Status: traveled. Result: happiness

I thought a fun post might be to look over the various status updates that happened from the time we began to look at relocation options to the present.  My apologies to those connected to me on Facebook and Twitter, as these may be repeats of what you've seen.  But how often do you just see the statuses listed (with no comments) and can be able to watch a progression of ideas grow to fruition?  Just bear with the project on this post, alright?
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spring 2010: Humanities 201, English Comp 1, and 8 hours at the other place. (jan 19)

No current status. Please check back later (jan 20)

seeks (good) resources for creating a (strong) thesis statement (jan 22)

my niceness backfires (jan 25)

flip of a switch... (jan 27)

mecca of the maladjusted (feb 3)

What I learned from my students today: You can climax several times in a story. (feb 16)

Beaker can sing away my blues anyday  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAtBki0PsC0   (feb 19)

a regular DIY kind of girl: I will survive the apocalypse with beer, knits, and jam (feb 20)

jumped off the cliff into the unknown (mar 17--the day I decided to let work know I was leaving)

The last frontier, Taylor style. --album "Oh, hey AK!" (mar 20)

bluebird clear Denali day (mar 21)

Chicago, you are so flat. (mar 23)

job apps going out, think of me (mar 24)

Easter Sunday activity: Julane's Breakfast marmalade (earl grey/orange), Strawberry Shortcake jam, Belgian Trippel brews, guacamole and queso, and one sweater sleeve finished. *happy sigh* (apr 4)

Portland & Seattle people: Suggestions on where to live or not to live in these cities? Thanks. (apr 5)

It's up and will be updated as I have more pictures and items: knogginknits.blogspot.com (apr 6)

no Chinese crawfish in my kitchen (apr 11)

is not Suzy Sunshine. (apr 13)

advice received: you should download Oregon Trail so you know where you're going. (apr 16)

commas, when, used incorrectly, by writers, borders, on reader abuse (apr 22)

Hey CBers (and others), remember Mike Ehredt from the post office? http://www.projectamericarun.com/index.html   (apr 28)

"i have reached the end of the internet...i'm ready to go home now" (may 4)

adrenaline Monday rocks. (may 10--we took a sick day to skydive)

Packing up the apt for 2 months of storage. Goodbye stuff and things--I'll see you on the other side. (may 27)

Indy 500 kicks off Taylor Summer Extravaganza '10. Drivers, start your engines! (may 30)

No longer a Chicagoan. (june 1)

No longer in Illinois. KCMO bound! (june 3)

Okie country awaits (june 5)

 from my oh-so-talented little sister:http://abbycoyle.com/blog/ Many thanks for the beautiful anniversary photos! (june 15)

O-man is 4 today--crazy. Happy birthday, little man! (june 16)

Ellie Bean is 2 today! Happy birthday, tiny girl! (june 18)

returns to the gypsy life tomorrow (june 20)

LR, AR--northern sector (june 21)

Rebel yell, y'all. Oxford, MS (june 22)

Clinton, MS bound (june 23)

Natchez Trace scenic is good for the soul (june 23)

NOLA beignets (june 25)

It's been Goode in Houston! (june 26)

Austin, TX, you have truly impressed me (june 27)

It's hot, hot in the Ft. Worth--thank goodness for salt water pools! (june 28)

Tucumcari mesa view camping (june 29)

It's not much but it is what it is:
tayloronlinelearning.blogspot.com (june 30)

hey, hey, Santa Fe (june 30)

A-l-b-u...quirky? Let's just head to Flagstaff. (july 1)

Winning dollar dollar bills on the ponies (july 3)

Grand Canyon drive-by (july 5)

Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon today. It's gonna be a hot one, kids. (july 6)

En route to OKC (july 6)

Joey Doyle was a damn fine man and a wonderful friend. I will remember him fondly and miss him dearly (july 7)

break my heart (july 9)

Arches Nat'l Park and Moab (july 13)

Nevada... (july 14)

Coolest thing about Nevada: Pony Express trail (july 14)

Yosemite National Park. California beauty (july 15)

California: bald eagles chased by sparrows, agricultural checkpoints, and fake police. So confused... (july 16)

Napa happy (july 16)

Cali 1: Pacific coast all day (july 17)

Oregon: welcome home Taylors (july 18)

I have a lot of photos of rocks... (july 20)

May have a home. I love this city (july 20)

Idaho crop circles (july 21)

Rainbows and radioactive material in Wyoming (july 21)

Incidents in Denver (july 25)

Sometimes our reality comes across as a foreign language (july 27)

Incidents in Oregon (july 29)

Peacocks and feathered hippie kind of weekend (july 30)

Beaches in front and Mt. Hood behind. Happiness (aug 2)

It's nice to have a home with walls (aug 3)

Alternative domesticity (aug 7)

has as many issues with Phish as she does Panic. (aug 8)

working from home again--it's nice to be connected (aug 10)

For those who asked for pictures of rocks, I present you with lots of rocks -album Taylor Tour 2010 (aug 12)

And more rocks  -album II. Taylor Tour 2010 (aug 12)

Job inquiries and applications out....fingers crossed (aug 13)

‎"Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose." (aug 14)

Going coastal to escape the heat (aug 15)

Our stuff arrived today. I don't need any of it... (aug 17)

Cookies Anna-style: half recipe, half what's actually in my kitchen (aug 19)

Asher
Lizard in costume (aug 19)

continues to fall in love with her new home and thinks perhaps she may have found "home" (aug 21)

a matter of loaf and death (aug 28)

I'm your huckleberry (aug 28)

It's like Dances with Wolves meets Terminator with a little Titanic thrown in for good measure...but in space (aug 30)

‎"When people speak of "success", they generally mean a position of importance in the world's eyes, or a job that yields lots of money and all the material pleasures and comforts that implies. But success, in terms of the deeper issue of vocation, is a highly individual thing that means different things to different people." (aug 31)

fighting with the Kindle...it is winning at the moment (sept 1)

jelly belly magic tricks--watch these disappear...ta-da! (sept 4)

Some of the items I have made  -album Handiwork (sept 5)

America's history of fear

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/opinion/05kristof.html?_r=1&src=tptw   (sept 5)

perfect solution for a gray Portland day--coffee. Lots of coffee. (sept 8)

Relief and happiness. Sometimes the universe does align. (sept 10)

Clearly, a well conceived heist:http://www.koco.com/r/24955773/detail.html (sept 10)

Heading out to the coast for some Oregon Wild Seafood Weekend: beach, boats, breweries, and fishhttp://bit.ly/9k9LLi (sept 11)

Sea lions
Newport (sept 12)

bought a 13lb whole tuna, enjoyed Rogue pub trivia night, watched the sea lions, ran around on the beach poking things with sticks, and all in the company of good friends. Truly a successful weekend! (sept 13)

windfall Wednesday (sept 15)

Check out my (oh-so-talented) sister's photography site:http://www.abbycoyle.com/#/page/77a0/home/ She does incredibly beautiful and creative anniversary, engagement, maternity, family, and whatever else photos. Besides she's great and fun to work with. You should know her. You should hire her. (sept 16)

beer brewing and cheese making Saturday! (sept 18)

Results: mozzarella, queso blanco, sundried tomato pesto ricotta, blackberry sage chevre, dill chive chevre, and Gulden Draak beer in the primary fermenter. (sept 19)

had the realization that, as a child, she was under the assumption that all parks were cemeteries and all cemeteries were parks. Perhaps it was the southern battlefields and Confederate memorials that led to this thinking. (sept 20)

faces a difficult decision: new snowboard or roller skates. So tough... (sept 22)

ooohhh: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/22sep_harvestmoon Are you going to Primus? Want to moon watch together with me and Scotty? (sept 22)

begins fall by knitting an old man sweater (sept 26)

has a pretty, tuned bass with new strings. Time to plug in (sept 28)

Lost is creeping out my dreams. I wish they wouldn't watch me sleep... (sept 29)

Mmm. Pasta
Pumpkin sage manicotti with chantrelle mushrooms and homemade ricotta and mozzarella. Served with sage butter parmesan bread. Holy moly.

October 1: Fall is here. It's been 9 months since we began talking, 4 months since we left the jobs, 2 months on the road and 12,000 miles, 2 months since we moved in. New and old sights, new and old family and friends, new skills gained, old skills renewed. We are happy with this. (oct 1)

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You've just seen 10 months of thinking, surviving, coping, dealing, traveling, laughing, enjoying, and living condensed into those status updates.  Thanks for playing along with that.

Back to the road that leads to elsewhere

We left Oklahoma by 8:30 the day after the funeral.  I, admittedly, was dragging my feet in the hopes that it would lead to us just staying another day.  I needed that one more day to regroup, to pull myself together, to figure out where I was after it all.  Scott felt that he needed to be in Denver where his family was gathered for his brother's birthday.  In hindsight I realize that he was grieving as I was grieving and we were both, while together, quite separate in this process.

The drive to Denver resulted in me sleeping for ten or eleven of the twelve hours it took to drive the distance.  Even when I woke up, I didn't speak to Scott.  I pulled myself in and allowed myself to just be silent.  The result was a rather uncomfortable trip.

The birthday gathering was at a Rockies game.  We drove straight into Denver, parked the car, and walked to the stadium where our tickets were being held.  Scott got the tickets and we went to the seats only to realize that I had the one ticket that was not seated with the group.  I was several rows down.  I felt it was appropriate and I held on to the anger and grief even tighter.  Fine.

Scott's brother found us about that time and I went through the ritual of hugs hello, sympathies, etc. trying to maintain my "happy" face.  I don't think I really succeeded in pulling this off.  After the happy hellos, I retreated to my seat away from the rest of them and sat among the strangers around me.  Scott's mom later told me that Scott was very upset about the whole thing but I did not see this and at that moment I didn't care.  Eventually space opened up near Scott and I was able to move up to them.  I am the person that struggles to take a seat that isn't mine so it took me a while to warm up to the move.  There were several friends that we had not seen in a while and some wanted to talk about Joey, the funeral, everything that had just happened and clearly refused to read my body language that screamed "Don't want to talk about it, don't want to talk about it, don't want to talk about it."  Others argued that there had been other fatalities in the accident (confusing this accident with one from 2009 that killed several people).  I know that much of this was done as a comfort, to forge a connection, but honestly, I just wanted to be left alone.  I didn't want to be drawn out yet.  I wanted to wallow, I suppose, but there was another side of me that just wanted to be normal, that didn't want to have to talk about it with everyone.  I didn't want to forget but I wanted them to forget, maybe.

I would open up as the weekend went on but I struggled to explain to everyone why I had needed to have one more day at home with my family.  I don't know if they understood.  Scott felt the need to be at his brother's birthday.

I was resentful, angry, grieving and probably a load of joy to be around...

After the game, the family headed off to a pub, The Grandview Tavern & Grill (sorry, no link), for drinks and late night snacks.

The rest of the weekend was enjoyable and I was able to begin the process of letting go.  There was homemade food, courtesy of Mom (Scott's mother is Mom, mine is Mama)--meatloaf (which I don't actually remember having had since I was about 7 and my aunt made it), mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn bread, from scratch red velvet cake.  We ate ourselves silly, drank here and there, played lots of DJ hero (where the look of concentration is often mistaken as a look of unhappiness), and enjoyed the familial company.  Quarters were tight, especially with three little dogs and an iguana thrown into the mix, but it was good.  I wondered how his brother's girlfriend was handling having her house overrun by the Taylor crew.  Scott and I were able to show our pictures of the trip so far both on the computer and in our little Fuji polaroids.

Scott and I stayed an extra day in Denver once Mom, Pops, and sister T had left.  We knew we would be back in a few weeks and we were beginning to feel the pull to get west.  The Taylor Manifest Destiny.  The goodbye this time was easy, promises made to see them soon, and we loaded up the lizard, and headed out.  Arches National Park was our next destination.

Because I'm still in love with you/ On the harvest moon

Tonight is the Harvest Moon.  We met up with our neighbors and walked to Creston Park just down the street to see it.  It was partly cloudy and we had only one really good view of it but we had fun playing with their dog, Juniper.  We really like our neighbors, Kari and Lisa.  We had a dinner with them last week and thoroughly enjoyed the company.

I'm sitting here in the dining area of our apartment watching Scott wrestle with cinnamon sticks.  What was to be an easy cookie making project has turned into a damned difficult task with quite a few substitutions.  The cinnamon must be ground and the easiest way to do this is to put it in the coffee grinder and let it work its way to dust.  Because the cinnamon sticks are difficult to break, Scott first put them in the food processor (after a discussion where I told him that doesn't really work that well because the sticks get thrown to one side) and watched them get thrown to one side.  It did break some of the sticks, though.  He put the broken sticks into the coffee grinder and filled the cinnamon container half full for me.  So thoughtful.

The smell of cinnamon is like fall.  It's spicy, woody, and sweet.  True, freshly ground cinnamon is a pretty red color and smells so much spicier than the pre-ground product you buy at the store.  I love the smell.  If I could wear it, I would.  Cinnamon and vanilla bean.  Forget the cinnamon oil and vanilla musk. The real spices are warm, dark, and exotic smells that make it easy to understand why men traveled the world seeking them.

With this, I welcome fall.  It's been a good Autumn Equinox, marking the end of an epic summer.  Here's to new beginnings!

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!

Joey was buried on that Friday.

We awakened early, got dressed in our borrowed funeral clothes, ate a quick breakfast that my father had made, and then headed to the funeral home for visitation.  We pulled into the parking lot and I began to shake.  Our walk around the building resulted in my heel becoming trapped in a crack in the sidewalk; I stumbled, lost the shoe, and stood looking at the slab of concrete with irritation.  Stupid concrete...

We were met by one of the service directors who informed us that we had better get a move on because they were moving to the church soon.  Upon entering, I was met with a small group of people that I had not seen in 10-12 years.  It was surreal, seeing all those faces grown and so inordinately sad.  K and R, old high school friends met us and we were joined shortly by various others.  Through the doors, I could see the open casket and simply could not bring myself to go into that room.  I remembered my gradfather and how waxy and artificial he looked at his funeral and could not bear to remember Joey in that same way.  People came to say hi, to apologize for cryptic messages on social networking sites, and to feel not alone with their sorrow.  Stories were traded about Joey of run-ins with Oklahoma cops,visits he made, and the amount of effort he put in to staying in touch and visiting over the years.  Soon we were asked to reconvene at the church.

The service was a Catholic service.  I was aware of my family in front of us, the casket being wheeled in by the pallbearers (oh what heartbreak to be a bearer for a good friend!), I was aware that there were many people there, but was otherwise in a daze.  A former employer of Joey's from DC got up and gave a sweet eulogy, extolling all the goodness that was Joseph, Joe, Joey Doyle.  We disbursed shortly after. On the steps, I met up with Joey's brother and his fiancee, old friends whom I had only Facebook contact with, and my family.  We were asked repeatedly what was going on and why was my status update in a different location every few days.  I was pulled from my fog as people reached for me, hugged me, said hi.  And I only remember a face or two.

The burial was a simple graveside service.  The ground was soft and our heels kept sinking in.  We followed this by going back to the church where there was a luncheon and to give our regards to the family.  A friend's mom had made cake, as she was wont to do when we were growing up, and we enjoyed a piece of that while we caught up, shared stories, and tried to sort ourselves out.  I met Joey's girlfriend for the first time and thought my heart would completely break at that point.  She was such a lovely and wonderful person and I am so sorry that we did not have the opportunity to meet before.  I understood why and how Joey had fallen in love with this woman.

We said our farewells and good wishes and headed to McNellie's  where a contingent of old friends was already gathered.  We ordered beers and food, traded phone numbers and information.  We also realized that it was going to take an effort to stay in touch.  Joey had taken that out for us as he stayed in touch and then passed on the news of everyone for us.  My mom sent a message at some point inviting everyone to her house for dinner--red beans and rice, how very nice.

We left, took the car to the shop, and returned to my parents' house.  K and R came for dinner, my sister came with her husband and kids, and I found myself incredibly happy that we have the people that we do to help us get through these moments in life.  My mom made comfort food, even in the heat of the Oklahoma summer.  K and R made the effort to come and be with us.

After they left, I crawled into bed with my nephew and he and I told stories until way to late.  We fell asleep holding hands and his sweet little stories made me smile.  That little boy saved my broken heart that night and began to help put me back together.

The thing of it

Here's how it goes:

We are now in Portland and have been since we moved into our apartment on August 3.  I began teaching online again on August 14.  We met friends here the weekend before we moved in.

A few things I have realized:

1.  I am a lucky girl.
2.  I am terribly in love with the man I am with.
3.  I am very grateful for the travels of the summer and the opportunities we had.
4.  I am incredibly fortunate in the family and friends that I have.
5.  I love my life right now.
6.  I feel balanced for the first time in a very long time.
7.  I love the sound of the rain that is falling outside my bedroom window.

A different tack

Dear readers,

After careful consideration of what this is and my difficulty in progressing along on this blog, I have decided to take a different tack.

The fact is, I have become entrenched in a sorrow that occurred this summer and, while it did play a major part of my life, there are a number of wonderful things that have happened.  In my coping with the loss of Joey, I have really struggled to move the blog along, as you may have noticed if you are keeping up.  It has become a spiral and it has been very difficult to move beyond.  However, over the last few days, I have begun to realize that many things are currently happening as I try to recount the events of the summer and I don't want to lose these.

So, here's the plan:  I am going to tackle this on several fronts.  I will begin posting about our life here in Portland (because this is, in fact, where we landed and have been living quite happily with numerous good fortunes) and continue to write about the summer trip.  This means more posts, more frequently, than you have been receiving.  I need this.  I have found the recounting of the days around Joey's death to be very cathartic but I also feel the need to explain how lucky I (we) are and how truly happy I am with my life right now.  I am a very blessed girl to have been able to do the things we have done, to have known the people I have, and to be able to continue on.  I'm not "moving on"; that holds implications of a break up and I don't know that you really "move beyond" someone when they pass away.  The simple fact is that I am continuing on.

Thank you for being patient as I have worked through this on the blog.  What I had not originally planned to be an intimate thing has become so, quite unexpectedly.  And that is fine and I am fine with that.

Keep watching.  More posts to come.