30/30: Happy New Era!

October 16th

For my last photos in my twenties, I wanted to pay homage to my running status as the world’s last young, old person.  Though, if it wasn’t a Wednesday night in North Carolina (and probably if my sister was around)…I’d prefer to be spending my last hour watching the Thunder Down Under.

I tried to think of something ceremonious I could do.  People like to plant trees.  I recalled a seedling packet for a Japanese Red Maple (I love those trees) that we received as a favor during a wedding we attended when we first moved to San Diego.  I have no idea if the seeds will still sprout, but I planted it right before midnight and made a wish.

Of course, I had to stay up until midnight of my birthday just like you do on New Year’s.  Only I’m the only person cheering, “Happy new era!” like the crazy old lady I now am.

New Computer, Old Soul

Over the weekend Tommie and I bit the bullet and bought me/us a new laptop (13" MacBook Pro). It was time for my old iBook from the college years to retire considering I could make myself breakfast in the time it took to open photos or navigate a couple Web pages.  

I am getting used to the new laptop--loving the clearer, brighter screen, the light up keyboard, and of course the increased speed. Apparently this thing can do a lot more, but I'm probably not the best person to test it.

When you go to the Apple store to purchase a computer they help with personal setup. Helping me setup took twice as long as helping elderly couples who were in and out of there before I could even get my username to work. Tommie kept slapping his forehead in pain. I asked the Mac genius if he thought I could get a job there. He didn't answer.

In my defense, my previous Mac was so old that I didn't have updated information that was compatible with the new one. Against my defense, I have never been good with technology. It's the old mind, the creative soul, the defender of dying arts against the new engineers who would rather see novels written in HTML code. Computers "know" this about me and I'm telling you they rebel--they are very smart, and maybe I rebel back, but I'm not admitting to anything.

When we got home, Tommie set up my computer to make sure it didn't self destruct and Maya spent more time sitting at it than I did. I sat on the floor and made paper pinwheel art out of old magazines (more on that later) because I saw them in a window display on the way to the Apple store earlier that day and got inspired. As Tommie said, "You are the only person who gets a new computer and goes home to make paper wheels." True.

What We Have In Common With Thoreau

We've all heard of Henry David Thoreau: he's that old guy who's really into nature, lived out in the woods and wrote about it. That's what I knew when I read Walden, but within the first part of the book something struck me as odd. Thoreau only spent two years of his life on the pond. For a guy who has a reputation close to that of a hermit, I found it strange that in reality he lived there for a short time.

That is what peaked my interest in a recently published book called "The Thoreau You Don't Know," by Robert Sullivan. I knew the book would help answer some of my questions about the often overlooked aspects of Thoreau's life, but it surprised me to learn how much Thoreau's world (1830's-1840's) parallels the current state of our own. To get a better understanding of Thoreau, Sullivan points out the social/economic state of Concord (and America) at the time Thoreau chose to pursue his little experiment in the Walden woods...times which are eerily similar to our own:

"To get an idea of what Thoreau was thinking about work and about making a living when he wrote Walden, you have to stop and look at the work situation in Concord and the towns in the area, to imagine the economic landscape around the pond the way you might try and imagine the trees and the birds and the water...

"The Concord that existed when he went to college, in 1834, was different form the Concord in which he is about to build a cabin, in 1845, at twenty-seven; like the rest of America, it is in the midst of a transformation. It bears repeating that from 1837 through 1843, the country was caught in a severe financial depression. In general, New England's economy was changing, colonial agriculture being replaced by the early stages of modern industrial capitalism, all the economic and political power that had been dispersed among farmers now being concentrated in a smaller number of people, primarily landowners and business owners." (Sullivan 125)
Just as in Thoreau's time, the America that existed when I went to college, in 2002, is vastly different from the America in which I am now building the foundation for my future in 2010. When I went off to school, 9/11 had just happened, we were going to war, but on the flip side, the housing market was booming and jobs were readily available. Fast-forward eight years...I am twenty-six (Thoreau's age when he built his house on Walden), America is in the midst of a similar transformation. Our country is once again caught in a severe financial recession. The ongoing war has not been cheap, the housing market has crashed and jobs have dried up. I don't know if it's comforting or disturbing to know that Thoreau (an aspiring writer himself at the time), was faced with very similar issues over 100 years ago...makes me wonder if we've learned anything from the past.

Even after reading this book, I won't really know Thoreau, but if his thought process about going off to be more self-sustaining, getting back to nature, not being owned by a job, was in any part due to his frustration with the way things were headed in Concord and America in general (industrialization, a failing economy, and class separation), then I know a lot of people my age can relate. We're frustrated, confused and distrusting. We graduated, like Thoreau, into a world full of broken systems and because of this we don't want to be a part of them. All this is enough to push even the most practical of us to want to get all "Thoreauvian" and desire to build a modest home with a garden on a little pond outside town.

Thoreau struggled with these things over 100 years ago and perhaps another generation will struggle with them 100 years after me in a world that is even more advanced and industrial. I wonder if this moment in time will spark modern Walden-like experiements...there is something about seeing the modern world in turmoil that causes a lot of frustrated souls to go running back to nature for the answers.

Creative Souls

Maybe it's being around artists all day at work, but lately I've been having an overwhelming urge to create things. I consider myself a creative person, but I'm no artist. I have always enjoyed the less tangible "art" of writing but I find myself wanting to diversify...and not just wanting to, but feeling like a have to. I never thought I'd see such a quick decline of the printed word as I have in the past couple years. It's hard for me (and even harder as a relatively recent grad) to come across any jobs in the publishing industry that are not tech- or medical-related, and at that point, I feel like I might as well sell my creative soul to some big data entry corporation.

It's not that I want to become a painter or a sculptor, but I do want to be happy. I see a variety of people come into my office and what I've learned from them is that, really, anything you can think up is possible. I've seen a woman who is starting her own journal line inspired by her family relationships and her mother's artwork. I've seen two woman come in to discuss the outline of a cookbook featuring local recipes and artwork. I've seen watercolors painted by a famous chocolatier who started making candy in his basement and artwork in his spare time. While these people won't make the salary of a big CEO, they will feel better about what they do every day and be in charge of their own life and that's what I admire.

Inhabitants Of Nature

Before I had to head into work at the restaurant last weekend, Tommie and I managed to get out and check out a trail in the Warren-Weld (Greenbelt) Reservation in Essex with one of our friends and Maya. The trail we stuck to was a good distance and there were others to check out so I definitely think we'll go back there soon.

The week before we made another stop at the Long Hill Reservation in Beverly. The change of seasons almost makes it seem like we're in a different park every time we go...new plants have sprung up, more or less leaves cover the trees, and the giant tadpoles that hovered in the little rock ponds are now big frogs poking their heads from between lily pads to soak up the remaining sunlight.

Searching for little creatures like cool bugs, frogs and snakes is one of my favorite things to do when we're exploring/walking. Sometimes I think if science class hadn't suddenly turned into a cleverly disguised math class (thanks a lot chemistry and physics), I might have spent more time studying biology because long before textbooks I was a strange kid who loved to play with bugs...I blame it on the fact we didn't have cable television in my house. For whatever reason, I've always been fascinated with all the little critters inhabiting the natural world. I remember getting in trouble in elementary school for leading a tour of kids to the outfield during recess to see a puddle filled with tadpoles that had just hatched. Those "yard ladies" really knew how to burst a kid's bubble. Luckily, that didn't thwart my efforts to check out the tadpoles progress when I was able to sneak away. And there is still a child-like part of me that gets excited when I spot these guys.

Poetry Contest Winners Announced

The Quarter Deck Poetry Contest winner, finalists, and honorable mentions were announced yesterday, and as one of the finalist, my poem appears on the Gloucester Poet Laureate Website:

www.gloucesterpoetlaureate.org

I wrote the first draft of this poem in college while reading Charle's Olson's The Maximus Poems. Olson drew from the rich history of Gloucester (my hometown and where he eventually settled). He explored the connection between people and place and the changes (not such a good thing) brought about by technology and industrialism. I got to thinking about how much things had already changed since the time Olson wrote about them to the time I was writing about them. Time always moves forward but our words are more fluid and explore the connection between the past, present and where we're headed.

amberISconfused

I have never been good at coming to quick decisions. Choosing an ice cream flavor presents a big enough challenge, let alone choosing career moves, what city I want to live in, and how I will ever achieve balance between what I want, what I need, and what I'm stuck with. My e-mail address pretty much sums up my general feelings about life lately and all its major (and not so major) decisions.

The other day I was on the phone with my health insurance provider and the man on the line asked for my e-mail address.

"Amberisconfused..." I paused so that he could type it in the system, but the pause lasted longer than usual. "All one word..." I coaxed him along.

"What?" The man on the other end of the phone said.

"My e-mail...amberisconfused...all one word," I repeated.

"Oh!" He exclaimed, "I thought you were making a statement!"

I had to laugh. It was partly true.

In 8th grade my friends and I were using the public library's computer because none of our parents had the Internet yet. My friend told me I should get on e-mail but I didn't feel like it (an early rebellion against technology); she insisted, and said she'd set up an account for me, but when it came time to pick an e-mail address, I panicked.

"Oh my god, this is going to be with me for the rest of my life!" I said like the melodramatic, indecisive Libra I am.

"It's NOT a big deal," my friend assured me. "You can always make another one."

"NO, I can't. People are going to know this one...I can't just change it. I need to think of something really good, something memorable, meaningful, insightful..."

She rolled her eyes and waited, fingers poised on the keyboard. But it was too much pressure. My friends started offering suggestions but I found a reason to reject them all. We had a 20-minute time limit on the public computer; the librarian started to give us "the eyes."

My friend at the computer eventually let out a frustrated groan: "Ughhhhh! Amberisconfused!" at the same time typing her statement into the system, clicking enter, and memorializing my perpetual state of confusion and indecision. I couldn't get upset with her...after all, it was true.

While the decisions I had to make as an 8th grader were more trivial than the decisions I encounter as an adult, I still have the same reaction to them. After all these years, I still use the e-mail address and I'm still confused.

Who Needs Clean Water Anyway?

Gloucester has been having a bit of a water problem lately. Since August 21 we have been under a mandatory "boil-water order," which means any water used for drinking, cooking, brushing teeth, and washing dishes needs to be boiled first. The Gloucester Daily Times reports: "The city continues to pump supplemental levels of chlorine into the water system in an effort to drive down the bacteria counts. City officials continue to emphasize that there have still been no traces of E.coli or other fecal bacteria in the water samples. The state's boil-water order is based on the presence of total coliform bacteria." Because there is no E.coli present (yet), the city is not passing out water, which means that businesses and residents have to spend their own money on decent drinking water. It's only water—it's not like we need it to survive or anything.

It's times like these I wonder how we've let it come to this: Why we think everything we've done to make our civilization more "advanced" automatically makes it "better?" Why we'd take a water treatment plant over a natural spring or well? It comes down to convenience. It's more convenient to turn on a faucet than go down to the stream or the well and hoist up buckets of water (if we'd even want to, given the fact that we pollute the streams). And indeed some places wouldn't be able to have wells at all (like San Diego)...and I'll take a page from Tommie's favorite enviro books and say, well, then maybe we shouldn't inhabit places where you couldn't have a natural source of water.

As a citizen of the modern world, I am torn. Of course I enjoy the luxuries of warm showers and faucets (and I'm pretty sure my scrawny pancake arm muscles couldn't pull a bucket out of a well even if I tried)...but where do these advances get us in times like these? I'd be better off going to my aunt's family cabin in upstate New York and drinking from the natural spring in the ground that's covered with decomposing leaves (it is, by the way, some of the best water I've had). Instead I'm in a city, like many others, that avoids bacteria water by pumping extra chemicals into it. So let me get this straight: I can either drink water teeming with bacteria OR chlorine chemical water? Pour me some of that! Maybe, just maybe, those shouldn't be our options.

National Poetry Month: Charles Olson

In preparation for my journey back to my hometown of Gloucester, Mass., I have chosen Charles Olson as the last poet to blog about during National Poetry Month.

Olson, the author of a well-known epic poem about Gloucester, The Maximus Poems, grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts but spent his summers in Gloucester before relocating there in his final years. The Maximus Poems, which he began in the late 1940’s and continued to work on until he passed away in 1970, captures the historical effects of industrialization on a place such as Gloucester, which was once (only) a small fishing community. Olson mixes his own personal knowledge about Gloucester and mythology with the research he gathered about Gloucester’s early history and settlement to express his concerns about the gradual movement of human beings away from a more modest and simple way of life.

Bk ii chapter 37
By Charles Olson

I. Beginning at the hill of Middle Street the city
which consists mostly of wharves & houses
reaches down to the sea. It is bounded
on the one side by the river Annisquam,
and on the other by the stream or entrance
to the inner harbor. In the Fort at this entrance

are the images of stone and there is another
place near the river where there is a seated
wooden image of Demeter. The city's own
wooden image of the goddess is on a hill
along the next ridge above Middle Street
between the two towers of a church called
the Lady of Good Voyage. There is also a stone image
of Aphrodite beside the sea. 2. But the
spot where the river comes into the
sea is reserved for the special
Hydra called the Lernean monster,
the particular worship of the city,
through it is proven to be recent
and the particular tablets of Poseidon
written on copper in the shape of a heart
prove to be likewise new.

the rocks in Settlement Cove
like dromlechs, menhirs
standing in the low tide
out of the back of the lights from Stacy Boulevard
at night

out of the back of the light,
from Stacy Boulevard on the water
at night

Ancient History

Growing up and hearing older generations tell stories of their childhood and adulthood, it seemed like they experienced some of the most unimaginable changes. The things that older people experienced in their lifetime (Wars, The Depression, advances in technology) seemed like myths, as if these things only happened because the people and the world were "older" back then. I didn't think that much could possibly occur in my own life because we had already come so far...how much more could happen in such a relatively short amount of time?

Maybe because I've reached my quarter-life crisis, or because the world now seems to be teetering on the brink of big change or collapse, I suddenly understand how easy it is for change (and a lot of it) to occur in one's lifetime. I'm only in my mid-twenties and can already think of several things I did/saw that my own children will not: they may never be served a free meal on an airplane in coach; they won't shop at Linen's 'n' Things, Mervyns or countless other stores I did; they will never drive (maybe even see) a Pontiac, one of the first cars I started driving; they won't know life without caller ID (when I used to have to screen calls by lying...I told my parents to tell people I was in the shower all the time); they won't be able to drive directly over the Hoover Dam like I did on my way to California; they won't place metal coat hangers on top of their TV to get a clearer picture; and they will just know that women and people of color can run for and become President.

Already, I have experienced war, a recession, technology I can't even follow anymore.  My grandchildren will read about the world I grew up in, and these moments I am living will become their flash cards for history class. It's hard to fully understand a time before our own lives because learning it is not the same thing as living it. I want to remember all these moments as best I can because they are most alive when they are happening, and they flicker in our memories for some time after until the last person who lived that moment passes on and it's no longer documented in a living mind but exists only in the library archives.

Ode To The Cable Car

San Francisco has the last operational cable cars in the world. It's amazing to think that every other city got rid of these classic forms of public transit. Tommie and I bought three-day "Muni" passes so that we could hop on and off the cars at our leisure and we got to experience it all...squeezed inside the cabin, holding onto the outside rails (which was more like a ride on the downhill), and even getting pushed up the hill by a tow truck (the lube on the tracks was too slick in the rain so the tow truck drove into the back of the car to get it up the hill).
After failing miserably at buying BART tickets to and from the city itself, I realized that I am not cut out for any form modern transit. First of all, there are no people to be found. Machines can't tell me when I'm buying the wrong ticket...which I, of course, did. And machines don't give refunds when you're an idiot. Machines also try to trick you on purpose...the BART machine tries to automatically get you to purchase $20 worth when you only need $4, and figuring out how to subtract your money is a true test. On the way home I had to put cash in the machine because it wouldn't read my card. This meant I needed change which came spilling out the mouth of the machine in the form of quarters and sounded like I was a jackpot winner at a Vegas casino...great in Vegas...bad in a subway station crawling with homeless people who appeared at my side faster than you could say, "winner!"

The cable cars were more my style...there are very few of them, so less chance of hopping onto the wrong one; they have to follow a very set track so you always know exactly where they are headed; they are run by people who you can actually see and talk to while you are en route, and you can pay these people/give them your pass directly. I say bring back the cable car, or at the very least, bring back human patrons at the subway/train stations. Having one-sided arguments with machines is really getting embarrassing, but maybe that's just me.

Rebel Without a Cause

"One cannot spend one's time in being modern when there are so many more important things to be." --Wallace Stevens

***

This is a big step for me. Not only am I promising myself that I will use this space as a forum for writing more often and resurrecting my creative side, but by choosing to begin a blog, I’m succumbing to another aspect of dreaded technology.

Whenever possible, I resist technology. I do it for several reasons. First of all, I’m cheap. If I can save money by buying the older version of something (or not buying it at all), I will. Secondly, I’m dismayed (and yes, slightly jealous) that engineers and computer technicians make all the money while writers and artists are continually underpaid and underestimated. Because of that, I resist technology to prove a point...even if only a minor point that no one else cares about. I don’t need technology. I was perfectly content with cassette tapes and VHS until the CD and DVD came along, forcing my old means to become obsolete. There is always something new. I can’t keep up, so I don’t try.

The worst part of this personal rebellion is that I can’t win. For instance, I bought a new cell phone without Bluetooth capabilities because I hate how important those ear buds make people look. No one is that important. It wasn’t too many months after my purchase when California passed a law stating that you need to use a hands-free device in your car. I’m currently still resisting that one. I suspect I’ll have to give in at some point...probably when a cop spots me yelling a one-sided conversation into the phone I’m holding out at arms length (yes, I know the rule isn’t “ear’s-free,” it’s “hand’s-free”) because I still can’t find my speakerphone function. (Choosing not to learn how to use speakerphone is also part of la résistance.)

I know, I know. The only person I’m inconveniencing is myself. But really, even people who do keep up with the times have to go out and buy a new version, update or product practically every other month. Let’s all just agree right now to take a hiatus from technology for a little while. Let the Blackberry come to its natural end; halt the making of Nintendo 4000 (okay, I made that up). Let’s just slow down a little so I can get Blue Ray discs without thinking it’s stupid because they too will be replaced in another few years by little HD microchips we insert into our Bluetooth and play inside our heads.

Let’s see if technology and I can come to some sort of truce. Let’s see if I can not only find my way back to writing on a more regular basis, but if I can do so while embracing (or at the very least accepting) this form of communication. The fact that I have successfully figured out how to post this is a sign that I am, however slowly, learning.