I've been feeling nostalgic for the Northwest here of late--probably because it's been so blazing hot in Texas this summer. (My mom tells me it's been hot in Boise, too, but I'm betting it doesn't feel as hot as 35 days of temperatures over 100.) My mom, sister and older niece went on a church retreat in an area near the Sawtooths last weekend. One of my nieces now lives in Montana. The pictures they've all been posting on Facebook make me want to just sit down and weep.
Which is interesting, because I was explaining to a friend just a few days ago that the Northwest doesn't really feel like my home anymore. Why, then, do I keep checking the Chronicle's job listings, hoping to see a job opening in Idaho? Or Montana? Or Washington? Or Oregon? Or even Colorado?
I've already written about the weirdly conflicted relationship I have with Boise--I know moving back there probably wouldn't be a good idea. Much as I'd like to be closer to my parents, especially now that my dad's health is failing and my mom needs all the help she can get, it's easier for me to be the person I am now when I keep some space between the me that was and the me that is. Last time I visited my parents, my dad said "I'm still surprised that you're a college English professor--I always thought you'd go into teaching the deaf. You were always reading books about that Helen Keller."
Yes, I was. When I was ten years old.
Another good friend of mine, a theology professor, recently wrote a blog entry about Mark 6:4, the Bible passage in which we're told that even prophets have trouble earning respect when they go home--back to the people who knew them as children tromping through the flowerbeds, terrorizing the cat, procrastinating on completing their chores. I suppose even Jesus's neighbors wondered if he'd ever amount to anything. I know it's hard for my family to see me as something other than a loudmouth teenager with lots of uninformed opinions--that's who I was the last time I lived at home. When I talk about growing up with my dad, sometimes my husband just shakes his head in disbelief. "That doesn't even sound like the same person I know," he says. And of course, it's not.
So I don't feel at home in Boise, in the sense of feeling like that's where I can be my honest self--but the Northwest is definitely a place I'm connected to. There's something about a horizon ridged with mountains that puts a big lump in my throat. Something about the smell of pine trees does the same thing. I often hear people talk about the smells they associate with their grandmothers' houses, but I didn't know my grandparents when I was growing up--it's the smell of the forest that catapults me back into my childhood, back into the camper with my parents and my brother. Sometimes, that kind of emotional response can get confused with the need to take some action, to make a change.
But just this morning my husband and I were talking about whether we'd really want to move farther north, out of the Texas heat, if we had the chance. We both agree that the Midwest is a place we don't feel compelled to return to--we've lived in Kansas, Iowa and Missouri, and none of those places has a hold on either of us. The Northeast might be a possibility; we've never lived there, so it would be a new adventure.
And the Northwest? Maybe.
"At this point,I just think I'm more of a live oak guy than a pine tree guy," my husband said.
I don't know if I'd get choked up over a picture of a live oak tree, but I do know that I'd miss the live oaks and their beautiful bonsai shapes if we left Texas. And the wildflowers growing by the roadsides every spring. And the great big storms with thunder loud enough to rattle the windows--those used to scare me, but now I find myself outside with the neighbors, watching the clouds roll in, welcoming the drama.
I suppose I may never feel about Texas the way I feel about Idaho, but I'm not sure I need to feel that way in order for this to be my home. Maybe what I'm responding to when I see a photo of mountains and pine trees isn't the Idaho landscape at all, but what it helps me understand: the enormity of creation, its ability to remind us of how small and insignificant we are in the greater scheme of things.
Showing posts with label Idaho. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Idaho. Show all posts
Monday, July 27, 2009
Monday, October 27, 2008
Home Again
I'm back in Texas after a week in Boise. I made this trip to the Northwest mostly to celebrate my dad's 82nd birthday with my family, but I did some work while I was there as well--I met with a class of really wonderful students at Boise State University on Thursday and did a reading at BSU on Friday evening. I taught at the university for a few years in the mid-90's, and it was good to have a chance to reconnect with some of the people I knew back then.
I still call Boise my hometown, but I have a troubled relationship with the place. Partly, I think, this is because I lived in Boise mostly as a kid--so I go back to feeling like a kid every time I return, feeling trapped and discontent and vaguely furious all the time, exactly like a teenager. There's no reason for me to feel this way now, of course, but it's like an emotional reflex I can't prevent. I lived in Boise for only three years as an adult, those three years I taught at BSU.
This time, though, staying with my sister instead of in the house where I grew up, it was easier to be in Boise and still feel like myself. Just having my own car to drive seemed to make a huge difference. When I'm there with my own little family, my husband usually drives; it had never even occurred to me that being a passenger in a car in my hometown contributed to that feeling of being dropped back into childhood again. Just having some small measure of autonomy this time let me be in Boise and still feel like the generally well-adjusted adult I've been for more than twenty years now.
When I talked with my friend Karen's nonfiction writing class at BSU, one of the things we discussed is what constitutes an Idaho story. Does it have to include hunting and fishing, for instance? Part of my own Idaho story is having grown up as a non-hunter in a family of hunters, and becoming a vegetarian as the result of that. (Though I gave up vegetarianism when I moved to Texas, a.k.a. The Land of Meat.) Another part of my Idaho story is the class division I faced because I never learned how to ski. By the time I was in high school, all my friends had been skiing since they could walk; even if I'd had the money to buy or rent equipment and go skiing on the weekends, I wouldn't have been able to keep up with them. Whole layers of the social hierarchy in my high school just weren't accessible to me for that reason alone.
In my first novel, part of what makes it an Idaho story for me is one character's feeling of being trapped by the landscape of her life. The Boise where I grew up was very remote--it's not within easy driving distance of a major city, and in any case my family didn't travel for recreation. We drove to a campground, or we drove to a relative's house in the Midwest; it wouldn't have occurred to my parents that we might just go visit a city for the sake of seeing what it had to offer us. I always wanted to live somewhere other than Boise, because it seemed like Real Life must be happening somewhere else. I always wrote stories about people who lived elsewhere: Seattle, New Orleans, Chicago, Paris, all manner of places I knew absolutely nothing about. I had no idea how I'd manage to go to any of those places on my own, but I was intent on getting away.
When I drove across the country to start graduate school, I remember being shocked by how much space there was between Idaho and Kansas. Somehow, the "away" I'd imagined wasn't quite as far away as reality took me. I wound up in a strange state, in a strange town, on a strange campus with (it must be said) a strange roommate. But that's where I learned to see Boise as a place in its own right, a place with a very specific personality and character--a place worth writing about. When I left Idaho, for the first time I met people who were fascinated by the idea of a place they'd rarely even heard of. As my friend Steph puts it, "Before I met you, people from China were more real to me than people from Idaho."
These days, when I go back to Boise, it doesn't look a thing like the town I remember. It's much larger than the place where I grew up, much more urban, much more hip. And, truth be told, San Antonio feels like home now. I'm glad to be back.
But Boise is a place I love. Most importantly, Boise is a place.
I still call Boise my hometown, but I have a troubled relationship with the place. Partly, I think, this is because I lived in Boise mostly as a kid--so I go back to feeling like a kid every time I return, feeling trapped and discontent and vaguely furious all the time, exactly like a teenager. There's no reason for me to feel this way now, of course, but it's like an emotional reflex I can't prevent. I lived in Boise for only three years as an adult, those three years I taught at BSU.
This time, though, staying with my sister instead of in the house where I grew up, it was easier to be in Boise and still feel like myself. Just having my own car to drive seemed to make a huge difference. When I'm there with my own little family, my husband usually drives; it had never even occurred to me that being a passenger in a car in my hometown contributed to that feeling of being dropped back into childhood again. Just having some small measure of autonomy this time let me be in Boise and still feel like the generally well-adjusted adult I've been for more than twenty years now.
When I talked with my friend Karen's nonfiction writing class at BSU, one of the things we discussed is what constitutes an Idaho story. Does it have to include hunting and fishing, for instance? Part of my own Idaho story is having grown up as a non-hunter in a family of hunters, and becoming a vegetarian as the result of that. (Though I gave up vegetarianism when I moved to Texas, a.k.a. The Land of Meat.) Another part of my Idaho story is the class division I faced because I never learned how to ski. By the time I was in high school, all my friends had been skiing since they could walk; even if I'd had the money to buy or rent equipment and go skiing on the weekends, I wouldn't have been able to keep up with them. Whole layers of the social hierarchy in my high school just weren't accessible to me for that reason alone.
In my first novel, part of what makes it an Idaho story for me is one character's feeling of being trapped by the landscape of her life. The Boise where I grew up was very remote--it's not within easy driving distance of a major city, and in any case my family didn't travel for recreation. We drove to a campground, or we drove to a relative's house in the Midwest; it wouldn't have occurred to my parents that we might just go visit a city for the sake of seeing what it had to offer us. I always wanted to live somewhere other than Boise, because it seemed like Real Life must be happening somewhere else. I always wrote stories about people who lived elsewhere: Seattle, New Orleans, Chicago, Paris, all manner of places I knew absolutely nothing about. I had no idea how I'd manage to go to any of those places on my own, but I was intent on getting away.
When I drove across the country to start graduate school, I remember being shocked by how much space there was between Idaho and Kansas. Somehow, the "away" I'd imagined wasn't quite as far away as reality took me. I wound up in a strange state, in a strange town, on a strange campus with (it must be said) a strange roommate. But that's where I learned to see Boise as a place in its own right, a place with a very specific personality and character--a place worth writing about. When I left Idaho, for the first time I met people who were fascinated by the idea of a place they'd rarely even heard of. As my friend Steph puts it, "Before I met you, people from China were more real to me than people from Idaho."
These days, when I go back to Boise, it doesn't look a thing like the town I remember. It's much larger than the place where I grew up, much more urban, much more hip. And, truth be told, San Antonio feels like home now. I'm glad to be back.
But Boise is a place I love. Most importantly, Boise is a place.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
A Sad Day
I've spent the past two weeks reading and thinking about fire, trying to internalize the language of wildland firefighting so the characters in my second novel will sound authentic--both those who are firefighters themselves and those who have lived with or around them. Growing up in Idaho, I knew a lot of people who worked fire crews in the summer. It's a fast way to make decent money, when you're a college student. But I never knew anyone who planned to fight fires long term, to make it their life's work.
It's a good thing some people do. On Monday evening, a range fire swept up a hillside in Boise and burned nine houses, damaged ten more, near the subdivision where my sister and her family lived for years. News reports are saying firefighters were on the scene in just minutes and had a plan of attack for fighting a fire in this area--the wildland-urban interface is always vulnerable, especially in the West, where rain is scarce and fuel abundant. Everyone who lives there knows fire is a distinct possibility.
But, then, every one of us who lives in a house with electrical wiring knows fire is possible. We don't respond to that threat by living in tents and giving up our wired lives; we take our chances, try to be safe and hope for the best.
One person died in the Boise fire. She was a woman I knew when I taught at Boise State--not a close friend or someone I kept in touch with after we moved away, but a person I liked and admired. I'm sad to know she's no longer in the world, sad that anyone had to die this way. Her husband had noticed smoke rising behind their house, stepped out the back door to see where it was coming from--and then, he says, the fire swept over the top of the ridge and toward their home so quickly, he didn't even have time to get back inside. He ran around to the front, and when he saw that his wife wasn't waiting for him there, he knew she wouldn't have time to make it out.
This is a powerful reminder that the subject I'm taking on in my work has real consequences for real people--it isn't just the dramatic engine of a story. It's a regular part of life in the West, no different than hurricanes for people on the Gulf coast, earthquakes in California or ice storms in New England. None of them can be stopped. The best we can do is decide where we want to take our chances.
It's a good thing some people do. On Monday evening, a range fire swept up a hillside in Boise and burned nine houses, damaged ten more, near the subdivision where my sister and her family lived for years. News reports are saying firefighters were on the scene in just minutes and had a plan of attack for fighting a fire in this area--the wildland-urban interface is always vulnerable, especially in the West, where rain is scarce and fuel abundant. Everyone who lives there knows fire is a distinct possibility.
But, then, every one of us who lives in a house with electrical wiring knows fire is possible. We don't respond to that threat by living in tents and giving up our wired lives; we take our chances, try to be safe and hope for the best.
One person died in the Boise fire. She was a woman I knew when I taught at Boise State--not a close friend or someone I kept in touch with after we moved away, but a person I liked and admired. I'm sad to know she's no longer in the world, sad that anyone had to die this way. Her husband had noticed smoke rising behind their house, stepped out the back door to see where it was coming from--and then, he says, the fire swept over the top of the ridge and toward their home so quickly, he didn't even have time to get back inside. He ran around to the front, and when he saw that his wife wasn't waiting for him there, he knew she wouldn't have time to make it out.
This is a powerful reminder that the subject I'm taking on in my work has real consequences for real people--it isn't just the dramatic engine of a story. It's a regular part of life in the West, no different than hurricanes for people on the Gulf coast, earthquakes in California or ice storms in New England. None of them can be stopped. The best we can do is decide where we want to take our chances.
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