Letter Anxiety

I love to travel. I love the feeling of complete freedom as I wander from town to town, ride on buses with locals, or finally uncover that wonderful smelling bakery in an alley on cobblestoned streets. Traveling brings on a constant feeling of wonder and surprise, as you are quite literally seeing every building, street, river and mountain for the first time. I'm not content to store all this wonder away for myself, so one of my favorite ways to bring my travels to the ones I love is through letter writing. Postcards of Scottish castles, letters written from the roof of a hotel overlooking Lima, or local art sent from San Cristobal de las Casas. Most often, these are the gifts I share before I return with the awkward clay pots, shawls and other souvenirs from my journeys. Traveling is an easy way for me to feel alive so I can then share that life with others.

Unfortunately, I've been in a bit of a traveling dry spell since my journeys of 2010. I run to stay in motion, I hike to explore new corners of the Cascades and Olympics, I try new activities to meet people who otherwise wouldn't cross my path. However, most of my time is spent in the same handful of locations, wearing down ruts into the routes I traverse daily. If I think about this for too long, an itching, nagging anxiety starts to claw at my chest and I feel depressed and stifled. I've read too many books on spirituality and gone through too much counseling the past two years to allow that anxiety to rear it's head for too long. No, best to find local ways to fill the needs that traveling feeds while cultivating a thankfulness for this period of rest and healing.

And so I turn to letter writing and its partner, envelope decorating.

By writing letters to friends and family, I have the freedom to show my experience of Seattle to someone new. I may have to work harder, but there always seems to be something - a building, a drawing, a new turn of an autumn leaf, or the ground covered in shattered chestnuts - that I haven't noticed before. Can I capture this image in a few sentences to loved ones? Can I use my box of 24 Crayola crayons to capture this moment on the envelope? Sometimes I get one right without the other, sending decorated envelopes filled with fall leaves hoping the recipient will understand the gesture and accept the leaves as letter enough. But then again, maybe I'm like those eccentrics in the park feeding the ducks and muttering to themselves... instead of ducks and muttering, I recluse in my apartment and send decaying tree matter to people who may or may not have once given me their address. Oh dear, am I on my way to becoming the crazy bag lady?

And so in comes the new anxiety. In an age where you can voyueristically find anything about anyone in under 5 seconds without actual contact, is letter writing too intimate, too archaic? With every envelope I decorate and letter I write, I run the risk of the receiver just not getting it. Whether this is a fault of the postal service machines munching your letter to bits before delivering 10% of the original to the recipient, or incorrectly assuming the person would receive the letter as a friendly hello instead of invested love interest, or even more incorrectly still, becoming that reclusive bag lady sending really odd things to people who may read the dying leaves as a threat against their lives. Is my letter writing manipulative, clingy, or even threatening?

On top of that, writing letters and coloring envelopes takes a lot of time. Each package is like a tiny masterpiece being released into the world and placed at the mercy of the postal service and recipient. Will I get word the envelope arrived safely and is well received, like a nervous parent waiting to hear their child reached a desired destination without catastrophe? Not liking to send the same words or images to two different people, I have to worry about pairing the recipient with the right letter. Will they see the value of the letter or open it, read the contents, and throw the whole mess away? Maybe this is why very few artists make their medium envelopes. Maybe I should see this as part of my personal process to better let go of the impermanent and cultivate deeper stability in myself without response from other people.

But seriously, who wants to do that? Instead, I take a picture of the envelope so I can have some record of the idea, the art, before sending it out to the unknown. In 2009, I called the collection of pictures "Letters Without Lovers" because at the time, it was a new exercise to send letters to family and friends rather than the all encompassing and time consuming significant other. Now, I wonder if this title better captures my anxiety of sending a letter to someone who may not love it as much as I do. Perhaps this collection is a way for me to love my art regardless of the response from the recipient, and hold a piece of it close while also sending it away to bless the world as only beauty and imagination do. In that spirit, I share my envelopes here for your amusement. Not because I'm searching for some form of validation, but because I think they are beautiful. If I had all the time and crayons in the world, I may find a way to send an envelope to all of you.

Joy of Autumn through the Eyes of a 2-year Old

Any day I get to hang out with my nephew is a special day. Last weekend, my brother and sister-in-law invited me to come with them to the farmers' market near my home. Having successfully cleared my morning of previous engagements, I enthusiastically agree to such an outing. My nephew with loads of fresh produce and fall colors dripping from trees under a sapphire sky? Absolutely, positively, yes.

I ride my bike to the market and get it chained up right as my brother is parking. In the back seat, my nephew is looking out the window with a blank stare. I wave to him, watch as he first scrutinizes the person waving at him, recognizes me, and then starts bobbing around in his car seat, pointing and exclaiming what I can only imagine is "There's Aunt Katie!" with much squealing and laughing. Heart melt... now.

My nephew is turning into an amazing human. He is two and a half, speaks in full sentences, exclaims with pride his complete success at potty training, and runs circles around us like a smiling, laughing, energy-filled moon of happiness. He loves life and his joy is infectious. Of course I'm biased, but I notice people watch him, smile, and seem to love life a little more because a two year old is thrilled by bins full of "appos." I get to re-experience the autumnal world through Aidan's eyes, as we run from booths of many colored tomatos, to apple bins, to small pumpkins all lined up and gleaming, to the harmonica-playing-guitar man for a dancing intermission and finally, the deliciousness of an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie the size of your head! How wonderful to be a small human, if only for the joy of food disproportionately large!

After the activity of the market, I invite Todd and Sarah to my apartment. We drink water and talk while Aidan explores every cabinet and basket available below 3 ft. He finds boxes, bags of art supplies, weird head massaging devices and a container full of beads. We watch Aidan very carefully lay out several small boxes and start emptying the beads into a new system of organization that makes sense only to him. Sarah tries to intervene as about 15 separate tubes of beads find themselves into the same box, but I can only laugh at Aidan's correct assessment that yes, the objects present are all beads and should be classified as like. I thank Aidan for the re-organization and the daunting task of separating the beads, and he dutifully responds with "You're welcome."

Aidan has been a gift to my family. He is the first of hopefully many children from my siblings and cousins (who are like siblings to me) be they birthed, fostered, adopted or just picked up along the way. While we mourn the death of my uncle, it is refreshing to have the tangible evidence that life is cyclical, that a new generation moves into the space left by the passing of the former, and that while two distinct bookends mark this thing we call life, there is so much joy and discovery in between what could be 10 years, 40 years, or 90 years. I don't understand why, but this is the way of things. The deep pain of loss, of longing for the creation of more memories with a beloved uncle/father, son/husband/brother/friend, cuts through the noise of life and makes the moments of joy more real, more profound, more precious. Death and separation gift us with the urgency to re-prioritizing life. Birth and togetherness give us the means to enjoy that life to its overflowing brim.

In a similar way, Aidan has been a gift specifically for me.  The baton has passed and we, my generation of cousins, are now the adults deciding what traditions and family functions are going to remain important for the next 20 years. Perhaps I decide these things not so much for myself, but for the enjoyment of my little nephew, my parents and the larger family and friends around me. When I bump into my little nephew's temper, inability to stay still and focused, or his stubbornness, I put myself and desire to the side and make decisions that best guide him toward the little human he is going to be.  My childish narcissism has met its match with that of the new generation, and in love for them, I decide death to myself as best I can. Parenthood becomes our salvation, our awakening. For the love of this little, joy and awe-filled human, I can start my journey into adulthood, selflessness, the understanding that love can be unconditional. My nephew has helped me to see the importance of children in life, and perhaps given me the hope that should the stars align and the perfect circumstance present itself with the perfect person, I might have what it takes to be selfless, to love a child unconditionally, to become a better me through the purifying process of parenthood.

Whether parenthood happens for me or not, I get to experience a fraction of this process with my nephew right now. I sit down in front of a box containing a kaleidoscope of beads. The morning sun filters through my window, the steam wisps up from my mug of earl grey tea and I begin to separate the beads into their 15 appropriate tubes. Surprisingly, rather than frustration, I am overwhelmed by a feeling of thankfulness that I have this box of mixed up beads to remind me of the happiness and meaning my nephew brings to my life. Who knew a mundane task such as this could be a profound meditation on love, on the life my little nephew has brought to everyone around him. Thinking on this, my heart melts and I find myself just a little more enamored.

Writing Family Traditions

How should families spend their time once Santa has long since been revealed as clever packaging and an uncle eating your plate of cookies? What happens to family traditions when wine becomes the beverage of choice and all members are well above drinking age?

Answer: You convert 450 lbs of tomatoes into 260 quarts of salsa in one day. 

Labor Day, 2012 marked the 3rd Annual Trembley Salsa Making Fest. I'm not sure anyone remembers why salsa making started aside from the converging discoveries that canning things can be fun, too many tomatoes eventually go bad unless converted into something, and that my uncle Ron has an almost disturbing obsession with capsaicin. These discoveries - paired with several cases of beer, plenty of wine, 15 to 25 family members or friends-like-relatives, and about 20 knives and cutting boards -  birthed the Annual Trembley Salsa Making Extraordinaire. 

Our family has tried to make post-high school family traditions before with little success. We have the Painted Deer Classic - a bike ride that spans one side of Lake Coeur d'Alene and involves a deer chasing my father for nearly 5 miles - waiting for its second manifestation. There is the DATH, Day after Thanksgiving Hike, which started out strong with mountain summits reached in stubborn response to consumerism but has since dissolved into boardwalks and seafood fetching. I blame the lack of follow through for these activity-based traditions on the appearance of T3 into our family, the Next Generation. 

The Trembley Salsa Making Extraordinaire is different and contains the hope of longevity as a sustaining tradition for several reasons: 

First, my family loves food. As long as there is food, there will be too much food. As long as tomatoes grow somewhere in Washington, there will be too many tomatoes, too much salsa. 

Second, there is an obvious take-away to remind you of salsa epicness throughout the year. Last year, I took home 8 jars of salsa. This year, I took home 12. 

Third, who wouldn't jump on the opportunity to mix knives with alcohol in something that looks like a brutal murder scene with mom and grandma?

The last reason, is that the tradition of salsa making allows friends and family to play into roles otherwise denied them by the mundane of everyday life. 2012 starred characters such as Al the Angry Foreman, Derek the Salt - working for his people, the Tomato People (formerly known as the Garage People), Steam Pressure Jim, Rosie the Riveter turned Butcher, and many, many more. As hour after hour slips away into the same repetitive task - be it blanching tomatoes, squeezing tomatoes, chopping tomatoes or mixing it all together and completing the canning process - and as more and more wine is consumed, inhibitions are dropped and dynamics in the family reach their height of absurdity.

Salsa Making Cast, in order of appearance (that was a lie, the ordering is completely random):

Things change, and they should. The kids grow up, get married, and start their own families. Extended family gatherings become more difficult given travel times, nap times, and time sharing with in-laws. As couples plant their own family trees, it makes sense that they should branch out and start making their own traditions instead of relying on those of the larger family. In one sense, the distance away from how-things-used-to-be leaves behind a poignant sense of loss for those cousins and uncles moving on. In another sense, it leaves behind more wine for those remaining. 

Next year, we aim at 600 lbs of tomatoes. Bring it, Foreman Al. The tomato people are ready. 

Speed Dating Fails

Best of 8/19/2012

1. “We can still leave. Let’s go kayaking!”
“Well, we aren’t really dressed for kayaking. Let’s stick it out.”
“Alright, but I’m going to need a glass of wine.”
Bartender informs that Sunday nights are 50% off wine bottles.
“Oh no....”

2. “If you are leaving, you need to put your bottle in a bag.”
Bartender wraps bottle in a plastic bag, Thank You written multiple times down one side.
“Thanks...”
Complete registration and enter speed dating group, bagged bottle in one hand.

3. Email to registrants. “It is very important that you either show up or cancel with enough notice to fill your spot. We strive to keep an equal number of men to women.”
“How many people are registered tonight?”
“We have about 18 male/female pairs.”
Show up at my table along with another female, also numbered 19.
“Umm... it looks like we over registered females. Wait here until the men catch up to your numbers.”

4. “I was recently awarded the Speed Dating Facilitator of the Year. That’s nationwide.”
“There are two number 19, 20 and 21’s.”
“Hold on!” under breath “how is this happening?”
“Is this how you win Facilitator of the Year?”
Looks. Blinks. “I’m still ahead of Tampa.”

5. To group of 5 over-registered women: “So, who coerced you guys into coming to this thing tonight?”
“I don’t understand. I googled searched for it.”

6. Arrival of Bachelor #1: “I got here late. What are we supposed to do?”
“See, you have this sheet with numbers and people that correspond with each number. You talk with someone and take notes on this sheet, then you mark whether you liked them and want your contact information sent to them.”
Watch as my name is written down by the Number 1 slot.
“No, I’m number 19, so you write my name right here.”
“Thank you. You are so informal.”
“How do you mean?”
“You know, you know so much stuff.”
“Um... thanks.”

7. Each person gets 4 minutes to determine if they want their contact information sent to the opposite person.
“How is your night going?”
“Um... great.”
Awkward silence. Bells rings.

8. Four bags of candy sit on my table. Next guy approaches.
“Would you like a bag of candy?”
“Well, my brother is the organizer to this thing, so I’ll probably end up with all the candy anyway. Also, I’m fat.”
“Oh. I suppose you could throw it up later, if it’s a problem.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”

9. “So, do you have a 4 min schpeel? Did you practice any questions before hand?”
“No, I thought I’d just wing it and see how things go.”
Awkward silence. Bell rings.

10. Meanwhile, two tables away:
“Is Becca short for Rebecca?”
“Yes.”
“Do you just not like your full name?”
“What?”

11. “What were you doing in New York city?”
Answer for 3 seconds before noticing the blank look and stare over shoulder, which happens to point toward a wall.
Still in conversational tone of first three seconds “and it doesn’t matter anyway since no one is listening.”
Smile.
No reaction from blank stare bachelor. Asks next question.

12. Awkward conversation #7: Bachelor offering suggestions on what a vegetarian could possibly eat in Brazil that is not bbq. Answer, vegetables.
“I think we really connected.”

13. “I just took a test to be a nursing assistant.”
“Oh, is that like changing a bedpan?” joking.
“Actually, there are 15 steps to changing a bedpan.”
E-how only has 6. I shudder to think what 9 steps are missing:  http://www.ehow.com/how_8280270_change-bedpan.html

14. Reconvening with Becca at the end to discuss the night.
“This is a rule. You have to circle at least 5 guys.”
“5!!?!?? I’d be hard pressed to choose one for another 4 min conversation, yet alone exchange my contact information.”
Ugh...

15. “Pancakes?”
“Pancakes.”

Happy. Thank you. More Please.

Central Beach Wilderness, Olympic National Park

It is spring in Seattle.

Sometimes this means the rain lingers until mid-July. Grey hangs heavy on the city, clinging to building corners, closing in on the streets, swirling down on pedestrians and dogs until both escape into Starbucks, Tullys, [insert independently owned coffee shop name here] to forget the sky in alternative milk lattes and scones. In these years, the temperature slowly creeps from 40 to 60 degrees. This gradual change goes unnoticed by most as it is hidden by clouds, marine winds, and predictably constant precipitation. Sometimes it stays this way until July, when residents collectively plan a mass exodus south to California. Seattle is not for the weak at heart. 

Fortunately, Seattle has sprung into an off year. Last week was mid-May. Last week hit 80 degrees over the weekend. Pedestrians and dogs stumbled into Eden like parks, high on sunshine and Vitamin D, claiming that here - Seattle in the Spring - is paradise on Earth. How quickly we are to forget. How quickly to forgive a weather system that would have us all strung out on caffeine, vitamin supplements, and anti-depressants just to get through an eight-to-five work day. Being native to Washington, I pull on my shorts and tank tops with the rest. However, I remain distant from the hope that summer has finally arrived. I emotionally prepare for the heartbreak of the inevitable returned rain. Seattle Spring is a fickle lover. 

---

I took my lunch break at 9:30 this morning. I had been at work for 20 minutes and was struggling to pull my thoughts into an order that resembled something more organized that a bowl of tangled spaghetti noodles. If my thoughts stopped making sense to me, how was I going to convincingly portray their meaning to co-workers? Rather than serve out a bland mess of gibberish at my upcoming meetings, I took immediate intervention and left my work for coffee and a morning stroll through the park, justified by my promise of productivity once I returned. 

At one point during my walk (eyes finally opened by coffee consumption), I passed underneath a tree making an impressive display of spring, covered in purple blossoms that looked like snap dragons. I picked up one of the blossoms from the ground, convinced that something so beautiful and abundant must smell like a weed. But it didn't. It smelled sweet, delicious, fresh. Floral, but not overwhelmingly strong. Sweet, but not sickeningly so. How can it be that on a beautifully sunny day in Seattle, a large tree is covered with purple blossoms and smelling like nectar? Is it right to have so much good in one place? Is the existence of this tree, on this spring day, withdrawing too much from the invisible bank of goodness? Will the universe turn against this display of indulgence? 

With my hands cupped around the blossom, I breathed in the scent to see if I could use it up. Could this scent grow sour or bitter after being smelled. It didn't, but I was so lost in the moment and my thoughts that I didn't notice a car backing up toward me, only three feet away. I noticed the car and the driver noticed me and we both agreed to stop our current trajectory and avoid catastrophe for another day. However, being an odd person tilted toward eccentric behavior and thoughts (and now an odd person struggling with the meaning of death in life after my uncle's passing), I continued the scenario out in my head and visualized my own death. The car backed into me (in my head) and I was left broken and dying on the pavement. Blossom still in my hand, I bring it to my nose to smell it's perfume while life leaves my body. In this scenario, would the scent grow sour or bitter? Would the experience change if I knew that this was the scent of death? It didn't; it remained the same: sweet, fresh, fragrant, light. The universe doesn't seem to care about made up death scenarios when parceling out scent. The blossom still smelled beautiful, even to the not yet existent dying me (in my head). Stubborn and stoic, this blossom with it's beauty and scent. Stoic in it's indifference to the happenings of the world around it; stubborn in its unwillingness to compromise a good existence with something more accommodating. 

The whole experience of the blossom, the tree, the sun and spring reminded me of a little quip my friend mentioned while we were hiking last weekend: "Happy. Thank you. More please." When you are given something that is good, you acknowledge the fact that you are happy. Thank the universe for sending you such a wonderful something your way. Meanwhile, let it know that if more of the same should find its way into your life, you would be ecstatic to accept it. Previously, I would view this acceptance and acknowledgement of something good as opening myself up to unnecessary pain when it decides to leave. There is vulnerability in happiness, if you are always preparing for the misery. I couldn't get to the point of contentment and thankfulness, I was too scared at the fleeting nature of the moment. And so it would leave, just like I knew it always would, and I would be back wallowing in misery even though I never left that misery when things were good. I was holding the spring blossom to my nose, searching for the bitter scent of death. Could I just let it be a blossom, on a sunny day? 

The pull of death in the fall usually spurs me on toward crazy. The trees are so beautiful that my eyes tear up and hurt when I look at them. The world is dying, giving itself up to some place where I cannot follow. Thrown into the grey of winter, I would despair that this now, this is the last moment of beauty I will every see. I died along with the world, or at least wished that I could die with the world.  Sadly, it took me 29 years to fully understand spring; to fully believe the fact (obvious to most) that ultimately, life not only follows the death of winter, but follows it abundantly. I can look at a tree, thick and fragrant with purple and rejoice in the existence of the tree, abundantly good. I can say yes I am happy, thank you for this beautiful gift during my stolen morning walk, and please don't hesitate to send me more. If it is sun that follows, I'll repeat the mantra again. If it is rain, well... I'll enjoy the sound of the water on the roof and windows.

I now have facts of which I believe with full and unabashedly assured faith: Spring follows winter. When the night is tired of the dark, dawn will break over the mountains. Rebirth can, if we are looking for it, come out of death. 

Happy. Thank you. More Please. 

I'm in love with my life right now. It is abundantly good.

Seattle, WA in the spring

It's always there, whether I see it or not.

Identifying My Biggest Fear of Marriage

Where will you be and what will you be doing for the scheduled apocalypse this December 2012?

My co-worker, Becca Shim, and I were discussing our 5 year plan, building careers, buying houses and how these mile markers of adulthood seem lost to our generation due to lack of jobs, unrealistically high house prices, and educational debt weighing us down like Atlas' globe. When will we finally make it? When will we be adults?

Marriage is a surefire way into adulthood. I reflected that my parents had three children by the time they were 29, stable jobs, and a house they had just purchased (though it did smell like dog urine), qualifying them as successful adults. However, if one should seek this route in this day and age, the wife would more likely that not be left with children and her husband's debt. Thus revealing my biggest fear of marriage, being left with debt and children. Becca just wants to buy a house and build a backyard homestead in the city.

Of course, up to this point our conversation did not take into consideration the fact that the world as we know it will be ending December 2012. After this winter, down payments will no longer be necessary. You only need a large enough mob of pitchfork wielding neighbors securing and protecting desired homesteads. No down payments, no debt, no civil order aside from pitchfork wielding majority rule. Could this be Utopia?

With no debt, the only other thing a husband could leave his wife with is the children... assuming the husband could get away. But see, in PAW Utopia (Post Apocalyptic World Utopia), our angry mob serves another function than just land security... husband fetching. Should a husband leave his wife with children (again, debt no longer exists), the angry mob could hunt said husband down and deal with him accordingly. Problems solved, fears addressed.

So, today I not only identified my single biggest fear of marriage, but also found a solution. AND my solution is not even based on something completely impractical and out of my control, like the end of the world!

Success!