chasing the sun

The Alturas Lake Camping Crew: Fisher, Beach, BC, and Land.  These were are eclipse chasers.  BC and Beach drove up from Utah. Land drove in from Montana. They met up with Fisher who was already at Smiley Creek, Idaho.  Fish is up there working for the 2nd summer in a row. 

All these pics are off the iPhone.  I had Beach send me her favorite.  What I love about that is we get to see the trip 100% from her point of view. 

 You can see what matters the most to her.  In these photos I can see how much she adores her older brother and how much she loves her dad.  While they were gone I had a vast stretch of silence to think in.  I had moments of coming face to face with my past.  What I know is BC and I have done something really right here- with her, with us, with them.

 Late last night I was on the phone with Conner when there was a knock at my front door.  I asked him to stay on the phone with me while I checked it out.  I crept down the stairs.  Through the glass of the front door was the most perfect picture: Beach and BC standing on the front porch.  Locked out and wanting back in, they had drove home a day early.

I wish I could have seen Land.  I would love to get to walk beside him again. All I can hope is that this trip reminds him of the other possibilities out there.  I know the math is complex.  To meet up it would require 2 people with commitment issue, 2 people who question the stability of BC's master plans, to both be brave & ditch our jobs at the same time.  This weekend's win went to Land.

 This crazy crew watched the total eclipse from the zone of totality together.

While I watched moon shadows dance like aspen leaves in the wind on the stones of the fire pit in our yard.  For the first half I sat on the phone with Sarah each of us bathing in our own view of the strange light.  The second half of the eclipse, I spent in my own silence.

 Life is about choices.  Life is about experiences. 

What I missed and what I gained this weekend should equal out in the end. 

 After their late night surprise-mom-return, after the remains of the cooler was put away, and after they both showered we laid down in our bed together.  This is us, Beach between us, all legs and sharp points.

After she left from her own bed BC pulled me in tight. 

He held me in a way he hasn't in long time. 

 Holding onto me as if he thought we would never see each other again. As if he was seeing me through the light of a past sun.  As if he believed in me in a way he had forgotten to do a long time ago. I wonder what part Land had to play in that.

 The difference between chasing the moon and the sun is,

when you chase the sun you catch it.

"Sometimes I look a the Moon, and I imagine that those darker spots are caverns, cities, islands, and the places that shine are those where the sea catches the light of the sun like the glass of a mirror..." ~Umberto Eco

for the love of a slow walk down the J trail

walking the shoreline

I am too sick too hike. But with nothing but time spilling out ahead of me I had to do something so I went for a walk. BC has taken Beach to Idaho to see Fisher in Smiley Creek.  They will stay through the weekend to see the solar eclipse on Monday. They won't return to Utah until Tuesday. 

That's a lot of time left to me.

 I waited until after dinner, waited for rush hour traffic to die down.  Then I loaded up the dog and drove across town to the shoreline trail.  We walked slowly through the tall grass.  I could lie and say it was really great but it wasn't.  It was hot and I am pretty damn sick.  The heat and the dust, a fever & a sore throat, they don't all go well together... but it was beautiful.

The kind of beautiful you can forget exists.

 In the last true light of the day I looked back out over the SLC valley.  The interstate seems to flow west like a river of gold.  It bleeds out into the haze of desert dust and city heat.  At the end of it all far, far away a lake so ablaze with the colors of the sky it looks like it is on fire.

Now, let's go home.

the return of Baby J and her family

They drove 4 days.  Across 9 states.  They stayed in cheap motels and ate on the road.  They called late and they called early to let us know where they were: a hotel in Georgia, somewhere in Missouri, all the way across Nebraska, through Wyoming, and across the Utah state line....

 
They drove 4 days to move back home.

Welcome back to Utah, Conner, Lexi, & Baby J!

walking back to school

As I sit down to think about what to write about the beginning of school this year I can clearly see the image in my mind of 6 year old Beach playing on the floor.  Around her a recreation of James Towns created from a hybrid mix of blocks and Playmobil. 

That was our Kindergarten on the first Monday after I withdrew her from school.  Three months of state school and state rules had been enough for both of us.

I remember walking her home in the middle of the day from school.  She had been the only half day kindergartener out of 3 classes, 23 students each.  She had been the only kid reading in her class.  The one arguing for taking home library books.  The only one not eating school lunch- the only one who threw-up on the first day because of the smell of the cafeteria food.

I would walk her to school in the morning and a few hours later return to walk her home.  That day she was complaining again about the unfair rules, about group-think, about the baby playground, the standing in line, about the slow pace the classroom moved.

It was October.  Grapes left on the vines that over-poured the fence lines on 10th scented the street with sticky sweetness.  The Oregon grape and oaks were turning.  The stubborn Elms holding green.  The sidewalk was a mecca of tiny twigs and fallen chestnuts.

"Beach, would it break your heart if you stopped going to school?" I asked her as she stooped to pick something up off the ground.

"No, Mom, it would set my heart free."

That was 8 years ago.  On Tuesday, quietly and without fanfare she started 8th grade.  It began on my bed.  Soft August sunlight drifting through the window pooling on the blankets.  Together we listening to Selective Shorts: Curiouser & Curiouser, A Celebration Of Alice In Wonderland.

Later, Beach researched her latest project, her Browning Box camera.  We played board games, we baked, and we read.

On the second day of 8th grade she wasn't even here. Beach and 2 other friends had a sleepover that spilled out into the mall the next day.  Beach spent her time shopping and lunching.  She used her debit card to buy a shirt and a pair of tiny shorts.  She figured out how to split the price of "buy one get one" sales between the 3 girls.  Noted to us later that she had covered the tax because it had been too hard to explain to the others at the time.

Today is the third day of 8th grade.  First on the schedule is to review the Utah State Fair Photography rules and begin preparing her entries.

Baby J and her family have moved back home to Utah (!!!!).  A fieldtrip to their new little blue house only a few minutes away is a must.  There will be reading and writing and a sit down hot lunch.

6 yr old Beach blowing bubbles at a Brownies science camp U of U

On Tuesday of next week we will get serious.  Math, Science, and Shakespeare will come out but until then we are slowing, peacefully, taking our walk back to school.

 E. Beach Ries

Grade 8