Words, Music, & Outdoor Adventures

“I loved Sarah.

It was mine. I owned it. Even Sarah didn’t have the right to take it away.

I can love whoever I want.

You are what you love; not what loves you. That’s what I decided a long time ago. “

I clipped this article in the Park City newspaper many years ago.

iJust be yourself. Donit try to a guy.
Make up free and mostly wear tee-shirts and jeans.
Low maintenance women who excel at sports and tell the occasional dirty joke are perfection.
A baseball cap to keep the sun out of your eyes is standard.
Two pigtails are trendy and adorable but remember the purpose is to keep hair out of the way.
Long nails Oe no way.
Smoking cigarettes is NOT cool and drinking too much will hinder your athleticism.
But remember living in the mountains is about living a healthy lifestyle and enjoying the outdoors.
Be careful who you hook up with. Next week youill probably meeting and fall in love with his best friend.
Donit expect to meet men, youill only meet boys.
No whining.
A positive attitude goes a long way.
A crummy beat up car is cooler than a new one.
Must haves are top shelf sports gear.
Pick one sport and obsess. Not only is it fun to be good at something but you also want all the glory.
Take up other sports occasionally just to prevent burnout and narrow mindedness.i

Got a call from my buddy in Hawaii last week. It was funny in two
ways. One, he clued me in to some stuff around me I wasn’t even aware
of. Two, in listening to him speak, I got an insight into what it
really feels like to live in a remote place and contact those ‘back
home’. Was one of those moments where you realize that you don’t
understand everything, and what you thought you understood was wrong.
It gave me a karmic kick in the pants and reminded me that everything
I think I know might be wrong. Good food for thought.

Second grade in Plattsburgh New York
Mrs. Farrah teaches a group of five to read without moving our lips
I am one of the kids who doesn’t move their lips

Mr. Oliver is reading Harriet the Spy in fifth grade
I read Little House on the Prairie and learn about prairie life.

I am 15 and I live in Rye New Hampshire
I am reading Dreiser, Wolfe in English class
I read Welty, Cather on my own

I read How Green is My Valley because I like the name
I learn, “You can go back and have what you like if you remember it well enough”

I listen to music of the open road
Diane and I change the lyrics to Simon and Garfunkel tunes
As we take a bus to New York City.

I meet my soul mate and we read Gone With the Wind to each other.
We meet during lunch in the library
He shows me his world of nature, hiking, and books
Of Love
We go to Boston, the computer museum, the White Mountains, Prom and
Separate

I watch the Outsiders and Stevie Wonder says that life is filled with sorrow and compassion
In the movie I learn from Robert Frost that “nothing Gold can stay”
I wonder why it can’t
I read more Frost
He tells me that “my life is a pursuit of a pursuit forever”
And I understand interminable longing

I move to Colorado because I want to live “out west”
I get homesick
And come home
I look at maps and head north and west 

I travel to 
Seattle, Philadelphia, Boise, Portland, Missoula

I am 21 and Jackson Browne teaches me about words and music
He sings about maps and angels
He tells me “You’ve had to hide sometimes, but now you’re all right”

I wonder about Sarton’s Phoenix
it’s her inspiration to find meaning
To poetry and life

I am 23 and see Lawrence Ferlinghetti at Philips Exeter Academy
It is the first time poetry spoken by its author
Alison writes a poem while listening to him read
We sneak into his private reception
It’s the first time I see a real poet, up close.

I remember the poem Lonya wrote in high school,
Her college application essay for NYU
About learning to drive, painful relationships, waiting for someone to show the way

Everyone and everything I know and remember becomes a model

I clip essays, poetry, love letters
organized by subject in three ring binders
An article about guns remind me of Nathan
And the first person I know who dies
I write a story about him
Sunrise and Mountains
And include a reference to Sartons poem about a fertile mind

I am 27 and read Lessing, Walker
I’m searching for my mother’ gardens, too
I try to write my Golden Notebooks.

I remember a line from a book that spoke to me once
“you can go back and have what you like if you remember it well enough”
I remember
And it becomes a story
and this poem

‘Its not where you go but who you’re with.”

My high school friend, Ian, said this to me on a visit home from Alaska. He met me at my house to drive with me to LL Bean in Freeport, Maine (It’s a 2 hour drive from Portsmouth). About half way he told me that he had just got back from there. I couldn’t believe he was doing the trip again. Then he said the above sentence to me; I’ll never forget it.

iiAll man can do is re-create himself, each within his own limits, taking his mystique where he finds it without expecting morals from it, being as rational as he can Oe, and acting with as full a sense of responsibility as he can manage, in a world where he is always in motion. To remain a coherent person entails always a effort of imagination, for imagination is the only means we have of going beyond minimal awareness. To be ourselves is to deal with ourselves on the move between inexplicable birth and inexplicable death; and imagination, whether we call it mystique or reason or action, is the only weapon we have against death.ii

9-17-99
From:*Robert
To:*Kristen
Typical liberal clap-trap. Funny, too, because I feel that way about Kerouac — that he’s one of the most over-rated writers of the 20th century. “Dharma Bums” was the only thing he wrote that approached good; everything else was trash, esp. “On the Road.” Some of his poetry, though, is excellent. Besides, Henry Miller was doing Kerouac’s famous stream-of-consciousness prose LONG before Kerouac was, and he was doing it better, quite frankly. In a sense, so was Nelson Algren and John Dos Passos.
In my opinion, the best “Beat” generation book was “Junky” by William S. Burroughs. If you really want to be freaked out, try reading Burroughs’ “Lost Boys.” But only do so if you -don’t- have an aversion to extreme homosexual/pedophilic perversity. Liberal crybabies who are afraid of the alpha male -love- to bash Hemingway. But the sheer fact of the matter is that no writer has done more to create the American literary voice than Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway. Twain molded and formed the American novel, and Hemingway perfected it. There’d be no such thing as the uniquely American short story if it weren’t for Hemingway — geniuses like Andre Dubus notwithstanding. In my postgraduate education, I’ve noticed that the effete, humanities-type profs -love- to “skew” Hemingway. It’s revisionist history at its worst, and obviously the person who wrote the script to P.S.G.M. went to Emerson or some sissy school like that. Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for literature, for crying out loud.

Yes

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could you know. That’s why we wake
and look out–no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.

Narrow daylight entered my room
Shining hours were brief
Winter is over
Summer is near
Are we stronger than we believe?
I walked through halls of reputation
Among the infamous too
As the camera clings to the common thread
Beyond all vanity
Into a gaze to shoot you through
Is the kindness we count upon
Hidden in everyone?
I stepped out in a sunlit grove
Although deep down I wished it would rain
Washing away all the sadness and tears
That will never fall so heavily again
Is the kindness we count upon
hidden in everyone
I stood there in the salt spray air
Felt wind sweeping over my face
I ran up through the rocks to the old
Wooden cross
It’s a place where I can find some peace

Narrow daylight entered my room
Shining hours were brief
Winter is over
Summer is near
Are we stronger than we believe?

I am walking Abbey and Dugan, my dog and my roommates dog, on the trails in the Green Open Space by my house in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Most summer days I can see 2 or 3 muli-colored hot air balloons in the distance rising above the valley floor. I often think how beautiful the balloons make the landscape with the backdrop of the ski area in full summer green.

On this particular day, the hot air balloon is much closer and I can see the people in the little wicker basket. I am surrounded by pink and purple wildflowers, dark green sage, and aspens in full bloom. I wonder what it would be like looking down on my life from that basket attached to a balloon drifting over the land. I wonder if these tourist might idealize my life for a moment; a girl on a carefree morning hike with two very good looking dogs that are running free, darting off the trail at a sudden noise from a magpie or marmot., running to catch up to me after sniffing the grass. Do these tourists look at me and think I must not have a care in the world?

If they could see into my mind and heart they would not see this carefree, some times confident person hiking these trails. They would feel my worry at leaving a job I, at times, really enjoyed, my concern for bills that must be paid, hopeful that my dog gets enough exercise every day, and wondering what I am doing with my life.

My thoughts are on hold for a while as I get ready for the last day of work, saying goodbye, and accomplishing some things: a possible interview, grocery shopping, and another hike with the dogs.

This day in July ends with good conversation with my roommate, Laura, who I really like, eating angel food cake with strawberries and whip cream.

I fall asleep thinking of the words of a wise friend, and recent new father, who lives in Hampton, New Hampshire who e-mailed me just the other day saying, iEverything is good n sometimes tough, overwhelming, too small or too expensive, but all in all weire doing well.i