Three Years

I love you, Hockley.

Thank you for calling on me when my hand wasn't raised, for waiting patiently as I stammered my way through various misreadings of Macbeth (Act I, Scene V) until finally, cheeks flushed and palms sweating, I figured it out on my own.

Thank you for displaying my Scarlet Letter creative project on your shelf as if my D (for diffident) were something I shouldn't ever feel I had to hide.

Thank you for helping me believe I was worthwhile. Thank you for telling me I should write. I do and I always will, and you will be in every single word.

I miss you so much. I wish you could see who I am because of you.

Poetry Corner Whenever-I-Feel-Like-It

Boundaries

Mary Oliver

There is a place where the town ends,
     and the fields begin.
It's not marked but the feet know it,
also the heart that is longing for refreshment
     and, equally, for repose.

Someday we'll live in the sky.
Meanwhile, the house of our lives is this green world.
The fields, the ponds, the birds.
The thick black oaks--surely they are
      the invention of something wonderful.
And the tiger lilies.
And the runaway honeysuckle that no one
      will ever trim again.

Where is it? I ask, and then
my feet know it.

One jump, and I'm home.

Ever (Part II)

Never (Part I)

I never want to leave this place.

Poetry Corner Whenever-I-Feel-Like-It

Grace Note

Kevin Powers

It's time to take a break from all that now.
No use the artifacts
from which I've built the buried outline of a life,
no use the broken breath
which I recall from time to time
still rattles in my chest. Yes, we're due:
a break from everything, from use,
from breath, from artifacts, from life,
from death, from every unmoored memory
I've wasted all those hours upon
hoping someday something will make sense:
the old man underneath the corrugated plastic
awning of the porch, drunk and slightly
slipping off into the granite hills
of southeast Connecticut already, the hills sheaved off
and him sheaved off and saying
(in reply to what?) "Boy, that weren't nothing
but true facts about the world."
That was it. The thing I can't recall
was what I had been waiting for.
It likely won't come back again.
And I know better than to hope,
but one might wait
and pay attention
and rest awhile,
for we are more than figuring the odds.

Where I'll Be

The other evening I went for a walk to the cemetery. From the top of the hillside you can see down into the valley, across acres of pasturelands with their grazing cows and August-thin creek beds. Though I want to be cremated when I die, if ever there was a graveyard that made me believe in belonging to one plot of earth for the rest of eternity this would be it. It is a quiet, humble place. Solo cups once full of wildflowers lie toppled, the water long evaporated, the brittle flowers fanned flat against the headstones like decks of cards. A scattering of American flags dot the stiff grass. Small pots of plastic roses and daises that won't ever wilt, won't ever decompose. I sat on a bench there for close to an hour, watching the sun scatter through pine needles and shift across the fields. I don't dwell much on my own death (which is odd, really, because I'm scared of such ridiculous things as banks and earwigs), but it's not something to which I'm particularly looking forward. This place, though, this hillside of the departed, makes death look peaceful and golden. It's an unexpected comfort.

After a while I made my way back to my apartment, stopping at the West Beach farm stand at the end of my road to pick out a bunch of basil and a zucchini for dinner. The air was warm and heavy with the scent of blackberries, and within minutes of arriving back home I was on my tiptoes in the shop yard, dropping the berries into a colander cradled in the crook of my arm. Penny was in the studio with the door open and I could hear her laughing at a book on tape. I walked up the driveway to Syd's house, checked to make sure I had no work in the shipping room, and headed up the basement stairs. When I opened the door, Syd was on her recliner watching the U.S. Open. She didn't ask what I needed, or even say "hey," which would have been an acknowledgment that I hadn't always been standing right there. She didn't look at me like I was rude for barging into her house unannounced. She simply turned away from the TV and said, "Come here, quick! This fifteen-year-old girl is about to beat Cibulkova!"

As I write this I am lying on my bed with my window open, listening to Janet give a customer directions to the bakery. It strikes me how much I need this, the sound of her watering the roses as she explains that you take a right out of the driveway and then a left at the hardware store at the top of the hill. These are the sounds that I've come to know as a part of me. The bell-like clink of Syd stacking bowls straight from the kiln. The raven that perches in one of the firs outside my window and wakes me every morning, with its emphatic pitch, three minutes before my alarm is set to go off. How I pass through the studio one minute and Matt is trimming mugs to heavy metal, but ten minutes later he's switched to an episode of This American Life. It's amazing how much a sound can feel like home.

I miss my friends and my family, and I'm a shell of a person without my cat, but this place is my heartbeat. I have taken so much away from my years here--several days of bitter loneliness, yes, but also more happiness than I feel I deserve. There haven't been many times in my life when I've truly felt I belonged somewhere or to someone, but I belong here, to these people. No matter what happens to my physical body when I die, this is where I will remain forever.

The Ups

August a terrible horrible no-good very bad month. Every year, without fail. Even knowing it's coming, and knowing that it'll be brutal when it does, does nothing to stanch the awful. These are the things to which I've clung desperately over the past four weeks:

This is Louis Lewis, the raccoon so nice I named him twice. (That and I couldn't decide how to spell it.) He got stuck in Syd's fig tree last night and spent most of today quivering on his perch while the dogs barked at him. Normally I'm petrified of raccoons, but that nose? Come on!

This is the greatest place in all the land.

My Library Fair haul.

If I could just have this face here with me, I would stay on this island for the rest of my life.

What Survives

"Livvy," my mom said, "when you have a minute I have something to show you."

Last month my brother and his best friend flew to California to see friends from the family camp we'd attended every summer for the first sixteen years of my life. Growing up, it was the best place I knew, warm and safe and familiar; a constancy that allowed me to root myself. Camp was where I learned how to swim, where I made some of the deepest friendships of my life, where my brother (and then I) worked on staff and my mom taught pottery classes as an artist in residence. Almost exactly one year ago, it burned down.

"Adrian gave this to me," my brother told my mom when he got home, "but I want you to have it." Into her palm he pressed a round, jagged-edged object. It was blue at the edges, deepening to brown and black--and bubbling--at the center. It looked like it could have been a piece of sea glass so battered by grinding waves and sand that it had nearly turned to stone.

My mom led me into the kitchen where she'd leaned it up against the windowsill above the sink. "Pick it up," she said. It was heavy, its rough weight familiar to the daughter of a potter. "Flip it over."

I stared at my mom's signature, unblinking. Something sharp caught in my throat and I swallowed it down, all at once understanding and not understanding, knowing that this meant something but ashamed that I didn't know exactly what. Tears stung the corners of my eyes. We were silent for what felt like minutes but couldn't have been more than a few seconds, until my dad set aside his crossword and lay his pen on top of it. "Adrian found that," he said. "At camp."

Of all that was lost in those scorching, smoky hours last August--the circle of green chairs next to the dining hall, the bridge connecting main camp to Sun City across the river, the cabins and the rec hall and the camp store--what I held in my hand had survived.

I have lived my whole life knowing that no man-made object is permanent. I've accepted, albeit reluctantly, that believing our creations immune to natural or malevolent forces is naive, and that everything will, sooner or later, turn to dust. But here was something that didn't. Here was a three-inch pottery shard--the bottom of a coffee mug--that had merely bubbled when everything around it disintegrated. My mother's creation, the tangible product of our sixteen-year presence in the Sierra Nevadas, was stronger than fire. My mother was stronger than fire.

Why I Adore My Job

Sure, there are days when I wake up and would rather wedge bamboo shoots under my fingernails than go into the shop. There are days when I'm homesick-hollow, days when customers make me feel so small that even I don't quite believe I exist. But then my coworker calls to tell me about some pancakes she just made, or my boss walks in quoting Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and I recognize how lucky I am--that there is not a single place on this planet I would rather be than right where I am.


Several months back, Janet had to call a customer to tell her that her order was complete.
*The phone rings and a man picks up*
Man: Hello, Rosie?
Janet: No, this is Janet at Orcas Island Pottery.
Man: Well this is Ralphie!
Janet: I'm calling for Sonja.

I walked into the shop the other day directly after returning from the mainland. Janet was at the desk, slouched down over her book, and she practically jumped out of her seat when she saw me. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "I'm so glad you're home! I have to show you the worst decision I ever made!" She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with the latest issue of Kinfolk, a lifestyle magazine for "young food enthusiasts and adventure-seekers." "Have you seen this before?" Janet asked. With a look of disgust she plopped the magazine onto the table in front of me. I flipped through a few pages. There were a lot of photographs, some of them pretty decent, some recipes, articles with titles like "The Art of Weekend Drinking" and "Swimming Holes in Upstate New York." "I can't figure out who would find this interesting!" Janet said. "I mean, it's just ridiculous. Who reads this?" I'd rarely seen her so animated. "No," she added after a moment, "I'll tell you who this is for: young California beach computer." I truly have the best coworker in the whole wide world.

Janet: It's so hot.
Me: Take off a layer.
Janet: ...I don't do that.

*The phone rings*
Me (seeing Janet's name on the caller ID): Hello!
Janet: This heat.
Me: Yes.
Janet: It's like Hell.
Me: Yes.
Janet: Okay, that's all I had to say. Goodbye.

I walked into the shop one day after getting back from a bike ride into town. "So you went for a ride this morning," Janet said, a statement rather than a question. "And you went to the library." "How did you know I went to the library?" I asked. (It had been, as a matter of fact, the only place I went in town.) Janet laughed. "Because you always go to the library!"

*During a phone call with Janet*
Me: It's been so slow that I spent an entire uninterrupted hour picking blueberries this morning.
Janet: Oh, you sweetie.
Me: It was fun! I felt like I was living in an Anne of Green Gables novel.
Janet: Well aren't you a delicious little person to have around!

Janet: The bike group is here.
Me (looking around and seeing no one): They are?
Janet: I'm probably hallucinating. I think I have a brain tumor.
Ann: Or maybe they're just very small people.

*I sniff Janet's kombucha*
Janet: It tastes like fizzy orange juice. You should try some. Pour yourself...no, actually, don't--you may catch my brain tumor.

Me: A couple nights ago it was cold and I could snuggle under my comforter! It was lovely. But then last night it was hot and thick and gross again.
Janet: I've been thinking a lot about lamb stew.

"I've got a case of the Slows." -Syd

Classic Janet one-liners:
"I'm deficient. And I can't grow corn."
"I added tax when they were shipping. Then I was writing the wrong date on the receipts. Then I sprayed myself with water. You know what, it must be the brain tumor."
"Doing work makes me tired."
"It takes a lot of work to keep the woods in order."
*On the phone* "I bought cream to make peach maple ice cream. Oh, the rooster just walked into my house. Oh dear, and he just pooped."

Maybe Tomorrow

Guess I'm not watering the plants today!

The Shore

offing
(n.) the deep, distant stretch of the ocean that is still visible from the land; the foreseeable future

That the Sky Would Lift

A Passage I Love

"The net had just closed and they were starting to purse when the boat lurched. The sea was rough that day. Pretty high. Cleet had been at the bow, the others at the stern, so they couldn't say exactly how many minutes passed before they realized he was in the water. They'd sent the skiff over immediately; the coast guard was there within twenty minutes or so... The man giving her the news stopped talking after a while, or Raney stopped hearing him. Even by the next day the conversation seemed vague as a fading dream--someone else's nightmare, surely. She remembered asking the man about a survival suit, or a life jacket--was Cleet wearing one? He'd rushed to say the captain had made them wear some new, high-tech jackets--CO2 cartridge that inflated if you went over. Gave one to every man, it was that rough. But a survival suit? No--only if the boat was in danger. Then he'd licked his lips and taken a minute to think. She could see his mind turning, weighing, almost stopping himself before he said they'd found all the jackets on board though, in the end. She remembered leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her forehead on her fists, concentrating like he was telling her the last secret code to save the world and it was her job to memorize it, only it was coming out in a language she couldn't understand." -Gemini, Carol Cassella

Cleaning Out My Closet

Some things that must be addressed:

1. Luis Suárez. Oh, Luis Suárez. What the hell is wrong with you? The Uruguayan striker has been banned from all soccer-related activities for four months, in addition to receiving a nine-game ban from international play, for biting his opponent. Again. (He was issued bans for ten and seven games for two prior instances of the same offense.) Yes, you read that right: This is the third time he's faced punishment for sinking his buck teeth into someone else during a soccer match. Perhaps my favorite part of this story was that he claimed he "tripped" and hit his face against Giorgio Chiellini's shoulder. You can't make this shit up!

In addition to the FIFA ban, I vote that Suárez has to wear the Cone of Shame indefinitely. 

2. Hope Solo's arrest. There's no denying that as a goalkeeper, Solo is nothing short of brilliant. She's a two-time Olympic gold medalist and has, as of last week, tied the all-time U.S. record for shutouts. She has worked hard to get where she is, and she deserves credit for that. What she does not deserve credit for, though, is how she has, in my opinion, abused her platform as a professional athlete and a role model. She is seemingly endlessly mired in controversy both on and off the field. In the 2007 World Cup semifinal loss to Brazil (4-0), Solo was passed over in favor of veteran goalie Briana Scurry. After the loss, Solo publicly criticized her coach's decision to bench her and attacked Scurry's athletic ability, saying "It was the wrong decision, and I think anybody that knows anything about the game knows that. There's no doubt in my mind I would've made those saves." What is a girl, like my young cousin who's an incredible goalie and loves Hope Solo, supposed to take from a comment like that? That it's okay to disrespect your mentors and peers when you don't get what you want? In 2012, Solo married former Seahawks tight end Jerramy Stevens who himself is unworthy of his role model status. Rape accusations, DUIs, felony battery charges, possession of illegal substances, and, the day before he and Solo were married, he was arrested on charges of assaulting Solo in their Kirkland home. Now it's Solo who's been booked on two counts of fourth-degree domestic violence assault against her sister and 17-year-old nephew. It makes me sick to my stomach that this is the kind of woman young girls aspire to be like. I don't want my cousin growing up thinking that this is how she will succeed.

3. On an entirely unrelated note, check out my orchid! This little guy (named Little Yedlin Boy after Sounders and USMNT defender DeAndre Yedlin) was centimeters from death when I brought him to the island, and now look at him go!

4. Syd found this poor tiny baby swallow dead on the studio floor, directly below its nest in the eaves. I constructed a coffin out of cardboard from the shipping room and decorated it with markers. Janet and I picked flowers, sang it a little song, and I buried the little guy out behind the rhododendrons. (I may or may not have written a quote from Hamlet on the coffin lid. I think I've found the new #1 reason why I will die alone.)