Life of Wry

Over the years, I’ve taken a lot of pictures of the Lyell Fork.  This picture may be my favorite.. the colors, its fullness.

I’ve added a few more below, taken in different years and at different water levels.

The Lyell Fork winds through the majestic Lyell canyon before it joins the Dana Fork and becomes the mighty Tuolumne River, which then runs through Tuolumne Meadows, past Glen Aulin High Sierra camp, and into the “Grand Canyon of Yosemite.”  It is a short walk–about a half, to three quarters of a mile–behind the Tuolumne Meadows tent cabins.  I don’t think a year has gone by when we didn’t spend at least one day in this canyon, along the river.  It’s been the go-to place when the kids felt like having a non-hike day.  Hours and hours have been spent up river a bit, building damns (and unbuilding them), throwing rocks, running mini-rapids..and for the adults: talking, reading, napping.

There are a few hikes we do out of here..  the Rafferty Creek Trail is a great one and is the one to take if you’re going to Vogelsang and beyond.  We’ve also gone up that trail numerous times in our effort to climb Johnson Peak (we finally found the real peak a few years ago, after two failed, but fun, attempts).

Twice in the last two years, we’ve hiked up canyon–a mellow river-grade stroll–attempting to get to the end, only to be turned back by weather.  About an hour after this was shot, for example, we got caught in a thunderous storm–lightning, hail, rain–and ended up returning to the cabins.

The John Muir and Pacific Crest Trails run along the south and western forest line of the Lyell Canyon.  They describe it as a box canyon, and the trail eventually rises and crosses Donahue Pass, continuing on toward Mammoth.  One of these years, we’ll get to the end…

But this year there was more water in the meadow than I can remember, making the river run wider and deeper than ever.  Its color was also a deeper and richer blue.  So swollen and powerful, yet peaceful.

Here are a few more from various years and a lot less water (note sand bars):

2003 (and a 5-year-old Peter)

2004

2007

And 2010.

If you’re a person given to traditions and rituals–and what member of the OCD club isn’t?–the annual drive to and from Tuolumne Meadows is something to totally look forward to.

We made that drive today.

First of all, we’ve got the drive down to a science.  Or I do.  I’m the driver.  We’ve done it so often, we know every place along the way, every turn of the road, and exactly how long it takes between the various points of interest.

(If this were an entry just about OCD, I’d go into the annual packing exercise, as well: the lists, the annual refinement of the lists, and ohmyeffinggodyoudon’treallywanttoevenknowme… but it’s more about the commute itself, so I’ll spare you those details.)

The drive to Tuolumne Meadows Lodge takes four hours, plus an additional hour or so for stops in Copperopolis (a pit stop here, and buying snacks, takes about 15 mins) and Groveland (eating lunch at PJ’s usually takes around 45 minutes).

If you ever want to know all the details, I’m happy to provide a breakdown of the time it takes to get to the various landmarks between Davis and Yosemite:

Davis –> Stockton –> Hwy 4 –> Farmington –> Copperopolis –> Lake Tulloch –> the prison –> 108 to 120 turnoff –> “lumber dome” –> Chinese Camp –> Don Pedro reservoir –> New Priest Grade –> Big Oak Flat –> Groveland –> Buck Meadows –> park entrance  –> Crane Flat –> Tuolumne Meadows.

.. because, you know… I know all this.

Anyway, the above picture, that’s Copperopolis–a small town of historic gold-country-era buildings surrounded by expansive, rolling hillsides that just say California.  It takes an hour and 40 minutes to get there… unless you get stopped at a long light while leaving Davis, or you get stuck behind a piece of slow-moving farm equipment that’s rattling along the road through the rich farmlands between 99 and the foothills.

So, on your commute to the jaw-dropping, granite-covered splendor of Yosemite National Park, inarguably one of the most majestically beautiful places on earth, you pass through California’s lush and insanely fertile central valley, where you could, if you wanted to, buy fresh ears of corn, just-picked strawberries and peaches, or mountains of walnuts. And THEN you pass through those golden, oak-covered Sierra foothills.  The vistas along the way are all sweepingly rural and just so incredibly lovely.

All kinds of different California, all in a quarter day’s drive.

Got to looking at some pictures tonight of summers past.. and got stuck in 2003.  Here are some favorites, in order: Fourth of July; May Lake High Sierra Camp, Yosemite; Echo Lake and backyard:

… you know the rest, right?

I am a huge fan of the garden in Central Park.  In recent years, it’s just grown so phenomenally packed with gorgeous and unique flowers, and rows and rows of edible plants, vegetables, etc.  Plus, there is some truly imaginative art, and wonderful places to sit to take it all in.

Love it.

Remembering back to the mid-80s when I was appointed by the City Council to serve on the city’s Rec and Park commission.  I worked on a lot of projects during that six years, but none as fun as designing the new Central Park.  This happened soon after the citizens had voted, overwhelmingly, in a special election, to “save open space,” rejecting numerous proposals by developers to turn what used to be a large dirt parking lot into commercial and residential space.

We, the commission, met with the architect/planner–I think it was Mark Francis, now a landscape architect professor on campus–and brainstormed possibilities.  We were presented with a huge blank footprint of the park and were given pieces of cardboard that represented various park amenities–water features, a carousel, play structures, band shells, bathrooms, rose gardens, as well as a Science Center, a teen center, a local museum (now the Hattie Webber Museum), and of course the Farmer’s Market. Essentially, we were given a blank slate, to-scale puzzle-like pieces, and asked to design a park.  Fun!

We also had great discussion about what “open space” meant, and how to honor the will of the voters and not clutter up the space with too, too many amenties.  Ultimately, of course, it wasn’t our decision.  The commission eventually provided the Council with input and a loose recommendation.  There had also been plenty of ideas thrown around prior to the election and, subsequent to the election, numerous meetings were also held at which public input was sought.  The design process seemed to go on for years. Finally, with input sufficient for 10 central parks, the Council directed the architect/planner to go forth and design.

Which he did.  I’m not sure, but I think that was in the late 80s.  It happened in phases, and it’s still a work in progress.. new things seem to get added all the time.  Very glad it remained a park, however, and very, very glad to live only a few blocks away.

Anyway, came across this weird and wonderful flower (above) today.  Turns out, it’s one of these…

…. an artichoky.

How ’bout that…

I’ve never seen my name used on a to-go carton of Chinese food before.

Day seven of the yard project and I’m 15 hours in.  Yeah, I track stuff, what can I say.

I drew a schematic of our backyard and broke it down by sections, then made a spread sheet of the sections and detailed the tasks for each (did I mention this somewhere already, feels like I did..), and now I’m chipping away at it, a little every day.  Thought I’d work with Peter on this project, but he went all teenager on me.  So it’s just me.

Today, I continued my assault on zone 12, “the south bed.”   Pictured above is a bit of zone 7–former garden path–and to the left of that, about half of zone 12.

Here’s a shot where zone 12 meets zone 9 (“the west bed”).  I pruned a whole bunch of things that used to be bushes but now are trees.  I don’t know what they’re called, but I like them.  A couple of them have branches that reach 18-20 feet!  Bushes grown amok. They’re just out of view, but I hacked five of eight of these.  Visible in this shot are a couple mock orange and a rogue fig tree, which I think I’ll keep for a while longer.  Not sure it’s fruit bearing yet.

That’s it.  I’ll try to get a picture of the piles in front of the house before the street cleaners come tomorrow.  They’re impressive. Biggest on block for the second straight week!  (But who’s counting?)

Yay me.

What’s a summer night without a walk downtown to get candy?

Stricken with a bad case of self-consciousness suddenly.  Find myself seriously second guessing my blog, its purpose, the subject matter, my writing style, my lack of writing style.  Whatever.  Suddenly, midway through my take-a-picture-every-day-and-write-about-it-because-that-forces-me-to-actually-write year-long project, I’m wondering:  Uh.. good use of time?  Productive and useful?  Can I even write??

It’s not the first time.  But I usually come back to, yeah, it’s a fine idea, the exercise is good, keep goin’.

Still, though, the self-consciousness.  Mostly, it arises out of a sense that this Life of Wry thing is just way too much me.

Blogging is so exposing.  I forget (not really, but sort of) that people out there are actually going to read this shi…. uh.. stuff. When somebody leaves a comment or talks with me about something I’ve written, I think to myself, man, [that person] read what I wrote. They read my blog.  Huh.  Suddenly we’ve left the theoretical world, where blogging seems like a modern, fun idea, and moved into the real world where someone (lots of someones) is actually reading the thoughts in my head.

Ew.

Thing is, when I’m sitting here writing, I’m just tap tap tapping away on my laptop, quite alone in my thoughts. I’m thinkin’ the thoughts, tapping them out, seeing them on the screen.  I read them, they seem like me, they’re in my voice, I get them.  And they’re fairly benign. Me, in the company of me, is pretty stress free.  I’m a person I know and accommodate well.

So, as long as it’s just me writing, just me and my thoughts, it’s ok.  The point at which I remember there are people who subscribe and receive my blog in their email box or in their blog reader, who read my words and interpret them through their own lenses, I start to seize up. Or get a little paranoid.. so much is out of my hands as soon as I click the Publish button.

Will people read my entries as I’ve written them?  Have I said something that might offend them?  Have I been overly personal? Have I exposed somebody in a way they’d rather not be exposed?  Have I violated somebody’s privacy?   Every time a new person learns about my blog, I wonder, oh shit, did I say something in some past blog entry I’d not want them to read?  Might there be consequences for my speaking cavalierly about this or that?  (Which I so do.)  I worry about relatives who hold vastly differing political views.  I worry about anytime I may have taken a bit of poetic license.   I worry that somewhere along the line, I’ve contradicted myself or exposed a side of me that that person didn’t know.

So there’s all that.

But again, sometimes I just worry is that there is just too much of me .  I start to feel embarrassed that I’ve revealed too much, shown my cards, exposed my vulnerabilities, written too much, too often…. like, who cares?  And then my inclination is to clam up.  Which is not really the point of blogging.

Social media is a fascinating little phenomenon.  It’s fundamentally changing the way we communicate, it’s an absolutely HUGE part of an emerging and still nascent online culture… and… yadda yadda,  I love this stuff and can talk about it for hours, and DO in the classes I teach on the subject.

..but back to the heebie jeebies I sometimes get blogging..

Blogging’s inherently narcissistic, I know that.  It’s a lot of other really good things, but for sure it requires a measure of narcissism.  In my classes, I often talk about how modern communication is all about putting yourself out there.  Being your authentic self, letting go of the barriers and limitations of old communication.  (Ha.)  And really, this is liberating in many ways; there is no need to protect your image, no need to spend time spinning your story for public consumption. No need to hide behind some carefully crafted version of yourself.   One CAN do that, but that’s way too hard if you’re writing a blog every day about the mundane things that go on in your life.  Besides, it’s disingenuous.

If you’re Lady Gaga and you’re selling an image, you’ve got a team of brand artists and some kind of brand standards to uphold for maximum effect and profit.  If that’s the case, then you have to think carefully about your online persona.  But if you’re just a regular joe writing a daily blog, you might just decide, hell, it’s much easier (if exposing) to open up and be yourself.  Just go for it.

Right?

Right (trying to convince myself).

It’s a new day.  People are out there in ways they’ve never really been before.  Social media exposes you:  your tastes, your affiliations, your talents, your whereabouts, and just about every damn thing; it pretty much eliminates any pretense of privacy, mystery or coyness.  So you may as well embrace the realness.

It’s that authentic thing, which takes me right to this wonderful sentiment:

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind. 

– Dr. Seuss

(Photo: Hot air balloon sighting at oh seven thirty, while on campus this Sunday morning with Bella the dog and her owner Sabrina.)

Lest I forget that I live in easy times in an easy place, let me describe the morning:

First… I got up early (early enough, anyway).  Logged on, checked in and caught up with the world and my people in it.

Left for a walk, camera and phone with.  En route, called my mom and talked for a half hour.. caught up on all things mom, and vice versa, which she loves. An easy and really enjoyable conversation.  I seriously dislike talking on the phone, but find long conversations completely endurable when I’m out and about, especially walking.

Continued walking speedily through and around the arboretum, stopping here and there to take pictures with my good camera, taking more care to frame and zoom-in on shots than usual.  The whole trip around and along the creek felt leisurely.  I was also very aware, and amused, that I have no idea what I’m doing with photography, and know less about botany, but could still find it incredibly enjoyable to take pictures of all this wildly blooming (if un-name-able) plant life.

Came upon a dozen artists from the Crocker Art Museum who’d positioned themselves around Lake Mrak to paint in the early morning light.

It was charming, but it was the soundtrack that made me smile…. a group of guys had spontaneously gathered on the deck across the lake with vintage looking brass instruments and were playing some funky upbeat music that could be heard for a pretty good distance.  They were unrelated to the painters, but they complemented the lakeside scene rather perfectly.

Ran into Peter’s English teacher and passed a few other walkers, dog walkers and such, but for the most part, it was quiet, a lot less busy than most weekday mornings.  All and all, serene and peaceful, except for the quacking ducks and brass music.

Passed through the redwood grove, certainly everyone’s favorite stretch of Putah Creek, and completed the 3 1/2 mile loop. Then headed over to Mishka’s for an au lait and poppyseed muffin.  Of course.  Sat outside in the 75-degree shade reading the New York Times and listening to an Italian woman who was video chatting with someone, somewhere, animated (and loud).

Wandered home through the Farmer’s Market.  Got swallowed into the Saturday morning Central Park cacophony–the crowds, the music, the activities.  I worked at remaining anonymous, not feeling like getting involved in any conversations (though I’m sure that’d have been fine). Entered the market proper and picked my way from booth to booth sampling and then buying some organic nectarines and peaches, got spit out the other end and headed home.

Back home, and it’s not even noon. Shortly, I’ll join Jim for a walk back downtown for lunch, then plan to garden the rest of the day and later have dinner with friends.

Ok. Why am I bothering with this detail?

Well, because I don’t want to take it for granted.  This morning was unremarkable but it was also really pleasant and I think worth acknowledging that:

We’re not dealing with insufferable heat, like so many around the country right now.  We’re not dealing with the aftermath of the Oslo rampage. We’re removed from (though not unaffected by) the drama of the debt ceiling debates, republican horse race, Murdoch empire collapse and too, too many other domestic political tragicomedies.  Someone else actually has to deal with all that, and it’s not me.  Hell, I don’t even work. We have friends, resources, choices, ideas and options.  We’re rich (by world standards), healthy, educated, creative and we’re not in a war zone. I can actually call my mom on the phone.  That sure won’t last forever. My feral teenager’s out and about, hanging with friends and digging his independence like nobody’s business.  It’s a nice thing to have a day to myself.  Win win.

So, right?  We’re crazy privileged and lucky.  We drew the long straw, were born in the right place in an easy time.  It’s a nice summer and things are good.  I can get as cynical and snarky as the next guy.. but it’s wise to remember: it’s all ridiculously good.

Been wanting forever to convert countless hours of video tape to digital files and finally, FINALLY did that.  This afternoon, our video professional friend (that would be Phil) delivered a hard drive with something like 240 gigs of stuff on it.  I’ve spent the last few hours watching (and laughing, crying, shaking my head, etc.) a small sample.   I hadn’t seen moving images of the young Peter since the young Peter was standing right in front of me..singing and performing filmable antics before my eyes, in real time, in the flesh.

I, the mom, was duly entertained and enchanted… then.. and now, today, watching those videos.

That loud sigh you hear is me, relieved we’d not waited too long; so incredibly relieved our videos had not degraded.   I’m ecstatic beyond words that we now have mountains of memories. The flip side of that, of course, is that we now have mountains of memories… and need to do something with them.  And I’ll get right on it, soon as I figure out what to do with the 28,065 photos we have… yeah, that’s a real number.

Truth is, I’m close to a manageable solution for the photos. I think it’s going to be photo books, organized around some kind of theme (one for each of Peter’s years of life?  Birthday celebrations?  Baseball?  Annual Yosemite trips?  Who knows.. but something.. a lot of somethings). My friend Bev, the queen of digital documentation, has agreed to share her strategies and methods.  I am so excited and grateful to have a path. We also have some fancy dan video editing software we’ll use for all these video files… we’ll ruthlessly edit them down to something watchable.. which I think, in fact, will be Jim’s project.  Such a relief.

The ease with which we can now record and digitally document our lives is astonishing, and finding reasonable ways to memorialize family life has been challenging, if overwhelming.  The thing is, for kids nowadays, it’s just not as magical (or even meaningful) as it was for us growing up.  Peter is usually fairly disinterested in the pictures.  And today I learned he was only marginally interested in the videos.  Sigh.

Still, I feel compelled to create a record.  A sweet story of a sweet life.  My gift to him, to us.

I just don’t want to be a slave to these projects… there really is no end to what a compulsive documenter can document.  My goal, however, will be to keep it real and keep it sane, so I can keep my focus on life in the present.

We’ll see how that goes.