Someone else's 15 minutes of fame

I don't usually post youtube videos or anything random from the internet on thewildercoast, it's not that kind of blog. But as diehards will remember- I AUDITIONED FOR THIS COMMERCIAL! And for the record, I would have kicked this girl's skinny little butt. Sure, I'm not all sleek and waiflike and effortlessly pretty but at least I don't lilly-dip...on national TV!


Mistakes were made

Multiple Choice:
After following signs for the "spa/pool", this is what you come to. What do YOU think this is?

A. Small swimming pool
B. Hot tub
C. Decorative wishing fountain not intended for swimmers

WELL IT'S DAMN WELL NOT ANSWER B! Which I figured out only after I unwrapped my towel and gratefully lowered my tense, road weary body into the water:
"Hmmm, pretty luke for a hot tub- HEY, LOOK, WHAT'S WITH ALL THE MONEY IN HERE?"

The snow prisoners of S------n, Pennslyvania

If anyone staying the night at the Holiday Inn off I-84 in Northern Pennsylvania had looked outside their window around 5:15 this afternoon, they would have seen a hassled girl standing in the parking lot in the blizzard, cramming a small-ish corgi into a pink bin. She stuffs the dog's head down into a pile of clothes, but it keeps popping back up, like one of those bang-the-hippo arcade games. She makes one final effort to bury the dog, then picks up the bin and goes running across the parking lot and into the hotel.

That girl was me and that dog was, you guessed it- Hometeam. We are stranded at the Holiday Inn here in South- uuhhhhhhhh- Scranton. I HATE saying Scranton, Pennsylvania, only because it sounds too much like Scrotum, Pennsylvania and it makes my mouth feel weird. Say it aloud- see what I mean? But anyway, here I am, a Prisoner Of Winter. One of those idiots who heeded not the warnings of the weather forecasters and set off on a 900 mile, Northbound automobile trip.

I always drive from North Carolina to Vermont in one shot, meaning by the time I pass into New England I am usually chewing on coffee grounds and hallucinating sea creatures bubbling around outside the car. But not this time. Around the Maryland/Pennsylvania border, Garth Brooks' "Ain't Goin down till the Sun Comes up" was interrupted by those weird screeches and the robot guy informing me a "state of snow emergency" had been declared. Honesty, they weren't kidding. I slalomed my way through Jackknifed trucks and toppled minivans, thinking if I could just get onto highway 84 the conditions would improve. (Because that makes so much sense.)

I finally reached highway 84, slid off the first exit and into the only hotel around, the South --CENSORED-- Holiday Inn. As previously mentioned, I snuck in the little dog and she immediately claimed the king sized bed as HOMETEAM'S!

Since I'm not really interested in TV, I have nothing better to do than kill the hours taking pictures of my dog and posting them here. In advance: I'm really sorry.

My naked, dirty, sinning legs

My intoxicatingly fantastic childhood friend Elissa, who is marching down the aisle this Saturday, responded to my previous post with this amazing comment:

"To the knee" was merely a guideline for winter wear. I would just hope in a big, Holy, drafty church, one's naked, dirty, sinning legs didn't get cold.

(Man, has she got me pegged or what!)

Oh yes she's feisty, oh yes she's creative, and OH YES she decided to tie the knot in the middle of a Vermont winter. In a big big snowstorm. And I'm stuck nearly 1,000 miles away, and yeah I've got a 4 wheel drive car, but I also grew up in Vermont and I know that not even a 16-wheel-drive army tank will navigate through them bad ass conditions.

So what do I do? Weather reports show those nasty little snow cloud icons for the next four day. But what choice do I have, you know? There's a fair chance that I'll be spending the next few nights roadside in a dismal PA Holiday Inn, but I've got to get my naked, dirty, sinning legs into that church, if only to see this one in a classic white dress:
Oh, and also to see our mutual best friend Sophia wear a bridesmaid dress. I just hope it's pastel Elissa, I'm driving a long way so I HOPE TO GOD YOU you made Sophia wear Pastel!!!(Sophia stopped making any sort of imprint on film around 2002. Shown here is a rare glimpse of her shadow.)

Asheville




Why I love Asheville: The Chocolate Lounge, climbing gym, temperate climate, rosewater cardamon pistachio hot chocolate, sweet potato tempura sushi, Izzy's the tragically hip coffee shop where I absolutely do not belong, snow cleared sidewalks where I can walk the dog in high heeled Chilean cowboy boots, Liquid Logic, an entire store of belt buckles, gorgeous women sending v6, Astral Buoyancy, Rumbling Bald, and most of all- Yonton.

I am so happy that I met him ten years ago at a strange little school in the hills of Vermont. Stumbling upon Yonton back when we were both teenagers is a good example of my sometimes phenomenal, mostly stupendous, often miraculous good luck.

Disclaimer

Dear Liss, congrats on getting married this Saturday! Now, just a word- I know you're leaning towards a 'conservative church wedding', which leaves me with a little bit of a dilemma. I have nothing to wear. Really- nothing. I think it would be more acceptable for me to show up naked than with any of the clothes that I own. And I reside in Boone, North Carolina, living off the coins I found under the cushions of my father's chair in the living room. What to do? (Now, if you were having more of a 'casual and stained' wedding, I wouldn't be having this problem.)

So I drove all the way to Asheville just to find an appropriate dress. And I almost did! I just want to warn you, it's a little short. Not extremely short but....let's just say I'm still not sure if it's a top or a dress. Neither did the sales girls.

I know you said 'to the knee or longer', but here in the dirty dirty (dirty!) south, they just don't make them that long. Trust me, I tried on everything. The only ones that were below the knee were empire waists, and you and I both know what that means: maternity. And I just didn't want to show up at your wedding looking like the 'unmarried gal in trouble.' I've always been the only atheist in our group of friends and it would just be too....cliche.

See you on Saturday love! And really....congratulations.

Luminosity


What I've gradually come to learn in my almost 25 years (birthday coming up- beware!) is that everything has a flip side. Well, almost everything. Some things just shouldn't happen. But in my case, if there is an advantage to having an ocean of pain sloshing back and forth in your head every other day, this is it: when the tide retreats, the ordinary pieces of life transform into something exotic, something luminous. Energy is boundless, the world hums with possibility.

The English language lacks an accurate term to describe the feeling of pain evaporating. Normal and ordinary come up far short. The evaporation of pain is extraordinary: blissful, beautiful, precious. It is the ecstasy of emerging shivering out of frigid water into a hot summer day, pulling your body onto a sun baked rock and feeling the warmth radiate through you.

Just the other day in Memphis, I woke up after a two week migraine to feel nothing. A soaring emptiness in my head. The previous day I had cut all my hair off, something I had read might help. That plus imitrex and hours of lying still and luck and begging and bargaining had payed off: in the middle of the night, the carnival had packed up its tents and disappeared. Its absence made me feel light as a biscuit. I floated out of bed, went running down the hall, crashed into the living room and shouted at my boyfriend, "HI! LET'S DO SOMETHING! LET'S GO TO THE ZOO!"

It's a mighty challenge, filling up each hour with as much living as possible before the hammer falls and you're sick again. I used to have auras- spots of vision blinking in and out, a sudden and severe aversion to sunlight. These warned me when a migraine was on the horizon like a tornado, and I could grab the dog and run into the basement, so to speak. Man, those were the days. Now the pain just hits from out of the clear blue, like a sucker-punch.

What I mean is- you never know when it's going to hit, so on your good days you better make it worth it. And lately, spending five or so hours each day interviewing Steph and writing her story has sharpened my awareness of my luck to have these miraculous 'good days'.

It's a give and take, I suppose, just like everything. Check out the jewel toned moments from the last few days:


See what I mean about the luminosity?

Then yesterday, as I was writing at the local library, I looked up to see the world tilt suddenly on its axis, and that familiar pressure began to pulse inside my head like a firefly gearing up for a sultry night of insect love. I hammered out the rest of the story, then packed away my notes and drove home to the familiar dark of my sleeping bag. (Yeah, I don't have a bed, but the floor is carpeted.) Three days without a headache! I thought to myself with sincere appreciation as I closed the blinds. Three whole days. It was a good run.

(RIP my hair)

hold on, trapeze artist

For Stephanie Jones Jordan

To catch up on this story: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4
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***
As it turns out, the layer around Steph's spine is porous, leaking cerebral spinal fluid like a lawn sprinkler left on low pressure. The doctors order her to remain prone, lying flat on her back without ever getting up for ten days. This way, her own blood will fill the holes where the needle bit into her dura and spine. She stays ten days down, still as a statue, as determined and focused as ever she was during the 24th hour of an adventure race.
On the 11th day, she sits up slowly, looks around. She blinks at the sunlight and her head remains miraculously normal. She crawls out of bed, making her way across the living room floor, and stands upright on the floating porch. Imagine a seven year winter finally melting into spring- that is how the air feels as it rushes into her lungs.
She isn't back to ship shape, of course. Her brain has been thoroughly beaten up and tossed down a flight of stairs, after all. When friends come to visit- friends she has known for years, the neighbor next door- she introduces herself as if she's never seen them before. When she finishes a phone call, she tucks her phone away in the fridge where the butter would go. But despite these hiccups in judgments and memory, she seems to be getting better.
It is on the 11th day that her nephew is born, Molly's baby boy. And two days after that, I arrive at the door of her houseboat unannounced, holding yellow flowers. It's late in the evening but the sun is only just beginning to drop. She is moving slowly, with a strange elegance, the principle dancer of her own ballet. She has been cooking and is now walking towards the end of the dock where some friends are waiting. I speed towards her, throw my arms around her, squeeze her tightly.

So maybe it was me, then, that caused those tentative blood patches to burst.

....And once again, the roller coaster dips down, and things fall apart. She goes to work each day, at a health clinic in a hard neighborhood East of downtown, but she barely recognizes her patients anymore. Between sessions she lies down in her office. Despite her determination, her ferocious spirit, prayers, meditations, medications- the curtain of pain is pressing down each day with a mounting force.
I am with her at this time. Recovering from my own bad luck, I visit the Bastyr naturopathic clinic every other day. I am so submerged in my own world that I cannot recognize the depth of her nightmare. Which is not to say there aren't signs. We go out to eat in the University district, me and Ammen and her, just like we did so many times back when I was in college. Steph doesn't eat much, doesn't say anything. She is miles deep within herself, stuck in a lifeboat moored to the angry shores inside her head. She cries a lot, but in perfect silence.
She and Ammen have recently purchased a new house, and she moves slowly about the inside, showing me where the renovations will occur, pointing to the hard patch of ground where one day her garden will be planted. It's a balancing act I know well from my own migraines- try to act like a normal person, try not to lose your mind.
In late July, she is given a procedure called a blood patch. Blood is pulled from her arm and injected into her neck. The shot that caused the original injury was called a blind injection, which means it was given without fluoroscope, or anyway of viewing the inside of her body. This time the injection is administered with the help of an x-ray. Still, it is terrifying. The doctors hover and order her to lie still- meaning, lie still or you will die on this table.
After the procedure, the doctors turn towards the wall, take a deep breath. Messing with the inside of someone's neck is like is like tinkering with the electrical workings of a bomb.
The blood patch is followed by ten more days on bedrest. Outside, the season is progressing and the city is growing hot and dry. Her tiny nephew is gaining more motor control every day. He learns how to hold his head up, his lips lift into his first smile.
She is down ten more days. But when she sits up, the weight of the pain comes flooding back. As if it had never even left in the first place.

Stephanie's story

Valentines 2010: The Carnage

For valentine's day dinner I decided to make homemade ravioli. I'm ambitious, determined, the embodiment of the can-do female spirit of the 2000's. WHY NOT! THE WORLD IS MINE!

Will graciously offered to take me to Earth Fare, the uppity organic little grocery place that is normally FORBIDDEN to me and my, um, poverty. Will said I could choose anything I wanted for the meal. I ran around the store as if on roller skates, throwing a pineapple into the cart, throwing random pricey oniony things into the cart, throwing caution to the wind, throwing a tantrum when the dairy lady told us the ricotta was all sold out.

First stop was my house first to use my roommate's food processor. I made the filling out of caramelized onions and butternut squash, then I made the dough, listening to blues on NPR and feeling very capable and smug. If anyone had called me on the telephone I'm sure I would have picked it up with my suave voice and said, "Oh, just making dinner...homemade ravioli....mmhmm....no, no pasta maker, I don't believe in unnecessary gadgets....oh, it's nothing,really, I make everything from scratch...." Thank GOD nobody called me, so I didn't have the chance.

Then we packed it all up, louge-ed down the driveway, and drove to Will's house where the ravioli assembly began. We rolled it out, cut it out, and began to meticulously fill and seal each ravioli. I crimped each one down with a fork and they looked....they looked just like Ravioli! We were doing it! I remember feeling very masterful, very cool and collected.

It only took about 3 1/2 hours. Total! It was only 11pm when dinner was actually served- whatever! That's how the Europeans do it! But it was all worth it when we threw them into the pot of boiling water and five minutes later served up.....the most unsightly massacre of Italian culture ever to be served on a dinner plate.

DINNER'S READY!!!!!

Something went wrong. Something happened inside that boiling that pot that was....unholy. I really have no idea what happened.

Yes, I made it. And yes, we have to eat it. But look on the bright side- at least we're not prisoners of war! Happy Valentines day, baby!

falls apart, slowly...


Migraines are destroying me. Two weeks ago while cutting a grapefruit, an electric current cut through my head. It was the act of stabbing- the way my wrist and my arm tensed in quick jabs to cut through the fruit- that caused the sudden onslaught of pain.

The headache lasted for two weeks. It ebbed at times, and I was able to sit and write for a few hours, go to the food store, take the dog for a walk. These little things were huge triumphs for me. Other days I didn't get out of bed, knowing if I moved a muscle or tormented my eyes with sunlight, the headache would come rushing back full force.

Some people drive fast. Some people smoke things, drink things. Some people, like my roomate's boyfriend, chew up and swallow a glass cup (on a dare). They all turn out fine, but I- I can't get away with SLICING A GRAPEFRUIT.

When I wasn't alone, I spent most of my time with Will. I was a miserable person to be around- all distance and helplessness punctuated with sudden, urgent demands: Turn off the music, close the shades, help me get out of bed, I can't finish the dishes, shut the door. Stop talking, I'd say, I can't hear anything right now. And then, five minutes later when the pain mysteriously evaporated, I'd become agitated, animated, scared to death that I had pushed him away for good this time. Talk to me! I'd plead. Tell me what you're thinking! Let's go outside- let's do something together.

We'd agree to go outside for a walk. He'd go to the other room to get his coat, and when he came back I'd be flat again, curled into a crescent in the sheets, pain once again blossoming behind my right eye. Turn the light off- I'd tell him. Shut the door.

What can I say? He really likes pineapple!

For Valentine's day, Will gave me a card he made himself and bought me the hardcover book I've been wanting but couldn't afford. I hadn't even mentioned it- he just noticed me sighing over it repeatedly at the bookstore. He also made one of those foam-board photo collages of photos.

In return I gave him a little bottle of scotch. And um.....a pineapple.

Then I made him a COMPLETELY inedible dinner, and let him lie on the couch with a beer watch Chips with a beer as I cleaned the kitchen.

Was he happy? Yes. Do I deserve him? Definitely not.

Tough Mother

What happens next is just a collage of images- white sheets on an emergency room bed, the soft skin of her inner arm bruising from needles. Morphine hitting the veins, orange bottles of pills that rattle, a world kept muffled of sound, as if in a deep snowstorm. Miraculously, when she lies down, the pain ebbs, the ringing in her ears quiets. She feels...normal. Which is to say, she feels like she's living, not dying. But to stand up, lift her head, brings the pain crashing back- like a nightmare returning as you fall back asleep, or a train rushing through a quiet train yard.

So she spends the days horizontal,beneath earplugs and eye masks and closed blinds. Doctors give no answers, only medicine that works only slightly. Her family strokes her hair and murmurs. They have moved into the second phase of inexplicable tragedy- something like hopelessness? Acceptance? Are those things mutually exclusive? These are my words, not theirs. They would object to them I'm sure. Steph said it was very peaceful. They had those conversations reserved for people who are leaving, and the people love them and have to watch them go. You and I can only imagine what was said during that time. Molly said if it's a girl, I'll name it after you.

It's her mother who first figures it out, not the doctors. Her mother is a physical therapist in Louisiana, and as her plane sinks down into the glittering Seattle skyline, she puts it together. You have a spinal leak, she tells her daughter. It's the only thing that makes sense.

As you know- her mother is right. (Mothers are always right.) When Steph is lying down, her brain is cushioned, splashing in its bath of cerebral spinal fluid, just like my brain is all of the time, regardless of what position I am in. Hopefully yours as well. But when she is upright, her spine is leaking fluid- pints of it. Her brain becomes dehydrated, and sinks lower and lower on her skull. It starts to hit upon the cranial nerves, which are better left un-touched, because of all the important things they do.

For example, the control of eyes, of ears, of memory. And a lot of other stuff as well.

Picture your delicate spine, the section in your neck that holds your head up. Reach out a hand and touch it- aren't you fond of it? Now picture yourself running a five-tinged salad fork against the dura- the layer surrounding your spine. Dura in latin means tough mother- as if your spine is wearing a bad ass leather jacket with spikes on the cuff. Four of the tinges puncture the dura, one nicks the spine.

Remember now, to be thankful that your spine is only nicked. If it was punctured- if the wrist administering the blow had twitched or pressed just a little bit harder- you'd be dead on the table. Or a quadriplegic. Either way, you'd wish you hadn't been messing with your spine at all.

Which I'm sure is what Steph is wishing right now. But anyway, now they know what's going on. Which is better than not knowing.

Stephanie's story

What I didn't know

For Stephanie Jones Jordan

For the first part of this story click here

For the second part of the story, click here

What I did not know was this: while I was lost in my own head in West Virginia, Stephanie was doing an excellent impersonation of a dying person. She wasn't dying, technically, because she isn't dead. But for a time, she had everyone -herself included- fooled. She was lying on a bed, her vision gone, her family moving around her like shadows, speaking in whispers. She could not speak, she could not move, she couldn't see.

What I didn't know- what they didn't know- was that that her upper spinal chord had become porous- and as it leaked cerebral spinal fluid her brain sank lower and lower into her skull. She hadn't been in any sort of car accident. She wasn't sick. There had just been a huge, huge mistake.

June 13th, 2009, was fifteen days before I arrived at her doorway. She was lying on a table in a clinic in Seattle, receiving four injections into her neck. It was morning. Steph is a veteran of the Epic Mountain Bike Crash, and in the past few months, the accumulation of years of whiplash was catching up to her. She had been meeting with a body worker, who adjusted her and did all sorts of healing things to her spine. And it was working- but she couldn't afford it. She had to go in quite frequently for appointments, and her insurance wasn't covering it.

And so in mid June, she finally consented to the injections in her neck. The man working on her- a compassionate, wonderful person and healer- was really trying to help her out. This shot in her neck would relieve the pain, he said, and she would only have to come in once more afterward for a follow up.

And one day in early July she lay and received the four injections to neck. The sequence of what happened next I am not certain of, but they occurred in rapid fire succession. She blacked out. Her right leg went immediately and forever numb. She felt liquid coursing hot through her whole body. She was coated in cold sweat. She lay writhing on the table. It lasted an hour. Then she sat up, had some applesauce at the clinic, and drove herself home.

It was decided that Stephanie's body was allergic to the medicine.

And so there she was at home, on her beautiful floating house in Lake Union on a blue summer day in the emerald city. She wanted to shake it off and go on with her day- go to work, go the grocery store, cook dinner for her friends. But there were pains shooting like billiard balls through her body, knocking and splitting at her joints. A white hot pain was pulsating in her skull. She sat down, called her sister, her husband.

Immediately, they heard something in voice, something that spoke louder than the words she was actually saying. They are perceptive people, and her sister Molly works in medicine, a natureopath and licensed midwife. In fact, Molly, over nine months pregnant, was that very morning edging towards labor. On receiving Steph's call, her contractions ceased. She drove through the city to her sister's house, finds her wandering around incoherent, in shock, unable to find a modicum of relief from the splitting pain in her body. Molly takes her coat off, her unborn son gets the message he'll have to wait a little while longer. Steph lies with her head on Molly's lap. Molly doesn't leave her side for five days.

Can you picture them? This beautiful day, this beautiful woman, this young, healthy athlete. This adventure racer from Louisiana, and her body is exploding from the inside. The raging headache in her head continues to grow in fury, her vision fades out, her ears are ringing. She can't speak, she can't stop throwing up, she is wracked by spasms in her neck. They watch her with horror, split between their own fear and their efforts to be of comfort. The can speak to her, but only in whispers, anything louder feels like they are driving an axe full force between the left and right lobes of her brain. The pain cannot be overstated. The fear, as you can imagine, cannot accurately be tamed and shaped into words.

They call the doctor, who confirms the initial diagnosis- she must be allergic to the medicine. If she just waits it out, it will leave her system. Just wait it out, they say.

But- have you guessed it yet?- she only gets worse.

This is what happened next


For Stephanie Jones Jordan


You can find the first part of this story here.

I was working as an English teacher for the New River Academy, and the quarter had just ended. It had been a really awful quarter for me and I was relieved it was finally over. In fact, the beginning of the summer I was pretty much worthless. I couldn’t do anything. I was just trying to recover from the past two months. Seeing as I was living in the house that, during the school year, served as the school campus, the recovery wasn’t going so well. What I needed was to be elsewhere.

I was half heartedly trying to get work as a video boater on the lower New. But the river was raging from some unexpected deluges upstate, and the American Whitewater charts I checked twice a day showed local river levels climbing unprecedentedly high. Despite the confidences given to my by David and my (very small) handful of friends, I knew I wasn't good enough to be paddling a high water New River gorge by myself.

In fact, the one time I did paddle the gorge only strengthened these convictions. I was with my friend Gilad. He was the last soldier to be wounded in the Israel Lebanon war, and he had a glass eye. I took a long swim above a dangerous sieve, and Gilad was screaming at me in Hebrew the whole time. I ended up washed up on the wrong side of the river. As I stood there shaking, I felt the anger and fear I had kept bottled up during the school year start to vibrate inside of me. I started to hate West Virginia.

As the light summer days flung by, I began to fantasize about Seattle- my old life, my old friends, my old neighborhoods. One image in particular crawled into my ear, sat down in my head and refused to leave. It was an image of myself showing up at my friends Steph and Ammen’s houseboat. I envisioned myself showing up unannounced, they wouldn't even know that I was in town. I would be holding a 5 dollar bouquet of flowers from Pike Place Market.

Out of all the lovely things to do in Seattle, of all the places and people in that city that I loved, it was this idea that stuck. Something was drawing me towards the doorway of that houseboat. It was like some invisible lasso looped around my rib cage, tugging me West. I needed to be out there.

I had no job in Seattle, a terrifically expensive city, and aside from a dozen friend's couches, I had no real place to live. I had to be back in West Virginia when school started up in the fall, so it didn't make any sense for me to go out to West.

But then one night I dreamt of being there, on the floating dock in front of their door, holding yellow flowers. I knocked on the door, anxious for Steph to open it, and then I woke up crying. Something about me you probably don't know, is that I don't cry very often. I can't cry very often. Ever since my doctor doubled my anxiety medication, it's been tough to gear up for that kind of emotional break.

That day I drove to Lewisburg to meet with an energy worker. (At that point I'd try anything to feel better- prescribed pharmaceuticals, energy healing, anything in between.) I lay on her table as she walked around me- a young, pretty woman with hands that moved quickly, pulling at invisible strings of energy. About five minutes into the session she paused, hands like held aloft like frozen birds. “Something is telling you to go somewhere." She told me. "I don't know where it is, but you do, and you have to go there."

Later that evening, I booked my ticket to Seattle.

This is who she is and how I know her

For Stephanie Jones Jordan

It began with me as a high school student about to move out to Seattle to go to college. I was 17. My teacher at my strange little school, Ammen Jordan, gave me the name of his friend who had just moved out there. You guys should be friends he said, and gave me a scrap of paper with her email on it. What followed were the years in Seattle, the steam from espresso and conversations fogging the windows of the coffee shop in 65th and Meridian. She was young, I was younger, we were figuring it all out. We were chasing jobs and classes the way some people chase runaway dogs around a city park, we were pressing our hands to our ears to block out the sound of rain. I guess you could say we stayed occupied. We saw each other from time to time.
Then there were years where she lived by the ocean with Ammen, still in Washington but a long ways away now. On college weekends I'd drive out and see her, in a borrowed car, alone or with the various boys who wove in and out of my life. We tramped through the woods in our rain jackets, picked mushrooms and cooked them, pushed through the tangled Northwest blackberry brambles down to hidden beaches on the Olympic Peninsula. She lived on an Indian Reservation; it was a wild place. The dogs that roamed the streets were known to eat other dogs. Her house was very quiet, the beach in Autumn was cold and hard.From time to time she'd come back into the city with Ammen. Ammen and I, back when I was his student and he my teacher, had been all over together- Mexico, New Zealand, Utah. When they'd visit, I'd ride the busses through town to find them- the 78 to the 44 to the restaurant in Ballard, trendy places where the drinks were rimmed with sugar and salt and served in funny glasses. I'd beg them to move to the city, but at the end of each weekend they'd drive away back to the Ocean with their tail lights glowing ruby in the endless drizzle.One day they asked me to paddle the Grand Canyon with them. The three of us flew to Vegas and drove through polygamous country in the back of a pickup truck. It was freezing rain outside, the roads were louge chutes and the river was a monster. When we arrived at the put-in and met up with the others on our trip, the river looked like it would kill us. And I suppose it almost did. That trip changed everything.

For the freezing month of February, we battled rapids one mile deep into the earth, drank whiskey in the evenings as we bandaged frostbitten fingers. Each day lilted past too beautiful, too exhausting to last. Our life spun on an axis which was the river, and our delicate existence upon it. The fear we felt each day as the holes opened up in the river would grow and grow until it reached a crescendo, but somehow the river didn't swallow us, and as evening grew we would melt into the precise rhythm of necessity and bliss of this strangest, most perfect, most arduous river life. Weeks went by. Shadows, rock, salt and bright angel shale flew past.Stephanie and Ammen were engaged, about to be married, and I was falling in love with Will- not an arabesquing free fall out of the sky in love, but a tripping and falling and hitting my head in love. And Steph picked me up and brushed me off over and over. She picked me up and brushed me off the night I got sick and threw up and the crows ate it. She did for me on a number of other strange occurances on that trip. And in between those times we washed our hair naked in the screaming cold Colorado. We chased sunshine paches on rocks like amphibians and held eachother into the raft as we plunged and shot through the enormous rapids.
When the river was done, I said goodbye to Will and we drove back to Vegas through polygamous county in the back of the same pick up truck. Ammen threw up in front of a Johnny Cash impersonator and then we flew back home to Seattle. Finally, finally, Steph and Ammen moved into a floating houseboat on Lake Union near downtown, and in the summer Steph and I would paddle through the lake on our stomachs on a blow up mattress she had found in the dumpster. Ammen and Steph got married and Will kept living in Boone, thousands of miles away from us.
And after that it was just normal life. We did every day things together, mostly sitting in their floating living room and eating food she cooked for us. Watching her cook I decided to go to nutrition school as she had. Friends came and went as easily as the breeze. Stephanie presented me with a birthday cake she made as I lay under the blankets on her couch fighting off a migraine.

Steph is the picture of health. She's rosy and red haired, as you can see. She's half smile and half shoulder muscles. She mountain bikes, kayaks, runs with wolves, you name it. She's just a hurricaine.

But the seasons blended from one to the other, and I decided to move on. I spent my last night in Seattle at the houseboat with just the two of them. We had lived there in Washington on and off for seven years.
And then what happened next.....happened. I'll write about it tomorrow.

This is what happens when I move South

Boone Abandoned

On my first trip to Boone, I dressed up as Winter for a Halloween party. You know...white glitter, vanilla eye shadow, white lingerie that my mother later found in the good will bag, held up by one finger and hollered MELINA WHAT IN HELL IS THIS!
Good people, bad decisions

Anyhow, the town seems to remember me, because I drove North with a fierce winter storm chasing me, as if attached to the antenna of my car like a tremendous kite. The moment I pulled into the driveway, the storm settled in after me.

It's been hailing, icing and snowing for days. The weather is throwing a serious temper tantrum. The grocery stores are closed, the schools are closed, even the bars are closed....and in Appalachia, that means something.

Moving in to my new place has been going less than snappy. My new home is on top of a long, steep, winding driveway, which is one of the things that drew me to the place to begin with. However, the town has not budgeted for plowing, and certainly not plowing nonhazardous private driveways. We will have to wait for it all to melt, then hack apart the fallen trees with a chain saw, before my subaru, Tobias, loaded up with my material life, will make it up. This will probably take a few weeks.
Will and Hometeam descending the driveway from my house

Which means in that for now....is that I'm literally camping in my own house. Sometimes I have power, sometimes I don't. I've taken whatever I can carry from the car- sleeping bag, radio, dog food, and my socks. (I have this thing about socks.) I made a pot of tortilla soup my first day here, and Will and I have been eating off of it for nearly a week now. Yesterday, unable to face the site of it in the bowl, I found all the vegetables in the house, diced them, threw them in the oven and ate those for dinner. Next up is the tortilla chip crumbs, followed by chewing on our leather belts. Good thing we'll be able to soak them in chicken broth first.

Today's look on the bright side equation:
Totally stuck (-) food (-) a way out (-) open grocery stores open =fabulous figure!
(Oh, and it's perfect weather for writing.)

I still can't figure out how I left VERMONT, home of the 'furious and forever' winter, drove 15 hours SOUTH and landed here....not just winter, but pure winter TURMOIL. At least in Vermonters plow the road and are handy with the salt bags!

I know your type, boy!


This conversation just occurred about 2 1/2 minutes ago at the Black Bear Bookstore and Cafe in my new home of Boone, North Carolina.

I walk into the sitting cafe area, a casual setting set up like a living room with a fake fireplace and stuffed chairs. An old man is talking to a young man about investments. With one glance I know the old guy's type- the guy who comes to the cafe without a book, friend or computer, and then preys upon everyone else to be his source of entertainment. With my round face and artless appearance, I've been the victim of this type of person too many times to count. Which is why I've learned never to leave the house without headphones. Even if I don't have anything to listen to, I can shove the sharp end into my pocket and no one is the wiser.

Back to the story, old guy is bantering to young guy about Apple shares and how if only his investment banker would have taken the chance back in 92 to purchase those Apple shares then they'd have 400,000$ now, wouldn't they. It is obvious the conversation, mostly one sided, has been going on for quite some time. Young guy is sitting over a table, trying to read a book, and half heartedly listening. Immediately, I sympathize with young guy.

When I return with my coffee, old guy is getting up and heading outside for a cigarette. Young guy casts me a furtive glance. "I need to go out there to make a phone call, but I know that guy will just bother me." He says.

"Yeah, I bet he will." I said, happy to empathize. Happy, in fact, to be speaking to anyone. I'm new in town.

"Do you know him?" Asks young guy, who is good looking in an Antonio Bandaris sort of way. He's about my age.

I shake my head no. "I don't know him, but I know his type." I smile.

"Well, I don't know him but I don't- I don't think he's GAY!!" Says young guy, backing away from me. Literally, backing away from me. "If that's what you meant!"

I thought -what the hell? I said aloud, "what? the hell?" What was I supposed to say? "I meant- the type of person who talks a lot." But I'm suddenly thinking- is this little conversation inadvertently making me seem homophobic? Do I need to throw in some comment about how if old guy is gay, then I totally support his right to love who he wants to love? Why am I talking to this guy anyway?

"Well, you said you knew his type, that could mean anything." Young guy is walking to the door, throwing his winter coat around his shoulders. I'm still standing there with my mouth open. Young guy is still talking as he steps into the ice storm outside. "I mean, if he is, maybe he is, I don't care cause I'm not that way....I'm not that way AT ALL."

Well, good for you young guy. Good for you.

Vote for Melina in the National Paddling Film Festival!

Dear Hardy Blog Readers,
I submitted this photo into the National Paddling Film Festival still photo competition. It needs your vote! If it makes the top 10, it will be presented at the National Film Festival!
My photo is #9: First Taste of Chilean Seltzer.

To vote, send an email to: npff.image@gmail.com

Include your top three choices. To check out the photos, go to this link!
If you need help, I'm particularly partial to the boy's photo, #12, Coop Entailed:


Vote vote vote! And once you do, let me know! Email me or leave a message on this post, so that I can thank you personally! (melina dot coogan at gmail dot com)

Woohoo! Off to glory!