I had hoped I'd never blog about blogging, but I have to tell you this: I absolutely LOVE the way my stats tell me what countries all of you hail from. You see, I haven't been so lucky to have traveled as much as I would like. Let's just say that, given an opportunity to live in another country, I'd do it, but Mike wouldn't. Mike is a homebody.
Here's the lowdown on my traveling. I've been to 48 states minus Hawaii and Louisiana. It feels as if I've left two of the most interesting ones for last. Can you believe that I've been to all of those states in the middle? Well, when you're born in Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky are destination points. Really. I mean, Chicago? Obviously. The great lakes wrapping Michigan are amazing, especially to a little girl who had never seen an ocean. Ohio has Six Flags Great Adventure and mountains on its East side. And Kentucky wins with my favorite camping experiences at Rough River Reservoir near Louisville.
Growing up in Indiana, I loved the way the dawn was purple over golden corn stubble through my grandma's kitchen window. I loved that you could see a whole farm on a hillside, all painted red with white trim. I loved the way you could walk through the forest, hearing the sound of leaves crunching underfoot.
I lived in New Jersey for ten years. I miss the Great Swamp, the hundred year old mansion where I had an apartment, the care given to tiny lawns. I miss bagels and pizza and Taylor ham. I miss the people, forthright and family oriented. In my twenties, I was adopted by two families in New Jersey and I could walk through their doors today and find a home.
Now, I'm home in the Pacific Northwest. It's wet and cool here. It suits me, all the green that comes from weather like this. I love that Mt Rainier seems to float on a cloud, that Mt. Baker is a perfect cone shape, that the Olympics lie over water. I love all the water around here. I love the gold and pink glow of the sunset when it's clear.
As for the rest of my list, the countries I've visited is intolerably short. I've been to Canada, the Bahamas, Antigua, and Ireland. Yes, it is a very small list, but I'll tell you that each one of these places is amazing. There's a story in every one of these trips that I hope to tell you sometime.
I went through a phase during which I read travel books and history from places where I wanted to go. I read about trying to ride a train in China, about living in Tuscany, about pianos in Paris, and about the history of Dublin. I live vicariously, imagining myself at an outdoor cafe in France, sipping espresso. Sometimes I studied the art and food from a particular place in hopes of going there and getting the full experience. And I talk to the people I know who have returned from a place, almost reluctant to feel the longing I have to go there as well.
So the stats for my blog feed my imagination. I admit that I google images from the places that show up there. The beaches, the canals, the mountains, and, oh yes, the castles. I ache to visit these places. Today, my blog was visited by someone in South Africa. Our pharmacist is from South Africa. She's the best. One day, I got to playing with Google Earth while I waited in line for her. When it was my turn, she showed me her house. It was a beautiful, a coastal area. She said she grew up swimming every day. Can you imagine that?
I love my list twenty-one countries from which people have stopped by to read. I imagine one day going to each place on this list and I will see beaches and mountains and homes. But best of all, I'll talk to people. I love talking to people, and there, I'll find the heart of the countryside.
Thank you for listening, jb
Showing posts with label Google Earth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google Earth. Show all posts
Friday, July 8, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Rain
I burned my boy's toast. I dropped the cat's food upside down on the kitchen floor. I'm still loopy from my virus, so bear with me. Yesterday was a wash since I slept like a cat, but today I feel just well enough to do things badly.
It's raining again. My friends have been complaining about the rain. "That's what you get for moving from California to the Pacific Northwest," I tell them. They're not all from California and I'm not exactly sympathetic. I like the weather here most of the time. It's generally a misty rain, not a downpour. The damp weather is the reason that Starbucks originated here and not in California. People here want to walk around with a warm drink in their hands.
When you live where it's so very green, the reason is usually lots of rain. Most of the deciduous trees outside my window have moss growing on their branches. Some even have licorice fern growing in their elbows. My boy tells me that's the understory. There are four levels to the temperate rainforest, he tells me as he points: the forest floor, the shrub layer, the understory, and the canopy. I love that I can learn from my boy. I look out my window to the understory, all verdant and dripping with jewels of raindrops. I would swear that if I put a clean rock outside in the fall, it would have moss growing on it by spring. I like that.
I didn't grow up here. This weather, even after living here for twenty years, still feels exotic to me. I grew up in the Midwest. It was dry and cold in the winter and hot and humid in the summer. The best part about where I grew up were the small steep hills that were dropped by the glaciers in the last ice age. Hills are at a premium in the Midwest. I also like that you can walk straight through the forest without a path. As a child, I used to look off into the distance and see clouds on the horizon. My mind sometimes tried to interpret them as distant mountains. Here, the mountains often look like clouds in the distance. Once in a while, I look out my window and think, 'I live here.' I try not to take it for granted.
In the Pacific Northwest, you don't walk the woods easily without a path. The sword ferns are waist deep and the rest of the brush is thick, usually with Oregon grape, bracken, thimbleberry, salal, vine maple and snowberry. Even if you're off the trail, you unknowingly push through on an animal's trail and hold your elbows at shoulder height. The ground is usually very soft and without high top shoes, your socks will get wet.
When I look up my house on Google Earth or Google Maps, Street level, all I see are trees. I can tell I'm on the right road. The satellites show my road through the trees. And I recognize our neighbor's deck. But where my house should be is green, green, green. This isn't the kind of area where you try to grow things in your yard. Instead, you try not to grow things in your yard. It's a battlefield out there, my friend. If I could hear it, I know those plants would be rushing forward, screaming, and clashing their swords in their battle for territory. Humans are not the only warriors on this planet.
When we first bought our house, I tried to climb the hill into our back yard. For every step up in the dirt, I would slide back three or four inches. When the weather got wet, it was worse. I stopped going up at all when I learned that we live in a slide zone. We are lucky that we've never had a slide behind our house, but we don't do much to the ground or plants back there any more because of our fear of destabilizing it. We were told that the mountain beaver who make little condos behind our house seem to know what is stable and what is not. I'm glad they know more about the geology here than I do. After twenty years, I have learned that our area supports two kinds of places, flood plains and slide zones. Great place for real estate, huh?
Some people here get tired of the rain. It's not a great place to live if you don't like being dripped on. It is a great place to live if you need to look out your window into the understory, with the moss, the ferns, and the nesting birds.
Thank you for listening, jb
It's raining again. My friends have been complaining about the rain. "That's what you get for moving from California to the Pacific Northwest," I tell them. They're not all from California and I'm not exactly sympathetic. I like the weather here most of the time. It's generally a misty rain, not a downpour. The damp weather is the reason that Starbucks originated here and not in California. People here want to walk around with a warm drink in their hands.
When you live where it's so very green, the reason is usually lots of rain. Most of the deciduous trees outside my window have moss growing on their branches. Some even have licorice fern growing in their elbows. My boy tells me that's the understory. There are four levels to the temperate rainforest, he tells me as he points: the forest floor, the shrub layer, the understory, and the canopy. I love that I can learn from my boy. I look out my window to the understory, all verdant and dripping with jewels of raindrops. I would swear that if I put a clean rock outside in the fall, it would have moss growing on it by spring. I like that.
I didn't grow up here. This weather, even after living here for twenty years, still feels exotic to me. I grew up in the Midwest. It was dry and cold in the winter and hot and humid in the summer. The best part about where I grew up were the small steep hills that were dropped by the glaciers in the last ice age. Hills are at a premium in the Midwest. I also like that you can walk straight through the forest without a path. As a child, I used to look off into the distance and see clouds on the horizon. My mind sometimes tried to interpret them as distant mountains. Here, the mountains often look like clouds in the distance. Once in a while, I look out my window and think, 'I live here.' I try not to take it for granted.
In the Pacific Northwest, you don't walk the woods easily without a path. The sword ferns are waist deep and the rest of the brush is thick, usually with Oregon grape, bracken, thimbleberry, salal, vine maple and snowberry. Even if you're off the trail, you unknowingly push through on an animal's trail and hold your elbows at shoulder height. The ground is usually very soft and without high top shoes, your socks will get wet.
When I look up my house on Google Earth or Google Maps, Street level, all I see are trees. I can tell I'm on the right road. The satellites show my road through the trees. And I recognize our neighbor's deck. But where my house should be is green, green, green. This isn't the kind of area where you try to grow things in your yard. Instead, you try not to grow things in your yard. It's a battlefield out there, my friend. If I could hear it, I know those plants would be rushing forward, screaming, and clashing their swords in their battle for territory. Humans are not the only warriors on this planet.
When we first bought our house, I tried to climb the hill into our back yard. For every step up in the dirt, I would slide back three or four inches. When the weather got wet, it was worse. I stopped going up at all when I learned that we live in a slide zone. We are lucky that we've never had a slide behind our house, but we don't do much to the ground or plants back there any more because of our fear of destabilizing it. We were told that the mountain beaver who make little condos behind our house seem to know what is stable and what is not. I'm glad they know more about the geology here than I do. After twenty years, I have learned that our area supports two kinds of places, flood plains and slide zones. Great place for real estate, huh?
Some people here get tired of the rain. It's not a great place to live if you don't like being dripped on. It is a great place to live if you need to look out your window into the understory, with the moss, the ferns, and the nesting birds.
Thank you for listening, jb
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