When I was 21, I spent the summer in California, at 8,000-some feet, just north of Yosemite. I was working as an intern for a summer camp, fulfilling a requirement for my BS in Recreation. We had forest green t-shirts with our first names embroidered on the left-side chest that we had to wear each day. Every few weeks, it was the most liberating experience to wear a tank top and short skirt and leave this over-sized t-shirt crumpled in a pile next to my bunk bed and take off on an adventure.
I would have a few days off at a time, and I almost always spent these days in the Bay Area visiting friends and going to the beach, with occasional trips to Yosemite. One weekend I went to Berkeley to participate in a day-long workshop with my favorite artist at the time, Sabrina Ward Harrison, at her studio. I just happened upon this opportunity a few weeks before when I was working in the camp office and taking a minute to check out her website and noticed that she was offering this workshop. I immediately signed up.
It was a group of maybe eight or ten women who attended. We began with lunch on the rooftop of the building and then an activity in the small adjacent park. We spent some time doing some writing exercises on a blanket laid on the grass in the July sun, before we went inside her studio to transition into a more directly visual-arts activity. The first thing she had us do once inside, was make a list of 50. She spoke about making these lists of 50 for herself as an activity to organize ideas and moments she wanted to include in her art books. These lists contained words or phrases meant to trigger a memory, something like “elk in wetlands between Orick & Trinidad” – things that maybe only the list-maker would recognize as important. They could include triggers for a moment, a color, a day, a conversation, etc.
The List of 50 has lived on as an exercise in my life. Over the last nine years, I have made Lists of 50 (sometimes more) at transition points, after major events, and often on my birthday. These lists are how I organize my memories and they often give me a space to look back at what stood out for me at the time, and which relationships or places were most meaningful .
Often I use the List of 50 as a way to mark time and place. I always made one at the end of each school year while I was teaching, and always at the end of each summer. I made one on the airplane from Portland to New York in August after my 5-week-long Adventure Treks trip. I made a huge one of 123 at the end of my bike trip in September. Sometimes I will use the List of 50 as a way of mapping a particular theme, or generating a list of what I would like to write about or include in a series of art pieces. Often, that could include a series of moments that have a similar flavor, particular colors or songs that have the same feeling – whether or not I can name the feeling
As time is turning over, faithfully, into a new year, and as I find myself each day at this similar crossroads of question-asking, it seems like a good time for a list. Since we’re closing the book on 2010, it feels right to me to mark meaningful moments of the last year, not just specifically these last few months. Join me if you like and make your own. You can choose any paper or writing utensil --- my favorite is a large piece of newsprint and a black sharpie. I always number the page from 1-50 first and then fill in the spaces. Of course you can always add more numbers if you need them.
Here’s my list for 2010…let me know how it goes for you.
1. Rancho Rico sunsets
2. 15-passenger van dj-navi pop music queen
3. Bodega Bay Tecate tall boys parking lot
4. Phieffer beach walking
5. Mt Tabor tree conversation November 1st
6. Vignettes with Tajha
7. Daniel’s birthday caroling
8. Guiding rivers
9. Olympic Peninsula mud, ultra-deluxe backpack
10. Cleaning out my office
11. Nights with Patricia, Melissa, & Tracy
12. Saying thank you to Portland
13. Ugly Mug with Laura
14. Attic Writing class
15. First blog post
16. Evening of the best three things
17. Playing pool with Pietrowski
18. Living in the blue room at Ami’s
19. Sauna with Ami
20. Senior trip to Orcas Island
21. Janelle’s birthday weekend at Cape Disappointment
22. Riding my bike with Cmac
23. Climbing Mt Shasta at sunrise
24. Carol Ann’s wedding weekend
25. Late night missed high-fives with Lindsay
26. Por que no
27. 3520 SE 9th #G
28. Dressmaking
29. Homeschooling
30. Return to visit PWS – grateful & no regrets
31. Anais’ pregnancy
32. Lyndon, Kansas karaoke -- singing with my mom and Shan
33. Trip home to Kansas in April
34. Sunbathing in Ami’s backyard
35. Packing everything into the car
36. Trinity Alps snow descent
37. Conversations with Heather & Sidney
38. Phone call with Jaimen
39. Provisions.
40. AT outrageous fun!
41. Pop music
42. Brandi Carlile
43. Time with Shannon – island of Alameda
44. Being among animals
45. Strawberry plants
46. Pastry/bakery discovery!
47. Open space
48. Carol Ann’s visit for my 29er
49. Breitenbush thanksgiving with Linds
50. Lying in the sun… Ami’s backyard, so many bike trip moments, snow on Shasta, deck of studio in Big Sur, beaches everywhere, Shannon & Mere’s backyard, on the Willamette River docks with Linds…
51. Spacial Dynamics…begin to end.
52. Lost Coast Sea Otter and Ben
53. Van talks with Emmy
54. Taking time to remember…
55. Christmas in Oakland with just my sis, painting & baking
56. Map and compass through New Hampshire trees
57. Vermont lake cottage with the Zinns
58. Fun with Andy
59. Take me home stick…
Happy New Year and huge thanks to all of you who have been reading in this first month of the life of my blog. There are many more stories to tell, feelings to sort, days to live, fields to lie down in, and paths to walk. May your 2011 be full of love and adventure.
60. Nobody wants to go to poetry readings.
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