A tree worth numbering.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Month: January 2019
Caveat: Poem #914 “To do list”
ㅁ break down large problems: go get a box, go through it... one step at a time
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #28
A tree worth numbering.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Caveat: Poem #913 “A territorialization”
ㅁ I sleep on the floor and there's a line around me showing the demons.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #27
Tree twenty-seven, with eagle above.
[daily log: walking, 1km]
Caveat: Poem #912 “A lack of texture”
ㅁ Just days of smooth gray. Just dawns of ice, drizzly air. January ends.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Appliance Repair (?)
Living here along a dirt road in Alaska, when your washing machine breaks, you don’t just call an appliance repair person.
Arthur is used to being mechanically adept, and solving these problems for himself. He takes things apart and figures out the problem and deals with it. He has always had very high skills in this area, and I would say to the extent I have skills such as this at all, I largely “inherited” them from him.
Well, the door latch on the washing machine malfunctioned this morning.
Arthur seemed flumoxed and overwhelmed by it, however. This is his new cognitive state, to some degree. Thus I had to “play Arthur.” I’m pretty happy with the result.
I had to look up how to disassemble the door latch online. There are lots of resources for that kind of thing, these days. I took out the door latch, and called the washing machine’s manufacture about replacement parts. The washing machine is 20 years old. That model is obsolete. It was looking problematic to replace.
I took pictures of the assembly – which I could use to shop for an appropriate replacement, searching online. Here it is. Washing machine door latch mechanism:
I decided, meanwhile, to try tinkering with it a bit. The problem seemed to be the actuator (“detector” of whether the door is closed or not), not the solenoid that locks the door. I wiggled the plastic switch connector, a mechanical relay between where the door latches into the slot and the electronic detector switch (lower left in the second picture, above). I thought maybe the mechanical lever was just misaligned. So I decided what the heck, and put it all back together.
It worked.
I am officially a washing machine repair person. For a few hours, anyway.
Caveat: Tree #26
Here is tree number twenty-six.
Best tree so far.
[daily log: walking, 4km; tromping, 400m]
Caveat: Poem #911 “The multitudes”
ㅁ i dreamed a wide dream teeming with unknown people a hazy sun shone
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #25
Well, there’s always another tree. That’s ice, on the muskeg water behind the tree.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
Caveat: Poem #910 “Demarcations”
ㅁ acres of slow sleep enclosed by fences clocks make the grasses of time
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #24
I’m not doing very well with posting interesting stuff.
I’m spending a lot of time with the moldy boxes my “studio” prepared to greet my return to Alaska. Sigh. I have a lot of “stuff” that’s hard to define. I’m stupid. I don’t get rid of stuff well. I attach little nostalgic memories to everything, reviewing these possessions later queues up those otherwise lost memories. I like that. It’s helps me maintain the narrative of my life. It can be any kind of possession – old t-shirts, knick knacks, notebooks on classes, from high school 10th grade geography to an undergrad class on astrophysics to a graduate seminar on 19th century Argentine literature. All sigh.
Here is a tree.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Poem #909 “A rationalization of the inevitable”
ㅁ She asked, "How are you? Is it raining?" "Yes! the rain occupies the air!" "That leaves little room for sun." "But there are benefits." "Oh? Can you explain?" "It makes a sound." "And that's good?" She frowned. "Yes."
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #23
Here is a new daily tree. It’s a reflection in rain-speckled water, thus a bit impressionistic.
I’m struggling with a relapse of the cold I had for a while during my travels. Not really feeling 100% currently.
Also messing with the damp, moldy boxes from my storage “studio.” Disappointed it didn’t stay as dry inside as I’d hoped.
On a positive note, Arthur made his signature chili last night. It was good.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Caveat: Poem #908 “Automancy”
ㅁ sleep spirals pulls me down and attaches with small, grasping hooks pulls my organs aside trying to find my worries spinning them out like tarot cards reading the divination of dreams
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #22
A twenty-second tree.
We drove into town to go grocery shopping. Arthur forgot his wallet. He was very grumpy about that.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Caveat: Poem #907 “The kids these days”
ㅁ alaska in slang: free range insane asylum; the nine oh seven
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #21
Here is tree number twenty-one.
This tree is quite young.
Arthur and I got the water filter fixed this morning.
I’m feeling a bit discouraged because I decided to check on the contents of my “studio” (the storage tent in the yard) and realized that although well-sealed, the condensation moisture on the inside has been substantial enough to damage some of what was in there. I’m going to have to deal with that.
But first: procrastination!
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Caveat: Poem #906 “As potholes will do”
ㅁ there are the potholes, each day, gaping and smirking, tasting the trucks' tires
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #20
Here is tree number twenty.
This morning, I placed the Rockpit, AK, sign that Arthur’s friend Wayne had given him for Christmas. Now our “town” is properly identified.
Midday, we drove into town because we have a leaky water filter we’re trying to fix, a problem that appeared when we reactivated the water supply after our long absence.
On our walk this afternoon, I saw Arthur sitting on a rock. He looked like a cantankerous forest gnome.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
Caveat: Poem #905 “In silhouette”
ㅁ Tall, distant, hanging back beneath gray skies, a typical tree hunkers down and faces a glowering gale, groping the nourishing ground with its roots. The ground reaches back, lifting the tree up on its back
– a reverse nonnet with a small trunk.
Caveat: Tree #19 and some pictures
I had a kind of reunion with Arthur’s property here.
I went on a full circuit walk around the corners of the two lots. That sounds trivial, but in the highly overgrown, damp, boggy and slashy hillsides, it’s a major undertaking. I call it “tromping” as opposed to just walking or hiking.
I found the two strings I’d placed on the southern (uphill) property lines still intact, after 2 months of neglect. You can see the neon-green bits of string in these pictures.
I took a picture of Sunnahae (“sunny hae”) mountain, with its snow, from up the hill.
Later Arthur and I resumed our daily walks down the road to the east. I found my “rock folly” (a random collection of found objects) at the mile 8 bridge still there.
I took some pictures along the road.
Here is tree nineteen.
Here are some additional pictures from the time in Ketchikan, yesterday.
A trailer park with a view.
The dam at the Ketchikan reservoir, Carlanna Lake.
Sunset from the Hollis ferry.
[daily log: walking, 4km; tromping, 500m]
Caveat: Poem #904 “The textures of a place”
ㅁ the bumps in the road the warm silhouettes of trees the welcoming rain
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: 11034 miles (17757 km)
My trip odometer was 11034 miles (17757km) since departing home 63 days ago. That’s a lot of driving. And now I’m home. I think I’ll do absolutely nothing for a few days. A vacation to recover from my vacation. Hah.
Here is a tree I saw while taking walk in Ketchikan as Arthur and I waited for the Hollis ferry.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
Caveat: Poem #903 “America”
ㅁ America's edge beetles downward, descending continental slopes, surveying seething waters, and removing her clothes, while whales bite her toes; she tumbles and bounds into cold, bold sea. Sea leaps up, seething forth, frothing, angry, grasping at legs, arms, ready to dismember the hopes and dreams of calm trees, which present themselves with aplomb - even a grave, introspective joy. Joy's easy on the jumping ocean: bits of water weave the chill air, the great boat's steel keel grinds, thrusts, climbs green-gray, kelpy hills and beats down the beast, the humped, formless, torturous, wanton foam. Foam wraps 'round, entangles her lissome limbs: she surrenders to the sea's suggestions, embracing the chaotic frozen surges of lost borders. The edge undefines America.
– a nonnets and reverse-nonnets enchained into a longer poem.
Caveat: Tree #17
A distant, daily tree.
Caveat: Poem #902 “A few seconds later”
ㅁ a boat plows water into hills on either side but time erodes them
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #16
Arthur and I drove north from Forest Grove, Oregon, to Bellingham, Washington.
I saw this tree, with truck, at a rest area off I-5 near Centralia, WA.
We arrived in Bellingham and checked in to our ferry with Alaska Marine Highway. Our boat will be the M/V Columbia.
I saw this view of the area of Bellingham called Fairhaven from the dock – this used to be an independent town but has been absorbed by Bellingham. Bellingham reminds me a lot of Eureka, California (a town of my childhood).
We boarded the boat right at dusk.
This blog post posted from a floating boat, just underway.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km; driving, 500km]
Caveat: Poem #901 “From Oregon to Alaska”
ㅁ okay oregon i guess i'm headed home now off to alaska
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #15
Here is tree number fifteen – from yesterday.
Today I was too busy. Here are some horses in the next door field, saying hi at the gate.
I went to the mechanic (for the Blueberry). I went to meet my friend Raven in Portland – I went to elementary school with Raven.
I went to get the car cleaned in the afternoon. And Arthur and I went to Costco. I spent the evening packing.
Tomorrow, we leave for Bellingham, whence we take the ferry to Ketchikan. Headed home.
[daily log: walking, 1km]
Caveat: Poem #900 “Cloudy with a chance of epiphany”
ㅁ clouds hover, grasping trees resolving doubts introducing truths pandering to aesthetes by concocting fractal curves odd turns of visual phrasing that open the mind to redemption
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #14
The fourteenth tree. Or maybe there is more than one tree in this photo?
Arthur and I are starting to get ready for our departure back up to Alaska.
[daily log: walking, 5km]
Caveat: Poem #899 “Passage”
ㅁ it stands like a frame within are random branches a gate into green
– a pseudo-haiku.