my secret vacation (#12)

took a mini-vacation to the desert this week, for two and a half days.









just me and the desert and the sun. and the pool. I read books and slept the wrong way in the king bed and paid a guide to let me gallop a horse (mouse) through the sand. I hardly told anyone I was going, and the only talking I did during the trip was while ordering drinks and riding horses. traveling alone provides such unspeakable freedom. nobody's needs to fill but your own. only when I got home and walked into my dark apartment did I feel lonely. it's always better when somebody's happy you're home.

tomorrow: candide rehearsal. just one more opera, then we can breathe until the fall. thank the heavens. we might love what we do, but several months without last minute crises sounds pretty divine, thanks.

maryland. my brother is much taller than he was this summer. my sister mostly talks about track, and it's funny to hear so much chatter about 8 x 300s, what running tights should be called (she prefers leggings), what my old coach is making them do. he's retired from everything but coaching, and only does that as a volunteer. he has a buzz cut and a glass eye. he taught at the high school for 41 years.

I have a zippy little red rental car and on thursday I find myself driving the old back roads of my youth. It's been years since I had the freedom of a car here at home; mostly I borrow my mom's truck. on a whim I turn down one road after another, not remembering where any of them lead. this was a hobby of mine the summer between junior and senior years of high school: pick a new road and drive until you come upon something you know. in that fashion I learned three ways to anywhere in a twenty mile radius. but now, when I try to remember the way to the old reservoir, I end up somewhere completely different instead.

my mother rescued five kittens from under the shed this summer. two of them remained as pets; they are identical orange cats aptly called fred and george.

this afternoon I headed out for a trail run, wearing a bright magenta shirt and an orange bandana tied around my neck to avoid being shot by the bow hunters. what can I say about running that old trail, except that I was full of breathless, unbridled joy -- so much memory, so much wildness, so much belonging -- and after cresting the one big hill, at the start of the long decline, I ran as fast as I dared on my bad knee, flying with loose hair through the oak trees, like a deer. given two good legs, I would have run all four of the trails today; it was hard to pull myself away.

two of my old girlfriends and I visit our french III teacher at the high school. my sister has him for french II, fourth period. the high school smells the same as it always did, and we all get giggly as we walk down the hall. mr. baier -- we can't bring ourselves to call him 'brett' -- treats us as old friends. we stopped being his students fifteen years ago; he drops an f-bomb and I realize he's closer in age to me than scott was. we talk horses (he and his wife own four) and he makes us do busywork: a worksheet of holiday terms to fill in. I leave mine on my sister's desk for her to cheat from, and indeed, later on that day he lets her use it, sending it home to me marked with a star. later on, the three of us walk the halls, laughing; we crash into the band room and take our photo, then discover an arts booster table where they are selling personalized sweatshirts. we each order one, asking for our old nicknames to be embroidered on the back.

tomorrow is christmas eve. in the car on the way back from hampden tonight, talking about our plans for the day, my brother informed me that I would have to take him christmas shopping. when I asked if he was joking, he grew defensive and copped an attitude, and I called him an asshole. oh, family.

my youngest sister answers the phone when I call to talk to my mom. these days, we're always talking about high school, because she is a freshman, encountering many of my old teachers; for the first time in either of our lives, my past and her present very neatly overlap. the old geometry teacher doesn't remember me (which is good; I often slept in my back-row seat). my indoor track coach, of course, does, and delivers the sad but unsurprising news that my old high school record in the 800m relay, hard-won, has been broken. because of my antics in his class, my old french III teacher (one of my favorites) teases her more, which I know she secretly loves.

she asks me if I remember someone three years my junior, and the name doesn't really ring a bell. "he's my indoor track coach now," she says, "and when I asked if he knew who you were, he said, 'of course I remember her.'" I remind her that I was a senior when he was a freshman, and so more easily memorable; I was also one of the best on the team that year. secretly I am a little pleased.

now she is running all the trails I have kept close in my heart for the twelve years I've been gone, though many of them are called by new names: the old barn trail is the barnyard trail now; the barn trail doesn't have a name at all. the ridge trail, though -- forever and always my favorite -- remains the same. I promise her I will show her the quarry trail, which we used to access by climbing the back fence and then crashing through the woods to the river. the trail follows the gunpowder to the base of a hill on a road near our home, and in the latest weeks of spring track we would run there to leap from the bridge into the water.

life has been unspeakably busy, the kind of busy that's so overwhelming you can't even quite look at it. sixteen hours some days have been spent doggedly marking parts, which reached my mailbox much later than they were supposed to from various string principals. my back aches and I have hardly been outside in days, but they're done. I leave for maryland in 36 hours. I haven't slept much, and as usual I've eaten too much candy.

at home there are many people to see. I think the trip will be full of nostalgia, and maybe some sort of quiet awakening. a fissure. in maryland the winter sky is diffuse blue; the leaves crack underfoot in the woods of my backyard. the rope swing is gone, I think, from the ash tree, having finally rotted away. the beloved family dog was put to sleep this summer; her absence, long anticipated, will nevertheless be a soft ache. the chickens will be under the heat lamp. as usual, the family room thermostat will be set at a preposterous 55 degrees. I never bring enough to wear around the house, but thankfully can rely on my sister, who is officially as big as I am. I refuse to let her grow taller.

my brother's voice is suddenly deeper. they are both nearly grown. who may abide it.

sunset beach, part 2

(crab and I were both startled when I approached him on the beach, and he scurried under this rock before I could show him to my brother)


















(a photo of the wind: one morning we got up early and biked to the east end of the island to watch the sunrise, only to get there and discover that the winds were easily 30-40 mph, blowing so hard I literally could not bike against them. the attempt to photograph my brother's bike ended up only in blurs, because I couldn't hold my hand still.)


(my sister and I got featherlocks, please pardon my stupid expression)




(our second attempt at watching the sunrise, on my final day at the beach, was much more successful than the first)









I'm back in portland now. on my final day at the beach I awoke at 5, no longer able to sleep. my mom, my brother and I biked to the end of the island to watch the sun rise, and then, after dropping our bikes at the house, walked down to our spot on the beach and went for an early morning swim. with the exception of just two small breaks, I stayed on the beach that day from 6 AM until 2:30 in the afternoon, desperate to squeeze the last drop of every moment I had left.

my mom drove me to the wilmington airport, about an hour from the island. I had showered but on my skin was the chalky residue of sunscreen, and my hair blew curly in the air from the open window. when I reached the airport we hugged and, as always, my mother had tears in her eyes. how do I keep doing this? I wonder. I said some insipid thing like I'll see you at christmas or you should come out for thanksgiving! but it felt trite and false. I loaded up my huge backpack and walked through the airport door with a wave. after I had checked in, I walked briefly back outside to savor for one last instant that weather I so love.

inside the airport, I cried until the plane began boarding.

I feel too old for homesickness, yet here it is, seemingly worse than ever. back in portland, the cloudy mornings give way to sun. scott sleeps next to me. the vegetables in the garden are enormous. but inside me there is a deep gash I don't know how to fill.

sunset beach, week one

(my cousin's stash. apparently it was on sale. we call her room "the liquor store")





















this morning at 8 AM it was 85 degrees. the humidity makes my hair curl. in the mornings there is coffee, sometimes muffins. everything, including the bed, is covered in sand.

a few days ago, a bold crow stole an entire packet of my baby cousin's crackers out of a bag, then hopped five feet away from us and looked at us inquisitively. when little jack ran after him, the crow flew over the dunes with the packet. a few minutes later, we saw him fly idly by with an orange peanut butter cracker in his beak.

vacation: good.

to the sunset

in a few hours I'll take a red-eye to wilmington, nc. I'll arrive tomorrow at 8:30 in the morning, and my aunt and uncle will pick me up from the airport and drive me to the beach house on sunset beach. I'll be there for two weeks, the longest time I've spent there since 2006. spending time with me there will be two aunts, one uncle, four cousins (and three of their children), a cousin's friend, my mother, and my youngest brother and sister. there may or may not be a pet hamster in attendance.



it turns out everything that needs to be said about the beach, and what it means to me, I wrote back in 2009. I truly cannot wait.

home for the holidays

I'm home in maryland for a few days, enjoying the holidays (and the snow, and the giant hill in the backyard) with my family. merry christmas, everybody.