Visiting The Polar Bears

As I type this, there is something momentous happening to the far north of us. A silent annual gathering has begun, in anticipation of a crucial event. The ocean water in Hudson Bay is freezing, little by little, creating islands and bridges made of ice that will stretch into a dark and vast arctic ocean. This is the ice, once formed, that will provide hungry polar bears access to the hunting grounds where the seals that they depend on live and breed. At this very moment, bears and their young are gathering around the edge of the bay, waiting and watching. Each year, the wait becomes a little longer. 

Polar bears have become the icon of global warming, facing head-on the realities of a changing climate and its effect on their survival . Churchill, an outpost of a town that clings to the edge of Hudson Bay, has become their front line. Obviously, bears themselves can do little to change the fact that our planet is getting warmer, and must depend on the human advocates whose mission it is to protect these animals and their habitats. I was blessed last year to spend a few days with these heroic souls when I was invited to visit Churchill and its surrounding tundra, sketching and studying polar bears in their natural state.

The invitation came from my brave and dear friend, Leeann. Leeann, like many of the people I would meet in Churchill, first visited the bears as a tourist a few years ago, and was so moved by her experience that she joined Polar Bears International, an all-volunteer organization dedicated to conservation through research and education, lending her abilities as a writer and speaker.

click to see my sketchbook from Churchill

PBI was my host while in Churchill, which meant that I was able to spend lots of time with Robert Buchanan, its Board President. Robert is a fascinating and perhaps unlikely hero to these bears, whom he came to love after visiting the region annually for more than two decades of arctic photo safaris that inspired him to dedicate his retirement (he was a successful marketing/finance guy) and ample connections and resources protecting. Watching Robert in action, I realized quickly that he is the one, in this diverse community, who brings everyone together. He could swap stories about vodka and near-death with the burly drivers and seasoned guides, and minutes later, he could offer technical guidance to a twenty-something with questions about the northern lights. Later in the trip I watched him smooth over what could have been a mutinous moment involving a visitor who was angry that the bears we were watching were not willing to get up from their nap to give her a few glamour shots. "She doesn't get out of bed for less than ten thousand", was his dry response to her complaints. In a place and a time when so much is at stake, where views are extreme and politics often threaten progress, he is the perfect affable ambassador. 

Robert drove me through town on my first morning in Churchill, past a new but uneven row of townhouses that looked as though the ground beneath them had buckled in an effort to shake the buildings from their base. The ground, he explained, was thawing out for the first time in our human history. Until recently, houses in Churchill did not require foundations, they could be built directly on the long-frozen earth. Points just north of us might still remain in a state of "perma-frost" year round, but suddenly, in Churchill, the ground was softening and expanding.   Churchill is only reached via train, ship, or plane, its history one of trade and commerce between nations and continents which began long before its settling by the Hudson's Bay Company almost three hundred years ago. Its port is still ideally located in terms of bringing goods into North America, when it is not made impassable by ice. Freight can be unloaded here and easily transferred to trains that then carry cargo south, where it joins a vast shipping and rail network far into Central America, while avoiding US ports and their prohibitive rules and tolls. And, of course, Churchill is now known for being something else, thanks to the forward thinking of Churchill residents and Manitoba Conservation, who realized that they could protect humans from the bears and bears from humans, while bringing international tourists into town for a few months every fall during “bear season.” It has become known as the Polar Bear Capital of the World.

Signs around the perimeter of Churchill show images of polar bears with warnings not to wander too far out of town limits, but I didn't see any signs warning the bears to stay on their side. This explains why it is impossible to spend even a day in this town without hearing the cautionary tales about hungry bears and their visits through the streets of Churchill, like the one about the unsuspecting resident who had food in his pockets (one of the very few actual human casualties inside city limits) or the recent law banning local children from dressing up during Halloween as walruses, seals, or any other of the bears' preferred prey. My mittens, purchased for my trip, were almost laughed out of town. I had thought them to be uber arctic chic, sort of a Dr Zhivago meets Patagonia, with their fresh white color and small eye-shaped black snaps. "Those mittens look a lot like baby seals." warned a helpful docent at the Eskimo Museum. The serious tone of her voice was enough to cost me $14.95, the price tag on some rather adorable red mittens with the giant maple leaf that is the icon of Canada. "I'm thinking bears don't eat leaves" I said, expecting at least a smile from the woman who was now basking in the certainty that she had saved my life. Still not funny. She was amazed that I had made it through town looking the way I did from behind, as though I was carrying a baby seal in each pocket, without being eaten. Had she taken a better look at my dainty rabbit fur trimmed bots, also more chic than wise, she would have realized that for me, being eaten would have been a painless, quick experience. The streets were so ice covered that had I tried to run away from a bear, I'm certain I would have been flat on my back and knocked unconscious within seconds, my seal pups thrown high in the air, my story remembered as yet another cautionary legend.  "Did you hear about the woman from New York who had her arms eaten off in front of the Eskimo Museum?" they would ask. "Oh yes." would be the reply. "and with such beautiful boots."

Newly terrified of the out-of-doors, I opted to spend another hour or three safely inside the museum, which turned out to be a wonderful thing. It was there, tacked on a wall next to the giant taxidermied polar bear, that I saw the map that reminded me that I was truly in a different world. I had never seen the earth presented this way, its perspective showed the north pole as the center of the world.  Makes sense, now that I saw it. I had no idea that there was so much water, and so much ice. This is a different planet, I thought. A world that knows two different seasons: Frozen and Unfrozen. A closer look revealed that this was one of those magnificent National Geographic Magazine maps, illustrated by a skilled and lucky artist (add to Dream Job List) who had obviously travelled this region (around 1964 according to this map) and created amazing portraits of people and cultures that I was learning of, literally, for the first time. Smiling women with their babies in the hoods of their long fur anoraks, men sitting on the backs of reindeer, one of them using the ample antlers splayed out in front of him as a rack for his enormous rifle. There were sleds and igloos, those were familiar, but there were also shelters and clothing I had never seen. At this apex at the top of the world I could see the close proximity as well as the cultural connection between every northern continent on earth, so much closer than I had imagined them to be, and that was when I felt the earth below my feet change, or maybe it was my understanding of my place on it. How very small I felt, standing there between this map and an 800 pound stuffed polar bear encased in a huge box of thin glass, fangs exposed. And then, pressing my tiny pink hands to the glass alongside it's massive mouth, how very edible.

Tundra Buggy Lodge

a curious bear

My second day in Churchill was spent as the guest of the impressive Frontiers North, an ecologically minded outfitter represented on our trip by three generations of skilled and professional guides, for whom this place is very familiar territory. FN has a small fleet of vehicles called Tundra Buggies, built to move across the icy, uneven landscape on enormous tires and with great clearance in order to get far out on the tundra and close to the bears. Respectfully, they limit their movements to specific "roads" in an effort to leave less of a footprint. FN also runs a mobile hotel of sorts, part research station, part photo studio, part bed and breakfast where lucky guests can spend the night. On occasion, special guests including scientists and wildlife photographers including the very talented Daniel Cox provide entertainment in the evenings with slideshows and informative lectures. We would be going out just for the day, in search of bears to watch and photograph. I took my place on the Tundra Buggy with twelve or so other guests including Bill Winhall, assistant curator of mammals at SeaWorld San Diego, who showed me the photos on his iPhone on the long drive over the tundra. Pictures of his grinning four year old were interspersed with images of him, his arms full of an orphaned walrus pup, holding a bottle to its mouth.  

Heather Ross

The first bear we saw was asleep, and for the first hour was not responding to our many requests for a better look. Its massive size was difficult to fully comprehend, even when it did finally roll over onto it's back and kick a massive foot into the air. We were a collective bundle of oohs and aaahs, watching it stretch and tumble on the ground, rubbing its neck against the cold ground, stretching and pawing the gravel and ice beneath him. He moved slowly, as though half asleep, like a giant dog having a good dream. Suddenly, just to the left of the bear I saw something small pounce on something smaller. It was a tiny white fox! The bear, which we had been told was likely very hungry, was not fazed. One of our party offered the fox to the bear, as a light snack perhaps. "Eat the FOX!" she shouted, her gloved pointer finger tapping at the glass emphatically "There's some food!" I wasn't so sure that this was something that I should root for, sleepy hungry bear aside, as typically I am in the camp of all things cute, and this fox was certainly insanely cute. The gentleman next to me, who I am sure would rather remain unnamed, sensed my Survival vs Cute quandry and leaned over to quietly tell me his story: "I have been coming here for twenty years. Originally, it was with people who wanted to protect the baby seals. The bears would close in for a kill and they would shout 'shoot the bear!' Now they see the hungry bears and they say 'can't we find them some baby seals to eat??' Maybe we are impatient." Turns out I had nothing to worry about. Foxes aren't afraid of bears, because, for whatever reason, bears don't eat foxes. If they changed their minds they wouldn't have too much trouble, because foxes actually follow bears around hoping for scraps left over from their hunting spoils. 

Heather Ross

The folks at Frontiers North were amazing, knowledgeable and patient, even allowing us to take turns driving the Tundra Buggy for a minute or two each. The vast tundra, with it's sun obscured by clouds and falling snow, looked to me the same in every direction, as far as the eye could see. To our guides, it was a navigable and memorized route with important landmarks. By the end of the day they had expertly steered us into the path of several bears, one of which had two cubs with her. There were moments when we were within several feet of polar bears weighing hundreds of pounds, none of them seemed fearful of our giant vehicle or the flashing cameras. The buggies have viewing platforms that allow you to share space with these bears safely out of reach, but at the same time so close that you could try, at least, to make eye contact. We never left the viewing platforms or touched the ground, which made the tundra seem even more like a moonscape that could not quite support us, which in many ways it was. None of us are built for survival in this climate wihtout a lot of help and support. Living here, in human terms, means an extreme existence. These bears, on the other hand, are engineered for nothing else, and when you see them in their element they are things of pure and heartsopping beauty. We, of course, were seeing them on land, but they are powerful ocean swimmers able to withstand unfathomably cold temperatures, and are able to travel huge distances across frozen bodies of water. Their partner in survival is ice, their great threat is that their once frozen world is quickly disappearing. As we drove home, the sun set against the vast landscape that had seemed just that morning to be barren and harsh. Now I knew it as a system in delicate balance, full of life.

Heather Ross

I left Churchill the following evening, inspired (and wearing my new pro-canadian non life threatening mittens). At the airport, waiting for the tiny airplane that would carry us back to Winnepeg, I noticed a young woman dressed in a traditional anorak, her tiny baby peering out from under her hood, strapped to her back. Again, a reminder that there is so much in this world that remains untouched, unchanged, and at least by me, undiscovered.

I do hope to go back, or to travel to other arctic places with people who are as dedicated and passionate as the people I met in Churchill. I highly recommend the journey, if you can find a way to make it. If you can't, spend some time on the PBI website, there is so much to learn there. 

If you are looking for a really fun way to support PBI, have a look at these pajamas I designed for Munki Munki. They are covered with the sketches I did while there, along with a few polar bear and arctic fox facts. Munki Munki is generously donating a portion of all sales to PBI.

Very Cool Update! I have just gotten an email from Leeann, who is in Churchill now. PBI is carefully tracking the bears movements and activities and putting together some amazing daily video updates. Really lovely: here is the link.

 And did you know that you or your compnay or school can sponsor an individual bear, and keep track of him as he travels north, thanks to the technology of GPS and  tracking devices? Check that out here.

note: the photos and illustrations of the bears, foxes, and sunset are by me, the images of Churchill and the tundra buggy are from various sources. 

Entertaining Family in New York City

Or maybe this post she be titled: Entertaining Myself in New York City While Dragging Family Members Around Until They Beg For a Nice Nap in Front of the Television Set.

I have family coming to town for the holidays (both familes, both holidays) and am planning some fun touristy days around the city. I have to admit that I might be slightly more interested in the tour's highlights than, say, my father in law, but that is why New York created the Mickey Mantle Pub, which is located within easy crawling distance of Bergdorf Goodman. My Mother in Law, on the other hand, loves All Things Beautiful and Free, which makes her an absolutely ideal window shopping companion. I need to make an extra effort during her visit this year, because I screwed up a bit last year, when we took her to Ellis Island. I made the mistake of convincing her that we didn't need to get off our ferry when it stopped at the Statue of Liberty because it's new security rules made it impossible to get close to anything except Liberty's enormous feet and we could see her perfectly well from our seats, but then as we began to pull away after letting on lots of cheering tourists (who seemed perfectly happy to have spent a chilly hour having their picture taken in front of giant sandal clad feet) she began to cry a little so I bought her one of those foam crowns and promised we would come back. TC, who can always be counted on to lighten the mood, put the crown on improperly until she was laughing again. Come to think of it, I also misjudged my father-in-Laws interest in Ellis Island altogether. I had a solemn and respectful hour planned at the island's museum researching his ancestors journey to the New World, assuming his Irish heritage and love of family was an almost guarantee of a tearful, touching moment, a perfect holiday event. Five minutes into the process, at about the time I had expected to cement my lead as Best Daughter In Law Ever, I actually caught him yawning and sizing up his chair to see if it would sustain a nap. His favorite moment, it turned out, was when we discovered that for a small fee we could have our pictures taken and then, through the magic of photoshop, applied to the faces of an exhausted immigrant family disembarking their ship in an old sepia toned photo. Hello, Fleming family Christmas Card. That's the thing about my husbands family. They love Fun.

This year I am planning big things. TC has reminded me more than once that in his family everyone is perfectly happy to lie around in the living room together like a pile of golden retriever puppies falling in and out of a completely uninhibited state of deep sleep with football games and viagra commercials providing a constant soundtrack. It is no secret by now that this is not my idea of a well-spent day off, and for this reason the job of planning activities is largely mine. Luckily, TC's parents are up for almost anything within reason and easy reach of indoor plumbing and a cocktail hour. 

My Sister and her family of five are coming for Christmas, which is huge. There has already been a trip to American Girl Place planned, which is more than fine with me. I am hugely fond of all things American Girl. I love that the characters are smart and brave little girls, I love that their stories are about overcoming hardship, friendship, heritage, and problem solving. I love that they are the opposite, in terms of identities marketed to young american girls today, of Paris Hilton. Though not a huge critic of Barbie, I would rather spend a day in the little log cabin of Swedish Immigrant American Girl Kristen fending off bears and carrying heavy wooden pails of water than one minute trying on white high heel shoes in that horrifying Dream House. This Christmas will be my niece Quinn's first and much anticipated visit to American Girl Place, and her parents are preparing themselves. The average customer spends more at this store than they do in mortgage payments each month. As my cousin Ruth (the mother of three little girls) put it, say what you will about Barbie, but at least she's cheap.

My sister and I would have visited another little girl in New York City had we had the chance at Quinns age. We would have headed straight to The Plaza, in search of Eloise. Eloise's life, described in Kay Thompson's wonderful books, was nothing like ours. Eloise was a city child, we were undeniably country children. Eloise made New York City seem like an opulent playground for little girls, filled with stern hotel managers, fancy ballrooms, debutantes, and a glamorous but silly cast of players who existed solely to be mocked. Eloise was too chubby for her tailors, too wild for her tutors, too clever for her nanny. We loved her. Our copies of the Eloise books belonged to our mother, who, like Eloise, had been raised by nannies and tutors in big fancy houses, which made Eloise even more special in our eyes.  The Plaza  has recently been transformed into condos after falling slightly out of fashion as a grand but crumbling hotel, causing many to wonder if Eloise would still live there until the new management announced that "there would always be a place at The Plaza for Eloise", which touched my heart completely and made up for the fact that they had employed her image in their massive marketing campaign.

Eloise and her pug, above, and taking center stage in a marketing campaign for the new Plaza residences.

Just across the street from the Plaza is another must-stop on the tour: FAO Scwarz. FAO never ceases to amaze with it's custom made menagerie of full sized stuffed bears, dragons, horses, and gorillas. On her visit last year, my niece was especially impressed with the enormous replicas of the dragons from the Harry Potter movie, which corrected some of her disappointment that the big floor piano (made famous by the movie BIG) was commanding a twenty minute wait.

Just around the corner from The Plaza and FAO lies Bergdorf Goodman.

Bergdorf's holiday windows are of the stop and stare variety, and are breathtakingly good year round, thanks to the very talented Linda Fargo. Linda designs and builds the displays at Bergdorfs (hello, Dream Job.), and has for a very long time. In 2003 the high high end publisher Assouline released a book about her and her designs. It's highly sought, even used copies command $75 or so on Amazon, but still a must for anyone who loves fantasy, costume and drama.
 

Linda Fargo Windows at BergdorfsThis years pre-holiday windows featured a new favorite artist of mine, Mark Gagnon, who has created a series of paintings depicting every notable era of fashion in history (more or less) as modeled by beasts large and small.

Mark Gagnon's paintings on display at Bergdorf's.

Oh, and one last note about The Plaza. When renovations began a few years ago and the old rooms and halls were gutted, some very unusual items began showing up at the Flea Markets and quirky boutiques around
the city. If you acted quickly, you could buy a huge mirror flanked with molding from the hotel's hallways, a picture frame made from tim ceiling tiles, or, my personal favorite, a necklace made from one of the elegant gold numbers that once hung on each of the rooms tall front doors. These have been so popular that designer LuLu Frost has made casts from the originals, and a very well priced collection of reproductions will soon be offered at the Plaza'a gift shop as well as online.

I have found it pretty easy to imagine Eloise at the The Plaza post-redo after all, currently twenty and starring off broadway in a dark comedy. She sits with her mother at one of the corner tables in the Champagne Bar discussing something serious and smoking, (she will quit next year, when she goes back to Barnard and finishes her degree in Literature) dressed in a simple silk blouse, flannel trousers and devilish Louboutin Mary Janes .  An oversized golden "6" hangs on a chain around her neck, mostly hidden from the familiar waiter, who suspects but forgives that she stole it from her apartment's front door the day that she moved out. She lives downtown now.

The New York State Sheep & Wool Fair

When the leaves change in New England they do so in a southern-moving pattern. Where I grew up in northern Vermont, the colors were explosive in September, branches were bare by October. Here in new York it is a slower, more drawn out process, and I admit I have been losing patience and wanting an excuse to head north and meet fall head on.

Luckily, the annual New York State Sheep and Wool Festival, held annually in Rhinebeck, New York, was this past weekend, and Jennifer and I were both able to get away. The best part? We would take the train. And not one of the modern commuting trains that serve New York City and its bedroom communities, but Amtrak.

What Amtrak leaves to be desired in the form of punctuality and convenience, it more than makes up for in nostalgia, with it's retro-adorable uniformed stewards with their stepping stools who offer a hand to every passenger climbing on and off, and of course the cafe and sleeper cars. 

 The route from New York City to Rhinebeck, in a car or by train, winds along the Hudson River. Its the same route my grandmother and great grandmother took, via Amtrak, to their college in Poughkeepsie, and I always imagine them when I am on this route, each in the era in which they were college-aged, going to and from New York for shopping and parties and boys. I suppose the trains themselves have been replaced and revamped, but the view from their window was exactly the same as the view from mine.

We left a bustling Grand Central Station at 11:45 and in just a few short hours later were making our way into the Fair, bumping into my good friend and editor Melanie Falick, who was waiting in line for fried artichokes. It was an especially funny moment, because Jennifer and I were both wearing the Meathead hat from the book Knitalong. Knitalong is a wonderful book full of great patterns written by Larissa Brown and John Martin Brown, edited by Melanie. Jennifer had knit one for me in green, obviously aware of my lack of knitting skills, not wanting me to be the only person at the fair not wearing something hand-knit. 

The fair takes place (always during the perfectly chilly but beautiful third weekend in October) on some lovely old fairgrounds, permanent barns bearing the 4-H clover divided into stalls housing sheep, goats, llamas, and even a few bunnies. Surrounding tents house sellers of yarn and books, brooms and cheeses, sheepskins and sweaters. I wasn't shopping for yarn. I have more yarn than my own skills as a knitter could possibly require, and my latest project was sitting under my sofa (is still, actually) having been stalled due to my cat eating the tips of my circular bamboo needles. I was looking instead for a sheepskin that could be used for a bed for Lobo and Benito, hoping that they might like to spend the winter on a fluffy sheepy bed in front of the fireplace, and maybe give me my spot on the sofa back. We wound around through barns and tents filled with bags and bags of wool, roving, yarn, and livestock. Jennifer found the most amazing yarn, and I found the perfect sheepskin. Only thirty dollars, it is a bright acid yellow. There was also a bright, hot pink, and an orange. "I don't know why HE decided to dye these" said the woman loudly as I handed her my money, loudly enough for the man behind her to hear,  and I realized that her husbands unsuccessful experiment had become my find of the day. A quick look around confirmed that the other, natural colored skins in the booth were priced closer to $300. Very exciting. 

Next we stumbled onto a judging of goats, lined up with their owners waiting to hear if they would be going home with a ribbon. Apparently manners are not a part of the competition, because first place went to the one who seemed intent on drowning out the announcements with a persistent bleating that seemed to grow louder when the length of his hind legs were criticized. He reminded me a little of Kenley from Project Runway.

By late afternoon we were starving, and headed for a long promising line that wound around a large tent with a hand painted sign proclaiming "POTPIE". We waited in line for what seemed like forever, watching everyone around us eat steaming chicken and vegetables from a little pie tin covered in thick crumbly crust, only to be told that they were sold out. It was a minor tragedy, but one that cemented our decision to return next year. We settled for hand rolled pretzels, artichokes and escarole, and later some apple pie and ice cream, which we ate while watching the last few moments of the sheep dog trials and demonstration of dog tricks, our hearts completely stolen by an australian shepherd, his frisbee, and his owner. 

Anyone who loves knitting or wooly animals or being outside on a crisp fall day with leaves blowing around and deadly amounts of fried dough should put this event on their list for next fall. Drag your husbands and kids, the animals and pot pies will keep them occupied. If you are able, take Amtrak. Jennifer knew of some lovely little rentals in the area for weekend stays, but we agreed that it made a better one-day trip. When we were boarding our train back to New York, I watched as the sleeper car slowly rolled by, carrying travelers from Chicago and points beyond tucked into their sleeping berths, some of them reading, one of them knitting, and imagined taking my own long winding by-rail tour of New England, tucked snugly in my own sleeper car with someone I love in some future October.

 all photos and illustrations by Heather Ross, copyright 2008

Signature Scents ( A Handmade Gift Idea!)

A few weeks ago I was searching my favorite New York pharmacy for a gift for my cousin Martha, who had had a terrible summer and was in need of an unexpected package on her doorstep. I stumbled upon this unique line of scents, which i had seen before, and picked up the one called "Firefly". 

Martha and I knew a lot of fireflies in our day, our summers in Vermont were full of them. I didn't know that fireflies weren't everywhere until my niece, a California Girl of about eight at the time, started drilling me about them. We were on a plane, headed to Vermont, where she had never before been but had been told by her mother that fireflies lived. She wasn't buying it. "Let me get this straight..." she said, her voice very grown up but her little legs straight out in front of her, barely reaching the edge of the chair.. "Its a bug, that FLIES" with this she gave me a little hand flip and raised her eyebrows.. "and his BUTT lights up? Now she was shaking her head and putting her little headphones back on, not waiting for a response. I grabbed her arm. "YES", I said. "And you can catch them - they fly very slowly - and put them in a jar for a little while, so long as you poke air-holes in the top." Now she was looking at me as though I should be put in a jar for a little while, with some air-holes poked in the top and some special medicine. I have to admit that the satisfaction I felt when she finally did see - and catch- a firefly a few days later, it was partly due to the fact that I myself had begun to believe that they were possibly imaginary, if not remarkably improbable.

I sniffed "Firefly" and found it to be an exact replica of July evenings in northern Vermont. EXACT. Down to the wet, dark evening grass and the wine soaked mother and aunts on the front porch. It  smelled exactly like dirt roads, raspberries, and being poor. Swimming holes, rotting leaves, clover, and station wagons. Spiders, cousins, wet bathing suits, and a kitchen full of steam from boiling corn. It was all there.

Scent is a powerful thing. Ask my dog, who just last week, on his walk home from his very first New York City grooming appointment, hurled himself into a slick puddle of mystery ick beside the Happy Halal Lunch Truck across from the Tyra Banks / Martha Stewart TV studios and writhed spastically on his back until his entire top half smelled of death and coriander. SOMEONE will not be getting the hand knitted holiday sweater as planned. 

Inspired equally to re-capture the scents of my childhood and to mask the smell of decay that my dog prefers, I decided to experiment with scents. My plan is to make holiday gifts for everyone in my family. I picked a place in Vermont that we all remember very fondly: Alpine Haven. Alpine Haven was the adorably kitschy chalet style vacation community in which my grandparents retired, there was a pool there that we all used almost every day in the summer. My grandmother would appear poolside post siesta with her mules and sunglasses,  put on a bathing cap with big white plastic flowers on it, and swim back and forth in an elegant breast stroke that was, in itself, so memorable that I can still stretch my neck and move my arms in a certain way and any one of my cousins will know exactly who I am pretending to be, without saying a word. She was an elegant woman. She wore chanel no.5 (I am certain that she was the only woman I knew who wore perfume until I was an adult) and did not drive. 

Not everyone wears perfume, so I am planning to make aromatic diffusers with bamboo sticks. These are better than candles, because you can't leave them burning accidentally. I was happily shocked to find that I could make them inexpensively. I plan to add my own custom labels, probably with a picture of my grandmother on them.

My Alpine Haven blend is still needing a bit of tweaking, but so far I have decided on a mixture of essential oils of Pine (just a touch), Birch, Geranium, Chamomile (it grew wild all around the pool), and just the tiniest amount of Chanel No. 5, which I had to beg for in small sample quantities at the perfume counter at Bloomingdales because I really didn't want a whole bottle. If I add a tiny bit of blue food dye it will be the color of a swimming pool.  Everything else I have managed to find online, but I am thinking about other ingredients that I might have to hunt down, just to make it more interesting. 

The options for holiday gifts involving custom scents are really endless... for supplies plus great instructional videos on making custom perfumes, candles, soaps, lip balms and much  more, check out snowdriftfarm.com.

Lightning and Pie

Denyse and I began to see signs pointing to Pietown when we were driving through Navajo country (I know this was Navajo country only because I was told so by the young man who pulled me over for speeding. His exact words were: "This is Navajo Country. We do things differently here." words which, if I had a job that allowed it, I would find every opportunity to utter) on our way to Quemado, New mexico, our meeting spot for our Overnight Experience at the Lightning Field. As we drove we saw signs pointing us towards both Quemado and Pietown, along with a few other place names that I recognized from four days with the map in my lap. 

I liked the feeling of hurtling towards pie. I suppose I was a little nervous about this whole Lightning Field thing: Will I get it? Will it get me? Who else will be there with us in the vast desert surrounded by Lightning rods, stars, and darting rabbits? Will they have coffee? will they have MILK? Everyone knows that nothing is a better match for nerves than pie, so the signs were giving me a lot of comfort in their simple promise and straightforwardness. But suddenly we found ourselves at an intersection that forced us to decide: Right to Quemado (and serious art)  or left... to Pietown. No scary mystery as to what will happen to you in a place called Pietown, but a place called Lightning Field, on the other hand, that could mean a lot of things. Denyse calmly told me that we did not have time for a quick trip to Pietown, we needed to be on time to meet our ride out to the Lightning Field. I agreed, there was probably no such thing as a Quick Trip to Pietown anyway. We would go the next day on our way back to Albequerque, she promised. The pie would wait. That's the other thing about Pietown. It's not going anywhere. 

I could probably stand a day away from eating pie anyway. Denyse has the metabolism and dining schedule of a hummingbird and a sweet tooth that puts my 10 year old niece to shame. After a week or so of keeping up, I had gained a noticeable amount of weight. Only one pair of pants in my suitcase still fit and my silhouette was expanding with the rapidity and soft force of a chia pet. I'm not a small girl to begin with, mind you. On laundry day in Santa Fe when I was folding our clothes I had noticed that Denyse's underpants looked like my underpants had had a baby. She's as slender as a cat (not my cat). And really, that girl can eat. Still, this was little solace as we took a right and made our way towards Quemado.

The Lightning Field exceeded any expectations. Vast flat land stretched out in every direction, with a central flat expanse a mile wide and a kilometer long studded with row after row of tall, thin, stainless steel poles, their tips sharp like needles, measuring up to 26 feet in height. There were six of us in total, two couples and Denyse and I. We ate and slept in an old ranch-house, as lovely as anywhere I have ever spent a night in my life, spending much of our time on the low slung back porch watching the sun rise and set and marveling, in general, at the universe.  

Opportunities for exploration, study, and pontification were endless. Everything about the place from the smile lines on the face of the real-life cowboy who drove us out there to the small bleached skeletons collected by past visitors and arranged carefully along an outside wall commanded our full attention. Something about the fact that a whole day was given to us in the form of a work of art allowed for a certain outwardly view of our lives past and present, and about who we were when everything about us was left behind. I felt myself describing my work to someone as though I was describing someone else's job, with little attachment or interest. How nice it was to get away from myself for a while. 

We had long been warned to not expect lightning during our visit. An artists statement at the ranch house explains what the poles are really meant to do, what the place is really meant to encourage and provide, but little explanation is needed, even without lightning.  It was lovely, uplifting, and terribly inspiring. I really think, to my relief, that I completely got it.

The publishing of photos of the Lightning Field is not allowed, which is why I have not included any here. The reason for this rule is not what I thought (I had assumed it had something to do with copyright) but has more to do with the fact that the real feel of the place is not something that can be captured on film. Sort of like pie.

By the time we FINALLY pulled into Pietown (population 50) it was mid afternoon. We had been told about a place called The Daily Pie, hard to miss when driving eastbound. I was drawn to the berry pie, personally, but we were encouraged to try the New Mexico Apple Pie, made with green apples, chilis, and pine nuts (or pinons). This is the pie that had made this town famous. This is the pie I will never, ever forget. This is also, happily, the pie that you can make at home thanks to the generous posting of this recipe by the owner of The Daily Pie, which you should definitely do as soon as possible. If you are not a baker or don't trust yourself, you can also order this pie and have it shipped to you pronto. We were told that this is exactly what one Pietown mother had just done for her home-sick daughter who is stationed in Iraq, requiring five days and a large box of dry ice. 

After one bite, I completely got it.