Work! (Remember Maynard G. Krebs?)

The work I'm doing at the park is plentiful. I'm happy to say there's a lot to do. I wouldn't mind if it were more of a challenge but I know I'm helping because it's work that's been piling up since time began.

I'm almost embarrassed to say how simple it is. They didn't need a librarian, just someone fairly bright with some library experience. One thing I'm happy I don't have to do is catalog because they, like the entire National Park Service, use cryptic and complicated Library of Congress catalog numbers. Unlike Dewey Decimal Numbers that can be as simple as 123 ABC (just think of the shelves at your library), LC numbers look like $(87@\|fGY. Not really, but almost. If I had to catalog I'd spend my entire day thumbing through books, trying to figure it out. I had a very good cataloging class in my masters program, taught by the supervisory cataloger at the National Library of Medicine, but it's like learning a language; you'd better have plenty of practice and I didn't once the class was over.

My work includes converting VHS tapes to DVD; inventorying all the periodicals at the issue level and moving/boxing/purging them; and scanning and converting to PDF their entire holdings of research papers on the Triassic era; I'm going to say at least several hundred papers and manuscripts if not into the thousands. I'm also updating the shelf list, another name for the book inventory, organized by catalog number, by comparing the books on the shelf to the list generated by the catalog. This lets you know what's missing, whether mis-shelved or gone, and forces you to look at every book to assess its condition and if you even want to keep it. While I'm at it, I'm moving all the books that are on one wall of the library to another. Yay!

It's hard to say which of these tasks is the most mind-numbing, but it's necessary library work and they don't have anyone to do it. I've also taken it on myself to create a spreadsheet of their accessions book, a handwritten register of supposedly every book that's come into the library since 1950. Line by line, book by book, handwritten scribbled note by whited-out mark, all transcribed to Excel. I can't believe it's still being done by hand or that they even keep a book like this. All of the information in it should be part of the catalog record in the computer, but mine is not to wonder why.

Are you asleep yet?  

What I'm salivating over is the possibility of working with the collections manager on his records. It will be more like the archives work I did at the museum in DC (no, not the Smithsonian). The collections are the "stuff" held for the museum: pottery, arrowheads, taxidermied critters, skeletons, fossils, petrified wood, everything having been found in the park. The collections manager gave me a tour of his lair, opening cabinets and pulling out drawers, and using long Latin words to describe it all. I kept saying, Oh! Oh! and wanted to touch everything but of course you can't do that. I didn't realize how much I missed museum work until I was crouching in front of those open doors. I'm taking my camera the next time I go but what with the poor excuse for the Internet here it's doubtful there will be enough bandwidth to upload anything.

I look at the grunt work in the library the same as having to eat canned peas as a kid before I could get any dessert, so I'm choking it down posthaste to keep time available, before I leave in the fall, for the collections. I'd love to breathe museum air again for a while.

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Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. (Theodore Roosevelt)

Moving on

In January, when the ex-husband announced he was filing for divorce, a month after dumping the PTSD claim on me, I sat in the living room and wrote. Not much, and I didn't continue writing until I started cruisingat60, but I wrote a little of what was in my heart. This must have been a short time after I'd had a chance to think about what I was going to do, because the few things I wrote speak of my belief in his claim that he was setting me free to live the life I deserved to have and one which he wasn't able to give me. I know now that he was honest about one thing at least: I do deserve this better life.

When I saw them on the iPad I cringed a bit because I hoped they weren't dreadful, full of drama. I think they're ok. They show an insight into the failure my marriage was, an insight I lost as other pain overtook it. It was good to see that my first instincts about the path my life should take, even though they lay dormant for a while, proved to be right. 

This is the first, written as I looked out at my beloved canal.


Ripples, gentle in my wake, move smoothly, steadily, 
away from me.
I move on. 
I struggle against the tide, against the wind, against all odds,
leaving memories and dreams dissolving behind me.
The longer I travel, the more distant and ephemeral they become.
It's sad to leave these things behind.
But I also leave the anger and the disappointments,
the sorrows and broken dreams
that had become such a part of me,
as I'm borne along a now-changing tide.

8 miles, 2 hours

Not bad for an old broad.

Yesterday was six miles and because there's not a lot to do here except walk, I decided to go for eight today. After I hit the 3-mile marker on the way out and kept walking and walking and didn't see the 4-mile one, I thought, oh, crap, someone knocked it down. Then it appeared, in the weeds. Thank God.

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Thought of the day:
My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's 97 now and we don't know where the hell she is. (Ellen Degeneres)

Four months

It was just four months, a friend pointed out a couple of days ago, that took this divorce from start to finish. I knew that, of course, knew that it was in December the ex-husband spun his tale that emotional numbing due to PTSD had prevented him from ever forming an emotional bond with me, that because of it he had faked loving me for 35 years, that it affected him so deeply he dreamt of standing on a cliff, knowing peace was just a step away, that he knew it would take him to suicide when he couldn't handle the pain anymore. It sent me reeling. It was all a lie. And it was a new means of manipulation because he knew I'd believe it and would be so caught up in trying to help him that I would ignore all the clues that pointed to the lies. I knew all the machinations took place over four months and at the same time it hadn't sunk in that my life was turned inside out in that short a time, one sucker punch after another.

I've been so frustrated that I haven't moved away from brooding about all of it, beating it to death, desperately wanting answers when I know he won't ever give me any, and trying to understand who the hell this guy is. I know our marriage was gasping for breath for a long time and we were often toxic to each other, so why am I in such stubborn stasis? Why am I not overjoyed to be rid of this drain on my psyche? I've poked at this like a sore tooth for hours on end.

The conclusion I've come to is feeling betrayed and that I am owed something I am never going to get. The humiliation I felt is over with; his behavior speaks for itself. The fear that paralyzed me is dissipating as I've made my own decisions about the course of my life and they haven't blown up on me. Insidious low self-esteem is leaving me as I find strength, flexibility, and friends who think quite the opposite of his opinion of me. But the feeling of betrayal is hanging around because nothing I did, no sacrifice I made, and no passes I gave him on his own shortcomings or infidelities merited any action from him to at least try to save our history. Regardless of the many rocky times, it was not all bad, but none of it gave him the motivation to act forthrightly. If he doesn't love me, well, he doesn't, but does it cause him physical pain to own up to that?

When I left the house we swapped computers, his laptop for my desktop. I wiped the desktop of all history, passwords, and documents that didn't concern him. He either lacked the sense to do the same or he didn't care what I found, which were things he'd written to the girlfriend, one of which said he'd looked for her for forty years, until he was almost out of time. I read that line over and over. What!? He's a master at telling anyone what they want to hear and I'm sure her little heart fluttered at reading that, but I was furious and asked him, what did that make me, a placeholder? 

What I got in reply was a void. Emptiness, coldness, and anger in every communication that he thinks needs to be made, but what I will never get is an explanation or an apology. I keep looking for one, and because hope dies hard, my recent strategy has been to ignore and delete everything that comes from him. If I don't, I read and reread every word until I've worn them off the screen, I plot replies that are designed to leave him in shreds, and I nurture anger and resentment. 

The strategy worked until yesterday, when he threatened for the third time to withhold money unless I replied to him, saying silence from me would mean I was ok with this. He knows money is my weak spot, what I worry about the most, and says it's all I've ever cared about. I admit that as the years went by and I left job after job to follow him around the country, starting over with every new job I could get, and recently losing a small fortune on a failed business, it gained in importance because I had no financial security of my own. It's something he never understood and it became just one more thing we could never talk about. So, yes, money was and is important, but it's never been just about money. It's been about craving the attention, honesty, and intimacy he freely gives to Joanna but for whatever reason was never able to give to me. It's all I ever wanted and I never got it. It's what I mourn, not him being incapable of these things at all, but being incapable of them with me.

We are again at an impasse, kind of like we always have been. I make him angry, he makes me angry, and we are not talking about it or to each other. It was heartening to learn, though, before he pulled the plug on any more communication, that he's on his own journey of self-discovery, that this new woman has brought him the contentment he couldn't find with me, and one day, hopefully, he'll be the man I thought he was when I fell in love with him. What a paradox, to be so furious with him and yet so grateful that he's finding some peace.

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Thought of the day:

Mourning is not forbidden, you know. (Simin Daneshvar)

Belly dialing

When I head out for a walk I take just my phone and a bottle of water. The bottle has a
built in handle and is easy to carry but the phone isn't so comfortable, which I why I stick
it down my pants.

I've been wearing spandex capris which isn't as horrifying as it sounds since I've lost
that weight, but then I can't see myself from behind so what do I know? The phone
goes inside my knickers because I'm counting on drag to hold it in place. It's a much
better idea In theory than in practice, but I still think it's better than sticking it between
the knickers and the capris. So that's where it goes and it's ok for a while, but as I start
sweating all hope for drag disappears. This is where it gets delicate. I obviously can't
let it slide down to my crotch so periodically I have to retrieve it. I have to plan on no
cars coming from either direction because no matter how you look at it, my hands are in
inappropriate places. I also regularly hit the On button with my thumb or, as I did a couple of days ago, I hit the call back button to a friend who got a mysterious empty voice mail mid-grope. I say it was belly dialing because it makes for a better title, but I'm sure it was my thumb that was to blame. Quite sure.

Settling in

Last night I spent a pleasant hour with the other volunteers, sitting in a circle, drinking wine and hard lemonade, talking about nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. I learned not to mention Obama. There are three couples here, our four rigs lined up side by side. They will all be gone by mid-June and I hope more are coming in because the volunteer coordinator said operations can't continue without volunteers. It seems to me that the visitor center is entirely staffed by volunteers, and I know a couple of them at least are also rovers: they head out to the trails and points of interest to interact with visitors and answer questions. I watched my neighbor, the one who lent me the heater, draw in a crowd at the visitor center like an ice cream truck in a neighborhood thick with kids. It was something to see. This man was a linguist in the Navy and later a preacher, talents he put to good use. It's obvious how much he enjoys staffing the desk.

The geology of the park dates to the Triassic era and someone asked him when that was. I had to look it up myself and learned it predates the Jurassic era and sometimes it's called the Dawn of Dinosaurs because they started appearing then. I don't remember how many millions of years ago it was but it's a lot. The volunteer surprised me and probably everyone else there with his answer, saying he's a creationist and then he referred them to books on the shelf that would answer the question. You could almost hear a pin drop and then the crowd broke up. On one hand I think he could have answered the question along with a disclaimer but on the other hand I admire him standing by his values.

While we were sitting there one of the rangers on patrol stopped for a few minutes. Someone asked her where she'd been at one point last year and she said she'd been at FLETC. That's the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Brunswick, Georgia and where I met the ex-husband. We were there in 1977 and '78, which I mentioned to Mel, the officer. She went blank for a split second and then said she hadn't been born yet. Thank you for that, Mel. Neither were my kids but somehow that seems different.

Theft of the petrified wood is a big problem here. Some estimates put theft at 12 tons a year, and at 150 pounds per cubic foot, that amounts to 160 cubic feet if my math is correct. Assuming people aren't heaving logs into their cars, that's a lot of small chunks going into pockets and under seats. Mel told of a couple on their honeymoon who were caught with 125 pounds of it in their van. Their uncle said it was ok to take it and they took his word for it. I wonder if he ponied up the $2100 fine for them. Another person was reported by one of the volunteer rovers who saw her put a piece in her pocket, and when Mel showed up she asked the woman if she'd taken any pieces. When she said no, Mel said she felt justified in asking her to empty her obviously bulging pockets. Probable cause, after all. I don't know what that fine was.

Today I walked back to the Painted Desert Inn and learned of a trail that leads into the valley. It's an elevation change of about 300 feet in maybe 2/10th of a mile. Steep, slippery with gravel, and just beautiful. When I get the Internet straightened out this week I'll be able up to upload some photos. I saw the steepness and decided to go for it, thinking my mother, god bless her, would never have been able to walk a trail like this one at the age I am now. I was sucking wind on the up-slope, mind you, and my heart was pounding loud enough to hear, but I could do it and it makes me very grateful for my health.

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Thought of the day:

 Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship. (Buddha)

Home is where Grace is

I drove up Highway 60 from Mesa to Petrified Forest National Park on Thursday to start my volunteer job a few days early. Highway 60 is a spectacular dotted road to travel, with the geography changing from giant sand-colored boulders fitted neatly together and rising hundreds of feet high to sweeping expanses of terraced mountains lightly covered in green. Bridges have delicately-arched supports crossing chasms that plummet to unseen depths. The horizon can be at hand or far distant with ever-lighter hills and mountains fading away. I will be driving this road again because it's one to travel at leisure and I didn't have that luxury
this time.

Not only did I want to take 60 north because it's dotted but because it passes through Show Low, Arizona. I like the name. Show Low, Show Low, Show Low. See what I mean? Show Low is much bigger than I expected and I stopped for some last minute things, including strawberries at 99 cents a quart and baby spinach at $1 a bag. I have room for neither in my fridge, and already had strawberries and spinach, but the deal was too good to pass up, so dinner was a quart of strawberries. Today will see the demise of a good part of the spinach; I see a stir fry in its future. I wish I'd also taken advantage of a propane fill because I found out I can't get propane at the park but have to go to Holbrook, a good 30 minutes away. I use propane for my furnace and water heater. Furnace, you say? Oh, yes! I had the a/c on in Mesa the day before and Thursday night I turned on the heater. I love all four seasons; don't you? I just don't like them all to show up within 24 hours.

I did manage a couple of stops along the way to get some pictures of the Salt River tumbling through a deep canyon. I had been playing tag with a small motorhome for some time and at one point we both pulled over to let faster drivers go ahead. I was at the first stop, snapping away and admiring the view, when a guy came down the stairs to the platform where I was standing. He turned out to be the driver of the other motorhome and we agreed the view was beautiful. It's amazing what you can learn if you just say hello. Divorced; originally from Brooklyn but moved to south Florida as a child and never lost the Brooklyn accent, but did manage to refine it a bit to say bathroom instead of batroom; had a girlfriend named Kathy for 10 years but broke up with her when she didn't "get" the relationship or something, I'm not clear on that; travels three to four months at a time on roads he plots out in advance; was in construction but is now retired; named Emil but pronounced A-meeul because that's the Italian pronunciation; wanted a Roadtrek van like mine but balked at the price of a new one; and wanted to leave Florida but now has a granddaughter who is like "a gas station for [my] heart"  and he can't leave after all. I got all this in no more than 25 minutes split between the two pullouts, and OMG, he was good looking. When that thought went through my head it was immediately followed by, "Thank God! I'm not dead after all!" Oh, and he turns 60 in July. I forgot that one. I've found most people will talk and talk if you just let them. It was a pleasant 25 minutes, admiring two views if you get my drift.

Yesterday I met with the volunteer coordinator to do the new job thing, including meeting the woman I'll be working for, who showed me the piles o' work to be done and I'm as happy as I can be. If that's not enough, the washer and dryer are free, there's a fridge for overflow food that won't fit in my little shoebox so I can actually stock up when I go to town, I have a nice neighbor who's lent me a small heater so I don't have to run my furnace, I get a small daily stipend for meals, and I can check out a government car to explore the park. Did you hear that? I don't have to unplug and disconnect Grace to drive around the park; they let me
take a car from the pool! So I did and spent a couple of hours seeing a tiny fraction of the park. 

If not for the nonexistent wifi in the RV area, it would all be pretty darned good. I don't mean weak wifi; it really does not exist even with a booster I have. I'm typing this standing at a trash can with the laptop on top, outside the visitor center. Five bars of signal strength and it seems like dial-up. I have pictures to upload but nothing's happening. I'd forgotten how slow dial-up is, not saying that's what it actually is, and how maddening it is to wait and wait. I'm up against my roaming limits for the month because it seems Sprint has no towers within 100 miles of anywhere I've traveled so far. In addition to which, I called Sprint about just that last night and was told I'm not allowed to use my hotspot if I'm on roaming so I guess I'm looking at Verizon and paying more every month, but I have to have the Internet and one faster than snail speed. Ten years ago this would have been a minor inconvenience; now it's like not having electricity.

This place is beautiful, not in the heart-stopping way of Arches or Bryce Canyon, but in the way of broad vistas interrupted by oases of color and depth and texture. Half a million visitors a year come to this remote place to view the horizon meeting a sky punctuated by clouds lined up like ships in port, or the blue Mesa of varicolored teepees of bentonite clay, or the chunks of agatized or opalescent petrified wood lying around like so much litter. It will take me all of the weekends of the five months I'll be here to see everything. How lucky can I get?

This morning I took a long walk, the first one in way too long, out to the Painted Desert Inn. Round trip was about 5 miles and I didn't die despite an elevation of about 5800 feet. One of my goals of being on the road full time was to see all the National Historic Landmarks and this one fell at my feet. The Inn has had a rocky life, having been built on unstable soil. The whole area here is bentonite clay. All the buildings have the same problem and maintenance is ongoing and relentless. Bentonite clay acts like kitty litter. It expands when it's wet and contracts and cracks when it dries out. I'm no engineer but I don't think that makes for an ideal foundation.

I'm off to visit Verizon's website to see what the damage will be. I know it won't be good. Donations accepted.