9/6/2002 10:51 am :: A visit from friends.

This is the kind of morning that was a reason I wanted to move to Seattle. It’s sunny and cool and the air smells crisp and wet. There’s dew on the grass. Days like this were rare in Chicago, where if the air was crisp it was cold, and if the air smelled wet it was because the humidity was 95 percent. On walking out of the house, it was rare to think “Wow—the air smells so good!” But here, the air almost always smells good. It was a dream come true to find a city where the air smelled good AND you could find a job.

Yesterday, another sunny day, two friends from my last job came over for lunch. One of them has been laid off and the other works part time, which is why they were able to show up on a weekday. I made turkey sandwiches with avocado, sprouts, and tomato, and we had blueberries on the side and chocolate ice cream for dessert. We sat outside at the patio table and talked about life and friendships in the U.S. One friend is from Hong Kong (and about to go back) and the other is from Brazil. In Hong Kong, people are reserved, chilly, and at work, hostile to their coworkers because of cutthroat competitiveness. My friend, though she’s from there, is worried about how she will feel about this new culture she’s seen on visits. To her, people in the U.S. are outgoing and warm.

On the other hand, my Brazilian friend, who has been here for three years, finds it hard to form close friendships in the U.S. She says people always want to schedule everything and there’s no spontaneity, so no chance to really have a close friendship. It’s always just casual. She says people in Brazil, if you start talking to them, open up and talk passionately about their interests and let you get to know them. And friends will arrange their day around the chance to be together, instead of penciling in a get-together two weeks away. I remember childhood friendships being like that, and especially having the freedom to show up at someone’s house unannounced and join in whatever they were doing. This worked pretty well all through college. Then in the working world, and as people get married and establish new routines, you suddenly realize you can no longer ask someone to get together on the spur of the moment. It has to be planned well in advance. Your desires for connection with a friend are always deferred.

I’ve felt for years that adult friendships are de-emphasized and based more on tightly managed convenience than on the urge to connect. Friendships remain tentative and casual, and then fall victim to conflicting priorities. For a while I felt a sense of waiting, assuming that this was a temporary aberration and that I’d develop new close friendships that would be an important part of my life. Instead, in the five years I’ve been in Seattle, I’ve seen friends move far away, often just when we were getting to the point where I was expecting greater closeness to develop. So I rely on Tom for almost all companionship. That usually works fine for us because we get along so well, but it doesn’t stop me from missing having close girlfriends. The situation surprises me because I never had casual friends growing up. I never hung out with a group. I had two or three close friends that I usually saw one at a time. I never imagined that this would become impossible in spite of my effort at and experience with forming close friendships.

As a result, I’m as guilty as anyone else of scheduling my friends around my own convenience. I’ve learned that people will not skip a chore, errand, or obligation to spend time with me, and will never say, “I’m not busy tomorrow night, let’s get together then!” so I also schedule get-togethers several days out. The social convention seems to be always to request a get-together the following week or later, not the same week as you make the contact. Then you spend the time catching up on what you’ve both done in the months since you’ve seen each other, knowing it may be months before you see each other again. Still, it feels like a connection, so I'm always disappointed when I can't see the person again for quite a while.

I try to focus on my Chicago friends. Because they’re such old and well-established friends, talking with them on the phone is still a meaningful connection. We confide in each other and ask about events we knew were coming up for each other. I’m lucky to have them because newer friends never seem to have the need to confide, which I often do. And I can’t confide in someone who doesn’t confide in me, because I’d feel like I was dumping too much information on them.

It was great talking with my two international friends yesterday because I don't often get the opportunity to talk frankly about the need to make friends. It reminded me of being a little kid and saying, "Will you be my friend?" I often want to do that, but it doesn't work that way for adults for some reason. I'll try to continue this connection with my lunch pals from yesterday, since we all agree on the value of closeness. Of course, one of them is about to go back to Hong Kong. Sigh!

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9/3/2002 08:13 pm :: Is summer over?

Fall is coming. The sun's intensity has weakened by half, when it's out. Sometimes it's cloudy. The air can't decide whether it's cool or warm. It rained—but less than a quarter inch. It's just getting tuned up.

This summer has been challenging. I just realized I've temporarily lost touch with two or three friends over the past few months. It's as if I've lost myself in a job. Learning to build the stone patio, to create slightly more comprehensive garden plans than before, and following through on those have been similar to being new on a job at a startup, not being trained, and putting in lots of extra hours while still defining the position. Very challenging. Sometimes I want to quit, but I can't. I feel a sense of total commitment to using the momentum I've gained, and to making significant, worthwhile improvements to our yard. Often I feel inadequate to the task. Other times I'm happy to have the yard to mess with and fix up. It gives me a sense of ownership and freedom. This reminds me of the way people who love their work describe it.

The two hardest parts are: not hating myself for having trouble and for making mistakes; and seeing what I've accomplished instead of only what's not done.

For the two decades since I was eighteen years old, I've considered myself a nontraditional woman and a feminist. It surprises me to find my work-related needs being fulfilled by housewifery ("domestic arts"). I've never, ever had this level of emotional and intellectual involvement with a job. I was going to say, with a traditional job. But what's traditional?

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9/2/2002 01:02 pm :: Mystical, mysterious Mt. Rainier.

Another trip to Mt. Rainier on a cloudy day. I wanted to see the pretty green meadow again, with the hundreds of streamlets trickling down the slope, that we saw last time near the Paradise visitor center. On that trip, we showed up at that popular spot at the end of the day and had the trail all to ourselves after passing the end of the paved section. On yesterday’s trip, though it was foggy, the meadow trails were packed with tourists and kids. It wasn’t even worth completing the hike. I found it really frustrating to see kids running off the trail in spite of the signs saying not to. In many places, paths (other than the trails) have been worn into the meadow, and with such a short growing season, those spots may never recover. (That area gets 52 feet of snow per year, which melts off completely only in July.)

Based on recent experience in London, Paris, Moab, and now Mt. Rainier, I’ve seen that the Americans are no longer the ugly tourists we’re stereotyped as being. We’ve been replaced by another group. I won’t name them, but they’re now the ones who talk at the top of their lungs, ignore signs, barge in where they’re not supposed to go, and fail to control their children. In London and Paris, most of the Americans we saw were dressed conservatively and spoke quietly. I had expected otherwise, but ended up feeling proud of us for having learned a little about how to behave as tourists in unfamiliar places.

We drove on past the Paradise lodge and visitor center and followed the road north and east. The atmosphere changed. The trees were bigger, the woods were darker, the meadows had been left behind on a sunnier side of the mountain. The trailheads held only a few cars. We stopped for a hike almost at random. On the map, this particular trail appeared to follow a creek, which is my favorite place to hike.

The trail headed steeply down from the road and we could hear the rushing creek right away. The towering conifer woods were so dark that it felt as if the day was coming to an end, but it was only 3:30. The huge hemlocks and others had shed millions of half-inch cones. The trail was springy, composed not of packed soil but of layers of packed tree matter: bark, decaying wood, cones, and needles compressed to a moist but not muddy floor. The rushing water grew louder and a wire fence appeared next to the trail. It overlooked a high, narrow waterfall that ran at just enough of an angle to make a steep series of slides and chutes for the water, with small pools creating a minuscule pause here and there on the way down. At the bottom, which we could barely see, the water was so clear as to almost be invisible:

Pretty soon we had descended to a plank bridge over the creek, which let us see more closely how clear the water was. Glacial rivers and creeks are usually milky looking from the silt scoured up by the creeping tons of ice, but this creek was crystal clear. Tom’s theory was that some of the creeks are composed of snowmelt, which would not be carrying silt, instead of glacial water. He says this is a half-baked theory but I buy it. I love looking down into clear water, where you can barely see the surface and the stones on the bottom are magnified. This creek had a bed of gray slabs with lines carved in them. The bottom was littered with roundish brown river rocks scattered over the bedrock.