The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
-William Wordsworth, 1807
I never thought it would happen. Driving down into Ballard on a sunny spring day, going to see my honey, I cursed the pavement and held my head a little higher for my imminent return to some softer growing place. He and I would walk the street holding onto each other, he showing me cafes, me not really caring, eyes on trees, eyes on bohemians, eyes on him. The city was the place I went to see a man. In an earlier era, alone, I had come screaming off the sky sunburned and wanting pho, (fuh for you who don’t know how to say that), wasted by movement and altitude and snowfields, shocked to see green, wanting gear. I’d roll into Ballard back then partnerless, friendless, in perpetual transition, eat and go to Second Ascent, get some used CDs, freak out and drive through gridlock to loud music, crash out on a dirt road on the way to the next climb exhausted, resupplied, and grateful to be out of the grid.
This winter crashed around my quivering, still-standing form. All of you who have played a part you know who you are (actually ‘you’ means my ex, the one person in this wide world who still thinks I am a piece of shit). All of you who have talked to me for hours, climbed with me, watched me take those looong newb ice leads, laughed at my jokes, listened to my tears, bought me some dinner and shared the best advice you had to give – to all of you, you are my friends, or family, or both. You are my lifeline and wonderful people, all!
It is the worst year for Dungeness crabbing in recorded history. I pick up this story in the blue-sheet bunk on the F/V Betty Lee, a 72-foot black-hulled crabber out of the bigtime Dungy port on the west coast, Westport. I am lying there on the morning we are slated to sell our crab in port reading a climbing philosophy book by Mark Twight, shaking with frustration and drive and too much coffee and knowing full well we are not making a red dime. He channels punk philosophy with pen on fire, scorning the weak, training hard, cutting out what is not important to his goals, climbing until he finds that mind/no mind connection with the mountains and living to tell about it. A lot resonates in my small, determined frame, aching but animated by the singular drive needed to stay at it on this job. Mostly his writing makes me miss the mountains, miss my climbing partners, miss the ice climbing I only just discovered prior to this useless endeavor on this bleak boat.
It wasn’t always like this. I chose to crab because I wanted to pay off my student loans in one shot. The current education system is a form of indentured servitude. We take out these loans in the face of the big bills racked up by our current higher education system. We do this not really knowing what we are signing up for. When the total comes due we make more conservative decisions based on our need to pay back massive debt. We are coming out of the most radical years of our lives – we have just been exposed to lots of new ideas and have a strong desire to make a change in the world through our actions, our work, our art. Yet we have to compromise to pay off the debt. Bam. There goes your idealism, suckers. “Reality” hits. What reality? The one that has been constructed for you. You get ‘educated’, you join the ratrace. Three hundred, four hundred a month. You pay.
The economy is collapsing around us. Our friends and family are getting the big layoff (or getting harassed until they quit, or getting ‘fired’ for dubious reasons, or getting ‘early retirement’, or getting promised jobs that never come through).
Unemployment insurance is a long time coming. When I walked down Float 3 in Westport past the big crabbers I set my aching, numb little shoulders forward and towards Big Red, the promise of some cool-sounding Burner roommates, and the unknown job market of Seattle. Some equally skuzzy deckhands came walking down the dock in sweats and hoodies that smelled of as much or more bait than mine. They nodded chins in my direction and said hey. Early in this season people looked at me like I was a space alien. Now they greeted me with the weary familiarity of fellow deckhands who don’t know and probably don’t care to know each other. I made the cut. I survived the first few weeks.
And none of it fucking mattered because we didn’t catch any crab.
Being broke sucks. Being broke is scratching and it grates on your soul. Serendipity or perhaps my natural good nature intervened a few times but the weeks of scratching in Seattle were awful. I rolled into the city with two hundred bucks and a credit card and checked out a house I had found on Craigslist. It was set behind some dark and protective pine trees and smelled of wood floors and sunlight. I liked the people. The room was small but the house warm. There was an affectionate border collie and a friendly cat with big eyes and a little jump to meet my outstretched fingers. It was night, but according to the orientation of the building I could see that the morning sun would flood the living room with light. The roommates liked me. One asked where I was staying that night, and as my two good friends in Seattle were both occupied I replied that I would sleep in my truck. “That’s not acceptable in our world.” She prepared a mattress with sheets on the floor of my new room. I slept there that night and am writing in that room now. So it was with Little Black Kodiak. So it has been with the places I was meant to live.
The job search began. Fishing left my mind. I had told the captain I needed six hundred dollars a month to pay my bills. “You aren’t going to get it here.” Right. I returned to the boat later to get the last of my things – raingear, bedding, cast iron skillet – and heard his friend bitching about ‘these young guys’ who want to get the big bucks and won’t stick it out during the bad years like real fishermen. I suppose that means I am not a real fisherman. It’s not in my blood like it is for some of these people. My friend and fellow deckhand said earlier this year during a night of infamy that the successful fishermen like it and stick with it for the sake of fishing. If you like something else, he said, go do that thing. Don’t waste time making money on the ocean. You will get caught always spending it, always wanting more. You will get stuck.
I hit the pavement hard. Bike, car, up, down, resumes and Kinko’s, resumes at the library, dozens of resumes. I applied to landscapers, law offices, gear shops, factories, retail stores, restaurants, Montessori schools, housekeeping positions, deckhand jobs, even an ad to jump out of a cake. I strung together some shifts at cafes and knocked on doors hanging flyers. I sought the solace of good friends via phone. I alternated between hope and despair. I was grateful my car was paid for and I was ready to climb.
I made a systematic canvas of gear shops in Seattle. I walked into Outdoor Research one day, tired yet crisp resume in hand, and took the elevator to the seventh floor. I was told there was a position open in sewing if I had industrial sewing experience. I did not but what the hell. A tall, bearded employee led me down to the sewing floor where it soon became clear I was probably the only one who spoke English as a first language. I took the sewing test despite the warning of the sewing supervisor, an older Chinese woman who was concerned I would sew my finger through. The industrial machine whizzed through the fabric and I failed miserably. I think they admired the fact that I tried. I cried a few tears and shrugged, walking out with the same person who showed me in. “I guess I can’t sew.” “It’s alright. I’ve been unemployed before. I’ll call you if anything comes up.”
I have always been able to throw down and find a job. I have worked at so many things to perpetuate the wonderful unfolding adventure that is my life. Yet these few weeks in Seattle stripped my faith in my own abilities and my sense of worth in a way I can barely describe. It is not unique to me, this desperate reaching out. This grabbing at fistfuls of air. It is our national anthem right now. We grasp and find nothing. That grabbing is our societal role. We are raised on the dictum of more and OUR bill has come due, as a nation, as a people. As left or right or radical or anti- as you say you are this mentality has affected and shaped you. And it’s collapsing, right now. Adjust.
Two weeks later I was riding a train back from climbing and taking care of business in Oregon when I got a call from OR. “We need your help.” “When would you like me to start?” “One o clock tomorrow.”
Lucky. Gutsy. Just like that things changed around.
I roll a half block to the bus stop and read books on climbing and training on the morning bus. I sip tea. I sell my day and ride away to town. Skyscrapers look small and faraway at first. The hills of Queen Anne and Magnolia rise above the concrete din of the immediate and assert their geographical prominence. Topography wins until the eighteen bus rolls into the canyons of steel and light. People walk among soaring buildings. I can’t help but look up. I think of a photographer who spent years photographing people working alone at night in highrise offices and wonder what it must be like to work on the fiftieth floor. “There was so much money to be made.” One of his models said that. Stale air. Must get old.
Everyone has old tattoos and useless little shoes. Fancy women wear point-toed heels that could double as a self-defense weapon with one well-aimed kick. Men have man purses. People are pale and look tired. Thirty year olds look fifty in a different way than deckhands and climbers who spend lots of time outside look wrinkled and older. I think I like the other form of premature aging better. This bulgy, pale, vaguely fungal city version just scares me. People read the hot books – Omnivore’s Dilemma, something about vampires – or click into little machines. Unlimited texting. Woo hoo.
But OR is a great office to work in. Tuesday was employee ski day up at Crystal – one of the best powder days of the year! In the office talk of the Spearhead Traverse in Canada drifts around with weather reports and sales talk, how sore someone is from exercising exhaled in the same breath as the TPT report findings. The tasks I have been given so far are straightforward but require thinking and organization. Lots of Excel. Thank goodness for all those labs in Landscape Processes.
At night I dodge traffic from Sodo to Ballard, blinky red light telling cars to fuck off, and go to the climbing gym. I work boulder problems. I obsess over NWAC’s website and read route descriptions in books and online. Dreaming of weekend glory.
That’s my city life.
There have been ice climbing weekends, a rock weekend, and a delightfully informative and somewhat random day of making anchors on a staircase in Discovery Park. Who knows what I will do next. The dirtbag life is great because I can spend a lot of time outside with no financial security. Financial security is great but I don’t end up taking extended trips where my skill improves drastically. Right now I am balancing several options, as just as fair, and waiting for the tipping point that will help me decide. Getting, not spending, gathering in my powers. Noticing imminent buds on cherry trees and a waning moon full just a few days ago. Smelling salt on the breeze and finding nature where I can.
