unsaid

If the apostrophe stands for what is unsaid, then:

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for the kids

Yesterday I took a group of new arrivals out on the trail. They seemed wild and unfocused, so I decided to teach them about some of our local flora.

"Does anyone know what this plant is? This green, serrated leafed plant is called stinging nettle. If you look at the underside of the leaf you will see that it is indeed covered in tiny needles. When these needles pierce your skin, it secretes folic acid, which is the same kind of acid that bees and red ants use. You want to see what it looks like when it touches my skin?"

"No! No!" they screamed. I was surprised; most sixth graders enjoy watching other people endure injury. "Please don't! We can just youtube this when we get home!"

They got louder as I brought the stinging nettle closer to my skin, and finally a crescendo when it made contact with the underside of my wrist.

"Ahhhhh!"

I had never actually felt stinging nettle before, but I knew what to expect.

"Wow! Already I can feel a burning sensation--like someone is poking me with about 20 red-hot needles!"

"Eeeewww!"

There is a plant called mugwort that lives right next to stinging nettle, and this plant is a nearly instant solution to stinging nettle. When you crush mugwort between your fingers, a few droplets of salve can be made. When you apply this mugwort salve to your stinging nettle, it will ease the burn and you'll feel 100% okie dokie in about 10 minutes. However, this helpful plant is dormant during the Winter months. I told the kids if they were to ever land in stinging nettle, please do so during Spring or Summer.

Anything for the outdoor education of our children :)

warrior teacher

Beneath my watch is a layer of dirt and sweat.

From my shoes pour pebbles and grit.

I shake my silver brown hair and mica flies into the wind.

Tongue to my lips and I taste the dust of the earth, the sage I picked.

This will not last forever. At least, not yet.

This is a gift: being able to open the door to the outdoors for kids.

Impressionable young adults.

At the beginning they were squeamish about walking through mud.

This week I taught them to allow themselves to be dirty--hands on fun.

By the end of the week they were playing in streams, watching hawks, writing poetry.

"A Warrior of the Light shares his world with the people he loves. He tries to encourage them to do the things they would like to do but for which they lack the courage." - Paulo Coelho, Warrior of the Light

This is my calling in life: to share the beauty of nature with the youth so that we may all have a deeper appreciation and love for it. If it is not appreciated, who will stand before the bulldozers and concrete and log cutters and engineers and roads? Who will fight for the few pristine and beautiful places we have left in this world? Who will be able to look at a mountain and see themselves reflected in it? Who will be able to stand on that mountain and look upon their world with awe and inspiration?

Coffee!

Today in our Pine Village meeting, our Village leader gave us French Pressed Coffee! Coffee!! That I had to stir with a spoon because I kept chewing the grinds at the bottom. Everyone in Pine Village is now bouncing off the walls: Literally. No really--look at the picture of Holly and I bouncing off the hallway walls!

I love this place!

Peace

The sound of water through a granite canyon may be better medicine for my Being as a whole than anything prescribed by a doctor.

Growing Leaves

There is a tree inside

When I breathe it grows

I find its leaves at the foot of my bed

Drifting towards the edge of the pools

of my eyes

When I slept last night

My arms became branches

There was a bird’s nest in

the crook of my elbow

The downy feathers under my head

I had scrambled eggs this morning.

Imitation of Claudia Rankine's “Don't Let Me Be Lonely”

Written for LTWR 475, Professor Sandra Doller, 5.1.2009. All italicized quotes are by Edward Abbey, from "Desert Solitaire."

I feel like the roots of a tree, trapped beneath concrete. They are not seen by those who walk above, but the roots are alive (and growing) non-the-less. Were we to fast forward time, it would appear that the roots explode from the ground in insurmountable fury—overthrowing the concrete, and retaking the land. But we cannot move time, but must remain under that, also. I look forward to my mountains, but they are shrouded in a thick, polluted haze. I look out my windows but all I see is traffic—it's tumultuous tremors haunt my ears at night and every waking moment.

I am here not only to evade for a while the clamor and filth and confusion of the cultural apparatus but also to confront, immediately and directly if it’s possible, the bare bones of existence, the elemental and fundamental, the bedrock which sustains us.

Most people can live their lives in the cities and not think twice about it. Camping is a diversion. Hiking takes effort. Back packing takes too much time. And those strange people who hike the Pacific Crest Trail, six months start to finish, what are they thinking? I wish I could be one of the strange ones on the PCT. I wish I could have my food waiting for me at the next post office. I have to work to get it—not like most of us Americans. Westerners. Lazy! But even I cannot live out my dream, at least not yet.

I'm so tired of asking people for money. Asking for food. Asking for this or that. I am so far from independent. I am so far from being my own woman. I am so tired.

I hit the bottom of my bank account with each purchase I make. I can't buy a shirt without having to do the math in my head: is it worth it? Is it worth it to buy a $7 shirt? Do I buy groceries or do I get my oil changed in my car? Do I get my tires rotated or do I renew my AAA membership so if I am stranded on the side of the road I have free towing?

I once got into a fight with my boyfriend. He insisted that I could go my whole life without being out in the “wilderness”. I fought back because, as I have found out, all my heart and spunk leaves me when I am not renewed every now and then. “Renewed” means that I am out somewhere away from the sound of cars, people yammering on, televisions in the background with people I've never seen trying to sell me something that will better my existence. Not being able to give any logical reasoning behind my need for rejuvination, I fought back with a poem:

I can't believe you. I thought you knew:

I am the breath of pines

The sight of oaks

The voice of cedars

I am the laughter of brooks.

I can't believe you. I thought you saw:

I am the beat of wings

The pad of paws

The cry of wild things

I am the fear of Unknowns.

I can't believe you. I thought you heard:

I am the death of summer

The come of dawn

The sheen of snow

I am the covering of night.

I can't believe you. I thought you felt:

I am the falling of leaves

The shawl of fog

The lull of streams

I am the impassible of mountains.

I am sorry. I thought you knew.

Wilderness. The word itself is music. Wilderness, wilderness . . . We scarcely know what we mean by the term, though the sound of it draws all whose nerves and emotions have not yet been irreparably stunned, deadened, numbed by the caterwauling of commerce, the sweating scramble for profit and domination.

I look at my poem now and see my pulse in the format. I have a specific picture in my mind for each image presented in the poem. Self-analyzing can bring you a certain kind of insight. I know I was not wrong. And as my time away from the mountains and deserts lengthened, my boyfriend soon saw what I needed to remain stable.

And then I get a notice from CSUSM. You owe us $608. Funny, they sent me a check for $607 last semester saying that I overpaid during summer. Now they charge me after their mistake? And what are they doing with that extra dollar? Charging me for the fucking stamp?

It is not without strong will that I stay in this concrete cage. I couldn't just up and leave my friends, family, boyfriend... well, I could. But I don't. People say

You could get lost out there! You could get injured! You could die!

And I say

Good. It is not any different from living a life here, among millions of other people, all working day-in-and-out. I could get hit by a car. Mugged. Raped. I would much rather meet my end in the wilderness, where no one is watching.

Dear Clare,

I am finally in Joshua Tree National Park. It is beautiful out here with a steady wind and beaming sun. It has been a lazy afternoon in my tent. I mixed Bacardi Raspberry Rum with fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice. And a tiny desert chipmunk nearly licked my toe. Twice.

A good day. I just have to be more conscious of the beauty around me than of my cloudy, sad coma in which I am suspended.

There is a family, for instance, rock hopping. How can a mother always act with interest and surprise each time a different child makes a new discovery? I am impressed.

Cactus blooms with red, juicy-looking flowers.

Blue and yellow caterpillars crawl out of a maze, a ball, a wide cocoon of silk thread.

There is a unique distinction between the windsong of a pine tree and the windsong of a Joshua Tree.

Refuge was an amazing book. I can't recall how many times I cried while reading it. Which is good. I am going through my own change, my own process. Transition—choose your word.

It is everything. A grain of sand is relatively weightless. But laying under a sand dune makes each grain count.

And there is weight, here, on my chest. It sits there and taunts me in my trials. It laughs at my weakness and scoffs at my attempts at success. It is not my friend.

Small things. Like the quiet of the desert disrupted by a blaring radio, operated by a bunch of beer-drinking, horse-shoe-throwing loud-mouths. Every experienced climber in Joshua Tree hears and looks down on this behavior. It's rude. People are rude. Rudeness is the angry child of Selfishness. It does not know better. But I do. I came to the desert for peace and serenity, not obnoxious commercials and blaring music.

This is a desert, not a stadium.

I have five weeks left at school. Five weeks left to graduate. I wanted to go out strong. But I'm not. I'm going out run out, burnt out, and happy to be out. I hate being tired. My residents are tired and I need to be there. I won't see most of them after this. It will be facebook and that is all. Not personal. Not like the opportunity I had here.

Did I waste it? No. I tried damn hard to get to know people. Some people just would not be known.