither full-time, nor is it during normal business hours. No, the job I was hired to do is seasonal work that will end right about the time Spring Quarter starts up, which is pretty well perfect. It doesn't pay much, in fact hardly anything at all, but it slows the speed with which I am draining my unemployment claim. It's something, and I'm learning to take what I can with both hands and throttle it until I've wrung every last drop of sustenance from it.

In times gone by, I would have scoffed. I'm earning almost half what I used to, and the hours are well after sunset until just past dawn. It's rough work, with harsh cleansers and sharp things and hard heavy objects with pointy corners. I'm on my feet pretty much the whole time. And everyone there with me is in the same boat, so I don't dare complain. I suck it up, because it's what you fucking do. It doesn't matter what it looks like anymore. It doesn't matter what other people think. It matters that I grab ahold of what life gives me and I never let go, like a terrier will get a rat between its teeth and shake the life out of it. I can't be the prim and proper middle-class lady I used to be. It's time to nut up or shut up, get my hands dirty, and wade through mold and dust and garbage and cardboard (and occasionally bite my lip through the sting of the cleanser when it hits the cuts on my hands) to get the job bloody well done.

I wake tired every time, and with each consecutive shift things seem a little harder. It's harder to get out of bed, harder to rouse into consciousness, harder to stay awake, harder to figure out if I'm hungry. It's harder to fall asleep when I get home, harder to see the goal ahead. But dimly I remember it's there, and I keep getting my ass out of bed, into the shower, into clean clothes, into the car, and down to the store. I think they call it graveyard shift because you feel like a zombie after a while. But I'm embracing it - good, bad, and ugly - with all my might. Others have come before me and done harder work for less. I won't let this beat me down. I just fucking won't. There's too much fire in my heart and too much stubbornness in my mind to let any paltry thing like this own me. I could be jobless, but I'm not. It's kind of a crap job, but it's fucking work, and I'll be damned if I'm going to be ashamed of that for any reason.

I worry a lot. Will there be room in the class I need, will I find more work when this is done, will I find ENOUGH work, can I find a place of my own that I can actually afford, can I make it on my own. The answer to that last one is no, at least for now. There's no way in hell that I could completely support myself in this moment. It's a bare, naked, raw truth, and hiding it doesn't make it less real. I'm done hiding the truth. It wasted a lot of damn time and gained little in return. Smiling and pretending things are all right only makes the wound fester. I need to lance it, let it drain, expose it to the air. I need the sunlight to hit it and fire to cauterize it. This is the truth. This is what's real. I'm fucking poor, can't support myself, but goddamnit I'm working like an honest citizen and paying my bills one at a time.

And that, above all else, makes me proud.

If you asked me what I need to do for school in this moment, the words that would come out of my mouth would be in half-formed sentences that cobbled together in incomplete thoughts. My brain is so tired I can't think straight. But where my brain fails, my spirit picks up the slack, and I carry that spark like a torch. It's my last inch, that last ray of hope. It's that fundamental core of myself that cannot and WILL not be extinguished for as long as I have the courage to keep fighting, the will to swing my legs over the edge of the bed and make something of the day. I may be in a rough spot, sure. Lots of people have been. This isn't new. I'm not special. In fact, a lot of folks have it much, MUCH worse. And yeah, I'm daring to forge ahead and get back into school, AND work, AND dig myself out of debt, AND many other things. But I choose to do them. I am no victim of circumstance. This fate was of my own making, and by god it will be of my own making to get myself out. Will I have to lean on others to make it happen? Yes. Am I grateful? More than I can express. But this is something I have to do for myself. I have to climb this mountain so that when I get to the top, I know for a fucking fact that it was because I bent my will to it and had the strength to persevere.

So yeah. I may be snappish, or short, or groggy. I may be exhausted, weary, and broke. It's an unglamourous life. But it's real, and it's mine, and nobody is going to take that from me.