Life in the Cheese Drawer

we had a heavy snowfall the other day, the kind where the snow sticks to tree branches and piles onto pine boughs so that any lights you have on the tree glow through the snow ethereally. i saw a photo someone took of a creek winding through wooded banks, tree laden with piles of snow.

on the acreage that i grew up on, a small creek ran through the pasture, its banks steep in places, and it flooded the pasture every so often. but there was an area where it pooled into a wider, open spot, with oak trees guarding nearby. this tiny pool of creekwater is where we tried to ice skate every winter.

my dream was to own a pair of white figure skates, like the olympians wore as they skated over the smooth ice every four years. when we went to the ice rink, i was able to rent a pair, but i didn’t have a pair for the pool in the pasture. one year, after reading “the silver skates”, my aunt colette decided to get me a pair of “skates” in the traditional sense. it was a blade on a piece of wood that you strapped to your shoe. definitely not a white pair of figure skates, but it was something*.

so down to the pool my siblings and i went, one saturday afternoon. the ice was frozen and the snow minimal, so it would be good ice, but getting there was the real trick. you had to walk through a good portion of the pasture to get there, and the summertime brought out the best in growing season, so the grasses had grown tall, though they were dead and flattened slightly by the little snow we’d gotten. luckily, we didn’t have animals in the pasture in the wintertime.

through the grasses we traipsed, trying to stick to the semblance of tire ruts that may have been there at one point during the summer. once past the second gate in, tall oaks were there to greet us, and we maneuvered around the old junkpit where oodles of old, turn-of-the-century bottles still peeked up through the dirt.

i don’t remember if anyone else had skates (or whatever it was i had), but it was easy enough to take a sled out there and slide down the short hill onto the frozen creekbed, and if anything else, sliding around the ice on foam-soled winter boots wasn’t a bad option. i don’t know how long we would normally spend out there – it was cold, but we were having fun running around like maniacs.

the trip back from pasture snowtime was the worst. it was a long hike back to the house, especially with the excitement of skating past. up the short hill, past the junkpit, and through the tall grasses again, keeping to the side of the fence that ran alongside a field of small pine trees. when we got up to the main fence, it was just a hop, skip, and jump past the pumphouse and tall pines to get inside to the warmth. and sometimes there was hot chocolate.

*turns out, traditional scandinavian skates aren’t that great. in the next couple years, i got a pair of used white skates, and when we went down to the creek for a go around the frozen pool, i was so proud of myself for being able to turn around while skating. i wasn’t going to be an olympian any time soon, but it was something.

part of my assignments for my meditation and relaxation class is to meditate every day and to try out different meditation styles. mantra meditations is repeating a mantra over and over, and i didn’t connect to it right away. i prefer visualization meditations where i’m walked though a scenario, especially when it involves water.

so tonight i decide to try a mantra meditation again, and the mantra i use is “i am a worker of light. i am a light worker.” then the guider on my video asked what you see and to notice what your mind’s eye associates with the mantra. so i started thinking about sunrises and sunsets, moments in the sun.

the sunrise over the missouri river, lighting up the valley and boats bobbing in the pier.

the sunrise lifting across a frost-laden field littered with large bales of hay on a crisp october morning in lanesboro.

the sunrise as i run through the woods, having started in the dark and slowly seeing more and more as the sun makes its way into the sky, lighting up trees and roots and rocks and other detritus. doing its best to warm up my extremities.

the sunrise on an early june morning as i pack up a car with gear to go somewhere, anywhere.

the sunset i saw from atop a ridge as i was driving southwest out of lanesboro with the striations of clouds in mixtures of blues, purples, pinks, oranges. i had to stop a take a photo that did it no justice.

the sunset over a soybean field in southern MN, dark pink on the west and gradiating to dark blue on the east.

the sunset over the pacific ocean while standing on the edge of santa monica pier with jane.

the late sunset that is a gloaming, dark periwinkle with stars starting to peek out.

the sunset over the lake as i paddle through lilypads on my paddleboard.

the sunset to the west as i sit on my patio, sometimes with weather brewing, sometimes with clear skies, sometimes with long cirrus clouds that reflect silver edges and float pink in the sky.

june is sandwiched between scene-stealing months.

may is glorious in its sudden greenness with the new growth taking over after months of dormancy. the weather is finally warm, and there are days when you finally feel like you can take off a couple layers while outdoors instead of adding layers. the month ends with (for many) the first paid holiday since january. it’s the “start of summer” even though still technically in spring.

july is bold and bright, snagging the limelight with the bold and bright independence day holiday. july is the height of summer, though summer continues on for another two months afterward. it’s warm and hot and green and steals the spotlight. if there were ever an extroverted month in this country, july would be it.

in between nestles june, silently warming up and taking may’s bright green and mellowing it out into summertime greens. the holidays are mellow as well: flag day and father’s day and now juneteenth. the most exciting thing about june is the absolute pinnacle of light during year during the summer solstice and the two weeks of long light on either side of the date. at the beginning of the month, the frogs are still croaking at night and delicate spring flowers bursting, but at the end, june has fully settled into summertime crickets in the ditches and hardy flowers that will hold blooms for the next couple months.

and somehow, june slips by so silently and fully that it’s hard to remember that just a month earlier, we were excited by the new growth and springtime. we don’t notice when the frogs stop and the crickets begin. last year’s cattail remnants were swallowed up by the new sometime in the past three weeks. we’re still in the blush of springtime with eyes on summertime.

every year i tell myself that i will slow down and enjoy june. every year i miss it.

this is a reprint! for his birthday, my dad requested “presentations” from everyone, and this is what i chose (probably much to his dismay). i have made a couple edits since my first print of this, and i have added a postscript!

Some people are very particular about where they do their business. I know people who wouldn’t do doo-doo in a portapotty to save their lives. But when it comes down to it, everybody poos, and the end result is always the same: a pile of crap you gotta put somewhere.

During the summer of 2003, my dad planned a canoe trip to commemorate the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark floating up the Missouri river and then back down the Missouri river. He commissioned my uncles Jon and Greg, cousin Karl, and my brother (Charlie) to go with him. After sticking my nose in his canoe planning one too many times (I had, at the point, been on one canoe trip in my life), he relented and let me come too. Yes!

Looking back, it wasn’t a bad trip, but it wasn’t the greatest. There was a profound lack of estrogen in the company, my bro was a whiny little bugger, and the whole thing kind of seemed haphazardly thrown together (my dad didn’t pack any bowls… or spoons…and the menu for night two was stew). There was a lot more that happened on this trip, like the weird canoe and a Delorean, but that’s not what this story is about. This is a bathroom review. Back to the task at hand.

What was most inconvenient for me during this trip was the lack of bathroom facilities. Guys have it easy most of the time. Girls do not have it as easy.Now, I’d been on trips where the plumbing hasn’t been the greatest. Numerous times I’ve been in campgrounds where there is a vault toilet – a wooden building with a deep hole and a place to plant your butt to do your business. I’ve been out in the boundary waters where the facilities are much more open – no building whatsoever around the deep hole in the ground, but there was a place to sit. And sure, I’ve popped a squat behind a tree and visited plenty of portajohns (holding my breath, of course). At the times of these trips to the restroom, they didn’t seem like the best facilities in which to do a necessary deed. I didn’t know what was to come.

This canoe trip was entirely different than any other “roughing it” outing I’d been on. For starters, we didn’t stop at pre-assigned stops where there might be a building with a hole and a place to sit and all that jazz. We decided to stop at random spots. This, I learned much later in life, was my uncle Jon’s mojo, and I guess no one thought to question it. So, for the most part, I held it as best I could. But inevitably, ya gotta pee.

So, let me tell you about a latrine. It is literally a hole in the ground that you dig with your collapsible shovel. You choose a spot that is far enough away and shielded so that people don’t have to listen to you or watch you, but close enough so that it is easy to get to. You dig maybe a foot and a half down, and a foot diameter hole. The ousted dirt goes right next to the hole and the shovel stuck in the pile of dirt so that once you’ve finished doing your thing, you can cover it up with dirt so the next person doesn’t have to look at it or smell it.

When you head to the latrine site, you bring a roll of TP and a bottle of hand sanitizer.  Then, after finishing your business, you throw dirt in the hole. Of course, this isn’t the easiest thing to do because you’d have to dump a lot of dirt in to cover it up, and you want enough dirt to last the stay. So it’s not uncommon to smell or see past duties/doodies when your turn finally comes around. Once you’re done with your camping site, you shovel the rest of the dirt in the hole and pack it all down. Latrine!

The first night of our float was on an island with waist-high yellow mustard weeds all over that we had to stomp down to set up camp. Thankfully, it wasn’t raining, so this was easily done, and camp was set up rather quickly. That night, my cousin Karl was in charge of latrine duty.It was a quaint little latrine hole, and good start for the first night. Karl found a low-lying branch that was perfect for sitting on during your time in the latrine, and there was even a handy little jutted out branch that the TP roll fit perfectly. That night was a learning experience as I tried sitting on a bumply branchy woody piece of log to do my business. It wasn’t the most pleasant experience, but it was the better of the two nights we camped on the river.

The next night was also an island night. After a long day of canoeing into the gusty wind, a sudden storm popped up and we had to find a place to camp – fast. A little island with no trees was the choice. We camped on the lower, beachy part of the island, and the latrine for that night was on the upper, grassy part of the island, behind the biggest bush (well, the only bush). (Don’t think that this was some superlong hike up a hill to get to the bathbush – the elevation climb was maybe 6 feet.) Charlie was on latrine duty that night, and he made it quite clear that he’d found the best spot for the latrine and thank goodness he got it dug before the storm whipped through.

Except…. This latrine was literally only a hole in the ground with no convenience of branches or ANY support. Everyone peed before the rain hit that late afternoon, but the next morning the latrine was a soggy, muddy mess. A recipe for disaster, especially for a not-morning person such as myself.

There I was, in the best position I found for latrine business: one leg out of pants, squatting as best as possible, feet as far from the edges of the latrine as possible. The mud just made everything 100 times more difficult. I tried to keep my pants out of the mud and keep me out of the mud at the same time. The TP went on the bush, but there was always the possibility that IT could’ve fallen into the mud as well. As I finished my business, I suddenly lost balance. I could see my possibilities flash before my eyes. On the one hand, I could take my chances with adjusting my footing, possibly slipping feet-first into the muddy, poopy, icky latrine, or go with the sure thing and throw my exposed self the opposite way onto my pants and into the large prickly bush covering me from peering eyes. So little time, such a harrowing decision. I chose the bush.

My pants were all wet, I had prickly bush scratches all over my legs and bum, and I lost my shoe for a moment, but I was unpoop-scathed. And the TP survived.

Later that day as we floated down the final leg of our journey, we stopped for lunch at a designated rest stop on the river. And I have NEVER EVER been so thrilled to see a vault-style, hole-in-the-ground poop-station. There were walls. There was a door. There was…. an elevated place to sit. There was even a roll of toilet paper on a holder. For that moment in time, I think I reached nirvana. I at least reached civilization. Sure, it was stinky. Sure, it was probably dirty as all get out. But it was bliss.

That night, we reached the end of our river journey with flush toilets and a comfortable place to sleep, not to mention other people and a little store where you could buy junk food and other essentials you’ve missed in the wilderness. The next night, I spent a half hour in the shower at my aunt and uncle’s house washing away the five days of grime that had built up on my skin and in my hair.

Besides a horrendous sunburn on my chin and thighs, I came away relatively pleased that I went on the trip and with a greater understanding of the uses of sunblock.

Despite the scenery I witnessed, despite the ongoing bets of when my brother would give up, start crying, and throw himself into the river, and despite my awesome blistering chin, when people ask me about the trip down the Missouri River, the one story I inevitably tell is how I averted the disaster of falling into the latrine. Then I explain that I will never, ever fear a portapotty.

A post-script:

Since this trip, I’ve experience quite the array of different bathroom offerings. A few highlights on the facilities, as it were:

1. MN State parks have quite the system with their vault toilets, and I recommend them to anyone. They are clean! If you keep the lid down, they don’t stink! They’re in every park, and I’ve actually stopped at a park just to use the vault toilet.
2. I learned a couple summers ago that cousin Lori apparently doesn’t do vault toilets, but has a goal to pee in the woods in every state park.
3. When in Mexico… you don’t flush toilet paper! Paper products in general aren’t great for water treatment, so much of Mexico has gone fully out-of-toilet with their paper. When you’re done, just drop your used paper in a handy wastebasket next to the toilet. It was a little weird at first, but after a while, you got used to it, and it’s better for the environment.
4. I’ve since gone back to the boundary waters for another canoe trip, and while you may think that you don’t need that extra roll of TP to take up space in your pack, it’s probably good form to bring it just in case. By the end of the trip, we were all drip drying. Thank goodness my bowels were in discord the night BEFORE we got on the water.
5. The portapotty status at Ragnar is definitely dependent on when they get cleaned out. Sometimes you’re lucky, and they have just unloaded the rows of portajohns and pumped in a “clean” scent, which does absolutely nothing except cover the smell of portapoos with disinfectant flowers. Or you get not so lucky and note that if you decide to use this portaloo, your bum will touch something that’s not the seat, and no thank you. I do not go THAT far. The good news is that I have noticed that the farther away the bank of johnnyonthespots, the less frequently used they are, generally, and I’m definitely willing to walk another 50’ to get to a better place to plant my bum.
6. EXCEPT WHEN IT’S 37º OUTSIDE HOLY CRAP NO ONE WANTS TO SIT ON AN ALMOST-FREEZING TOILET SEAT, EVEN IF IT’S CLEAN, SAAADD FACE. My poor, frozen bum didn’t get warm til I got home and took a bath.

i feel like it’s easy to find athletic clothes for most sizes these days. in fact, i feel like it’s easier to find clothes in general if you’re bigger than a size 10. when i was searching for a prom dress in 1996, the pickings were slim for a teenage size 14 (probably a size 12ish these days). my mom and i went to st. cloud to check out what the mall had, since willmar was a non-spot for anything prom dress related. we searched every store, and i think i was almost ready to go with some weird split pants thing from penney’s before we found a forest green size 14 dress that fit like a very tight glove, probably in the back corner of deb or something, tucked away where no one would find it. i sat and danced very carefully that night.

i feel like clothing has gotten easier to find for bigger people. when i was wearing a size 20, i hated that every shirt fit like a muumuu, but eventually the retailers caught up, and now days, you can (mostly) find the clothes you want in the size you need.

but that’s not what this post is about. let’s go back to being a 13/14 year old in the early 90s. oh man, those years were tough, and your peers were even tougher. i was probably the biggest girl in your class (not just clothes wise, at a not-so-bad-in-hindsight size 12/14, but also 2nd tallest – mackenzie was 6′ at that point, i was probably close to 5’7″ or 8″, near my current height). ugh, teenage girls have it rough. and i decided to have a hand at being on the volleyball team during 8th grade, something that all my classmates had been a part of the previous year. i didn’t want to miss out this time around.

so we practiced, learned the basics, figured it out. and we were ready for our first game. the day before, we got our shamrocks uniforms (go big green!), and i managed to get the biggest size available, which was probably equivalent to a size 10 these days. it was probably a child’s size large. who knows what it was. i looked at the shorts and knew my ample behind (which i’m currently at relative peace with) would NOT fit in those shorts. i was on the verge of tears and stuffed it in my bag in the locker room, then tried not to cry on the way home.

i was NOT wearing that uniform to the game.

(currently, i would refuse point blank. if my teammates or coach wanted to know why, i would put on said uniform, parade around in it, then peel it off hoping that the fabric would rip. or i would wear it and say screw you world – you made the uniform small; you gotta watch stuff jiggle. but i was 13. give me a break.)

now. time to give my mom MAD PROPS. i got home and was filled with DREAD. how was i going to manage this. i don’t remember the specifics, but i do know at one point that my mom asked me to put on the uniform so she could see what was up. i don’t know what she remembers, but i remember feeling like a completely humiliated stuffed sausage in that setup.

(you have to remember – we were not as body positive then as we are now. the early 90s was a time of baggy acid wash jeans, loose silk boat-collared shirts, oversized colorful polos, and we still had big hair. we did not want to be a stuffed sausage.)

i’m pretty sure she called mr. byron, coach of the 8th grade shamrock team and father of my classmate beth, and pled my case. somehow, and i’m not sure how, the shamrocks scraped together the money for new uniforms for the 8th grade team, and the current sausagey uniforms went to the 7th graders. i know i wasn’t the only one who benefitted from this. i may have been the biggest one size wise, but there were a couple other girls in my class who were also not that much smaller than i was. i think there was a collective sigh of relief among everyone who weighed more than 130 lbs.

unfortunately, we did have one game before the new uniforms were in. i was allowed to wear a long sleeved white shirt and a pair of blue shorts i owned (not quite green but the closest i had). we taped my number to the back of the shirt. while i was in the locker room, a couple of my classmates tried to heckle me into “just wear the uniform for this one game” but no way was i budging. they were comfortably lounging in their uniforms, while mine would have lodged itself uncomfortably in many places.

thankfully, no one cared after i served to some girl on the other team who couldn’t return it to save herself. i think i scored 6 points in a row.

go big green!

PS: i quit volleyball after that, which is probably a good thing because they went to basically full coverage spandex underwear for the lower half the uniform for the rest of the 90s, and that would have been the end of my teenaged self. uniforms these days aren’t horrible, but still not enough for 12-year-old me to say “sign me up.” 40-year-old me would say “bring it on.”

when i was 2 or 3 – i don’t know exactly except i don’t think liz was around – we lived in a drafty farmhouse with questionable heating. we had a wood stove in the kitchen, which meant we spent a lot of time in the kitchen during the colder months. since we spent time in the living room too (with the 5 channels on TV and the best record player ever), my parents had a kerosene heater that stood in the corner. the bedrooms were chilly.

one evening, i was being 3 years old and dancing around the living room like a 3 year old should, and i came in for the big finale – TADA – and placed my hand on the top of the heater! oh, man.

i spent the evening with my hand in ice water in our very-70s-esque mixing bowl and watching donald duck holiday specials on tv.

so, it should come as no surprise that i ended up pouring hot water over my knuckles this past weekend! cleaning the microwave comes with some serious side effects. anyway, my blister’s pretty gnarly!

and like that, we have started on the downhill side of the longer days of the year. we’re in the week where the days are almost evenly long, even so much weirder in that the sun slightly shifts so that sunrise is a couple minutes later and sunset is also a couple minutes later, so it seems that the days continue to lengthen, when in fact they really are staying the same.

it’s weird how time is moving during the pandemic. it seems to equally move slowly and quickly, as we wait for normalization, as much as that is possible. things on hold cause us to view the time moving slowly, yet our routines are so different now and not so routine that time moves more quickly that we’d expect. or want.

routine lulls us into a sense of having more time than we actually do.

not right now seems to be a common phrase. the thing is, if we keep putting it off – continuing to say not this summer, or not right now, or not yet, then soon there is no more summer, no more right now , or no more yet to be. all the years of me putting off traveling or doing things because of money or time is something i regret; and so i want to travel as much as i can while i can. the pandemic is really a pain in that respect.

when articles started circulating that young people were taking advantage of cheap plane tickets at the beginning of the pandemic, i was jealous. i knew i wouldn’t go; i did want to go. one of my young(er) friends mentioned “we’re here for a good time, not a long time.” i like that.

last night i stepped to the edge of my property where the field behind me begins, just as the sun was setting. the field was blinking with fireflies and the sun’s glow on the horizon gave it a pinkish layer, followed by purple and into indigo blue – the gloaming. the gloaming stretches this time of year, extending sunset from shortly after 9 p.m. into well after 10 p.m. before the sun completely surrenders to the earth’s rotation.

all the emotions of the past few months are starting to subside. i don’t want to get complacent and move into an attitude of not caring about current events and injustices and public health, but i also don’t like being angry and anxious all the time. it’s not healthy, and ultimately, it’s not useful. especially when in the scheme of things, we’re a speck on a speck on a speck of dust in this universe.

the best part of the gloaming is seeing the stars start to peek out in the dark blue on one side of the sky with the indigo purple on the other side, our one star subsiding to the others in the soupy star-filled out yonder. look up long enough and there’s a sense of vertigo, of how small we really are, how our time here is short. stardust to stardust – let’s make it a good time while we’re here.