An Open Love Letter to My Dad:

Dear Dad,

Sophomore year of college I took an aerospace engineering course as a science elective. I could have taken something easy like earth science or the coveted "dinosaur" class that everybody was always vying to get into--but instead I rode my bike across campus at night to sit in a giant lecture hall with lots of boys and listen to Russian teaching assistants stumble over words like "propulsion" and "aerodynamics." Math was already such a struggle for me and watching these men quickly and sporadically jot down something about lift and velocity made me feel like my life was in a tail spin. The kind of tail spin you learn about in an aeronautical engineering course. I took the class not because I loved complicated equations with missing variables but because I loved you and I knew that at 19 I was much farther away from you than I was at 9. I knew that I hadn't been fishing with you in a long time and I probably hadn't been very nice to you in a long time either. I took the class because you are a pilot and you love flight and you love airplanes and even if I don't love these things, I do love you.

Now I am almost 26 and working at an aerospace manufacturing company. It's funny how life comes full circle sometimes.

We have fought many times over but I know why. It is because mom often looks at you and then looks at me and repeats, "apple and tree, apple and tree." It is because we are so similar, I'm the little apple that didn't land very far from your branch.

I didn't learn very much from that engineering course but I have learned a lot from you. In no particular order, the best nuggets of wisdom you've passed on to me:

1. That smoked oysters with a little bit of hot sauce on top of a cracker is the best snack ever.

2. How to gut a fish.

3. How to do long multiplication.

4. What a funny move Airplane is.

5. How to use a metal pipe as leverage in case I ever need to change a flat tire because I am not tall enough to do it on my own.

6. What to look for in a good husband.

7. How to 'slouch' my socks. (Remember when this was popular in the 90's?)

8. That eating cookies for breakfast is ok (because mom left for work early and it was me and you fending for ourselves in the morning).

9. How to do a solid Rocky and Bullwinkle impression.

10. That a good dad will say "I love you" before hanging up the phone. Even if he is at work and everybody can hear him and he is surrounded by other men.


I love you too, Dad.

Antelope Canyon:

Sometimes everything feels like it is stuck in cement. Sometimes it feels like my words are lodged deep in the back of my throat under a heavy, heavy tongue-- like an anvil or a baby grand piano sitting comfortably on top of everything I’d like to say. And rather than come forward they start to tumble even further back until they are sitting in the pit of my stomach and I’m not sure if I’m meant to throw them up or forget that they even exist. And sometimes it is other people’s words that swim around my head, like I am under water and everything they say to me is muffled and very far away. I sit on the phone at work and all I can hear is the teacher from the Peanuts comic strip on the other end of the line, a loud wah wah wah sound that doesn’t even make sense.

Sometimes I feel like I am stuck in cement. I need to get out of town. I have never been the type of person to feel homesick when I am away. Rather, I feel homesick for places I have never been to.

I want to be in a place where the sunset in the sky mirrors the sunset in the rocks. I want to feel like I walked into a fun house of pinks and reds and oranges swirling around, making funny shapes out of sandstone. I want my hair to feel as dusty as my hands after climbing through the earth like a child on a jungle gym.

 

I'm No Good at Naming Anything but Animals and Essays:

This is a poem I wrote several years ago in September. I thought maybe I should let it out, let it have some air before this September passes us by again.


On these summer nights
perrywinkle, pink
construction paper cut outs of clouds clutter the sky and
ohhh it feels right
like the right song
at the right time
cascading up with the heat towards a shadow box
of dark on light, lavender at first sight
or glance, a confusion of colors, a trance
where it's hot, sticky sweet in the sand
cicadas or a mesquite.

An Open Love Letter to My Little Sister:

A few weeks ago I thought it would be nice to post my old journal entries from my time abroad in a series called "Destination." I failed miserably, I only posted a few entries and gave up. The nostalgia got to me. I decided that a better use of my time would be to compose open love letters to the people that matter most to me in the world. It is not often that we tell each other how much we truly care, how much we rely or depend on each other. I used to think that every man is an island but now I think that maybe we are more like a cluster of islands who long to reside near each other, who long to grow into bigger, interconnected islands.

 

Dear Silly,

Do you remember when we were little and you learned how to ride a bike before me or blow a bubble with your gum long before I could figure it out? One hot summer we were driving through the mountains up north with mom and dad, I’m sure sitting in the back seat alternating between torturing one another and laughing hysterically at dad doing one of his Rocky and Bullwinkle impersonations. I was feeling so frustrated that over and over again you’d chomp down on the pink bubble gum and puff your little cheeks together to make the perfect bubble and for some reason—I just couldn’t do it. But instead of teasing me you pursed your lips together and created a monster of a bubble and then whispered in my ear while you handed it to me. You said “Here, hold it up, show mom and dad and pretend that you made it.” You were my little sister and you were protecting me, lifting me up, making me a better person. And that’s how it’s always been. You’ve always been the quick learner, the first one to jump in, the trail blazer—while I chew on a problem and take my time to figure it out—you always seem to know instantly what to do. It’s almost as if you held out your arms and carved a path for us in this world, you pushed your way through the ups and downs, the hard stuff first and created a shadow that I could always follow. You are my little sister but to me you will always be bigger in heart, bigger in courage, bigger in your determination to take a hard knock and jump back up again.

I love you.

Xoxo

A Summer of Something New:

Over the years, summertime, much like everything in life, has taken on themes. Years of blazing heat grouped together by my innocence, or lack of innocence, or by desires or even by years of productivity. I remember as a child summertime meant spending the days with my grandparents, it meant blackened feet immune to the dark asphalt we would trampse across, 75 cents to the local Washington swimming pool for afternoons that would turn into evenings in the water. In college it meant falling in love, traveling to Europe and learning how to navigate the trains or road tripping to California with friends. As I've grown into a grounded woman summertime grew into a time to experience the little things for the first time. To try my hand at new activities, to discover new passions.

Eating rattle snake

Shooting ranges

Bikram yoga

Preparing for a 1/2 marathon

Playing tennis

Fly fishing

They are such small pleasures.

This summer has felt like a tiny scrapbook, a hodge podge of 'first times' woven together by the verb "to try." And now, it is almost over. I read the season in the sky, now when I leave for work in the morning it is less firey orange and more cotton candy pink. Fall and winter will arrive, sedentary, heavy and warm. It was best to end the summer as it began, with trying something new, with fly fishing in the mountains with my dad.

Ahhh Parigi:

Parigi, the city of lights. For years I have been playing this game where I keep a momento of a city I am longing to visit. I keep the momento close-by to remind myself every day that one day I will visit such city. In college it was a giant poster of Tuscany that I hung above my bed--I eventually lived in Italy twice. After college it was a few black and white framed stills of New York City--after college I made my way to the Big Apple. Now, it is a coffee mug with antique looking Parisian buildings on my desk at work. I am so restless. I am longing to smoke a cigarette and wear all black and sip red wine at a cafe outdoors. I am hoping to book a flight for Christmas Day, the only present I want for Christmas is the present I can give to myself.

Bukowski in Bed:

Everyday at work I feel a little bit out of place. Everyday I feel a little bit like I'm just biding my time but also like I really don't belong. I watch the men at work and they walk way around me, they think I am a tiny creature that will break if they come too close to me. They think I am fragile. The other night, getting drinks with friends one of them kept repeating "C'mon Driver, don't be so shy." I'm not shy. Shy and reserved are different. I only tell things to people who I want to tell things to. Maybe I didn't want to tell him anything. I was reading a lot of Bukowski in bed this week. I could lay in bed and read for forty years. The bed is an island. There is an old man at work named Gary. He works in shipping. He has a face that looks like it was molded out of red clay. It looks like you could push your fingers deep into the sides of his nose and reposition it like a Picasso painting. Upside down, a little thinner, a little to the left, to the right, angled toward his ear. He walks with a limp after having had a stroke and he makes spicy salsa. I like it. He has a girlfriend of twenty-six years who is battling cancer. He told me, "she will beat it." Every morning I ask him "how are you?" and he replies "I'm here, I don't know why." Today I said "maybe it's because you're not a millionaire yet" and he just said "humph." I walked away. Today is Sunday but tomorrow is Labor Day so I don't have to go back to work until Tuesday. So that's good.