Miscellaneous

Currently

by erin |

It is wildfire season. Our view of distant glaciers is thin, gauzy. I’ve grown to rely on the strength of our landscape, these towering mountains keeping watch, standing still, a merciful comfort when things feel hard. But today, they are silent. The kids and I take turns grasping at the right words for the precise color of this nicotine sky. Dishwater? Sour milk? 

Like the end of a bruise, we all agree.

At night, we sleep with the windows shut tight, beads of sweat behind our knees. We wake up wild-eyed with restlessness to find ash on our cereal bowls. We eat inside on the floor, play a round of Old Maid, take turns cooling our necks in front of the box fan, watch the sky.

I call a friend and she listens to my account of the choreographed trapeze act required to get a meal on the table. I catch myself referencing our outdoor kitchen and stop short, realizing she’s picturing a happy little brick pizza oven, jute rug, maybe string lights? I attempt an explanation:

We have a grill, yes, yes, it’s back-heavy, the eggs spill northwest and I have to chase them back to center before they run off the side and onto the deck. Yes! A deck! The one we built last summer? No, no stairs off that one side yet, so we have a weird little plank we screwed down for the slope – not quite stable, no – so I walk that a few times to get my ingredients from the shipping container – oh gosh, like a soccer field away? – yep, well, that’s where the fridge is because there’s power over there… keep a few dry ingredients in the cabin, but you know, mice, and I have a little prep station for chopping – just a folding card table with the cheeriest little tablecloth that, well, every now and then, it catches the wind and sails straight off into the trees – yeah, the table, too!… the kids chase ’em down like little houseware shepherds.

(You know you could just ditch the idea of a tablecloth, my husband said to me last week, as if I am a stranger to him, as if moving a few states away might mean I’ll finally choose function over form, as if I have not spent the past twenty-five years by his side fluffing pillows and rearranging flatware in times of great duress. )

I tell her of the sink we rescued from a friend’s yard en route to the dump, for which we attached a garden hose in lieu of a faucet. I describe the dish rack that brings me great joy, the ScrubDaddy that is for sure leaching microplastics but is the best thing I’ve found yet for caked-on granola in the absence of hot water. The electric skillet with the broken handle, the single wooden spoon, the knives in need of sharpening – where did we pack the honing steel? – the borrowed garage shelving to hold it all.

She laughs and laughs, says she can picture it all. She promises to remind me – someday, when I’m sitting on a comfy armchair in a warm home with running water and real floors and finished drywall and – gasp! – window treatments – that it was hard but it was good, and that we laughed when it mattered.

We fish out the soccer net from storage, let our son conquer us all. My daughter dries mullein flowers. For our breathing, she says. 

The children battle thistles. I split logs and we all stack cords. Even the youngest finds splinters in her laundered socks. I make blackberry and feta pizza, a pile of leftover rosemary potatoes on top. It’s what we had in the fridge, I hedge. But it’s delicious.

On trips into town, we visit our common haunts: the skate park, church, impromptu visits to friends. At the library, my 5-year-old and I squat over a light table with polished stones and miniature pond figurines atop, a tiny glass habitat scattered along the surface. We’ll line the birds up, one by one, make a little gemstone parade and I’ll think, Look at us, getting our ducks in a row.

Before the fires rage, before the air quality prevents it, we meet friends at the lake on a hot afternoon. We’ll be there between 1 and 3, they say, and I smile at the laissez faire time frame. They arrive after 2, and I’m grateful I brought a book.

Later, I reference this in an interview with a Harvard student working on her debut book about tech and Gen Z. Believe it or not, I say, there are areas in the world – even right here in America! – where cell service is unavailable. Around here, smartphones regularly display an SOS warning where 5G used to be. The result is an existence that is at first maddening, then refreshing. Technology becomes right-sized. You use it when you have it, don’t when you don’t. The world feels proportionate again, as if the axis is no longer tilting toward omniscience. We all get to be a little inefficient with our days, get to be late, get to be wrong, get to be quiet.

Sounds kind of wild, she says.

At night, my youngest and I read Betsy-Tacy, and soon, Tib. She asks which is the one with the braids again, which is the one with the curls, and she needs to know it’s the same each time. Still with the curls? she’ll say. Still with the curls, I’ll assure her. You’re sure? I’m sure.

One night, I hear her humming God Only Knows as she falls asleep. When she’s awake, she mixes up the lyrics. If you should ever need me / Well darling, I’ll go out, believe me / You never need to route it / I’ll make you so sure about it.

Later she’ll play dress-up in my clothes, hems dragging down dusty trails, still seeking small certainties. I’m Tacy, she’ll say. No curls, right?

The Monday before Ken’s birthday, I greet him with the mug that says Waterton Park, a gift from friends, a place we’ve never been. Every morning this week, I proudly declare, you’ll have a lukewarm dirty chai awaiting you before your feet have hit the floor. I push two cardboard boxes containing bamboo toilet paper to the side of his bed. And a nightstand to put it on!

He laughs; we both do. The day before, we’d toured a new-build nearby, a luxury log cabin with no expense spared, the vacation home of soon-to-be neighbors who plan to retire on our side of the mountain. A dog-washing station! we admire. A whole room for cold storage! Two walk-out decks and a walk-in coffee bar! We applaud the couple on their ability to cross the finish line from many states away, on the long list of details to sort out, decisions to make, crews to manage.

It’ll be worth it, they tell us, and we nod knowingly, recognizing we’ve been saying the same for four summers, that we’ll have another few to go before our own hard work comes to fruition. 

But today, the week of my husband’s birthday, I tell him I’d rather live in these old leaky cabins for the next 45 years if it means doing it slowly, together, as a family.

He smiles, eyes wet. But did you see the cold storage room? 

What I’m learning is this: It’s difficult to terraform raw land, to renovate a life that you dearly loved. Why change what was working just fine? Why risk the safe assurance you once held to in search for something that might fall short? God only knows, why reroute it?

It feels a little like taking the long way home, I imagine. You could get turned around, sure. Lose your way, waste time. 

Or, you could find yourself on a road you’d not yet dreamed of, one with a majestic view only Bierstadt had shown you, lined with mullein the whole way through.

For breathing, your daughter might say.

This morning, we wake to clean cereal bowls. Look at the mountains, my son says. They’re back! I forgot what they looked like!

I almost had, too.

  • Oh friend . . . I love you. I’m always awed and intrigued by your adventure of building, making a way, and hunting for the beauty among the ashes, as it would be currently. Of course you have a tablecloth, that the trees could be so lucky! and I imagine sprigs of flowers in a little jar set someplace. You guys are building something beautiful ~ in many ways. ♥️

    • I love you, friend! And ha – you are very right about sprigs of wildflowers at the ready! You’ll see someday when we’re Sheri ready. :) Thank you for such encouragement — you are so, so dear to me.

  • Going out on a limb. That’s what I call moving forward into territory that sane people look at you like your bolts are all loose, maybe even gone.
    I’m contemplating the limb more and more at the ripe age of, let me just say, after retirement age.
    And you, Erin are giving me the nudge to move closer to that limb.
    Stay safe, you and your family.

    • BEAUTIFUL, Gayle. So much love to you. Praying blessings over your new limb – may it be strong enough for your every dream.

  • Such a beautiful glimpse into your new life, and reminds me of books like Dear Mad’m about the joys a woman experiences as she trades city life for a miners cabin, and Henry and the Great Society, a fable about the cost to humanity of progress.
    So much love to you and prayers that the air would clear and your family would continue in peace and health.

    • Thank you, my friend! I’m off to add both of these titles to my library list! Love your recommendations so. :)

  • two posts in a month… I am UNDONE!!!! I love reading your words and feel happy knowing these updates on your sweet family.

    • Ah, thank you, Heather! Must be the fresh air out here (or more likely, the early bedtimes, ha!).

  • I just love your writing! Thank you for sharing your perspective on living slowly & low-tech (without a paid subscription needed). A blessing! Truly.

  • Erin, your writing is so necessary and refreshing. Thanks for taking the time to notice your thoughts, jot them down, and share them with us. PTL for cell service ;)

  • I found your book in my cabinet this summer and read it for a second time. I am in a purging season – my last child is leaving for college, my oldest is 3 years gone. I am so glad you are writing – I love your voice. It reminds me that we are all stepping out on the limbs of change and new stories. I am holding my breath and wiping my eyes as I move out on mine.

  • Thank you for sharing your wonderful journey, Erin. Your writing is delightful and inspiring. The best thing in my inbox.

    Blessings,
    Denise… at home in the hills of southern Indiana. Our fires are tripping transformers against the night sky this week. My slumber ceased at the sound of muddled voices outside my window. Two linemen flashing their lights towards the sky…chasing the line to the cause of failure. The hallway lights came on again at 5:15 AM …so thankful for their tenacity and hard work. The lightening, rolling thunder, history-making rainfalls , and wild winds have certainly made their mark in the state for days on end.
    PS: I cannot image waking to ashes in my cereal bowl. But slow and simple sounds wonderful.

    • Oh Denise – this was beautifully written, and my heart has been with you Hoosiers! My hometown is quite waterlogged and I’m hearing news of the community coming together in lovely ways as they rebuilt. But oh, it is not easy indeed. Blessings to you as you recover and move toward normalcy, or some sense of the word. Sending big hugs in the meantime.

  • Erin, what a joy to see you in my little inbox. It sounds like you are finding peace and provision on the other side of our same mountain. Reading the same books and foraging the same flowers too. How beautiful to have you put words of reflection to this wondrous life! Many turns have been wandered through over the past decade of living west for us, can’t wait to read more of yours <3

    • Oh Sam – a blast from the past! So lovely to see your name here, and I wish you much yarrow on your side of the mountain! :)

  • Dearest Erin – such a mixture of emotions you bring out of me with your recent essays. Jealousy that you sold your home – I’ve been trying to sell since 2022 to move forward into my last chapter of life. Love that you are onto your new family chapter really putting slow living and low tech into everyday practise in the mountains. I’ve wanted to build a passive (green) small home for sometime, somewhere where I can plant fruit trees, raise my own veggies and chickens. Hasn’t happen so far – I wonder if it will at all as I get further into my 7th decade. Not all dreams are realized no matter how well my intentions may be.
    Recently we had days of being shut in too due to smoke in the air (I agree the eerie smoke filled light does resemble a yellowish green bruise!) Its then, I am grateful for A/C hoping less harmful particles will not fill my senior dogs lungs or mine. I pray no harm seen and unseen to all of us as this season of fire is upon us. Then I can’t help wondering how did we get here? Is this karma for a century of colonialism? Ignoring those who stewarded Mother Earth before settlers arrived and still are arriving in our retirement as though we are entitled because we worked hard following white culture? Many of us want a little patch of land to shape and mould in support of our believes and opinions while also having an easier lifestyle – but can we have it all? I have no answers – all I can do is wait, observe with a willingness to learn new ways of being.
    Thank you Erin for sharing your observations and thoughts and making space for us to respond. I love how you take me back to the idle moments of swimming peacefully in the lake alongside my now perimenopausal daughters.
    Much gratitude to you Erin for your considered writing – brings much to ponder and perhaps make those changes.

    • Oh Susan – always lovely to hear from you and always love the questions you pose! I will hope for (and with!) that your home sells, to the right person, in the right time. And I can’t attest to much here and certainly don’t have the answers, but I do know, without a doubt, we cannot have it all – a patch of land, ease, or otherwise. We can merely have what is in front of us, and also what we’re willing to walk toward/run after, but even that is – ultimately – not in our control, nor power. Feels like a crapshoot when you think about it! But I’m learning to find peace in it… slowly. :) Blessings to you, friend.

  • Not being up to speed, until the very end, I thought your home had burned in the wildfires. Good to know it’ a self imposed hardship, with blessings along the way.

    • Ah, yes, our cabins are safe and sound and as tiny as they ever were. :) But we are grateful! Blessing indeed.

  • Sweet Erin, It’s always a joy to see what your doing next reading this makes me wonder how so many are impacted by natures wild fires. Here we’re having tornadoes, derechos and flooding. It’s been a wild summer that we are gratefully surviving. Wishing you and yours many hugs.❤️

    • Hi Teta! You’re right – it has been such a wild summer. We’re praying for rain over here while – back in my hometown – historic flash floods washed away our neighbors’ belongings. It’s difficult to wrap your head around, isn’t it? But “gratefully surviving” is a wonderful way to think of it.

  • Sweet Erin, It’s always a joy to see what your doing next reading this makes me wonder how so many are impacted by natures wild fires. Here we’re having tornadoes, derechos and flooding. It’s been a wild summer that we are gratefully surviving. Wishing you and yours many hugs.❤️

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