it is a complex fate to be an American

learning more and more about less and less

No man is an Illand, intire of it self: every man
is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine: if a
Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse,
as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor
of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans
death diminishes me, because I am in-
volved in Mankinde; And therefore
never send to know for
whome the bell tolls; It
tolls for thee.

John Donne

(from a sermon by the English poet and clergyman of the 19th century)

Sparklers

I scratched your name in longhand
on the night, then you wrote mine.
I couldn't see you, near me,
laughing and chasing my name
through the air, but I could hear
your heart, I think, and feel your breath
against the darkness, hurrying.

One word swirled out of your hand
as you rushed hard to write it
all the way out to its end
before its beginning was gone.
It left a frail red line
trembling along on the darkness,
and that was my name, my name.

-Ted Kooser

hawks do not share

Albany

As I sat on the sunny side of train #241
looking out the window at the Hudson River,
topped with a riot of ice,

it appeared to the untrained eye
that the train was whizzing north along the rails
that link New York City and Niagara Falls.

But as the winter light glared
off the white river and the snowy fields,
I knew that I was as motionless as a man on a couch

and that the things I was gazing at-
with affection, I should add-
were really the ones that were doing the moving,

running as fast as they could
on their invisible legs
in the opposite direction of the train.

The rocky ledges and the trees,
blue oil drums and duck blinds,
water towers and flashing puddles

were dashing forever from my view,
launching themselves from the twigs
of the moment into the open sky of the past.

How unfair of them, it struck me,
as they persisted in their flight-
evergreens and electrical towers,

the swing set, a slanted fence,
a tractor abandoned in a field-
how unkind of them to flee from me,

to forsake an admirer such as myself,
a devotee of things-
their biggest fan, you might say.

Had I not taken a hound's interest in this world,
tipped my hat to the first magpie,
shouted up to the passing geese?

Had I not stopped enough times along the way
to stare diligently
into the eye of a roadside flower?

Still, as I sat there between stations
on the absolutely stationary train
somewhere below Albany,

I was unable to hide my wonderment
at the uniformity of their purposee,
at the kangaroo-like sprightliness of their exits.

I pressed my face against the glass
as if I were leaning on the window
of a vast store devoted to the purveyance of speed.

The club car would open in fifteen minutes,
came the announcement
just as a trestle bridge went flying by.

-Billy Collins

at the center of the periphery

"There isn't much that I have learned
through all my foolish years
except that life keeps runnin in cycles
first there's laughter, then those tears.."

now's the chance to choose what you'll regret

Dana, the night she flew into Seattle to meet Kimmy to drive to AK - spring 2005

first time since the last time

Two summers ago I caught a train from Seattle to Portland and then hitchhiked the next two days to San Francisco. I had all the other rolls developed a long time ago except for this one for some reason. Anyway, these are just some of the pictures from the train ride.







Tacoma Narrows bridge









crossing the river into Portland





This is 'Rider', a dog belonging to a kind and endearingly absent-minded older man who gave me a ride through almost half of Oregon. This is one of only a few pictures I took while hitching and it makes me sad that I didn't take more. But those two days were very hard on me both physically and emotionally and so unlike how wonderful hitchhiking can be and how it is so often portrayed as being. I had 48 hours to get to San Francisco to watch the start of a bike race and I remember standing hour after hour at every on-ramp sweating and sunburnt, watching endless cars pass me with disdain or indifference - walking along the highway even at some points just to be moving - and in my head doubting that I would ever make it down there at all and what the hell was I thinking trying some shit like this.
But in the end I made it and I am eternally grateful that I forced myself to leave my apartment in Seattle that afternoon and begin the trip. Because as always, things worked out in their various ways as they always do and of course looking back now and seeing how they worked out I think I've learned my lesson about not stressing and remembering that it will work out, and in a way I have, I suppose, at least until the next new thing.

lost enough to find yourself