Family

[ See MICHIGAN photos for more... ]

heading for the hills
My goodness, I'm only two months out and already I'm starting to get the burning urge to go back. I put together a composite slideshow out of the Japan Albums for family members and have been narrating the same slew of 200 pictures, all the way from the Great North to the South Islands and nearly everywhere in-between. Just as I expected, my dad's parents had little interest in anything I experienced overseas and uber-Xian grandma even went so far to say (in reference to Saturday morning anime) that anything from Japan was "straight out of the Pit," my mother's parents have been treated to, at their request, the full barrage of photos, videos and stories.

It was really rather pleasing to be met with such an interested familial outlet for Japan stories during my short time with them, but I can't say I'm entirely surprised at their interest. My grandfather, a member of the Michigan Auto Club and editor emeritus of AAA Michigan Living, has been a long-time food and travel review writer. My grandmother, who married him at about the age I am now, had little idea what she was getting into at the time, but has accompanied him everywhere from the African Savanna to the Alaskan Wilderness with camera and children at hand.

I think it must have been growing up knowing that at my age my mother was touring the world that set in my mind a sort of travel envy, which blew into wanderlust at the thought I might be able to someday lead the same life for myself. In this brief day and a half I've had with them, I've seen how happy they were, how happy they still are, and how well they lived at home and abroad. I see that hope in myself to follow in my grandfather's footsteps and find a man, perhaps, willing to both to ground me and to lift me up. Maybe wanderlust is just another of those traits that skips a generation.

I've been cross-country this summer, although seeing much less of America than I really would like. Tomorrow I head back to Montana for the final leg: six days climbing in Glacier National Park, quite possibly my favorite place on earth. It's been an eye-opening journey from pre-Tokyo to where I am now, to say the least. I've got a much clearer idea where I come from, where I'm going, and where I will return time and time again.

Despite the things left behind here, with my roots, I have no reason anymore to regret what changed when I moved away. I don't regret the distance I gained between family and friends with ten months overseas. I see lessons learned and progress made, things forgotten and things forgiven, and moving always from one moment forward into the next.

Having had no home or hearth for more than a few weeks at a time this summer, I've come to embrace the old sayings, "Be where you are" and "love the one(s) you're with." I don't know that I believe anymore that it's possible to move too much-- maybe it's just a product of this specific journey that I've been on, but I've felt more grounded and whole these past four months than I ever have before. I'd much prefer it if I had that special someone along for the ride with me, however. In the last year, I've seen my partner of nearly four-and-a-half years for only six weeks. It's an understatement to say that we're both in need of a little love & affection.

Tomorrow brings us back together after a month and a half separated by less than an ocean but more than a state. With luck, perseverence and maybe with a little help, we begin our own trek onward and upward into what could quite possibly be forever.

Welcome to Earth
It feels strange to have had 10 seconds of Comedy Central fame that everyone but me has seen. I'll have to get a vidcap of that to go along with the leftover cock lollies, fertility charms and other paraphenalia brought back from that rainy day in Kawasaki. I'm sad they didn't use more footage but I guess that means less of a chance for me to have made a total idiot of myself.

I'm still in Michigan, this morning in Ann Arbor to meet another High School friend for lunch. We spent the weekend at my grandparents' recreational trailer lot in Rose Lake, "Up North." I came here with the conviction that after a month of being fed nothing but clean meat, organic veggies and soy, I'd try to keep up a purposed regimen. I threw that out the window on the second day (except for the soy milk) and caved to Grandma's cooking. That's what "family time" is all about: compromise, surrender and trying to keep a low profile to avoid upset. Between my Oma's domesticity and other relatives' apathy or invalidity (invalidism?), I had a lot of time to walk and think, sit and think, or just sit.

Being here surrounded by family certainly could drive me quickly mad, as it may well my mom when she arrives later tonight. So far, however, I've been able to view my relatives with a sort of curious detachment, almost as I viewed life in Japan for the first few months. The way of life and coping mechanisms that are established among my family are so alien to me that I feel like I'm observing another planet, stuck somewhere between amusement, fascination, confusion, and horror.

But something has changed, either as a product of my time in Montana, my time in Japan or simply the passage of time. What "they" say and do can no longer touch me or harm me. With the strange and obvious realization that my roots are no longer here comes the awareness that I don't have to live with the goal of familial approval in mind: I have already made the greatest success in finding myself apart from them. That's not to say that family isn't a part of me; it is, although most of the time I have difficulty identifying which little part it is and where it comes from. This turbulent family, viscious in its strangling love, is a part of me but IS NOT ME.

I am not one caught in the past, where only memory is good enough, or one caught in the future, waiting for something promised yet to come... and I cannot be these things, memory or potential, for myself or for my family, because they are no more real in the present moment than the passing of a dream from the previous night. I am not them and they cannot harm me-- But I can watch them live their lives in their strange little worlds, from the safety of my own, and try to learn to love them, though they are still but hard to understand and very far away.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

Insomniac: Sloshed in Translation
Sunday, August 22 at 10p / 9c
In this all-new hour-long special, Dave Attell travels to Tokyo, Japan to see what people do when they�re up all night on the other side of the world. His drunken adventures take him to a pornographic Japanese television station and to the famous Wooden Penis Festival. Along the way Dave meets some of the locals, including an inventor of useless inventions, and he gets a taste of the local flavor when he takes a brave bite of poisonous blowfish.

(And guess who he met at that 'festival';)

OUTTA HERE

( Cyano Bacteria, Yellowstone )

En route to Michigan... next stop, Detroit. Unsure of next post date-- but it will be soon-ish. Check photos of my trip thus far while I'm gone.

VANCOUVER
WASHINGTON
OREGON
MONTANA
YELLOWSTONE

XOXO,

Kat

changing gears
Today I drive the two hours to Dillon, MT to return the little putt-putt car I've been driving, bus back in the evening, and begin to pack and prep for the next leg of my cross-country trip. Three people asked me in the span of an hour-and-a-half yesterday whether being here was a "good experience," and even though I'm the type who's inclined to say that any experience can be a good one, this one-month stay in Helena has been pinnacle.

Last weekend Bev and I drove to Yellowstone and back, camped one night at Canyon and hiked through the back country to peek at geysers, hotspots, hell pools and boiling mud pots. I'd never been to the Yogi Bear park and had no idea what it would be like--- it was certainly an unexpected experience.

There are few things I have left to do before I pack up and leave Helena, perhaps not to return for several summers. I think I've surprised both myself and those I know here by taking such a shine to the city-- maybe the next time I return I'll be back for good.

My ColorPrint: personal review
Beverly and I recently had ourselves "ColorPrinted" by a fellow named Jamie Champion. Jamie, as he'd like you to call him, can supposedly jive with the life energy of human beings to such an extent that he reads the resonance of various "pulses," representing character aspects as colors on the spectrum of light. It's not exactly an aura reading, or chakra analysis, but a system of personality examination of Jamie's own invention.

Now, I believe it on principle, especially as I've always read colored energy in myself and other people-- even accurately enough to have pegged Beverly what Jamie labled her. However, that only Jamie himself is "certified" to do readings and he claims to be unable to train gurus and hasn't yet produced a device to operate in his stead, I sill have reason for tremendous doubt. There is something about the intrinsic nature of this man, underneath his charing and unbelievable charisma, that makes me wary of being cheated. Of course, all of HIS "colors" (read by whom?) point to a healing, gifted, caring person.

All potential for scamming aside, the reading and the following all-day-Saturday seminar were quite interesting-- if just because they gave a refreshing, open perspective and a new vocabulary for introspection. But backing up a bit, let me describe the analysis itself and the meaning behind it--

In a "reading," Jamie tests various pulse areas (back, neck, navel, forehead, hands, etc) and then SEES a color based on the energy resonated by that pulse. Each pulse area corresponds to one of five personality aspects (Environment, Expression, Intimacy, Life Force and Intention). The color resonated is from one of four quadrants (mental motor, mental sensory, physical motor and physical sensory) that describe how it is expressed. Each of the 52 colors has a corresponding element (Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space). The color itself holds the details but the element behind it describes how those details come out. The elemental aspects all follow traditional description: earth is slow and methodical, water flowing, graceful and artistic, fire driven and intense, air apt to change and flexibility and space open to interaction from all others.

When a color, and its element/quadrant are matched up with the five life "areas," they have a lot to say about the specific driving characteristcs of that particular aspect... like what sort of environment you like to work in, how you are intimate with people, what drives you, how you best express yourself, etc. etc.

Quite frankly, even if by chance, Jamie Champion pegged me right on, especially considering what makes me feel most "out of my element" are the opposites of the things listed as my primary traits. What I've been learning over the last several years is to BE the things he described, and all else will follow. Whether or not it's all bunk, I had a fun time, even if I was the only one under 35-years-old at the seminar. I've got a new way of talking and thinking about my inner balance and outer actions that I might not have had if I hadn't "donated" $25 to this smooth-talking would-be energy reader. I might even recommend the ColorPrint seminar to others, simply as a way of accessing or remembering the common-sense, matter-of-fact, aspects of self-affirmation that we all tend to lose by the wayside. And hell, if it is all "for real," then I give this entrepreneur kudos for the insight into others and willingness to help that he has expressed-- even for the price he asks.

Read on to see what Jamie Champion had to say about me:

My Environment Color is Ultraviolet White, and represents the environments in which I thrive, and the manner in which I make decisions. My Environment Color correlates to the health of my nervous system.

Ultraviolet White energy provides the courage to look at any deep-seated fears. Ultraviolet White consciousness promotes comfort with one�s body and sexuality. Ultraviolet White Environment people thrive in environments where people are encouraged to express their innermost fears. They easily remain calm in emotionally charged environments, and they can make decisions under intense pressure and fright with little difficulty. Ultraviolet White is a Fire Color.

My Expression Color is Yellow, and describes the way I express myself in the world and make a difference through my career and hobbies. My Expression Color directly affects the health of my glandular system.

Yellow energy is equated with fun. Yellow consciousness provides child-like playfulness, inventiveness, joy and creativity. Yellow Expression people need to express themselves through their artistic talents. Their careers must be fun for them, and must also give them the freedom to create, imagine, and invent. Yellow is a Fire Color.

My Intimacy Color is Sea Blue, corresponding to my private nature, how I support myself in daily activities, and the way I connect closely with family and friends. My Intimacy Color relates to the health of my organ systems.

Sea Blue energy radiates a protective presence in which others feel safe, loved, and accepted. Sea Blue consciousness keeps our immune system strong by ensuring the sensitivity needed for the heart to be expressed. Sea Blue Intimacy people get close to others through sensitive, loving encounters where they can share their hearts openly. Physical, emotional, and mental safety is a must for them to be able to develop an intimate relationship. Sea Blue is a Space Color.

My Life-force Color is Blue Green, and related to the passionate, guiding force in my life, which gives me my overall zest and recharges my battery. My Life Force Color relates to the health of my joints, sight, hearing, immune system and reproductive health.

Blue Green energy brings child-like wonder and natural inquisitiveness. Blue Green consciousness is equated with enthusiasm. Blue Green Life Force people will find it easy to jump out of bed in the morning when they have things that they are devoted to and want to share with others. They recharge their battery by participating in activities that they are enthused about. Blue Green is an Air Color.

My Intention Color is Green Tan, and is the backdrop for everything I do, representing the style with which I live my Life. This color relates to the health of my body tissues.

Green Tan energy is driven to understand and comprehend. Green Tan consciousness brings warmth to human interaction through resourceful information. Green Tan Intention people have a voracious appetite for knowledge in all areas of their life. In everything they do, they want to learn. Green Tan is a Fire Color.

All is not as it seems
Mike the mailman asked Beverly if he could use her yard, facing North toward the city, for afternoon Tai Chi on his lunchbreaks. I think he has yet to take the opportunity, but we did chat one morning just after I'd arrived, about his love for Qi movement and studies of Tai Chi.

Mike said he studied under a Chinese Master, but what this really means I'm not sure�everyone who has ever used that term seems to have their own interpretation of both "Chinese" and "Master." I have the impression that Mike�s sensei was either very good, or Mike is a BIT of an exaggerator, either of which is equally likely, as said teacher supposedly slammed Mailman Mike against the wall with the force of his life-energy.

I don't doubt that such things are possible. But the chance that a person who claims to have experienced has ever *actually* been in the room with someone capable of such power and direction is smaller by a large margin than those who I�ve heard say have. (I love sentences, don�t you?!)

Mike said to Bev and I that he and the other pupils considered his master, let�s call him Master Roshi for the sake of example, to be a wise and pure man. He always carried with him a stack of Taoist texts to accompany his teachings. Then, one day, Mike joined Master Roshi in the middle of his reading on a park bench only to find that these "holy texts" were, in fact, stuffed with Porno mags and that Roshi was fathering a new child by his fourth, and twenty-four-year-old, wife.

Prepare to Meet Thy God
I was on my way to the Archie Bray foundation, driving quite intuitively in the right direction, when I took one wrong turn and then another. About two seconds after I turned onto Green Meadow, I realized that I was heading north into the hills� and then realized that I didn�t feel like turning back. The XXX range loomed in front of me, my foot to the floor, I sped out into the valley. Ranches, car specialists, farm houses, the land between properties grew more spacious as the hills rose behind.

I am in love with this country. Every nerve and fiber of my body has told me that since I first came here in the summer of 1998�even only for a day�that I belong here. It�s taken me this long to convince my mind of two things: that I can be happy here with or without the memory of a man, and that Montana, in fact, isn�t the �middle of nowhere��and if it is, it doesn�t bother me in the least.

I passed a church on the left, spewing gospel on a roadside sign,�PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD.� For a moment, I pondered the menace as if I were about to see my destiny in the face of an oncoming truck. I chuckled at the threat and looked up into the mountains beyond. Suddenly, the message took on an entirely different meaning, one that I doubt the church could ever have intended. HERE was my God, alive in the hills and all around me. I had met the divine, was meeting the divine, in the perfection of the open sky, the dusty meadows, and the staggering beauty of the Rocky Mountain front. Flying down the back roads at 70mph, I passed from the ordinary into the Holy and God-- not the angry face of the Baptist church but the omnipresent, eternal God of love and nature�embraced me. I drove until the road came to a T and the moment was lost. Then I turned around headed back to my destination.

********

BE SURE YOUR SIN WILL FIND YOU OUT.

The same sign leered at me on the way back. It was much easier to guess how this message was supposed to be interpreted. I thought, I have sinned, surely. I have lived moments in my life without honor, I have met challenges without grace, I have cowered in fear and indecision when I should have embraced what stood before me. Yet if I search my actions, by the book, for what others might label blasphemy, I find that I am quite proud to stand a pagan, a heathen, a heretic. I�ve drank, smoked and reveled; broken hearts and broken the law; opposed the subjugation of land and lady; cheated the system and given the finger to The Man; opened my legs, opened my heart, and learned to love my body and my sexuality. If a life with a wide perspective and thirst for understanding is a life in sin, then I live it gladly. If my search for Self and God takes me down many roads rather than one, I see acceptance of that diversity as blessedness and repression of it as the true short falling of man. The one true sin I�ve allowed myself is to forget the paths open to me, forget to embrace the Now and forget that every moment is Holy. The times that I�ve lost "God" have been when I am caught up in my past and set on looking for happiness in the elusive �future.�

I don't want to go there anymore. I want to be here, now. I want every moment to be a Holy Moment.

********

I arrived at the Bray half-past four o�clock. The light was perfect, and then I realized that I hadn�t brought my camera. Shit. But instead of turning around, driving home and coming back in time to miss the good afternoon sun slant, I stayed and walked alone. My brain takes better captures than my Canon anyway.

Some things never change and others change very slowly. I�ve only been to the Bray once before, six odd years ago, but except for the ongoing construction of new resident artist studios, little was different this time. The shoes were missing from the �shoes� installation and a few other new exhibits had been added. One of the condemned Beehive kilns has been opened, to the best of my knowledge to public access, and the giant, dripping, hollow interior was somehow much different than I expected�oh, and the echo! Fabulous.

There was somehow both more and less to see than I remembered. But, I think, it�s a place best seen with another person. So after an hour or so of walking and poking around, I left, driving opposite the sunset, south and east, back to the little house in the hills, where two cats and a friend waited.

Duh.
There are a lot of idiots in my life, but the biggest by far is ME. I always forget just how much I tread water, waiting for or putting up with something while everything I want sits right in front of me in easy reach.

I've known, on some subconscious level, that I've twisted a lot of arms and dragged a lot of anchors to bend my way into a semblance of "where I want to be" without REALLY being there-- when all I had to do was cut loose.

At this moment, I am where I should be. (That's a multi-level statement, yo.)

If I were writing my memoir, which in a way I am, I'd want to thank the person that first brought me here, the person who has kept me here and all the people in-between.

I had a strange fantasy this morning, about ending my so-called "academic career," renting the $400/month studio cabin soon for lease at the top of S. Rodney, and working for Montana Magzine. I've been nothing but put off by an indentured to the educational system. I'm tired of being disappointed and I'm tired of being in debt. I've done my time and I feel like I'm finished.

Except that I don't have my degrees.

But... what... do I even need them for? I know few journalists with a degree in journalism. I've had two years of hands-on experience running a magazine and a month of "legit" internship at a place that will hire me Out-Of-The-Box. I've taken all the basic bullshit classes and passed with flying colors. You know what I have left? Magazine Design and Production (potentially useful), Magazine Article Writing (durrr, like I can't do THAT) and some craptastic Journalism-theory class. YAY.

And Japanese? Please. I "speak" Japanese. Do I need a degree to work with a language I can already use? Why would I?

What is this thesis worth? What is a graduation ceremony and certificate worth? Another $20,000?

It is all, of course, a far-fetched fantasy and one I've only entertained since this morning. But... BUT... it's suddenly so easily possible and appealing that I'm in bliss with just the potential of its realization. I don't have to put up with any more academic hoop-jumping if I don't want to.

I don't owe it to anyone, least of all to myself.

Stampede: My First Rodeo

( Whirl n' Puke )

( Calf Ropers )

Both experiments in motion... comments?

NEW BUSH-ISM
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush offered up a new entry for his catalog of "Bushisms" on Thursday, declaring that his administration will "never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people."

Bush misspoke as he delivered a speech at the signing ceremony for a $417 billion defense spending bill.

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," Bush said.

"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

No one in Bush's audience of military brass or Pentagon chiefs reacted. [It's probably because they know he's telling the truth... these things have a way of slipping out!]

The president was working his way toward a larger point. "We must never stop thinking about how best to defend our country. We must always be forward-thinking," he said.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush's misstatement "just shows even the most straightforward and plain-spoken people misspeak."

"But the American people know this president speaks with clarity and conviction, and the terrorists know by his actions he means it," McClellan said.

( via CNN.crap )

The MenFolk

( en metro mode )

Black Hawk Down

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- A British man was being treated for shock on Wednesday after he fell from a ladder while pruning trees, accidentally killing his wife with his chainsaw, police said.

The 56-year-old man, who has not been named, was cutting back tree branches at his home in southeast London on Monday when he tumbled backwards from the ladder.

The running chainsaw crashed down onto the neck of his wife, who was working in the garden below him.

"The woman was killed instantly, although she was not decapitated," police said in a statement. "Her husband was taken to hospital. He is still being treated for shock."

A police spokesman said the incident was being treated as a "tragic accident."

This is just one of two news stories I've read in the last two days that have reminded me, with some shock, how temporary and fragile this life is. The other is a local story from here in Helena, Montana. It's often windy here during the evenings and mornings in summertime. On the day that I arrived, July 19th, a young mother of three and her husband went outside to secure their trampoline and prevent it from blowing away. As the woman lifted the side, the trampoline was caught by the wind and catapulted her headfirst into the ground. She's been in a coma ever since.

I don't think I've read two briefer, more jaw-dropping news stories than these. Something so normal as home maintenance can swing from routine to life-changing in one accidental second.

In other news, the Crashing Helicopter outside the Helena airfield has returned today. I was surprised to find that the eyesore was gone when I arrived here last month, leaving only a vacant post. In fact, I'd rather hoped it would STAY gone. But alas, it's back from maintenance, repair, revamping, or whatever they have to do to these stupid icons of a militaristic society that are somehow deemed necessary. It's just so ugly. I guess I can cling to the comic element of its positioning: there's no way any helecopter teetering at that angle isn't in about to crash and burn.

float
Not dead, but lost somewhere in the state between being pleasantly busy and too busy, or thoughtful and preoccupied.

I realized recently that as a result of travel, I've been asked "Where are you from?" a lot more than I normally, even on a state college campus, would hear.

I don't know the answer.

I'm not "from" Oregon. I go to school there. I'm not "from' Washington, that's where my family lives and where I spent two hellish years treading water so as not to drown before I could leave. I'm certainly not "from" Japan. I'm not from Germany, though I lived there one year. I'm not from Utah, though I lived there two. And, the biggest surprise is that I'm not "from" Michigan, even though I lived there nearly eleven cumulative years... not just because I haven't lived there in the last seven years (and MI is therefore an inadequate response), but because I severed myself from there with such certainty that I can only go back when I establish my own term.

My sister, Allie, might be "from" Michigan. Liz is easily "from" Washington. Eleanor is too. My parents would be if they were not too long too lost from any sense of place to know it themselves.

Where am I "from"? Nowhere. I have no home but the temporary locations travel and study afford me, and when I thought this was what I always wanted, realizing that it is what I HAVE has, of course, made me crave the converse. Tokyo was the first "home" I ever had since leaving Michigan seven years ago.

Realizing and accepting that I have no answer to the question "where are you from?" has liberated me from the assumption that I AM my parents home, I AM my boyfriend's apartment, I AM my college campus, I AM my childhood neighborhood, etc. I am none of these things. I am where I am now even if I am not "from" here. I don't have to be "from" anywhere-- it's a bullshit question, not the deep probe I imagined. And my answer explains a lot.

I have no home... but I want one.

Wanderlust without anchor is overrated.

I'm remembering lessons I learned very young (even though I still am) and things that I perhaps already knew. When I had nothing but a desire to travel (or flee?) I was, inside, stagnant and struggling. But now that I am seeking out an anchor, I want nothing more than to move forward, faster, upward, brighter, until I soar at the speed of light.

I don't want to seek Bliss alone anymore but seeking alone is always the easiest road to walk. I think, even in these baby steps beyond, I've found more difficulty in attempting to travel *with* a partner than I ever could have expected.