Field Report

(another excerpt from the TBA presscorps files)

Once, my friend Mirah sent me a box of chocolates from France. They came in a wooden box, with a diagram inside showing each chocolate’s ingredients. One was lavender with delicately crumbled nuts on top. One was triangular, and had honey in it. Each of them was decadent and divine, with subtle rich flavors that lasted a long time in my mouth and in my heart. Listening to Spectratone International last night was just like opening that box of chocolates again. The performance was an exquisite gift, carefully crafted and sweetly delivered.
First of all, the music was dedicated to insects. Dung Beetle, Fly, Cicada. There is special place in my heart for insects. It’s right next to the spot reserved for chocolate. The suite of songs was structured so that each insect was represented by three pieces of music. Each song was brilliantly composed and meticulously performed by Spectratone International. On top of it all, Mirah is an amazing songwriter. Maybe I’m biased, because she is my friend, after all. However, her lyrics blew my mind. After listening to little snippets of insect facts all summer long, (“did you know that literally translated, Beezlebub means ‘my lord who hums’?”) I was awed by the results of all those yellow lined pages and library books. Weighty vocabulary blended with carefully researched facts somehow alchemically turned into gorgeous and hilarious songs. I mean, a love song written by a fly to Mirah? In my eye, my love for you multiplies? The whole aria was brilliant. Brilliant.

Okay, maybe you don’t have the attention for all the trivialities of the TBA festival. I’ll just give you some of best thoughts and observations, lifted slightly out of context. Here’s what I had to say yesterday:

DJ Spooky’s hands are incredible. When he held the microphone, when he described his thoughts on storytelling and the hidden links of history, his hands were elegantly gesticulating, making rhythms in the air. Then he got down to business. His hands were the sweetest tools, and he treated them with that much respect. Even behind his wall of technology, you could see his hands at work. Every once in a while, he would raise them up to his mouth. It almost looked like he was kissing them, paying reverence to them. Understandably so.

The much anticipated TBA festival has arrived, and I am a member of the very elite press corps. Therefore, for the next ten days, I will be posting entries on the PICA blog site in lieu of writing here. Check it out!

September 2, 2005

Dear Blog Audience,

I am writing to express interest in the blogging position that is currently and continuously posted. Because of my many months of writing online, and because of my many years of writing in general, I feel that I am qualified for this job.
I began writing for myself when I was in fourth or fifth grade, when I typed my own newspaper on my dad’s electric Smith-Corona. Since that time, I have logged many hours and thousands of pages of personally focused writing, including regular journalling and correspondence. In particular, I have kept a private journal for the past nineteen years.
In addition, I have been trained in many formal writing styles such as expository essays, proposals, evaluations, lesson plans, thesis projects, and business letters. As you can see, I am well versed in various forms of writing, and have had experience using those forms many times throughout the years.
Not only have I had experience producing many pieces of writing, I have also worked in the classroom, teaching developmentally appropriate writing techniques to children from ages five to eleven.
As you can see, I have done a great deal of work in the area of writing. Not only have done this work, I have also enjoyed it immensely. It is my deep pleasure to write, especially in situations where I have the freedom to express my ideas and perspectives on the world. I feel that I would an excellent job as a blogger, and I hope that you will consider me for the position. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely, Amber Bell

It’s Monday. I’m at the neighborhood cafe, the one that will be in our sit-com when we have one, the one where you walk in and your friend happens to already be sitting on the couch, drinking coffee and sending emails. I’m at the cafe (it’s called 3 Friends, by the way) because I don’t get internet in my house here in Portland. It creates a whole new pattern in my day. Part = Ride bike to 3 Friends, order a soy chai, plug in, check email, look for jobs, get frustrated, leave. It’s a nice pattern. I’ve really warmed up to it, and am working on abandoning the frustrated aspect of the adventure. The job hunt is slow and tedious, but I’m sure I will prevail at some point.
In the meantime, I am spending my energy preparing for and eagerly anticipating the TBA festival , which is just around the corner. Turns out I get to be a TBA blogger, and write about all the amazing performances that will be taking place in Portland, September 8-18. I feel like it’s my personal introduction to the city, and the city’s introduction to me. I feel pretty darn enthusiastic about it. Even if you can’t afford it, you can still go to Pioneer Square on Sept. 8th and see STREB, which apparently will be mind blowingly acrobatic, and will take our collective breath away. You can also participate in the On The Road events, including visiting Vaux’s Swifts, a migratory group of birds that perform their own version of airborne acrobatic feats.
I am looking forward to the TBA festival. I am not looking so much forward to my next day’s activity, getting my wisdom tooth pulled. I do, however, have a slight fascination with the tool they use to yank it out of my mouth. How do they get the leverage? I have imagined it in my mind often.
Thanks for reading. More later. Love, Amber

It started like a theoretical proposition, a ridiculous idea. Amber, move to Portland? Yeah, right. Amber wouldn’t leave Olympia.
Here I am, sitting on my couch on Salmon street, and it’s where I live. In Portland. I’m still not quite sure how I made it.
#1: The Macaroni and Cheese:
The thing that held me in Olympia is family. My family with the surfer blond baby, my family with the Sunday dinners, my family of teachers. Those families give me strength, allow me rest, permit me power. It breaks my heart to leave them, so I just have to stir up confidence that they’ll be fine without me there. I have to focus on what’s in front of me, the boxes to pack and the future. On Sunday, what was in front of me was the macaroni and cheese, cooking on the stove to bring to Sunday dinner. No avoiding it. My way of showing my love every week, a full pot of food to bring to the family. And the feeling of leaving boiled up along with the noodles. What am I doing leaving these children that grow and change with each passing week?
#2: The Couch:
I just kept going, piling box upon box into my car, driving back and forth between Olympia and Portland like some kind of shuttle service. Stuff down, friends back. Over and over, all week long. Making some kind of connecting path between the places, a spider weaving a web to shorten the distance. I didn’t stop really until I arrived finally on the couch, the last box having been precariously stacked against the wall. The second I attempted to vocalize the process, how it never could have happened without everyone’s help, I burst into tears. The next day, I fell asleep on the couch, and when I woke up to the sound of Portland friends singing my name, my arms had quit working. They hung at my sides, paralyzed in forfeit. I woke up and joined them.
#3: Farewell, Beloved Olympia:
My adoration and profound love for you is enormous. It is a list without end of people and places and times. My love marches down the street with a chocolate cake on its head, it sails on the Nicely Nicely in the afternoon sun, it sits in the balcony at the Capitol Theater, and it stands in the aisles at the co-op having an endless conversation. It stays there with you, and it follows that sticky silk trail back and forth between you and Portland, endlessly.

Suddenly I’m in Olympia again, one stop on this whirlwind that is my life right now. Follow the path; it goes from here, down to Oregon, out to Hood River to play with the family (chasing the baby around and around the yard, nibbling his little toes, shooting videos of the most imaginative four year old)back and forth to Portland to find someplace to live, all the way up to Anacortes a few times, and back home to rearrange, shuffle, take a shower, pack. There is nothing right now that isn’t absolutely full of possibility. Imagine summer camp for 31 year olds; stunning and brilliant friends from around the world, swimming three times a day, collaborating on art projects, listening to rich music, playing with chubby luscious babies, sharing ideas, sharing food, all the potential and possibility of things to come. It is the unfortunate and necessary nature of summer camp to come to a close eventually. Nobody wants it to end, but everybody would collapse at some point from exhaustion and lack of personal space. I’m right in the middle, and I never want it end.

Okay, so I’ve been pretty heavy on the Portland thing for a while now. I know it. I might as well admit I’m going to move there. The thing is, for the last nine months, every time I go to visit Portland, I get all loaded up on new ideas, sweet friends, and freedom. Whenever I’m in Portland, I’m away from all the responsibilities of my Olympia life. I see Portland with clear eyes, unencumbered by the gravity of raising 23 children. School got out yesterday. Just as I left it started to rain lightly. I walked out the door with a 3rd grader, and she said, “mmm, I love the smell of rain. It makes the dirt smell good.” I drove away, and the weight began lifting. By the time I got out of my car, the thought flashed through my mind- “Hey, Olympia’s pretty great. Why would I want to leave this?”
We built a campfire tonight, and I came home with clothes smelling deliciously like smoke. I spent the last half hour hunting down the sneaky moon, only to find that the moon does not photograph well. There is no way to capture the intensity of a yellow moon rising on a summer night.

As I was leaving Portland last night, a huge storm was brewing. The sky was split into quadrants- In one corner, puffy, deep monochromatic grey and white clouds billowed seductively. in another corner, broiling, massive yellowy clouds performed some sort of death dance. Off in the distance an ocean-like bank of deep black clouds was rolling in right on top of clear blue sky. Then, stunningly, the eerie light illuminated a glorious rainbow. It was hovering in the air, a perfect half circle, looming closer every second, trapping underneath it an electric yellow fog. Lightning coursed through the sky, restricted by the rainbow, unable to escape its spectrum. The thunder rolled in for long, timeless seconds. I was immobilized with awe. I had to pull over to the side of spooky, deserted Burnside and watch it all happen. It struck me almost as hard as if the lightning itself had hit me. Some electric omen. Some signal. Portland is where the action is.

3 days (minus 15 minutes) and counting…….
And not a minute too soon. June 21st, ladies and gentlemen, is the last day of the school year, the first day of summer, and the beginning of the Summer of Action. My brain and my hands are already gearing up for days and weeks on end of calculation, construction, and celebration. I am the mastermind of my own freedom, and I plan to do with it as much as I can.

Many, if not all of my plots include the Northwest Northwest Buddy System, a spread-out but close-knit network of schemers (yes, you are one of them) who may or may not be able to go to, say, France, but definitely spend some time in Washington or Oregon -together- doing a variety of activities including but not limited to doing art projects, barbequeing, swimming, looking for houses, discussing haircuts, and doing laundry.

exhibit A: NW NW Buddy System (we feel slightly jealous of everyone in France)