Category Archives: The Move

Colorado, Our Land and Home, The Move

Surreal

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Fall                                                                                  Falling Leaves Moon

Kate said this morning that she had surreal moments with the move. Me, too. We both work along, packing, getting other matters taken care of but the move itself feels unreal, as if a mirage. Why did I pack all of my books in boxes? Why did she clear out the guest room, let all the bedroom furniture be carted away? We’re going to do all this and still be living here.

The present, with its weight of 20 years, has far more heft than an imagined place in the mountains, far across the plains. Impossible to see, even in the mind’s eye. So there is only this illusion, this planned, hoped for thing over against the 20 winters, the 20 growing seasons, the 20 birthdays and anniversaries. Against the bringing in of groceries, of feeding the dogs, of doing laundry and writing novels. All here. In this place. Where we still are.

Though I’ve said before that the move makes me feel both here and there, here has more power, the now has more power, than the not yet, the there. Which is good. I want to be here until I’m not, just as I want to live until I die.

Yet we have to have the not yet to pull us forward, to give meaning to those stacks of boxes, the plastic bins, the discarded furniture, all the work we’re having done. Without the not yet our actions, though still surreal, would also be mad. Just as without death, it seems to me, life would lose its uniqueness and become merely being.

We cannot outwait the move. That is, we cannot do nothing and expect to end up living in Colorado next year. No, we have to take action now, find our Conestoga, pack up the hoop skirts, the anvil and plow. Get the oxen ready.

And so we are. But I imagine those pioneers probably looked at the wagon and felt as we do. We’re still here in Pennsylvania or Ohio or Virginia and though we’ve got our goods packed and ready to load, we remain here. As we always have. And always will.

Until wood on wood begins to creak and cry out, until the whip cracks over broad shoulders and with a lurch the wagon is no longer still, until then, we live here.

 

Colorado, Faith and Spirituality, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., The Move, Travel

Liminal consciousness

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Fall                                                                               Falling Leaves Moon

Carlsbad Entrance from the twilight zone. Beyond this point there is no natural light.
Carlsbad Entrance from the twilight zone. Beyond this point there is no natural light.

Stood tonight, arms on our mantel place, a fire crackling below me, wondering. What will I lean against this time next year? Will I hear wind coming down the mountain, the bugling of elks, the cough of a mountain lion? There might be frost on the plants outside and a chilly night ahead.

This is not I wish I would still be here kind of wondering, nor is it I wish I knew where we’ll be next year. It’s just curiosity, a sort of advance scouting. If all goes well, by this time next year-in the Great Wheel season of Mabon, a bit more than a week after the fall equinox-we should have been in our new place for over half a year. Strange to consider that.

Liminal consciousness. It arises when we know a transition is upon us, a time when we are no longer where we were, nor are we where we’re going. The weeks before a marriage. The summer after graduating from high school. Pregnancy. Interviewing for a new job. Getting ready to move to another place. In the broadest and most ultimate sense of course life is a liminal moment between birth and death. Liminal consciousness arises when we wake up to our condition.

Tonight, on our fire place mantel, I woke up again to the physical sense of moving and of

Angled window close up Chaco Canyon
Angled window close up
Chaco Canyon

having been moved. That awareness gripped me and I lived in it fully, not for long, not in a wistful way, but I was in it. Now that moment is in the past and I’m in Minnesota, with moving tasks and daily life here capturing and holding my attention. As is appropriate.

But stay aware for those moments of liminal consciousness. When they come, they have learnings for you.

 

Great Work, Latin, The Move, Translating De Bello Gallico

Slowed

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Fall                                                                            Falling Leaves Moon

Been moving at a reduced pace the last four days. Latin each day, getting further into Caesar’s Gallic Wars. Today he set out on a characteristic fast march from Rome to protect “our province”, a part of which is now Provence, from marauding Helvetians. Whom he’d set up with a betrayal by a wealthy leader of their people, Orgetorix. This is the war when Caesar, in the ever expanding effort of Rome to secure its borders, bleeds himself into world history. He speaks of himself in the third person.

Beyond the Latin, not so much else. Picked a few raspberries. Electrified the visible fence. (Kate says I should call it the invisible fence, except I didn’t bury it, I strung it on an existing fence line.)

Finished up the Southern Reach trilogy. Not sure how I felt about it. I wouldn’t recommend it, but it might have been good. In essence it presents an alien invasion that is so alien we can’t even be sure we’ve been invaded. Its central idea, that an alien might come to earth in a way so outside our experience that we would have difficulty recognizing it, seems valid to me. Anyhow. Check it out or not.

Watching the news, picking up positive threads about the environment. Bill McKibben’s 350 organization’s 400,000 person march in NYC was good news. Increasing public disapproval of the Polymet mine project is another. Coal seems to have been knocked back on its heels, at least here in Minnesota and by Obama’s actions, in the rest of the country. Little El Hierro has gone 100% renewable as did the Danish island of Samsø. Even the President’s decision to reach out to a smaller club of wealthy countries for action on carbon emissions is a positive sign, maybe the most positive of all these.

Still, as a Sierra Club staffer said when I gave her the same list, “Yeah, but doesn’t it make you nervous?” She’s right. Gaining ground would be so unfamiliar to us that we might make mistakes. But we have to take the risk that our message might finally be gaining in both public and political circles.

Feeling like I might get back to the packing side tomorrow. Clean up some clutter left behind after the SortTossPack push. Vet yet more files. Pack photographs, office supplies. There’s still more to go.

 

Colorado, Politics, The Move, The West

Oh, Yeah, Can You See

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Fall                                                                                              Falling Leaves Moon

The temperature, the political temperature, of Colorado can be taken in the gubernatorial race between Democrat John Hickenlooper and conservative Republican Bob Beauprez, scrambling over who will control fracking in western Colorado counties, but my favorite is Jefferson County high school students protesting against a conservative school board.

Here’s a couple of paragraphs from the Denver Post that show what the students are mad about. Denver Post, 9/25/2014

“The curriculum proposal, crafted by board member Julie Williams, calls for a nine-member panel to “review curricular choices for conformity to JeffCo academic standards, accuracy and omissions,” and present information accurately and objectively.

Williams’ proposal calls for instructional material presenting “positive aspects” of U.S. heritage that “promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free enterprise system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights.”

Materials should not, it says, “encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.””

Interesting definition of accuracy and objectivity.

Jefferson County is a western suburban county that runs from near Boulder in the north through western, affluent suburbs of Denver to an area not far north of Colorado Springs.

“Jefferson County’s electorate is Colorado in miniature, with roughly equal parts registered Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters.  The geography ranges from close-in suburbs with many students poor enough to qualify for discounted lunches to wealthier areas and mountain towns. Jefferson County is more than 90 percent white but has a growing Hispanic population.” Denver Post, 9/28/2014

I love it that these student have taken the essence of U.S. outsider politics like civil disorder and social strife, utilizing the mildest of these strategies, peaceful protest, and flung it back in the face of a school board attempting to rewrite history. My kinda people.

Jefferson County borders both Clear Creek County and Boulder County. We’ll almost surely land in one of those or even Jefferson County itself. I’ll unpack ready to help.

Colorado, The Move

Time to Exhale

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Fall                                                                                Falling Leaves Moon

Two campers here glad to see the last week in the rear view. Kate’s got a headache and I’ve got a large dose of avoidance to around the house work.

We went off for our family business meeting at Key’s Cafe. Coffee good. Food good. The bustle and energy of folks waking up, the wait staff fully engaged, dishes and silver ware clanking and clicking good.

Planning some museum immersion this next week, to fill in a spot left empty with all the hithering and thithering. Some time with old favorites like Blind Man’s Buff, the Chinese collection and the ukiyo-e prints. Then some time at the Walker, the art of the present and recent past.

Time to exhale for a bit.

Colorado, The Move

A Big Hand to Kate

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Fall                                                                         Falling Leaves Moon

Our second SortTossPack day is done. Our walls and shelves are bare of art, which now rests in plastic tublike containers or in narrow boxes designed for the safe transport of framed works. They work hard. Removed two chest of drawers, a desk, a file cabinet and two bookshelves, plus the second and last large pile of red-tape book boxes.

The steps we’re taking now seem to cover more ground, move us closer to the reality. We’re going to take a rest the next couple days, maybe more, then do another round of decluttering and packing on our own. Next week the landscape contractors.

On October 8 the realtors and the stager comes. After them the movers for bids. Still a lot of work to go, but we’ve done the bulk of the move readiness part.

A big hand today to Kate, who managed the process while I was away being a political animal.

Art and Culture, Colorado, The Move

Sorting

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Fall                                                                         New (Falling Leaves) Moon

Weather warms up over the next few days, more summerly temperatures, but with a welcome lower dewpoint. Today is art sort day for me. Kate’s taking a rest. And a well-deserved one.

(my stone sculpture from artisans d’angkor will go to Colorado)

I’m looking forward to deciding what gets sold and what goes to Colorado. Not sure why, but I am. Over the course of diminishing my library I came to enjoy the process of deciding what was important to me now and what to let go.

Tomorrow, instead of being here with the SortTossPack folks, I’m going in to work on the Sierra Club’s independent expenditure campaign for the November elections. The staffer who has these responsibilities had Friday morning open.

Colorado, The Move

Weary

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Fall                                                                                New (Falling Leaves) Moon

A weariness has affected both Kate and me. I think I know its source: the move. We’ve pushed in several directions: decluttering, packing, fixing up the house, choosing two realtors, one here and one in Colorado, securing financing. Visiting financial advisers. Corralling cash for the expenses. Changing our budget to conform to a possible two mortgage situation for as much as six months or so.

(not to mention that G.I. bug we’ve both been hosting.)

Yes, we’ve chosen this. And, yes, perhaps even more important, we’re trying to pace ourselves. Which, btw, I think we’ve done pretty well. But the pace has been constant. Add in the growing season and four dogs. You get the picture. Not to mention that we both have had our medicare cards for more than a year.

So. Tired. Need to rest, refocus, change course for a while. Will do next week after SortTossPack is done.

Colorado, The Move

Nocturne

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Fall                                                                                     New (Falling Leaves) Moon

Back into the packing, sorting realm tomorrow. Two days in a row. Then, I’m going to take a rest from it for a week or so. We are, if anything, ahead of even our more rapid timeline and I need a break.

Watch movies. Go to museums. Take hikes. That sort of thing. Put the garden to bed. Restoratives.

(Michaelmas on September 29th.)

One quality I expect in our new home that I’ve not emphasized as we’ve looked. Quiet. At night especially. I’ve grown used to the calm here at night.

Off to read.

 

Colorado, Garden, The Move

Last Day of Lughnasa, 2014

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Lughnasa (the last day for 2014)                                        College Moon

The season of first harvests is drawing to a close. In our garden the harvest is largely over with only raspberries, leeks, carrots and beets left. Well, a few peppers and an egg plant might make it, but they’re pretty small. Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise, this is the last Lughnasa in Minnesota. When we hit August 1st next year, we’ll either be looking at vegetables in a new garden or getting a garden ready for 2016.

It’s been an abundant year here with plenty of onions, garlic, beets, carrots, peppers, tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, collard greens and chard already brought in. There are all the herbs, too, plus the currants and the gooseberries, the blueberries. Apples, cherries, pears and plums were in scant supply this year, but that means the new owners should have a great crop next year.

What I’ve learned about horticulture and bees, I’ve learned thanks to this land. The soil and the sun, the rain and the plants have all offered themselves as partners, and willing partners. Their language is more clear, more straightforward than the one in which I write here. I’m ready now for another teacher, for Rocky Mountain soil and sun, the sparser rain and more abundant snow, for plants that thrive on elevated ground.

Too, there is a project, a project of wondering. How will a lifelong flatlander, a Midwestern boy all his days, react to life among the earth risen up, pushed away from the surface, grown massive and hard? How will a 40 year Minnesotan, who has lived among lakes and rain and rivers, with cropland and gardens, respond to an arid land where the dominant element is rock, tough and tall? This is not a wondering about which is better, but about what each place teaches.

This student is definitely ready.