8 posts tagged “florida”
Originally published at file under "Miscellanea". You can comment here or there.
(Note: This post is part of a series I am doing on my progress through Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way with a cadre of creative ladies. More info about this venture can be found in an earlier post and all of my related posts are under
one category.)
As I'm reading through each chapter, I take little notes in my composition book. Reviewing those notes as I do my weekly check-in, it's interesting to see what I find worth jotting down and how if plays out during my week, if at all. This week, my first note is from page 61 of my book:
Anger is a map. Anger shows us what our boundaries are.
I know I initially jotted this down because my mum talked a lot about the value of knowing your own boundaries, but in retrospect, this should have been a red flag: The whole first section of week three is about anger. While I am grateful for everything I've experienced and explored this week, I wasn't comfortable sharing a lot of it publicly nor would all of it had made sense without an extensive personal history.
What was most interesting during this process was revisiting emotional and explosive moments in this heightened creative state brought about by having my own studio, hanging my art on a gallery wall, and going through The Artist's Way with my cluster. While we often attribute creative endeavors and accomplishments a kind of head-in-the-clouds quality, I found that those things were instead quite grounding as I did this week's tasks and exercises. I started thinking less about the specifics of my life in some instances and more about the underlying themes--moments of bliss in hours of darkness and how to take that joy and do something productive with it, what is secret versus what is shown--and ways to interpret those experiences creatively. In discussing my house sculpture at the gallery opening, I realized these were some of the things I was thinking through, but I would like to do so in a way that retains its personal resonance while being more universal. Exploring the themes rather than directly mining personal history.
Some of week three's exercises/tasks follow, but I'll try to share more of week four's work:
Detective work, an exercise
- The best movie I ever saw as a kid was either The Last Unicorn or The Neverending Story. The former probably gave me unnaturally mature ideas about the nature of regret and life experience, the latter's special effects probably don't hold up today, but really transported me to a different place back in the '80s.
- If I could lighten up a little, I'd let myself take Polka or Bollywood dancing classes.
- If it didn't sound so crazy, I'd make a book out of a suitcase. Oh, wait, I am going to do that crazy thing!
Five childhood accomplishments
- I consistently had high grades and test scores and held my own in honors/advanced courses.
- I won a state-level writer's award and was invited to a young writer's conference when I was around 12 years old.
- When my family raised and bred sporting dogs, I was responsible for the complete training of two dogs (though I assisted with others) and got points on each--one in confirmation showing, the other in hunting trials.
- Attending two pre-college summer programs--McMurray College in Illinois the summer before 8th grade, Washington + Lee in Virginia the summer before my senior year of high school--was a huge honor and really helped me visualize myself as a college student and meet some great people.
- Putting on a school play my senior year of high school; though the school had a drama club we had never, in the time I attended the school, had a school play, which I thought was ridiculous. (Having just spent too much time on said high school's terrible web site, I can't tell if the play is still ongoing.)
Week-end check-in
Artist's Date: First, I spent half an hour on a local nature
trail, just taking photos (forthcoming!) and exploring the various colors and
patterns in Florida's greenery. I came back quite inspired, even accounting for
the heat and skeeters. That same night, I also pulled out a book a friend gifted
me and taught myself a simple pamphlet stitch binding, making three small books.
I feel this is the first week I've been 100% successful at the artist's date and
honestly appreciated the time to myself, with my own ideas.
...when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. -- Anaïs Nin
The post-dinner dog walk has become a nightly ritual for my husband and I, and [this is good] on all fronts: we exercise a bit, the dog with four short legs exercises quite a bit more; we enjoy the Florida weather and the opportunity for us-time (I originally wrote "private, adult conversation," but that gave an illicit sound to the whole enterprise; I'm sure the parents out there know what I meant, however).
Last night, my husband found a tightly wrapped magnolia bud on the ground; it had dropped before it had the opportunity to blossom and was such an interesting shape and texture. I brought it home and some Southern impulse made me drop it into a bowl with a shallow pool of water.
This morning, I saw the flower had use this opportunity to the fullest and rewarded me with a magnolia-scented room.
Husband is in geek ecstasy using a seal-o-meal to prep all the food for our camping trip. Keeps bringing me little packages & bouncing.
@gapingvoid Were you an outdoorsy kid when you went? Previous interest or experience camping, hiking, kayaking? Just curious WRT my brother
Have returned from my adventure in the swamp. Was beautiful and grounding, inspiring and awesome. Oh, yeah, and filled with bloodsuckers.
My husband and I ended up in Florida because it's where my mother and brother were, and they needed our help. Mostly, we miss being up North (closer to his family, more connection to the cities and life there), but it's pretty damn hard to complain when it's the first days of April, you're cooking out on the grill in bare feet, a skirt, and a sleeveless shirt.Shrimp are in the marinade; going make skewers on the grill tonight. For a moment, living in Florida = bliss
My husband just committed an act of civic duty for which, unfortunately, no medals are awarded, but I thought a news release should be issued just the same. He just smooshed a mosquito which, no lie, was the size of my pinky and quite possibly could have carried off my kitten in its beak. We did this after first trapping the offending bug and having a conversation about whether it could even be a mosquito at that size. My final verdict?
"Just in case, it's our duty to remove this sucker from the gene pool."
More than three months ago, I shelved this blog in a fit of despair.* I needed to find some way to put my head down and make my life work, and I hope I am now arriving at that point.
To that end, I'm rebooting this Vox for the New Year and am giving it the following direction:
- My Vox is going to remain a personal blog, about the tribulations and festivities in the life of a near-30-year-old woman living in the Sunshine State, married, raising her brother, feeding the cats and overpriced terrier. When I burn a loaf of bread, celebrate a report card, or have a funny anecdote to share, it will go here. If I like a movie, read a book, or have to out my obsession with Project Runway, it will go here.
- I'm setting up another blog to chronicle my creative aspirations and my fledgling attempts to sell the goodies and oddities I create. If you want to see pictures of collages, messy journals, and stitchery, it will go there.
While, in general, I have a big o' fear of overlapping my personal and (ha!) professional personnas, I also plan to do a kind of monthly recap on my Vox of how things are going over in artsy land. Mainly for the purposes of hoping to shamelessly lure you to my Etsy storefront, obviously.
I'm also going to take the leap and start pointing people who actually know me (other than you, Donut Pusher) to this blog. If you went to school with me or know me from some other venue, gosh, I hope I didn't rant about you in this blog's earlier incarnation. I kid, I kid...
To those in my Voxy neighborhood: Hey, thanks for keepin' me in your loop. If you had a baby, opened a business, got married, ditched the jerk, or otherwise made huge moves in your life since September, I hope they have worked out for you, and I'm sorry I didn't write. Special shout-out to the very creative Lorri, whose Vox I wandered into whilst investigating other arty-crafty blogs for inspiration for my new venture. There are so many very talented people out there doing amazing work, it is both inspiring and scary to me!
More soon, including 2007's "mayfly." (Don't know what that means? Looky here. Want to read 2006's? Looky here.)
* "a fit of despair": This phrase makes it seem needlessly dramatic, but things were very low on that day in September, and I don't mean to diminish my emotions or feelings about life as I felt them then. We were unable to make mortgage payments on our house, my mother's life insurance policy had been denied, and, in a less than ten-hour window, both of our cars died. Life was not peachy keen, and I still own that feeling of damnation and don't mean to make light of it with these four words.
Flip-flops are everyday wear.
True story: Two to three weeks ago, there was a bit of a cold spell here on the Gulf coast of Florida, and I decided to swap out my summer and winter wardrobes. Away went the sundresses and flip flops, out came the long-sleeved shirts and blouses.
Two days later, I was digging under the loft for the bin I had stashed the flip-flops in. I guess winter only lasts two days in these parts.
Orange juice from concentrate makes you vomit.
Why do grocery stores in Florida import oranges or grapefruit from anywhere else? I swear, I'm going to start positioning myself by that area of produce and start heckling my fellow shoppers.
Tap water makes you vomit.
PUR water filter: $25.00
Not drinking tap water: Priceless.
An alligator once walked through your neighborhood.
Also true: My neighborhood has a six-footer in the small man-made lake that marks the entrance to the subdivision. A trapper's been out to get him twice, but no luck.
You understand why it's better to have a friend with a boat than have a boat yourself.
So true!
The full list can be read on angelanoel's Vox.
This post is a follow-up to the other posts earlier this month about camping.
Full disclosure: I want to be the sort of person who hikes and goes camping, even does insane things like the 1,400-mile Florida Trail, but am actually the sort of person who bought a tent nearly five years ago and only used it once. On someone's lawn. It's not that I'm wimpy, either...I'm just easily distracted and have a lot of hobbies. Plus that pesky master's thesis I should be writing. Becoming el supremo outdoorswoman always fell by the wayside. I'm sure I'm not alone in this regard.
Having acknowledged that, Teh Husband and I started exchanging links to Florida trails and campsites in mid-October. Between his job stress and my family stress, we were eager for a quick-and-easy getaway and eventually settled on a site nearby that offered us a maximum 12-mile hike into camp and about a minimum 2-mile hike out. We gathered together our emergency packs and evaluated what might be useful for camping and then went out and bought about $200 worth of other necessities (eg, hiking boots, wool socks, sleeping bags, mess kit, LED flashlights, a small hatchet).
We left home Sunday around 11 am and arrived to find the parking lot deserted but for a pair of women and horses. We would run into those women once on the trail, one bike rider, and another horseback rider, but that was it. Amusingly, all of the horseback riders had issues with their mounts approaching us; the large packs we carried made us read as "unknowns" to the horses and they were too nervous to approach us. After taking our packs off (and making the requisite noises of blissful relief), the women were able to chide their horses past us. Then, for hours, we would be alone--not another soul, no TV, no radio, no cell phones, no Internet. Early on, our walking was silent as we got accustomed to the weight of the packs and enjoyed the scenery. When we would break for snacks, we would each suddenly become animated and share our thoughts and observations. Unfortunately for me, one of my early observations was that my feet were a bit sore; eventually that soreness would develop into several blisters. After treating my feet with alcohol swabs (EEEEEE!) and bandages, we continued to make our way.
We had some frustration with the quality of our map and had to turn around a few times throughout the day. It was during one of these "off-path" excursions that my husband stopped dead in his tracks and called my name somewhat tersely. With shorter legs and hampered a bit by my sore feet, I lagged behind somewhat and struggled to catch up. Looking ahead on the trail, I saw a large black furry creature loping toward us.
"What's that?"
"That's a bear. Or a very large dog." My husband, who previously lived in an area with a heavy bear population, would find it in himself to joke at a time like this.
"What do we do now?"
What we did was this: Got off the trail and hunkered down. If I had to guess, the bear was running down the trail, not running at us--a very important distinction. My husband took the hatchet out of it's sleeve, and my hand tightened around my walking stick.
"I do not want to have to go up against this bear with a hatchet."
Truer words were never spoken, I wager. Lucky for us, when we popped our heads back out on to the trail, the bear had gone his/her own way and was no longer in sight. I was thrilled and terrified; more than anything else, I felt special for having seen a Florida bear in the wild and happy to have had a good experience with the animal.
After this encounter, there was definitely a lot of nervous scanning by me. No furtherbear sightings to report, though we did also see a very large and dark bird I couldn't identify.
We got lost a little bit more and finally came to our campground, a bit disheartened at its prospects. Described as the trail's "primitive camp," it was really more like a post-apocalyptic camp--signs of civilization abounded, but none were useful to us. The largest structure in the camp was a screened-in enclosure with electrical outlets. The screens were torn, and the inside of the enclosure was layered with leaves, needles, and other forest floor debris. A brick firepit was filled with trash and had kind of caved in on itself. No potable water could be found on the site, and a nearby swampy lake was probably our best prospect.
Since we didn't really want to camp sans fire and our water filters weren't up to anything as dubious as swampwater, we decided to continue hiking and spend the night at the group campsite. Though it was only another 1.5 miles away, the sun was setting, and my feet were about ready to give up. After the halfway point, I started counting each step in my head, just to keep motivated, to keep one foot in front of the other. We stumbled into the group camp, exhausted but delighted to see fire rings and a water pump. My husband definitely didn the bulk of setting up camp, while I handled refiling our water supply.
He started a campfire without incident, and we each gobbled down a baked potato smothered in cheese and broccoli soup. I'm sure there's some sort of maxim about how much more delicious camp food is after a long hike, and this certainly didn't disappoint. After cleaning up our food mess and hanging the bulk of our edible things in a bear bag, we chilled out by the fire, drinking hot cocoa and spiced rum. We chatted and just enjoyed the crisp air on our skin, the stars above us, and the bulk of the trail behind us.
The night and next morning went without incident. Since my feet were pretty banged up, we didn't do any extra hiking, just pulled up camp and made our way to the trailhead. When we reached the parking lot, our car was the only one there.
"We've probably never been as alone as we just were," said Teh Husband with some degree of wonder and happiness.
At the end of the trail, at the end of the day, I definitely learned a lot of things on this hike; in no particular order:
* There are bears in Florida.
* At the first sign/hint/inkling of blisters, action is required.
* Make sure the map you're carrying has the absolute greatest amount of information. If there's a map posted at the trailhead, double check it against your map and include any new-to-you details. In our case, we only included the markings for the trails we knew we wanted to walk and that wasn't helpful when we were lost and/or decided to alter our course.
* There are bears in Florida.
* You can never have enough hot cocoa.
* When a more experienced hiker talks about lightening your pack, listen. My husband convinced me to choose a lighter flashlight for my pack, and I kinda thought he was being neurotic. But every ounce does add up, particularly during the last hour.
* Florida. It has bears.
I'm sure there were more trail lessons, but I've already held off on this post long enough. While it's no longer timely, I wanted to at least post it for my own memories.
We won't be able to camp again 'til December, but I'm already looking forward to it. Besides, I have to increase the tent's usage beyond 1:1 (actual camping:lawn camping) in order for this post to have an validity!
More on the encounter later, as well as my camping trip overall, plus an update on my craft room renovations. Basically, I guess this post is just a placeholder for all those things, plus a little shout-out to anyone who was holding their breath about whether I'd ever return from the wilderness.
