blue mountains constantly walking

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57534142011-12-19T19:17:48.059-09:00blue mountains constantly walking"yes, we want food and storm clouds"ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.comBlogger7441100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-56993030157477653662010-10-06T13:00:00.002-08:002010-10-06T13:03:00.011-08:00and slip back into the waters

hello dear readers!blue mountains constantly walking is...walking elsewhere. please update your bookmarks/subscriptions/brains/etc. to:http://ericawatson.wordpress.comthanks!

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-55957378807853054872010-09-28T11:46:00.008-08:002010-09-28T15:56:19.572-08:00once blue is acquired, it eclipses green

When a name for a color is absent from a language, it is usually blue. When a name for a color is indefinite, it is usually green. Ancient Hebrew, Welsh, Vietnamese, and, until recently, Japanese, lack a word for blue. To name the color blue the Assyrians turned uknu, the noun for lapis lazuli, into an adjective. The Icelandic word for blue and black is the same, one word that fits sea, lava, and

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-59990258649694996152010-09-19T13:57:00.003-08:002010-09-19T14:04:22.978-08:00

I cannot expect to know the true names of animals, or how to call them to me, or the proper way to carry their tongues near my heart. What I really want--others confess this longing too--is for the land to possess me, to name me. Thus the compulsion to recite all the names inscribed in the field guides, even though the world does not require me to unscroll the register of names, to labor at

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-61769726119552992982010-09-12T10:16:00.000-08:002010-09-12T11:45:09.490-08:00go through the ear and to the center where sky is

(written, mostly, on sept. 11, 2010, finished on the 12th because i had some whiskey and had to go to bed.)A Wished-For SongYou're a songa wished-for song.Go through the ear and to the centerwhere sky is, where wind,where silent knowing.Put seeds and cover them.Blades will sproutwhere you do your work.-Rumi(originally in Persian. tr. from translations by Coleman Barks)(courtesy of dan)-----------

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-22893852373486221112010-09-07T21:00:00.001-08:002010-09-07T21:07:44.320-08:00say night is a house you inherit

2 dogs, half-interested, are watching me. one, old, limping, deaf, lays on her bed near the door. the other, young but not a puppy, sits on the couch where i've repeatedly told him not to be, head flopped over at an unnatural angle, one eye open. it's not my couch and it's not my house and these aren't my dogs, but i'm pretending, and i'm pretty much convinced.when creating a reality, is there

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-28924537779821146012010-08-26T22:36:00.004-08:002010-08-26T23:06:13.547-08:00how it was late, and no one could sleep

l e-c and i just read this poem and wrote for 10 minutes in response to it. my writing follows siken's poem, and l's can be found on her blog.ScheherazadeTell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake and dress them in warm clothes again. How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses runningUntil they forget that they are horses. It’

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-43685156340157269172010-08-26T17:08:00.002-08:002010-08-26T22:23:32.784-08:00and what we can't forget of other houses

last night, walking down the hill.and what can i say that li-young lee can't say just a little bit better? read this as an extension of the last entry. or don't.Our River NowSay night is a house you inherit,and in the room in which you hear the seadeclare its countless and successive deaths,tolling the dimensions of your dying,you close your eyes and dreamthe king's bees build the king's honeyin

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-64557226827177651472010-08-17T21:53:00.005-08:002010-09-20T14:47:30.331-08:00night is a river bridging the speaking and the listening banks

Discrepencies, Happy and SadWe've moved into a bigger house.Now our voices wander among the roomscalling, Where are you?And what we can't forgetof other houses confounds usas we answer back and forth, Over here! It's a little like returning to the villagewhere you were born, the sad bewildermentof discrepencies betweenwhat you remember and what's there.No. It's more like a memory of heaven.Voices

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-35539018662872412392010-07-28T23:02:00.003-08:002010-07-28T23:27:02.696-08:00and i am the faithful husband of the rain

a few weeks ago, i spent several days in the park guiding a science writing seminar. my role was primarily logistical: driving and cooking and filling in the blanks--but i had the chance to lead a few writing exercises, and we (mostly teachers, mostly alaskan, mostly women, all with a lot to say) sat on wooden benches near the east fork cabin as rain started to fall again. i read from alison

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-10881410401040931532010-07-06T10:16:00.001-08:002010-07-06T10:22:47.086-08:00only today i heard the river within the river

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-57635487475169093892010-06-17T23:53:00.002-08:002010-06-18T00:42:57.129-08:00if i knew where calypso bloomed

a year ago tomorrow, in an entry i deleted for political/wildlife management reasons and i swear i'll stop bringing it up soon, i wrote the following about a paper journal entry i'd written the day before:...and [i thought] about how, when you pile story upon story in a certain place, the less the place becomes about the story and the more about the place itself, again.and i want to revisit that

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-24100259120047435492010-06-16T18:09:00.002-08:002010-06-16T18:15:10.424-08:00

"Sylvere and I are Marxists," I told ___ ___. "He takes money from the people who won't give me money and gives it to me." Money's abstract and our culture's distribution of it is based on values I reject and it occurred to me that I was suffering from the dizziness of contradictions: the only pleasure that remains once you've decided you know better than the world.-Chris Kraus, I Love Dick

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-47646151653000610452010-06-03T22:18:00.000-08:002010-06-03T23:40:23.714-08:00matter bent into life has hallucinations

may 20, 2010, milepost 39ish, park road.same, june 2, 2010. unintentional. that view has been speaking to me the last couple years.June 2, 1985Mile markers are up again. Wooden mileposts once marked the road and offered a method of locating points of interest. In the 1970s they were removed to minimize human intrusion, to prevent people from flocking to known wildlife hotspots and scenic areas as

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-51620166362548797772010-05-23T13:43:00.002-08:002010-05-23T14:23:35.327-08:00loss

Climate change discourses present two parallel narratives—one about the problems of climate change and the other about the solutions. In narratives about the problem of climate change, loss features dramatically and terrifyingly but is located in the future or in places remote from Western audiences. In narratives about solutions, loss is completely excised.... . .While loss features strongly in

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-72470124101982815342010-05-11T22:14:00.005-08:002010-09-20T14:48:46.698-08:00remain in your place for your season

last week, UAF landscape ecologist terry chapin spoke at the MSLC about climate change in alaska, and presented two maps side by side, one of the geography of native language groups of alaska and the other of the major bioregions of the state. the point was that they're the same, that language and culture evolved around place and these places are defined by certain ecologies and these ecologies

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-16392128350765686952010-05-02T23:16:00.003-08:002010-05-02T23:25:44.019-08:00it isn't night.

We burnt caramel and hemmed our jeans. You showed me how to pin the seam, straight on straight. The midnight running like railroad tracks. From the kitchen, the pot sang its sugar song. Because I could have cracked my teeth on you. The needle dives and surfaces. The knot is an anchor and a pearl. I am doing this to keep the night outside. Sometimes the night comes in through the window and asks

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-34659059353449640172010-04-30T11:56:00.006-08:002010-04-30T20:47:45.279-08:00no small geological significance

i have a weakness for a good run-on sentence...Billy the ShepherdOur shepherd is a queer character and hard to place in the wilderness. His bed is a hollow made in red dry-rot punky dust beside a log which forms a portion of the south wall of the corral. Here he lies with his wonderful everlasting clothes on, wrapped in a red blanket, breathing not only the dust of the decayed wood but also that

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-71788242457018999252010-04-23T00:24:00.007-08:002010-04-23T22:32:41.143-08:00creatures of stillness crowded from the bright unbound forest

so, what have i been up to? you might ask. like, besides reading portions of too many books at a time and saying cryptic post-vernal equinox crap about love and chocolate?and to be honest, it's hard to say. i've been seeing how long i can stare at the sun without going blind. i've made complicated breakfasts and eaten them outside, in the sun. i've made lists. sometimes i go to work. sometimes i

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-16264119642929459402010-04-18T18:04:00.002-08:002010-04-18T18:19:20.899-08:00not one word

sometimes, someone lends you a book, with a casual statement like "oh, this made me think of you. let me know if you get around to reading it," and then you finally do on some hormonally charged gray lifeless day a couple months later, and for a while think really? this made her think of me? and then you get to a passage that feels like a punch in the stomach and you think oh. that's why.We

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-46710938686285034612010-04-09T02:03:00.001-08:002010-04-12T17:50:26.819-08:00it makes me laugh, but raven only croaks

someone named handley's place near rosehip creek (a translation of the athabaskan name which, if you say it just a little bit wrong, means something dirty in navajo), southwest of nenana off the highway about 12 miles. he died or moved to talkeetna or both, probably not in that order, and i was there visiting friends, his homestead neighbors, who told me that he built the top 2 levels first, then

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-10752032731455632142010-04-03T23:53:00.001-08:002010-04-03T23:55:25.583-08:00you could say it's my instinct

he placed 7 chocolates on the table, 2 different kinds, symmetrically. paused. "why do people care so much about symmetry anyway?" he said, and thoughtfully moved one chocolate, a reese's peanut butter cup, to the left of the rectangular formation. intrigued, i sat down across the table. our eyes locked. i moved a hershey's dark minibar to the lower left corner. the sun was just starting to drop

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-30607445563602570182010-03-31T18:34:00.004-08:002010-09-20T14:49:10.477-08:00seeking a synonym

i will always associate this poem with lauren, though we both discovered it together. and what else can i say but it's spring, the sun's been out for days, and my brain is mush. here's a poem. i'm going to knitting now, on my bike with 2 bottles of wine and more scrap yarn than is really necessary. i'm feeling especially libran today.INTERMEZZO:139 Words About MeDear Mr. Everything:17 words about

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-79690323471469847392010-03-28T21:06:00.007-08:002010-03-28T23:40:30.494-08:00and cancel the count

a while ago, ammie wrote an entry she titled "a post-it day," and wrote several tenuously connected life vignettes...and that strikes me as a good, if not the only, thing to do right now, until either a narrative asserts itself or my blogging rhythm returns...or i start writing incessantly about my "numerous affairs and misadventures with beaus," which i should warn is a distinct possibility...so

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-39108687202772604202010-03-19T23:15:00.005-08:002010-03-20T08:05:45.864-08:00get off the cross, we need the wood

LamentEverything is farand long gone by.I think that the starglittering above mehas been dead for a million years.I think there were tearsin the car I heard passand something terrible was said.A clock has stopped striking in the houseacross the road . . .When did it start? . . .I would like to step out of my heartand go walking beneath the enormous sky.I would like to pray.And surely of all the

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-68282075221953024812010-03-07T17:08:00.005-09:002010-09-20T14:50:10.199-08:00would not, from all the borders of itself, burst like a star: for here there is no place that does not see you

Cartography is 20 percent geography and science and 80 percent ignorance, myth, and greed--the arbitrary, impulsive, and ironic, snarled in history and politics. Maps contain tragedy, humor, and beauty, too, if you dig beneath the surface. When most people look at maps, however, they see pure geography.-Derek Nelson, Off the Map: The Curious History of Place Namesand US census maps seem to be

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-31312429625088038652010-03-07T16:47:00.003-09:002010-03-07T17:01:56.238-09:00are we our black wet roots or do we live by light?

(denali highway, friday)

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-13284152247711261212010-03-03T08:37:00.002-09:002010-03-03T09:32:57.672-09:00in the morning light

Of those we have to let go--those shy to scandal, those of your country unwilling to forgive your exile, the almost-as-famous, the nostalgic, those who accelerate scandal, those willing to forgive, those who hold blame as to a leash but are the dogs--the need for reward, the calamity of competition, retribution; in the morning light, the tamp of plastic awning and in the evening clack of roof

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-43992224799363865462010-02-15T17:25:00.004-09:002010-09-28T13:51:49.967-08:00L. Q. Navarro used to say

a few years ago, i briefly thought i was falling in love with someone who was dying. there was this sense of panic, knowing that the recipient of this affection would be gone soon, and the impending, seemingly inevitable loss defined, in a way, the nature of the affection. it was a connection based on fear, shaped by its ending. i felt powerless.i turned out to be wrong on both counts: there was

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-89571199248516273912010-02-14T17:09:00.003-09:002010-02-14T17:33:35.259-09:00silver lined, tired with time

i took myself to valentine's day brunch at 229 today, and read this, sitting alone at the bar with my exquisite expensive breakfast and coffee, sun streaming in behind me, and it confirmed for me that, despite the fact that i'll apparently owe the IRS money for the first time (turns out all that working i did last summer added up, in a bad way), and that i spent more on restaurants in flagstaff

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-11995071745054071342010-02-08T18:36:00.000-09:002010-02-08T18:36:22.972-09:00

EncuentroAlguien entra en el silencio y me abandona.Ahora la soledad no está sola.Tú hablas como la noche.Te anuncias como la sed.-Alejandra Pizarnik

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-55456850154290621472010-02-05T22:32:00.004-09:002010-09-28T13:51:49.968-08:00describing the colors and the smells of our homelands

about a week and a half ago, after the blizzards ended and the roads leaving flagstaff mostly reopened, i considered letting myself be convinced to drive north from cameron indefinitely for no apparent reason, towards kayenta or moab or cody or further, but chose to be the voice of reason and ended up in williams, arizona, instead.* the motel window overlooked a chevron station with an american

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-83710246964017113672010-01-24T19:23:00.003-09:002010-09-28T13:52:19.574-08:00i'll do my lovin' in the wintertime

"How does vision, this tyrant of the senses, draw someone to a piece of earth? What do the eyes rest upon--mind disengaged, heart not--that combines senses and affection into a homeland? Do the eyes conspire with other senses in a kind of synesthetic faculty, an ability to respond to the colors of place as if they were taste and scent, sound and touch? ...Somehow in the day's prismatic clarity,

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-85876355574279116992010-01-19T21:24:00.004-09:002010-01-19T21:51:57.527-09:00vast experiments involving weather

re-read jim harrison and ted kooser's braided creek: a conversation in poetry today. harrison gave it to me as a gift years ago when we met at an AZ league of conservation voters event and it came up that he used to know my parents in the UP, and now (or then, at least, probably still now) is a dirty old man with a cane who gives his books to cute semi-literate hippie girls at charity events.

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-82508412567412674662010-01-15T12:54:00.004-09:002010-01-15T13:29:05.531-09:00the hierarchy of negative space

(from richard shelton's the last person to hear your voice, which i just read cover to cover, through about 8 cups of coffee, and left me feeling slightly panicked, though that could also be the peripheral thoughts about mortality and the strange and flawed rituals we have for trying to connect with each other and the realization that 4 out of 5 of my correspondences include the question "where

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-47251602854631803852010-01-11T23:56:00.003-09:002010-09-20T14:51:08.503-08:00money and quiet spaces

after passing our WFR tests yesterday (written and practical), a bunch of us went out for beers and bluegrass at flag brew, and on to the green room for karaoke night. i mostly sat at the bar and talked to t, who mostly lives in cody, WY, and doesn't like being around people, about regional pretentiousness and the pros and cons of solitude, annie proulx, the way that certain cities can eat your

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-91307625571097872742010-01-03T23:01:00.001-09:002010-01-11T19:49:39.898-09:00but the damned old dirt won't go

i spent new year's alone on the tonto plateau, just west of cremation creek. i was briefly tempted by the flagstaff pine cone and the phantom ranch scorpion drop, but in the end the antisocial impulse won out. i was in the tent by 7, asleep by 8, woke up briefly by chance at midnight, looked out at the moon and put on a 2nd pair of socks. new year's eve, i hiked down on bright angel and across on

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-73532685681509504132009-12-29T20:57:00.004-09:002009-12-29T21:16:38.196-09:00and this deserted newsstand is quite safe

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-87698332706750480932009-12-28T22:54:00.000-09:002009-12-28T21:15:35.939-09:00

"For every enthusiast, there was naturally somebody to point out the absurdity of growing excited over an artificial point, a geographical construction. Sydney Smith did so gently, with the Scots philosopher Leslie, an idolater of the North Pole who had been persecuting Smith's colleague Francis Jeffrey, the editor of the Edinburgh Review, with talk of it. As Leslie raised the subject for the

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-40498538241439597222009-12-23T23:31:00.000-09:002009-12-23T22:28:37.726-09:002009, illustrated & abridged.

every year around this time (or in march), my fellow self-obsessed bloggers and i fill out this little "year in review" survey. this year i totally wasn't going to do it, since i have this recurring thought of trying to turn this into a "grown-up blog" (do those exist? did all the cryptic poems in november help?). but then, anna tempted me with this: a year in review survey in PICTURES. which is

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-2084668855235315132009-12-17T23:43:00.003-09:002009-12-18T00:36:43.178-09:00well, we're living in the shadows of a fading past

bianca drove us to the south rim on saturday in her bright red truck. she brought a gong. she's collecting friends named eric/ka and brought 2 of us.on sunday 7 of us sat in the snow on the rim with tupperware full of cheese and tomatoes and rolled snowballs into the canyon. it was harder than it seemed like it should have been to get them to go over the edge. a tourist couple who used to live

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-23489180854986990552009-12-10T17:37:00.004-09:002009-12-10T22:42:46.894-09:00to that white region where the lost lie low

almost daylight from the top of the hill.bubbles and cracks in the ice, deneki lake, friday.------------------"We'd rather have the iceberg than the ship,Although it meant the end of travel."-elizabeth bishopand 27 hours of travel later, bigger trees, heavy snow, and blinding sun.and this is tulie. she's not that smart, but she loves the snow.

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-41077045082862707552009-12-05T01:53:00.002-09:002009-12-05T02:00:42.050-09:00in the wintertime keep your feet warm but keep your clothes on and don't forget me

"sylvere thinks he is that kind of anarchist, but he's not."-chris kraus, this american life, episode 95: "monogamy," 03.06.98---------------------------i'm at that point in the evening and the winter and my cycle that i'm trying desperately to connect the discussion of monogamy to that of climate change in the arctic and the emotional effects of darkness, tie it up nicely and throw it at the

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-74179705640728133972009-11-30T18:32:00.004-09:002009-12-01T01:15:07.666-09:00a kind of promise to the affair of the waiting weather

steve orlen told me a long time ago to read john ashbery, and recently i've been reading haines, who cites ashbery as somewhat trite, abstract, all images and impressive vocabulary. i found ashbery's rivers and mountains at gulliver's last october and almost immediately put it in a box in jeff's shed for a little over a year. today on my I'm Done With Healy '09 trip, i retrieved the box, which

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-87747807775875551092009-11-27T01:26:00.000-09:002009-11-27T01:24:31.646-09:00what will we remember, bodies thick with food and lovers, after 20 years

i admittedly spent about 2 hours wednesday afternoon convinced that internally cataloging every gary snyder sex poem was a worthwhile and urgently necessary project, which c.b. says, perhaps rightfully, is definite proof that i'm more than due to get my ass out of denali and i think has something to do with my inability to write sex poems of my own that don't turn into disorganized rambling about

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-54705957341846115332009-11-25T10:49:00.004-09:002009-11-25T12:27:48.367-09:00if i stay i'll never find my way back home

i spent the last two weeks house, duck, and sometimes dogsitting in a big house with multiple rooms, some of which contain plumbing fixtures. i returned to my cabin on monday, started the thawing process, swept the snow out of the outhouse, and found, hopefully, all the hidden liquids that froze and exploded in my absence (cholula hot sauce, white wine vinegar, lube). i have an oven nowand both

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-1894759320267976642009-11-22T09:32:00.003-09:002009-11-22T09:47:40.189-09:00there are shadows on the land

It seems to be the fate of certain places to be written about. Perhaps now more than ever is this the case, as the terrestrial world diminishes and with it the capacity of what remains to nourish us in substance and spirit. As the continental landscape contracts to a "scenic view" prepared for the roadside tourist, and wilderness "experience" is promoted and all but owned by one agency or another

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-64301875975724662112009-11-18T22:43:00.007-09:002010-02-15T20:48:38.037-09:00produced a half-word, heavy and hollow, hit by a brown bird

i wrote a mediocre sestina once in luci tapohonso's poetry 310 workshop about a person i never knew, an important character in the life of someone important to me. there were certain images about her that were almost mythological in their very nature: her knowledge of birds, her long blond hair and a quiet, haunted look in her eyes that drew people--men, women, gold miners, tourists--to her, and

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-38454414561457305472009-11-16T16:09:00.002-09:002009-11-16T16:20:17.276-09:00who has not been quieted by this

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-16572089243529629282009-11-12T09:15:00.006-09:002009-11-22T09:50:09.926-09:00distance is a woman i must cover at night

i posted a long entry this morning at 2:51 am, and deleted it at 2:57 because it was...well, bad. it was about not being able to sleep, driving in a blizzard, and how john haines says that contemporary american poetry lacks the "fluent familiarity" with the natural world once common and perhaps even necessary, and the end of a tradition of poetry informed by "centuries of foot travel, from

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-26746365103469402732009-11-09T12:26:00.004-09:002009-11-22T09:50:09.927-09:00we are cold and disquieting at heart

in his review of john ashbery's hotel lautréamont, "in and out of the loop," john haines offers the following excerpt as an example of what is wrong with contemporary poetry ("could a poetry like this, with its constant shifting of images and viewpoints, have been written before the age of television? this seems to me to be a question worth asking, for reading these poems is uncannily like

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-62424793844140602792009-11-08T23:07:00.002-09:002009-11-08T23:31:14.049-09:00call these phenomena or pinpoints, remote as the glittering trash of heaven

the moon on thursday, just north of healy, and some recent cuteness, because i am at a loss for words.

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-65570802597038315772009-11-02T00:17:00.004-09:002009-11-02T01:03:25.392-09:00for a dance that has no time

i've always loved the colors of halloween but have so rarely visually documented it, which is maybe better. i remember one halloween night in high school in flag a shirtless blue man juggling fire in the square and i painted it 6 or 7 times (i was very concerned with a strange sort of perfection then, and it seemed crucial to record the night, and maybe, since i'm mentioning it now, it was). in

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-82833436491648108722009-10-29T16:43:00.003-08:002009-11-22T09:50:09.928-09:00autumn lies open on a table

my camera returned from its travels, and it snowed.-----------------------------anita has been writing about silence, and lent me more john haines:Listening in OctoberIn the quiet housea lamp is burningwhere the book of autumnlies open on a table.There is tea with milkin heavy mugs,brown raisin cake, and thoughtsthat stir the heartwith the promises of death.We sit without words,gazing past the

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-51149325289735141112009-10-26T17:46:00.003-08:002009-10-26T18:46:08.424-08:00traveler, there is no path. paths are made by walking.

(antonio machado, qtd. by annie proulx, fine just the way it is)--------------------------i was talking friday night about my brief stint as a wannabe undergrad revolutionary, about waking up on march 20th, 2003, in ottawa, and having a somewhat serious conversation with charlie about marriage, canada, and expatriation, but i had a paper due in tucson on monday and so we made pancakes instead,

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-4493591684739529932009-10-22T21:40:00.002-08:002009-10-22T21:52:41.776-08:00introducing

there's a new blog in that list over to your right: matt rotando's. i try to acknowledge it when i add someone. an excerpt from this recent entry:Last night,before bed,I made a grilled cheese sandwich.If you had been there,I'd have given you half.Shit. I would have made you a whole one.--------------------check it out.and on that note, i'm out of bread again and made 50 flour tortillas today.

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-15756305266213690282009-10-22T10:30:00.002-08:002009-10-22T11:17:34.147-08:00the buddha-nature, all but coyote

last wednesday i rode my bike from teklanika to sable. there were coyotes on the road. and, for cassalyn: deborah!

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-90453244664026269862009-10-21T16:34:00.002-08:002009-10-21T17:37:46.196-08:00if i knew heartbreak was coming

i've been spending a lot of time with small children lately, probably with more regularity than i ever have, and seen a few of those moments where a major Life Realization happens: "fire is hot." "if i take off my jacket i'm cold." "guests don't really want to wipe my butt after i poop even though mommy and daddy are very excited that i'm doing it in the toilet." that kind of thing. the other day

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-2744303101247884122009-10-16T01:20:00.002-08:002009-10-16T01:37:05.072-08:00i do the thing, he later wrote, which nature drives me to do

today--or yesterday--is or was blog action day for climate change. (i would never have known if arthur hadn't brought it to my attention with his brilliant blog on water scarcity.) i had plans to come home from the little writing group up the hill and say something about documenting this moment in climate and time--"try to tell its story against the vanishing," as alison said, come up with

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-77380819370924505632009-10-13T23:04:00.004-08:002009-10-13T23:35:24.322-08:00can't hold you, don't want to, except for when i do

i meant to not tell anyone i'm applying for MFA programs so that if i don't get in or do get in and decide in july that it was a horrible idea, i won't have to explain. but i'm not any good at not telling anyone...anything, so it's out there, and my transcripts are on the way. i told l. over tea the other day that i worry that i'm no longer fit for life anywhere else, maybe because it's true and

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-5890972707659056292009-10-11T23:26:00.005-08:002009-10-12T00:30:06.806-08:00well, i'm singin' this song but it won't take long

cute people on my birthday(many thanks to jess, the invisible photographer, who helps make me feel like my camera never died and went to virginia, and also made me a cake)

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-91710013982562257442009-10-09T17:26:00.003-08:002009-10-09T17:45:09.632-08:00the day we bombed the moon

"so how much does a metaphor weigh? a lot more than NASA thinks."-andrei codrescu, all things considered, today* * *Earth"A planet doesn't explode of itself," said drilyThe Martian astronomer, gazing off into the air--"That they were able to do it is proof that highlyIntelligent beings must have been living there."-- John Hall Wheelock, 1961* * *"if there's a world left when this is all over, I'd

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-74863015900939955272009-10-04T20:01:00.004-08:002009-10-04T22:02:25.347-08:00i've often considered the impractibility of my life and the moon behind the clouds

i'm living in a world where unemployment is celebrated. the juxtaposition of NPR's (and perhaps the nation's?) concern over rising unemployment rates and then regularly hearing--and saying--things like "glad to hear that you're gainfully unemployed at last," "happy unemployment day!" and "no one here is still working, right?" can be a little surreal, add to that feeling that somehow, this is not

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-27861805375345312552009-10-01T22:04:00.003-08:002009-10-01T22:56:11.114-08:00they'll call me freedom just like a wavin' flag

i know my generation isn't supposed to get excited about things like land lines and streaming NPR, and that there are those who might think it's not truly luxury living without a sink or a flush toilet, but let me just say to those folks: you are dead wrong. it's my last night of my 25th year and i cannot adequately express--though if you've talked to me in the last 5 hours, i've tried--my joy at

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-42144832445474512652009-09-26T20:36:00.006-08:002009-09-26T20:55:12.847-08:00a pattern now random

alone, night, with a fire and my bookshelf--for years, all i've said i wanted--thinking about writing poetry again, or not, and i've rediscovered this one. don't read too much into it. not that you would. or i would.from jane miller, title poem, memory at these speeds: new & selected poems (p. 109-110): I love these hours alone I do not

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-32025624636114648552009-09-24T17:09:00.011-08:002009-09-25T00:35:16.260-08:00deliver the leaves from green to red to blowing in the wind stone dead

a lot has gone unsaid here, but if nothing else you must know that one of my pepper plants is flowering. today. in the window pictured above. coming home from town last night around 10 pm, and seeing these wilted little leaves at 40 degrees inside, and a little white bud in the window, i thought of that utah phillips line, something about smoking with emphysema taking "a strange kind of courage,"

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-88582774965779980682009-09-23T22:43:00.002-08:002009-09-23T23:47:25.841-08:00those lonely nights down by the river

first dispatch directly from the cabin at the bottom of the hill! and possibly the last, because this speed is certainly not worth $80/month. i'm too tired to really think about it right now, and for that i could blame men or the unfortunate layout of fairbanks but neither of those would really be fair and i'm trying to grow out of such evasion of responsibility and denial of what it really means

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-27949601767910497132009-09-19T10:35:00.002-08:002009-09-19T10:58:15.347-08:00skepticism

“Blue,” the young priest said earnestly. “All available evidence, my daughter, suggests that Our Lord Christ Jesus was the most beauteous, crystal shade of pale sky blue.” The little woman behind the wooden latticed window of the confessional fell silent for a moment. An anxious, cogitating silence. Then: “But how, Father? People are not blue. No people are blue in the whole big world!”

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-58919640622233970892009-09-12T12:12:00.002-08:002009-09-24T21:47:36.140-08:00history must have a start

History Must Have a Start(Upper Skagit country)Took all day to find it:Mine cabin on Canyon Creek,Looking for good tools, or an old brassSafety razor with teeth.Grown over with berries,In a rubble of tailings,Doorframe broke, roof sagged in,Logs all skewedAbout ready to fall.Wheelbarrow, gears, a pickRusted by the door;Inside, chairs broken, the mouse-proofChest filled with dry pellets and

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-47111422736613617222009-09-11T16:43:00.007-08:002009-09-11T18:35:57.414-08:00coming of age during the plague

there's not much reason to look at a calendar these days, and i usually don't get around to listening to my NPR podcasts till a couple days after their initial broadcast, so my news and probably my reality are a little anachronistic and it took a few seconds for me to figure out what all things considered was referring to when KUAC's healy repeater finally broke through the static as i drove

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-8553471000413475772009-09-04T12:56:00.008-08:002009-09-04T13:26:35.342-08:00yonder comes that girl of mine, she's always dressed in brown

the full moon is shining through the spruce trees and my cabin’s south-facing window and the leaves of the anemic and overly ambitious pepper plants i started from seed in may with no real idea of how far they’d get and an inexplicable optimism about sunlight. the very fact that they are seeing the moon means they’re unlikely to make it past the 2-week old almost-flower buds and never to seed.

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-50272117975108121662009-09-02T15:26:00.001-08:002009-09-02T15:28:30.443-08:00against the vanishing

The Enigma We Answer by LivingEinstein didn't speak as a childwaiting till a sentence formed andemerged full-blown from his head. I do the thing, he later wrote, whichnature drives me to do. Does a fishknow the water in which he swims? This came up in conversationwith a man I met by chance,friend of a friend of a friend, who passed through town carryingthree specimen boxes of insectshe'd

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-89617733182606238582009-08-25T23:58:00.000-08:002009-08-26T00:14:37.355-08:00some people say the sky is just the sky but i say why

so, since we last talked...i drove the DEC's 15 passenger van to anchorage, caravaning with casaslyn in my car, to pick up ammie from the airport. while we waited for her flight, i bought push-up bras and ran auction errands, and with ammie in tow ate indian food, bought groceries in wasilla and headed north in the fog and recently-arrived darkness. ammie was here for the auction craziness (which

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-42839168814571742462009-08-20T22:46:00.002-08:002009-08-20T22:51:45.441-08:00

"the rockies are cool. but they're, like, old and rounded. and these mountains are...new and scary."-my awestruck and insightful little brother ben upon seeing the alaska range.

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-42327194514760538332009-08-05T09:37:00.000-08:002009-08-05T09:49:10.361-08:00and in remembering a road sign i am remembering a girl when i was young

it's getting dark again.sunday morning at teklanika campground, 24 degrees and frost on the wall tent doors. i was there--and elsewhere--most of the weekend, learning incredible amounts of denali history from tom walker and discussing the possibility (necessity, perhaps?) of an erotic novel set in the park with a teacher from kodiak, a hilarious woman who's transported baby redwoods across state

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-30661378460660929612009-07-27T16:20:00.003-08:002009-07-27T17:04:54.334-08:00to all that has run its course

"We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of wild animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creatures through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate in having taken a form so far below

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-64474020166594142672009-07-23T15:46:00.003-08:002009-07-23T17:04:57.250-08:00standing here by the side of the highway

"...some place-identified writers participate in and profit from a culture that hypercommodifies and fetishizes the local and primitive, even if participation is unwitting and politically poignant..."(C)ritics have most often formulated the canonical landscapes of western literature through paradigms that reify rural wilderness, making the rural wild the implicit yardstick by which one measures

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-53757032073602481552009-07-16T18:41:00.002-08:002009-07-16T19:13:21.946-08:00in a moment close to now

out the window and so far, not the apocalypse.

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-2844912194574765372009-07-15T11:17:00.003-08:002009-07-15T12:01:16.262-08:00i'm thinking of you in the twilight

i haven't been blogging much due to the somewhat dramatic and sparkly death of my computer's power cord last week and also to residual annoyance from this thing that happened involving a lot of rumors about a van, the government, and my compulsive disclosure about making out with boys near wolf dens, but now that that's mostly past, or at least postponed till the next knitting night, i'd like to

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-79062490364432525662009-07-09T17:17:00.002-08:002009-07-09T17:28:38.682-08:00i'll be a witness to the rising sun

last week john morgan, denali's first writer-in-residence, read at the sheldon center. i only heard the last 20 minutes of his reading, because of my fairbanks death trip, but he said, about some sort of legal indescretion from his past, that "this is a secret," and then, in response to the question, "then why are you telling it?" that it's the writer's job to tell secrets.it's compulsive, really.

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-20590330749892648312009-07-05T20:01:00.001-08:002009-07-05T20:08:39.503-08:00a shy exhibitionist standing in a window

(above: sugarloaf last thursday. brian and i hiked to the real summit, the grey peak on the right, which i'd been referring to as "that grey thing" for a couple years now, and is marked by a wooden stake reading "taylor." lovely day. lots of flowers. some discussion on the qualitative dignity of eroded granite. cheap bananas in the canyon. asparagus chow mein in my cabin.)sometimes momentum takes

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-51405799499059018002009-07-01T15:37:00.003-08:002009-07-02T17:34:33.076-08:00no moonlight in the world can compare

i can't think about bernie madoff without thinking about scotty's castle in death valley. i was there in december when the story first broke, and within minutes of reading out loud in the car about "death valley scotty's" made up gold mines, i heard the phrase "ponzi scheme" for the first time on las vegas NPR and said something to jeff along the lines of "yeah, like anyone will take a story

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-89265393721665469602009-06-26T17:20:00.001-08:002009-06-26T17:23:21.081-08:00the lines

"Read between the lines. We'll meet again in 200 yearswhen the microphones in the hotel walls are forgottenand can at last sleep, become trilobites."-Tomas Transtromer, translated by Robin Fulton, quoted by John Haines, "To Friends Behind a Frontier"

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-23628466136379495112009-06-23T14:09:00.003-08:002009-06-23T17:58:15.894-08:00

mama D knows how to party.i've got some hot friends ;-)

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-59934808879159621512009-06-22T22:18:00.002-08:002009-06-22T22:30:59.251-08:00but now they're tired, don't wanna think no more

partly for l e-c and partly for me:"I wanted her to see that the only life worth living is a life full of love; that loss is always part of the equation; that love and loss conjoined are the best opportunity we get to live fully, to be our strongest, our most compassionate, our most graceful selves. "-pam houstoncantwell bluegrass this weekend. friday: sharing whiskey in the mud and asparagus

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-60428743911272552612009-06-14T10:16:00.000-08:002009-06-14T11:17:26.966-08:00watching your hips move and the cloudy sky

(poppies on the thorofare, looking west towards denali, thursday)---------------------------slept till 12:30 yesterday and spent most of the afternoon with coffee watching my basil sprouts uncurl out of the soil in the row of yogurt containers in the window, until keith came over and we planted peas in anita's greenhouse. the night before, desneige, anne and i danced panorama, where jimmy and

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-57032258943749313892009-06-06T17:30:00.005-08:002009-06-06T19:47:52.266-08:00but my courage is roaring like the sound of the sun

silhouetted trees from various driveways between milepost 224 and 229, last monday around midnight.

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-13762152802554827182009-06-05T19:43:00.004-08:002009-11-22T09:49:06.055-09:00sometimes you gotta go not look for nothin'

"It is not only the land itself that faces us in the North today, as real as that is, but the entire drama of European life on this continent reenacted at a pace that leaves us stunned and gasping. The experience is hard to come to grips with; there are few names for it, and too many old responses. We see Alaska through cliches to save us from thinking: 'The Last Frontier,' 'The Great Land.' What

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-86272053237806705932009-06-01T17:07:00.004-08:002009-06-01T18:24:44.526-08:00come all you brave young cowboys and get into software

lupine on the nenana oxbow beach.jeff and i saw greg brown in talkeetna last week. it was amazing. i was so completely in love with his voice and syntax that i couldn't even begin to contain myself. i wish i'd gone to the fairview to hang out with him after the show, with the rest of the town, but i probably would have just giggled and said something awkward, and instead i fell asleep almost

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-62508278897877427152009-06-01T15:34:00.001-08:002009-06-01T17:03:40.621-08:00

"everybody's got a story, everybody's got a family, and a lot of them have RVs."-greg brown, "eugene"

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-12843869377596818822009-05-26T15:33:00.006-08:002009-11-22T09:50:38.830-09:00you could descend like rain

it has been brought to my attention that my recent vagueness is bordering on boring. i’ve tried to write more, but my internet time is so rushed and public and my brain is so abstract and generally inappropriate for public consumption (or google) that very little tends to come of it. so, at home now, just after midnight, and my cabin smells faintly like chiles and red wine. it's warm enough to

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-49497560350251669402009-05-24T17:49:00.003-08:002009-05-24T19:20:33.612-08:00in a stampede of fumbling green gentleness

mona just emailed from toklat and said she saw 29 species of flowers in bloom today on thorofare, which made me quite aware of the holes in my observation skills. i'm still fixated on the big bright gaudy things. my count for the day is 3, so far: the pasque flowers on my hill, windflowers at savage, lupine on the side of the road.this week has been a long series of fascinating intangibles, and

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-45555924539455124832009-05-18T20:04:00.002-08:002009-05-18T20:24:19.949-08:00you can't steal a kiss in a place like this

"i know most of these researchers. and if i don't know them, i know someone who does and can tell you where they are and who they slept with 10 years ago..."-an archivist at the UAF library who helped me with place name resources

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-14106164965130903962009-05-17T16:15:00.002-08:002009-05-17T16:18:04.389-08:00

"what we call the landscape is generally considered to be something 'out there.' but, while some aspects of the landscape are clearly external to both our bodies and our minds, what each of us actually experiences is selected, shaped, and colored by what we know."-barrie greenbie, spaces: dimensions of the human landscape

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-80594926614505619942009-05-15T19:10:00.002-08:002009-05-15T19:30:19.279-08:00welcome to the freakshow, here we go

too much to say and no way to say it.summer seems to have started. the bake opened, which i handled well enough, all things considered, and i know it's not about me and it's just a bar so don't bother pointing it out. that morning, i'd locked myself out of 2 cars and a house, all at the same time, and still made it to the fairbanks airport in time. tonight i welcomed my second group to the

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-7558683789284242542009-05-07T21:24:00.002-08:002009-05-07T22:27:03.270-08:00then there was a silence you took to mean something

i’m paraphrasing, which goes against the spirit of this entry.tom walker, a local historian and writer, self-described obsessive compulsive perfectionist and wealth of information on anything one might need to know about anything, including the date of the last cleaning of my chimney and the cause of the fire that swept through the mckinley station in 1924, spoke tonight at the community center

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-21448833821647177042009-05-02T14:15:00.006-08:002009-05-02T15:21:17.387-08:00and all those lonely nights down by the river you brought me bread and water

sunset from the top of the hill, last week sometime:(i’m writing at home, to be transferred to the internets later today.)it’s almost noon, i just started my 2nd pot of coffee (4-cup mr. coffee machine mona dug out of her storage trailer for me a couple weeks ago), jeff king is playing live ani on his radio station, which seems incongruous given his propensity to stop transmitting NPR every time

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-68534170840575179972009-04-23T16:21:00.004-08:002009-04-23T17:33:26.324-08:00rains came in yesterday, fleeting hearts are here to stay

stopped by a coal train heading home from the MSLC, i called craig and made an apologetic plea for permission to spend the next couple hours at his house with the wireless signal (i'm an addict, but with hopes of recovery), and we've now got a table full of computers and tea cups and NPS database documents (not mine). it's been windy and grey and sputtering snow since last night, and i'm putting

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-87376679212915237772009-04-18T16:13:00.003-08:002009-04-18T16:31:59.568-08:00some thoughts on functional naming

"…By comparison, Western Apache history of the Anglo-American variety strikes many Apache people as distant and unfamiliar. Unspoken and unanimated, it lies silent and inert on the printed English page; it is history without voices to thrust it into the present. Removed from the contexts of daily social life…it also seems unconnected to daily affairs and concerns; it is history without

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-62816344566656004202009-04-18T15:57:00.001-08:002009-04-18T16:01:12.812-08:00there really isn't much truth in my saying

“And watching Monte ride off through the long grains, I thought about the way we invent ourselves through our stories, and in a similar way, how the stories we tell put walls around our lives. And I think that may be true about cowboys. That there really isn’t much truth in my saying cowboys are my weakness; maybe, after all this time, it’s just something I’ve learned to say.…I listened to

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5753414.post-81232141101672559872009-04-15T16:49:00.005-08:002009-04-15T17:07:42.137-08:00not many good cows but many good places*

sometimes “sense of place” comes to you less like the wave of gradual located understanding and calm engagement with the present moment-in-place, as it’s so often described, but more like diving head first into cold water or unexpectedly crashing into a tree in the middle of the night (while walking). i don’t mean this in a necessarily negative sense; eventually, you adjust to it. it struck me

ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09224735545280811802noreply@blogger.com4