I drove from Los Angeles to Central Oregon by myself for the first time, in the earlier half of this month. That’s thirteen-hours, one way. And driving during the day was delightful, easy, half the trip passed in no time at all. Driving at night, on the other hand, was an uninspiring test of my determination to complete the whole trek in a single day. At night, I missed what in my opinion is the only thing that makes a long drive bearable: the experience of seeing the world from a new vantage point, in a new angle of light, full of new detail.
The hills, covered in dried golden grasses, that roll alongside the I-5 — almost an optical illusion: if I didn’t look too closely, they might have been sand dunes and the Central Valley a desert. The signs in Avenal, California, welcoming drivers to the “Pistachio Capital of the World,” then notifying them of the presence of its state prison, which seemed out of place. The groves of citrus trees, in neat and endless rows. The open-air truck beds piled so high with tomatoes that fruit bounced from them onto the pavement at every uneven spot in the road. The way everything turned a brighter green suddenly, as I approached Sacramento County.
Driving southward a week later, I saw everything I had missed when the sun set behind the peaks that line the Interstate halfway through my trip northward. The Collier Logging and Train Mountain Railroad Museums, where I would have stopped, if I hadn’t been determined to make the trip in a single day again. The mountains formed on the horizon around misty Upper Klamath Lake — so blue, they looked like part of the sky, as if it had simply concentrated into distinct darker-blue peaks near the earth. The almost-full Corn Moon hanging in a pale purple sky over a ranch. The vultures all the way home, ever-present in this passing season of driving.
On a Mill Pond
With three friends, I took a more familiar (and more eventful) drive to and from Bishop, California, in the later half of this month. The four hour trip we started took seven hours in the end — complete with a roadside jam, standing outside the car on the temporarily-closed Route 395, and an after-midnight detour on a back road, which a rainstorm earlier in the day had turned into an obstacle course of rock and uneven mud. Just before four o’clock in the morning, we arrived at the Millpond Recreation Area, set up as little of our camping gear as possible, and went to sleep with droplets of water falling on the quilt we threw over our tent as a makeshift rainfly. We woke up a few hours later to a view of the Eastern Sierras shrouded in the clouds of a still-overcast morning, on the first day of the 33rd Annual Millpond Music Festival.
I bought my ticket to Millpond without fully knowing what to expect. My friend’s invitation said, “You can’t miss this festival. It’s an outdoor venue with the mountain range in full view” and “This trip for the last couple years has been amazing.” That was all it took to convince me: the promise of good music and waking up in a tent — two of my favorite things. He was right too: Millpond was perfect. A long weekend of mostly folk and bluegrass and Americana bands, nestled in the mountains just outside the town of Bishop. It was one of the loveliest weekends I’ve spent this year.
More friends joined our group during the weekend, and while everyone else volunteered back stage on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, I spread out my picnic blanket and started reading another western novel between bands. At dusk, the setting sun threw a halo of golden light over the mountains, just behind the stage. When the festival’s music ended each evening, we’d sit in a circle and the musicians among us would take turns calling the next song for the group to pick through and piece together. And, in the dark, when the instruments had been put away and the campground had fallen silent, we’d walk under the Milky Way in awe of all the stars we can’t see at home.
And that would have been enough, but this trip also took place during the same weekend as the autumn equinox. And it felt really special to be outside for all of that weekend and to feel part of something bigger and more beautiful, to be with people who make me feel loved and accepted, to meet new friends, to bring something to the table, to contribute the lyrics I knew while everyone made music together, to know that time is passing and seasons are changing and there are threads that run through all of it.
An Open Door
There’s a change coming. I’ve been feeling it for weeks — something momentous in the offing. Good change, or heavy change, or only change? Just the shifting of seasons? Something known and unknown — rushing in and out — a breath of autumn blowing away the last hot days of summer? Or something that seems more significant? Something unwieldy to cope with or something ripped from my hands? Or —
I wrote that last September, unaware of just how much would change in the year that followed. Then, I felt a change in the air, and I was apprehensive — anxious to know what was coming, to plan for it, to manage it, and to put my life back in order again as quickly as possible once it had come.
I’ve spent years trying to feel in control of my life — trying to hold onto that illusion. Trying to keep things settled and defined and organized, avoiding things that might not be what I thought they were, reducing uncertainty at all costs. It’s often still my first instinct — to predict the future and proactively tie up the loose ends. Only days ago, I sat in the Workshop Tent at Millpond, considering all the things in my life that are in motion now, wanting to know exactly where everything is going to land, wanting to know what I’ll harvest from all that’s grown up in my life this summer. And I was uneasy and distracted, because I wanted to know the answers in that moment, and in that moment I realized that I cause myself a lot of heartache by trying to know now. Trying to anticipate and prepare for and protect myself from change, trying to make decisions for a future that isn’t real yet. Missing out on the joy and the rightness in this moment.
Now, I’m feeling it again, a change coming. And, rather than a bad omen, I want to see it as a door opening. I don’t know what this season will hold. I don’t fully know what I want it to. And I want to be okay with not knowing. I want to be in this moment, with the things that feel unsettled, and trust that they’ll work out the way they’re meant to. Trust that I won’t be left empty handed, if I stop anxiously directing all the moving pieces in my life. Trust that the things that feel meaningful are and that the winds of change will not uproot them all and carry them out of my life. I want to leave the door open for whatever will come and go and come back again — full circle. Remind myself that beneath every flicker of uncertainty I’ve experienced in the last nine months has been a persistent, undeniable feeling that in this moment I know where I’m meant to be and that whatever is coming will be good in the end. Know that someday I’ll have to figure out some of the answers, but it doesn’t have to be now.
Apple Cider Season
On Friday night, I cooked myself dinner for what feels like the first time in a long time. One of my favorite meals: roasted potatoes and sautéed green cabbage (my favorite vegetable?) and Trader Joe’s chicken sausage (the Smoked Apple Chardonnay flavor seemed right for this time of year). No recipe, just olive oil and salt and pepper and garlic, cooked until everything seems done. I’ll happily eat those leftovers for days. I love a simple, wholesome dinner.
But, as I’ve been looking forward to autumn, I’ve been gravitating towards recipes that feel unexpected and in some cases unnecessarily complicated. I’ve been wanting to make:
When I can find apple cider that isn’t spiced, I want to reinstate mashed potatoes and Apple Cider Gravy as a staple in my diet. I want to force pumpkin bread on all my acquaintances and make a batch of pumpkin pancakes for breakfasts one week.
And I want to do all of this, because I am so excited for the future — in spite of every unknown. I want to celebrate this moment and this season of life, and I have consistently found seasonal food to be the most satisfying way to do that. So, every apple or pumpkin or butternut squash baked good I produce in the next three months will be an expression of the hope that I’m feeling as this season begins and brings all its changes with it.
Life is an adventure! I love the way you express your adventure in words!!!