out of the wild

well it's a mystery to me
we have a greed
to which we have agreed

i'd not really listened to the lyrics of this eddie vedder song until this week. of course that is what happens to me most of the time. songs find me when i need them - they pop up like flags pressing me to think. i always joke that life is a musical, and that you just need to sing. in reality it's more like a soundtrack to a movie, with the prose painting pictures for me to ponder.

i'm sitting in downtown flagstaff watching football. i've been here almost exactly a week. i came here for a lot of reasons - visit a friend, see the town, check out grad school, have an adventure, get out of moab - there were and are all these bits of need and interest and searching.

and you think you have to have more than you need
'till you have it all you won't be free

it's amazing how i always end up getting way more than i was looking for.

society, you crazy breed
hope you're not lonely without me

i joked a lot this week about dealing with some 'reentry issues.' some of them are pretty comical really. after hand washing the dinner dishes my first night here, my friend pj points out to me that he has a dishwasher.

oh yeah...people have that stuff.

i go to a meeting with a professor in the counseling psych department at nau, and he starts explaining to me the benefits of living in flagstaff despite how small a town it is. he stops mid-sentence because he notices i can't suppress my laugh.

there really is no way to create a relative picture. where i used to live is the size of rhode island, 95% untouched land, and only 3000 people live there.

society, crazy indeed
i hope you're not lonely without me

at aspen we have the students read an allegoric story about a mouse who goes on an adventure. the tale matches well with joseph campbell's outline of the hero's journey. the mouse leaves the comfort of what she knows because she hears a buzzing in her ears. she has an experience unlike one any mouse has ever had, and she goes back to her village to tell others about it. her fellow mice find her changed in appearance and action. she tries to explain herself but no one gets it and they shun her.

when you want more than you have you think you need.
and when you think more than you want your thoughts begin to bleed.

i am in no way trying to say that i am being shunned. to the contrary, i have very much enjoyed being here. my friend pj has been incredibly generous. the people in the town are undeniably friendly.

but i do for the first time understand the description of brian's consciousness in gary paulsen's hatchet. brian talks about how after returning from his experience he realized that he was more aware of the world around him. he noted detail, took less for granted, and in no way was able to describe his experience in a way that others could understand.

i think i need to find a bigger place
'cause when you have more than you think you need more space

now before you start going 'oh poor, poor clare! so misunderstood! her life is so hard!' and offering me cheese to go with my wine (a nice arizona cabernet by the way), know that though i feel some affinity to these characters i do not see this as a bad thing. i like that things look different. i like that things like dishwashers, and iphones, and walk-in hair salons (thanks for making me look good terry!) are adventures rather than just part of the scenery.

society, you crazy breed
hope you're not lonely without me

when i left washington state unsiversity back in 2006 i was looking to run away. i'd been pushing and pushing along on the what's-next-career-climbing-networking-circus for what i deemed long enough. i had to get out. i had to see what else there was beyond college campuses and furnished apartments. i wanted to say 'fuck you' to the trappings of my post college life and set out on my own. i did not abandon my car and burn my cash, but took a job working in wilderness therapy in utah.

i asked my kids out there what they would say if someone had told them 1 year ago that they would spend some time in the wilderness in utah hoarding rabbit shit and eating food out of a coffee can. being a bit older i'd ask that of myself swapping 10 years for 1.

ten years ago i was interning for a political party in london. you do the math.

society, crazy indeed
hope you're not lonely without me

there were two things i never thought would happen. 1) i never thought i would be in utah for over 4 years, and 2) i never thought i'd want to return to working on a college campus.

just kidding. actually there is a third thing. i was short sighted enough to think that the only thing that would happen if i went into the wilderness was that i would change some lives. i'd help kids, inspire families, and perhaps form some solid relationships. i forgot (as i always do) that going to the wilderness would change me way more than anyone else in the picture.

the things i've done - the things i've experienced.

i've slept out under the stars for over 400 days. i've thought i would die in the middle of a raging thunderstorm. i've lived in a 2 bedroom house with seven other people. my wardrobe consisted of 1 pr jeans, 1 pr carhartts, 3 t-shirts, 2 tanks, some warm jackets, 5 pr socks, unmentionables and one dress i never had a reason to wear. i raised a therapy dog who is more therapeutic for me than anyone else. i've lived in a yurt with no running water. i've been single, committed, abused, abandoned, unrequited, and head over heels in love. i cycled 1800 miles in a foreign country. i've eaten meals made out of nothing but food i harvested. all that i owned fit into my volkswagen.

i think i will stop lest i bore you with the details.

there's those thinking more or less, less is more
but if less is more how you're keeping score?

i often joke that i do nothing half-assed. pretty much what i mean is that i live in extremes. i go to one end of the spectrum or the other, the pendulum never slowing enough for me to get off in the middle. it's how i set myself up for success. it worked great for me (or at least i thought so) until i got back from new zealand and i started seeing how that way of being distorted the balance of my life. at the time i resolved that i had to let go of the things on the fringes and focus on forming myself from the center out. one of those things was going back to school for a phd.

what you let go often comes back.

so i seek now a way to integrate rather than divide. i want to live in a world where i don't have to reject the way life is, but maintain that sense that nothing should be taken for granted. i climbed the highest peak in arizona the other day, and i took my phone with me to post pictures of the top on facebook. you might laugh, but that is something i'd never have done a year ago. i'd have turned up my nose at the idea of technology in the outdoors, rather than using the technology to enhance the experience. i felt how strange doing this felt to me, and reminded myself that as long as it is not something that i ever feel i HAVE to do, or that i forget that one can do it differently i am not losing anything.

sometimes it's had to calm the inner O.D.D. child.

means for every point you make the level drops
kind like it's starting from the top
you can't do that

i can't help the people the way i want without going back to school. i can't go to school without leaving utah - the part i've been in anyway. one of the therapists i worked with, ken, used to read us this great quote i can never exactly remember. it focuses on how you can't stay up on the summit of the mountain. it's not habitable. in the end you have to go back to the hills or plains below. you bring with you the lessons learned from achieving the summit, and seek to integrate them into your life below.

society, you crazy breed
hope you're not lonely without me
society, crazy indeed
hope you're not lonely without me

so i sit here in flagstaff and watch texas on the happy end of a turnover. i missed watching sports. i missed sitting in bars and meeting people. i missed night life and shopping and restaurants that serve more than republican food. at the moment my inner rebel is excited to be here because it's new and different. she pushes me to go off the deep end and just toss all the lessons i learned in utah. she wants me to forsake it. the pendulum swings and i have to work to slow it down.

of course consciousness is not action. i've been terrible to my body this week. i've spent more money than i intended. i've forgotten things i cared about.

society, have mercy on me
hope you're not angry if i disagree

now it's about finding that center. i don't know if it will be in flagstaff or somewhere else. i don't know if i will get a job or go to school. i don't even know if i will end up with any of the things i have thought about or planned.

society, crazy indeed
hope you're not lonely without me

living...