Hugs and Kisses

"Once in awhile, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale." - Anonymous quotation

Four years ago I met the nicest big Bear.
[sigh]

Remembering Norm

[Wherein we confirm that my choice in words sometimes has very little to do with what they actually mean to everyone else, but much more what they mean, apparently, just to me]

On Sunday, March 21, the first day of spring, my school lost one of its most beloved instructors, Norm Schureman. I received a message from one of my classmates, and by the time I’d called her back and returned to plug into the internet, there was already a message from the school president relaying the very sudden and tragic news and a flurry of posts on Facebook.

The past ten days have been hard for the school, for our department (I teach in the same department as Norm), and for our students. There’s been an outpouring of support in ways that no one could have quite imagined. There was an impromptu memorial service the very next evening. A physical memorial of student work grew to stretch almost the full length of the bridge walkway on campus, with sketches (copies as well as original work), cards, projects, notes and photos taped to the railing, throughout the week. There were flowers and candles, messages scrawled with chalk on the walkway, a six-pack of beer. Last Sunday, the school hosted a formal service and reception. We estimate that over a thousand people attended, some flying in from out-of-state, some from overseas. Hundreds more logged into the live webcast.

I’ve had people comment about mourning a colleague, that from the outpouring of emotion, the group must have been remarkably close. I forget sometimes, that there’s work that goes from 9 until 5. In school and in teaching, you learn quickly that interactions don’t work when classes end; the learning doesn’t stop at 5pm, or 10pm, or even after Friday, or ever. I’ve been lucky, a few times, also, to have worked with people that you genuinely … like. The faculty and staff in our department were best of friends; not just co-workers. It’s been sad and hard to continue on; it’s been hard to accept that this idea that Norm is gone.

For Norm’s service, our department chair asked for words, just descriptive words, that she could share. I’d been mulling over this for a while. What I would take from my experiences with Norm? My word, I decided, is ‘fierce’. J asked me, “Don’t you mean ‘fiesty’, perhaps?”. Norm was fiesty, indeed. But he was fierce.

Norm expected a lot from his students. In design, you communicate visually through sketches: you draw. A lot. In a school reknown for its design programs, you don’t just learn to draw, but you learn to draw like a fiend. We had drawing/sketching classes for at least three of our four years there. Compare this with the 1–1/2 to maybe 2 years of math I took when I studied engineering. Drawing is as fundamental as, say,  breathing. After we had learned to draw the basic shapes and could render them in appropriate materials, then we got Norm, and he taught us to draw dynamically, and passionately, with our own voices, confident and strong. He held the standard high. He was tough, but supportive and caring and always had us coming back for more. Did I mention Norm was tough? I admit that it took me a long, long time to warm up to his brand of tough love.

The other thing you learn in design is to think. You have to think broadly and quickly, without boundaries, then be able to assess your options and choose the best ones to go forward with. The other core classes Norm taught were Design Process and the beginning Product Design courses. He taught us to stretch, to follow through with our strongest ideas, then build them to make them real. We’d present our ideas and he’d pause, pull his glasses down the bridge of his nose and peer at us over those glasses, intensely, challenging us, without even saying a word. Everyone experienced that look; we all wanted to rise to meet the challenge; we all wanted that hearty smile and hug that affirmed for us that we’d done a great job. There is a lot of work you can go through to make yourself happy and satisfied with the final project for any given class. There are few other instructors, though, that we’d work so much harder to please and impress as Norm. We learned to think, all right.

So, Norm was imbedded in classes that are at the very core of what industrial designers do, the very heart of what you’d learn at school when you study industrial design. I imagine that he touched every student that’s gone through our department in the last 20 years. His father taught and continues to teach at Art Center. His nephew just graduated from the department, as well. His family truly is part of our larger, extended family.

What I came to observe and understand was Norm’s deep commitment. He was fierce, in his dedication to our school, to our department, and above all, to his students. That ‘Norm’ look? It was intense – it gave you a window into the fire that burned, yes, fiercely deep in him. And at our graduation shows - no one was prouder than Norm. His love for his family, his friends, of all of nature around him, of life itself – it was all deep, heartfelt and intense.

In looking up the definition, I suppose there are components of fierceness that are not so flattering in this instance: violent, aggressive, angry, menacingly wild, savage, hostile.

Okay, right. So, that is not what I had in mind.

I’d go with the option that reads “Extremely intense or ardent” except that, for me, it lacks a bravery and immediacy. The words feel a bit detached, a bit sterile. Even the modern slang entry “really good” is lacking.

For me, I have to ignore the definition I find on my screen and go with the definition I feel in my gut, the image that I see in my mind’s eye. The word ‘fierce’ works because it gives me a sense of spirit that Norm possessed, that he passed on to everyone around him, that now lives in all of us. We are all just a little bit more fierce in what we do because of what Norm gave us.

He gave us a lot.
And we sure do miss him, something fierce.

Locked and loaded

Someone wrote me and asked, “So are you updating this thing or not?!”.

I, um, decided to go on sabbatical. I found myself, somewhere along the way, going through my days, thinking of how I would narrate everything, put our adventures into words; what witty things I’d sprinkle in. I found myself a bit detached, like a third party looking in, when really I should be doing the living and hiking and painting of it all. It makes for good stories, but I want to enjoy what I have in the first-person and truly be the hero of my own story.

Another thing that happened is harder to explain. I understand that blogs and photos are all the heck open to the whole wide Internet. Even knowing that, I was surprised to realize is how unsettled I felt to think about the unkind people in my life, reading my words, peering into our lives, coming along with us on our vacations.

‘Unkind’?
Yes. Unkind in ways that has someone excitedly say how damn good it is to hear that my relationship (at the time) sucked, because she was sick and tired of getting my Christmas cards and reading how lovely and hunkydory my life was in the Valley, and how good it was to hear that I’m actually horribly miserable like the rest of everyone else.

Yeah. I went, “Heh?”

Unkind in ways like a person gets invited to my (newly single again) 40th birthday party - - a small, quiet party with people I treasure - - and bellows, “Are there going to be any HOT chicks here?!”

Yeah, seriously.

Unkind in those kinds of ways. Not in ways like they lurk and don’t comment. That’s okay. That’s just being introverted. I know what that’s like.

Sure, once you press 'Publish', it’s all out there. It’s a strange thing to be talking to someone and then to realize that they know way more about you than you know about them (in that creepy sort of way), and you think, "Wow, it really is just all out there". I started to feel these people peering in from the outside, their eyes following me left and right, their warm breath fogging up the windows outside my house, watching my life for entertainment, but not cheering any of my adventures or any of the many, small, hard-fought victories. I’d be reminded of them every now and again, in real life: “Oh, hello”.

It was like you finally decide to clean your windows, then find smudged nose prints all over the place, at a height that you know you couldn’t have made yourself. It’s kind of a creepy, unclean feeling.

[I suppose it’s also like realizing that those racy pictures from your Las Vegas trip that you posted on Facebook are searchable by people at places you’re trying to get a job at, but not quite.
This is what I hear, at least.]

You’re going, “Oh, man! Those people SO do not matter!”.

Yeah, yeah.

So I’ve been working, you see, on loading up my rifle and scaring away the unkind people, cleaning my windows of the reminders of their grubby fingers and noses. I’ve come to a place, finally, where I’ve missed you more than I’m upset about being followed around by ghosts of unkind people.

I’ve missed my bloggy buddies, new and old.

You know the secret knock to get in. Don’t mind the Big Bear. And if you feel like it, yes, please do bring along your weapon of choice. xox

Chopped Off. Yep.

Crikey! I just climbed out from under my rock and realized I have not updated this since [gulp] last year... You would not believe that my hands were chopped off and I was waiting for bionic ones. See? I told you that you wouldn’t believe! I hope you still love me!

I am absolutely consumed with: an awfully big adventure, hoping you haven't found other blogs that wander around pensively, just generally being asleep, dreaming and chancing to my local police. My day seems to be packed from 4am to whenever. I am avoiding recapture. But who cares?

I send you kisses. I will make more of an effort to blog more often until the nice men in the white coats come back. Seriously! What do you mean you don't believe me?

---> Confused? This post courtesy of Lazy Blogger’s Post Generator. The last time I did this I think people were confused, too. Apparently I'm still avoiding recapture.

---> I'm very sloooowly poking at this blog, making changes. Sorry about the dust.

All is said and Done

Epilogue, part 1

When we settled in at McDonald Creek, we found that where there had been a TV in the cabins before, there was none. Oh, my. We found ourselves missing our TV, Sports Center, and, it turns out, the internet. The people in the next cabin over were really missing their Reality TV, apparently. As they walked past our cabin window, they couldn’t help but stop, quite intentionally, to peer in and see what we were up to. For a good long, uncomfortable while. As if it were a perfectly normal, polite thing to do. What’s wrong with people?

The big pane glass window became an easy surrogate for our TV, as we watched the people go by, gazed out at the creek and pondered J’s Mustang. Not having a TV, not having insistent white noise in the background or a continuous barrage of information took a while to get used to. We quickly slowed down to enjoy the birds singing at dusk, the swallows flitting about above the lake, the sweet perfume of the lilac bushes around the cabins, and to find comfort in the sounds of the creek, the rain on the roof and the click and creak of the electric heaters in the darkness of night. There’s purposefulness in the manual engagement of doing dishes into a small dish rack and having to wipe them to clear off a space on the dining table to work, rather than letting them air dry. Thankfully, there’s time to slow down and decompress, and we know well enough to take it. It also lets you consider the possibility of the new. And no matter what things you miss from home, no matter how far you are from home, where you ARE, is home.


Epilogue, part 2

With all the rattling, I gave it a week, but within 48 hours of being home, J put the Mustang out to pasture back at the local Ford ranch.

Old Yeller is no more.

My Roaming Bear now has new wheels:

New wheels Click to see this photo's flickr page

With 4-doors and more cargo capacity and leg room, we’re just itching to take it out for a spin. Somewhere, out there.

The dusty trails call.

Headed back home

J and Chico at JWK's

On our way back, we stopped through Priest River, Idaho, to visit Jim Kline, a high school teacher of mine. We took a hike with him and his five dogs (Bonnie, Emma, Chico, Muttley and Penny), enjoying a great romp up and through the property. We had hot chocolate inside, and caught up more and surveyed the garden, as Old Man Kline brushed out his dogs. We packed into the car, smelling of dog, promised to not wait so long for the next visit and headed on our way back home.

We stayed at the same hotel in Spokane as we did on our way out and managed to find yummy Thai food as well, a little bit of comfort food after a few days of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.


Mount Rainier

From Spokane, we stopped by Mount Rainier. We tried to see the meadows at Paradise and Sunshine while there, but the entry roads at the parks were closed, still not open for the season. Drat!

We drove on and had dinner in Salem, Oregon then got back on the road. We ran into alternating 5-mile stretches of road where Oregon has the freeway under construction. J’s three most hated words? “Construction Zone Ahead”. The slower speeds dragged out the drive. Although it’s all lovely, the scenery is much the same in the dark, after all. We pulled into Grant’s Pass, after another long, long day.

Driving south our last morning on the road, the lush forests of Oregon thinned and we could tell we were getting closer to being back home in California. As if to welcome us back, in Yreka (right at the border) there was one last clump of California poppies still blooming, well past its normal spring-time season, waving at us along the side of the road. A few more miles later, the oldies station played the Beach Boys’ “Surfer Girl”. The types of cars, license plates and rising temperatures all confirmed: Yep, we’re back in California!


We decided to improvise a bit and drove through Lake Tahoe on the way home. They’re doing road construction there, too (we have this knack for finding construction on our way home)!
We had lunch at the Blue Agave at Tahoe, devoured some chips and salsa with our lunch, and supped up some mightily fine margaritas. A bit later, we stocked up on calories, sugar and caffeine at the Nestle’ Café at Heavenly, then headed home along the 395. The late afternoon sun caught the hillsides and cast long purple shadows, and our approach to Mono Lake was luxuriously bathed in … sunset.

Lunch in Tahoe and sunset along the Sierras? Can the BigBear deliver? [sigh]

Unfortunately, the High Sierra Café, which everyone knows is open 24 hours a day serving up their incredible Chicken-Fried Chicken, was closed when got to Lone Pine. Closed?! We were horrified! … and very hungry! We found a couple of burgers and headed onward. We got home at 2:30am, unpacked the Mustang, and plunked down in our bed, dead tired.

The next morning, we squinted in the bright sunlight that flooded the living room and considered the 80-to-90 degree weather of the day ahead and quickly set in to enjoy the comforts of home: our own coffee, shower, kitchen and best of all, our own washer and dryer.


Dirty Laundry

Mmmm, home sweet home.

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What? It's over? Catch all the photos here.