A House Built On Memories.
I guess that's what this is. I guess that's what all houses are made of, memories. This lake house's span generations. Mine and those who have lived here before me. There are memories here of the Fourth of July, of playing cards during summer thunderstorms, catching my first fish with my grandfather, and the time I transformed the fire hydrant into a red, white, and blue soldier for the bi-centennial. They are all here, by this lake. The moment we step over the threshold, memories come to life and the walls listen and watch and take it all in.
And so I am in this house of benevolent ghosts. This house has all my things now. My parents' things are here, as are my grandparents', and even a few of my great grandparents'. If that sounds pretty crowded, it is. These things, and they are just things... each carries on a conversation with me, as I try to sort, donate or throw it away. Every book, every letter, every photo, every piece of clothing shouts, "Look! Look at me! Remember!" It is a daunting task to cram three generations of stuff into a lake cottage.
On arriving, I set out to empty closets and purge and to make space here. But this summer saw me sitting on the floor stuck in time, going through my grandparents' stuff, unable to move forward or accomplish much of anything. There are time bombs planted, ticking with emotion. There are lovely memories that do not bring forth happiness, but rather a melancholy longing that for me, borders the lands of depression where I dare not tread. So the boxes, filled with my life, are still homeless here. They do not know how to fit in until I accomplish the task of making room for them.
My books fill the shelves though. My most important books are downstairs, while their lesser brothers line the walls upstairs. I have too many books. I will always have too many books. I made a concerted effort last weekend to start on a large downstairs closet and tackle a box, three feet high, full of papers my parents had written. letters, cards and pamphlets from every vacation, and correspondence from the days they first met. There was artwork from my days in elementary school and every report card from the time my brother and I started school. Every report card? Do I keep them? Do I throw them away? What if I discover the cure for cancer? Are they important then?
I feel as though I'm living in a time capsule. As a teen, I told my mother that coming to Iowa was akin to going back in time. I still feel that way. Not much really changes here. Businesses may come and go, especially in Clear Lake, where a business must survive the non-tourist months, but entire buildings and city blocks remain in place, and if you look up above the street level facades to the second story of these two story buildings, time stands still.
I come from the heart of Silicon Valley, Mountain View, California. I grew up there. I was born in Palo Alto. This area is the home of Google and Facebook. I was taught to program computers with punch cards when I was 12. This whole way of thinking and the industry surrounding tech started in the 1970s. To see a building over 50 years old in Mountain View is to stop dead in one's tracks and stare in wonder.
When I was three, my family moved from Palo Alto to Mountain View. We bought the first house in a tract home development that replaced an entire apricot orchard. This area was known for its cherries, apricots, walnuts and other produce that grew in a land of such temperate climate. Orchards and farms filled the valley, but by the mid 60s, were vanishing rapidly. By 1980, the place once known as the Fruit Basket of the World had changed forever into Silicon Valley. The last working farm in Mountain View came down in 2006 and 150 luxury homes now stand in its place.
So I have moved here, to Clear Lake, to the lake cottage that was the destination of so many fun summers. I'll reveal my reasons for moving here in a subsequent story. For now, I will tell you that for the first time in my life, I saw snow fall from the sky this winter, and that until now I didn't understand the meaning of the word homesick.
I understand it now.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Friday, March 20, 2015
I Will Help You
Infrastructure is the base that we all stand on, connected together. We are all dependent upon this.
Do people tend towards selfishness, or giving? Is selfishness an innate survival technique or is working together and cooperating how we survive?
I seem to be running across people here in our Midwest that are now fed so much fear, hate, and repression that they themselves, fear, hate, and are repressed.
My most recent baffling conversation started out with a woman, chatting together about organic foods. We talked about how we are inundated with pesticides in our water and food. How do we negotiate this? How do we protect ourselves in a state where pesticides have been found in 100% of the ground water and permeate every inch of soil?
We talked about how to help ourselves as much as possible by finding organic food sources in the local farmer's markets.
We talked about how, in the country, one can grow their own food, but in cities and suburbs we are dependent upon the structures that exist. I feel that's how most people's lives are in this country, dependent upon infrastructure.
Our conversation then took an odd and dark turn. She began talking about, "when the grid breaks down."
This is how I feel. I don't believe those are her own words. She has been fed that thought.
She went on to say we better protect ourselves against those who will "take the middle country's food stores" and "take what's ours." That we better have guns, and "lots of 'em" to protect ourselves and our family.
I said, "Well, it takes 2 hours by car to get here from Minneapolis and gas stations wouldn't be pumping. There would be no food or water. I'd be on foot. I'd never make it. Hahaha."
She replied, rather vehemently that people could go for weeks without food, all they need is water. They could get here.
She had this whole scenario thought out, of millions of people pouring out of New York City and raging across our country because they would know, of course, that food would be on farms.
This mass, apocalyptic breakdown of society... this fantasy. I think that those who feel in the least in control of their lives and economic circumstances believe this. The more that lives are controlled by lack of decent jobs and any social support network, the more these sort of fantasies are embraced. People need to feel in control in some way and this future zombie apocalypse is a fantasy of distraction.
I have guns. I can protect what's mine against you.
Hobos ("and lots of 'em") use to knock on my great-grandmother's back door asking for food. I grew up being told the stories that, even though so many had so little, she would always have some soup, or bread, or whatever she could spare to help others.
Here, I will help you. If you need help, I will help you.
Do people tend towards selfishness, or giving? Is selfishness an innate survival technique or is working together and cooperating how we survive?
I seem to be running across people here in our Midwest that are now fed so much fear, hate, and repression that they themselves, fear, hate, and are repressed.
My most recent baffling conversation started out with a woman, chatting together about organic foods. We talked about how we are inundated with pesticides in our water and food. How do we negotiate this? How do we protect ourselves in a state where pesticides have been found in 100% of the ground water and permeate every inch of soil?
We talked about how to help ourselves as much as possible by finding organic food sources in the local farmer's markets.
We talked about how, in the country, one can grow their own food, but in cities and suburbs we are dependent upon the structures that exist. I feel that's how most people's lives are in this country, dependent upon infrastructure.
Our conversation then took an odd and dark turn. She began talking about, "when the grid breaks down."
This is how I feel. I don't believe those are her own words. She has been fed that thought.
She went on to say we better protect ourselves against those who will "take the middle country's food stores" and "take what's ours." That we better have guns, and "lots of 'em" to protect ourselves and our family.
I said, "Well, it takes 2 hours by car to get here from Minneapolis and gas stations wouldn't be pumping. There would be no food or water. I'd be on foot. I'd never make it. Hahaha."
She replied, rather vehemently that people could go for weeks without food, all they need is water. They could get here.
She had this whole scenario thought out, of millions of people pouring out of New York City and raging across our country because they would know, of course, that food would be on farms.
This mass, apocalyptic breakdown of society... this fantasy. I think that those who feel in the least in control of their lives and economic circumstances believe this. The more that lives are controlled by lack of decent jobs and any social support network, the more these sort of fantasies are embraced. People need to feel in control in some way and this future zombie apocalypse is a fantasy of distraction.
I have guns. I can protect what's mine against you.
Hobos ("and lots of 'em") use to knock on my great-grandmother's back door asking for food. I grew up being told the stories that, even though so many had so little, she would always have some soup, or bread, or whatever she could spare to help others.
Here, I will help you. If you need help, I will help you.
Sunday, March 1, 2015
A Study in Survival
wow.
So was -13° the other morning.
If you think you read that wrong, 13 Below Zero, before wind chill factor. I have to think in a whole new way here. As a born and raised Californian, I have never, ever had to think about the implications of what one needs to do, know, or should have in case one's car breaks down. I was told the story of a man whose car slid into a ditch, was knocked unconscious, and froze before anyone saw his car. I am not cancelling my OnStar for emergency anytime soon. They can find me even if I am unconscious.
I always loved the writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I loved reading about pioneers. Struggling in the wilderness against tremendous odds sounded like one fun adventure to me. There is a book by Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter, with her family, her older sister now blind from scarlett fever, and two younger sisters, spending a winter that starts October 1st, slowly starving and running out of coal.
I am now pulling out these books and looking at them with new eyes. These are studies in survival.
Laura lies in bed one night. "Now she heard the Indian war whoops when the Indians were dancing their war dances all through the horrible nights by the Verdigris River. But she knew it was only the wind."
A study in survival; they finally run out of coal and must bring hay into the "Lean-to" of the house to twist into something burnable. This is no small feat. Laura and her father sit together in the cold of the lean-to picking up handfuls of hay at least 2 feet long. Twisting and twisting it, doubling it over and making these hay sticks as hard as possible so that they will burn as long as possible. They do this until their hands bleed and they can't stand the bitter cold of the lean-to any longer. They bring these "sticks" into the house to burn and get warm enough to go back out and start again ...for months.
On her first attempt, Laura was only able to make six before her hands were cut up by the straw.
The word has gotten to town that the supply train, now overdue by months, has no way to get there until spring. People are running out of food and trying to leave. And if you think (as I did) that this is the olden days, and everyone helped each other ...well, human nature is human nature, and prices on any remaining supplies are jacked up. The general store is long empty anyway.
It is still only January.
"February is a short month and March will be spring." Pa said encouragingly.
A man in town butchers his ox and sells it at 25¢/pound. Pa is able to bring home four pounds. They do have wheat seed. Ma is able to grind it, in a coffee grinder that holds a half cup. It is a complicated matter to be grinding and grinding, making the bread with a sourdough starter, and stocking the stove with straw sticks, so it burns hot enough and long enough to bake bread.
There is a rumour of a man, miles away who has a stockpile of wheat. Things have gotten so dire that Almanzo Wilder (Laura's future husband) and his friend set out in the general direction to find this person and demand his help as people are now on the brink of starving to death.
Obviously Laura Ingalls Wilder lived to tell this story. Obviously people died from the cold and exposure, the isolation, and running out of supplies far more than I have ever given thought to. But it is sunny. The sun streams through my east facing front windows and without that, this experience would probably be much more diificult. Especially in the mornings. These mornings when I think about every little thing.
A Study in Survival. Part 2
I was living in San Francisco when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit. B and I had just turned off Van Ness Avenue to go get an early dinner. Parked cars began bouncing on either side and I did not comprehend what I was seeing. Traffic stopped and people leaned out the windows. " Was that an earthquake?"
I heard and witness a phenomenon I will never forget. The entire city shut down. It was an arching sound, a low moan, dropping two octaves to silence. Electric busses, restaurants, stoplights, everything stopped and everyone in the city was stunned into silence. We felt the best course of action was to get back to our Potrero Hill home.
As soon as we arrived, we pulled out a battery operated small B&W TV. After a bit, KRON/TV-4 got on the air with their helicopter. When they reached the Bay Bridge was when my stomach dropped and I began to realize the seriousness of this. A section of the Bay Bridge had collapsed and we all witnessed cars drive over the edge.
The helicopter proceeded to Hwy. 880. The upper deck collapsed onto the lower at the height of rush-hour traffic. At this point the ability to breath left me. Apartment buildings had sunk in the Marina, people were trapped and there were fires and death. A brick transient building collapsed killing nearly everyone in it.
One has a marvelous view of the downtown buildings and lights from Potrero Hill. Potrero Hill is solid rock and suffered no damage. There was a party atmosphere that night, all the neighbourhood was out, watching for the city lights to reappear.
It took 4 days reestablish stop lights, get back to normal, drivers were very polite. There were now closed freeway ramps all around the city that took years to repair and shore up.
The face of San Francisco changed forever. The controversial Embarcadero freeway was torn down and property values immediately soared. Broadway was no longer scary at night. The freeway that had blocked the view and thrown so many businesses and homes into shadow was now torn away, leaving the vistas San Francisco is most loved for.
So what was my point? Oh. We are all interdependent. Especially more so in our cities. To be a rugged individual in an apartment in midtown Manhattan does not have the value it may have on a farm, with sheep and crops, chopping wood, and the ability to build things.
I have always felt this interdependence will work out. I have always felt that this infrastructure which supports me will be there...
I don't have a crystal clear thought on this. Mostly people live in cities and suburbs. Mostly people need to earn money to survive in homes others have built. On food others have grown and shipped. We buy our clothes made by others. Our transportation is not the family horse anymore. Infrastructure is the base that we all stand on, connected together.
So was -13° the other morning.
If you think you read that wrong, 13 Below Zero, before wind chill factor. I have to think in a whole new way here. As a born and raised Californian, I have never, ever had to think about the implications of what one needs to do, know, or should have in case one's car breaks down. I was told the story of a man whose car slid into a ditch, was knocked unconscious, and froze before anyone saw his car. I am not cancelling my OnStar for emergency anytime soon. They can find me even if I am unconscious.
I always loved the writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I loved reading about pioneers. Struggling in the wilderness against tremendous odds sounded like one fun adventure to me. There is a book by Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter, with her family, her older sister now blind from scarlett fever, and two younger sisters, spending a winter that starts October 1st, slowly starving and running out of coal.
I am now pulling out these books and looking at them with new eyes. These are studies in survival.
Laura lies in bed one night. "Now she heard the Indian war whoops when the Indians were dancing their war dances all through the horrible nights by the Verdigris River. But she knew it was only the wind."
A study in survival; they finally run out of coal and must bring hay into the "Lean-to" of the house to twist into something burnable. This is no small feat. Laura and her father sit together in the cold of the lean-to picking up handfuls of hay at least 2 feet long. Twisting and twisting it, doubling it over and making these hay sticks as hard as possible so that they will burn as long as possible. They do this until their hands bleed and they can't stand the bitter cold of the lean-to any longer. They bring these "sticks" into the house to burn and get warm enough to go back out and start again ...for months.
On her first attempt, Laura was only able to make six before her hands were cut up by the straw.
The word has gotten to town that the supply train, now overdue by months, has no way to get there until spring. People are running out of food and trying to leave. And if you think (as I did) that this is the olden days, and everyone helped each other ...well, human nature is human nature, and prices on any remaining supplies are jacked up. The general store is long empty anyway.
It is still only January.
"February is a short month and March will be spring." Pa said encouragingly.
A man in town butchers his ox and sells it at 25¢/pound. Pa is able to bring home four pounds. They do have wheat seed. Ma is able to grind it, in a coffee grinder that holds a half cup. It is a complicated matter to be grinding and grinding, making the bread with a sourdough starter, and stocking the stove with straw sticks, so it burns hot enough and long enough to bake bread.
There is a rumour of a man, miles away who has a stockpile of wheat. Things have gotten so dire that Almanzo Wilder (Laura's future husband) and his friend set out in the general direction to find this person and demand his help as people are now on the brink of starving to death.
Obviously Laura Ingalls Wilder lived to tell this story. Obviously people died from the cold and exposure, the isolation, and running out of supplies far more than I have ever given thought to. But it is sunny. The sun streams through my east facing front windows and without that, this experience would probably be much more diificult. Especially in the mornings. These mornings when I think about every little thing.
A Study in Survival. Part 2
I was living in San Francisco when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit. B and I had just turned off Van Ness Avenue to go get an early dinner. Parked cars began bouncing on either side and I did not comprehend what I was seeing. Traffic stopped and people leaned out the windows. " Was that an earthquake?"
I heard and witness a phenomenon I will never forget. The entire city shut down. It was an arching sound, a low moan, dropping two octaves to silence. Electric busses, restaurants, stoplights, everything stopped and everyone in the city was stunned into silence. We felt the best course of action was to get back to our Potrero Hill home.
As soon as we arrived, we pulled out a battery operated small B&W TV. After a bit, KRON/TV-4 got on the air with their helicopter. When they reached the Bay Bridge was when my stomach dropped and I began to realize the seriousness of this. A section of the Bay Bridge had collapsed and we all witnessed cars drive over the edge.
The helicopter proceeded to Hwy. 880. The upper deck collapsed onto the lower at the height of rush-hour traffic. At this point the ability to breath left me. Apartment buildings had sunk in the Marina, people were trapped and there were fires and death. A brick transient building collapsed killing nearly everyone in it.
One has a marvelous view of the downtown buildings and lights from Potrero Hill. Potrero Hill is solid rock and suffered no damage. There was a party atmosphere that night, all the neighbourhood was out, watching for the city lights to reappear.
It took 4 days reestablish stop lights, get back to normal, drivers were very polite. There were now closed freeway ramps all around the city that took years to repair and shore up.
The face of San Francisco changed forever. The controversial Embarcadero freeway was torn down and property values immediately soared. Broadway was no longer scary at night. The freeway that had blocked the view and thrown so many businesses and homes into shadow was now torn away, leaving the vistas San Francisco is most loved for.
So what was my point? Oh. We are all interdependent. Especially more so in our cities. To be a rugged individual in an apartment in midtown Manhattan does not have the value it may have on a farm, with sheep and crops, chopping wood, and the ability to build things.
I have always felt this interdependence will work out. I have always felt that this infrastructure which supports me will be there...
I don't have a crystal clear thought on this. Mostly people live in cities and suburbs. Mostly people need to earn money to survive in homes others have built. On food others have grown and shipped. We buy our clothes made by others. Our transportation is not the family horse anymore. Infrastructure is the base that we all stand on, connected together.
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