Leaving but I don't know where

Every time I leave The Cove, I do my Last Things. Last croquet lawn fireflies, last pond time, last time checking the mailbox, manically trying to get every last thistle in the garden eradicated as more sprang up overnight... but the crazy thing about this round of 'lasts' I did a couple weeks ago is that I'm leaving the place forreal. I'm sure I'll be back at some point soon, some Work Weekend or whatnot, but what I'm getting at is that I was saying goodbye to this place being my home. For the last two whole years, it's been home. A complicated home, certainly. A home that's been a constant rollercoaster of emotions and struggles and success, mixed feelings of wanting to flee and wanting to stay, heartfelt moments and heartbreaking moments, all of them mixed up together and pretty dang confusing. 

On my way out of Capon Bridge I took some time to sit in town at some familiar haunts. The River House, where I used my free drink on my punch card to get my usual (lavender oat milk iced latte in a for-here cup, lol). My weekly Farmer's Daughter burger (best burger in WV!) where the guys remember my name and remember how I don't like cheese on my burger. And a couple days before, I took my last trip to the food order company we use, Schenk Foods, to pick up a big order in the truck and chat with the guys who have been working there since the camp used a bus to pick up the orders (so like, a really long time). It feels good to be known, and to know a place and it's businesses. To be recognized for getting the same thing every single time. Making the same small talk, but in a good way. Heck, even the lady at the deli counter at the grocery store knew me by the end of this Spring. We joked about how much sliced ham and turkey I always bought. And when I left she said "see you next time" because I'd been so consistent. Instead of saying "no you won't I'm leaving for good," I took a sentimental pic of my lunch meat. Here ya go:

Now I'm sitting on a lovely porch in Pittsburgh after a day of huge thunderstorms. I have lit a couple fancy candles, the dogs are next to me, and I'm reflecting on familiarity, home, and feeling like a local. Even here, in a place where I know basically no one, it's been easy to have nice small talk with the neighbors, to get used to driving back to the house I'm housesitting so much so that I can turn the GPS off when I reach a certain highway. I am a regular at the pressed juice stand at the local markets because they take Venmo, so much so that yesterday the person told me that they're pretty sure I'd had that flavor of juice before. The mailman asked if I knew a person named Annie Cohen on Day 1, and today he chatted with me about the funky piece of mail I got. Familiarity. And for these two short weeks, it does feel like home.

Such yummy juice, I am hooked! 

I've been slacking on blogging in recent years. But this blog has been incredibly useful for me to look back on-- I only wrote during times of transition, reflection times, or times of huge processing. And this time in my life definitely checks those boxes. Leaving a home, searching for a new one, writing from a temporary one. And honestly writing this makes me feel a bit less anxious about what is next. I have not had to expend much effort to feel good in my temporary Pittsburgh home. To feel familiarity with things and to feel like a local. I still am continually tempted by the seasonal lifestyle. At this point, I don't think that is going to change. The thing that has shifted is that I am craving that piece of stability-- to have a routine and people at businesses who know me, to go on my walk with Rana and see the same people and exchange the same pleasantries. I want a regular order at some place other than Chipolte, ya know? I dunno, maybe I'm at the point of my bloggy where I should post a sentimental song quote? This Josh Ritter line rings true right now:

leaving, leaving, leaving but I don't know where

Leaving, leaving, leaving but I don't know where

Well I'm going to wrap this up because I'm not totally sure it has a conclusion. Here's hoping I can have a carefree and most importantly stress free summer after these last two years of... not that... 

But come Fall, I would love love love to find a place that can be my place. At least for a little while ;) Any ideas welcome! Ok, maybe I'll blog again about this ~transition time~, but no promises.  

"How did summer go?"

What the… it’s already September?? I’ve been at the Cove for 5 months now, and the time warp is real. Has it sped by, crept along, is there anything else even happening in the world? I currently have a weird amount of time “off,” although you’re never really off when you’re here. There’s always something to clean, or it’s pouring rain so you have to squeegee the decks or else the lodge will flood, or you should respond to some emails, or write a reference, or weed the garden. But for the most part, I am enjoying some much needed relaxing time after an absolutely bonkers summer. Sitting here in my cozy cabin, I can’t even remember why the summer was so crazy—I’m so far removed now that summer was a whole two weeks ago, and I’ve fully caught up on sleep.

The other night in DC I sat at a beautiful Shabbat dinner where we went around and shared a theme from our summer. The first theme that came to my mind was emptiness. We are so used to having Vini’s voice eloquently or humorously explain something, and this summer we only had our three voices. Often it just felt as though we were stumbling along, going through the motions and probably missing a lot of nuance along the way. We would get to the end of a reading, or Final Circle, or Folklore Night, and say something like: “well, that went Ok, but it felt sort of empty.” At the same time we knew that we were still helping create the magic for the campers, and to them it probably didn’t feel all that different. For those who aren’t camp people reading this, there’s a common phrase most often said by Vini—“there’s no fuckin’ magic,” which refers to how life on the staff side of things is a lot of behind the scenes work to create each unique camp session.

Many people have asked me the “how are things going?” question. I’ve said something along these lines:

For the campers, this summer was hugely successful. They loved camp, they can’t wait to come back, and the magic was fully there. For staff, they worked their butts off, seemed to have a pretty good time, and pulled off a ton of magic for the campers, and I think there was some for themselves too. For us Leader Ladies, there were a select few times where we felt the magic for ourselves. I have one distinct memory of feeling really good—Jennifer and I finished serving firsts on burgers on the Bald to the camp session and we sat down on the edge of the group of campers and staff to snarf our own food before serving seconds. The light was gorgeous, all the people around us were happily shouting/ arguing about some fun conversation topic, all we had left to do was Final Circle and then walk down the mountain. I could see the magic happening, I even felt pretty proud of it all, but I was still on the periphery—not fully able to immerse myself in it because of all the other things on my brain of tasks to do and the evening to manage.

That’s not to say that there weren’t other good moments this summer. When I could get out of the office and spend time with campers, things felt good. I spent time in the tree canopy and did a few pickling workshops, got out for a couple games of frisbee, ponded when I could, and went on some evening walks. I spent a lot of time laughing about things with my fellow Leader Ladies too—this summer would have been a different beast if not for the amazing working dynamic we formed. We consistently were on the same page and had the same thoughts about priorities throughout the day, which to us really emphasized how incredible it was that we all were trained/ raised by Vini to know exactly how to approach the various situations that occur at camp.

I do feel really proud that we made it through this summer. The first Cove summer without Vini and during Covid was always going to be a huge and daunting hurdle, and now it is done. On the whole, we accomplished our goals:

• as many campers as possible at half capacity (achieved by 5 one-week sessions instead of 3 two-week sessions)
• as many staff working as possible (staff working less, but hiring as many people as possible)
• staff training because most staff missed a whole year of work due to Covid last summer (practice leading overnights and facilitating and teaching as much as possible, cramming all elements of a two-week session in)
• as far as we know, no Covid cases (achieved by lots of mitigation even when it felt absurd to mask in our “buildings” that barely even have walls)

So there's your mostly surface-level update on how summer was. Of course each day was full of small fires to put out and ridiculous events that are all a blur now, and I didn't have a moment to journal so they will forever be a blur or live on in the few postcards I managed to write during those two months. Now to answer: What's next? Prepping for Fall school groups (they start in less than two weeks), sleeping as much as possible, catching up with people by mail or by phone, maybe looking for a new car, and slightly dreading my 30th birthday coming up this month. I also just signed a contract for another year as Interim Director along with Jennifer. So, the Cove will be my home for the time being. In the winter I hope to bounce around and work remotely, so hit me up if you have any house-sitting, sub-letting, and especially dog-sitting needs!

Ok, the end. I have achieved three whole blog posts this year, so that's a success! Heck maybe I'll squeeze in another with some nice Fall tales, but no promises!

Ode to staying in touch

As I once again start gearing up to transition jobs, I’ve been thinking a lot about the transient life I’ve been leading. Every few months I meet new people and we form a new community complete with our own inside jokes and memories. My current job is slightly different. I did want to work here for the community – I live and work with the same group of awesome ladies, and there’s a networks of four huts total, each with a few people who I have come to know over the past couple of months. I haven’t forged deep relationships with the other hut people because I just rarely see them, but we share an interesting job and there are always stories to share.

The real reason I took this job to be back in Maine, and bide my time here while I figured out what would come next. After I ended my life-changing experience of living communally with 28 others at Bear Brook, I wanted some time to recharge. I wanted a job that was interesting but not mentally taxing. I wanted to have time to be in touch with my network of friends spread all across the country. Time to write postcards (one per day, at least, and I’ve stuck to that!) and even time to write lengthy and important letters in this cozy mountain hut that I currently call home. But most importantly, I wanted to be close to people I was already close with. I was reminded of this last week when I popped by Bar Harbor for a quick 20 hour visit. I stayed at my friend Eloise’s house, and we stayed up catching up and chatting about all kinds of things, including how much we cherish time spent actually visiting people. I do it all—I call, text, snail mail, email, facebook stalk, snapchat… but really nothing compares to visiting someone in person. To get a chance to see their room and their collection of trinkets, to hug them, to see their expressions when they tell you a story, to cook with them (or in the case of most of my recent friend visits, to eat the delicious food they cook for you), to bring them gifts from your travels or current home, to go on a new adventure together.  

I feel lucky and stretched thin at the same time, because as I bounce from job to job and land in various wonderful communities, I feel more and more desperate to keep in touch. I’m grateful for this time in Maine that I’ve used to see most everyone I know here, mostly from college. Even if we just spent an hour together, it was still time in-person. I hadn’t quite realized until I moved back to New England that I had a really amazing community here. I can drive to most any part of the state (well, coastal areas let’s be real) and find an old friend to have coffee with. That’s pretty neat, and something that takes a while to build. When I move Westward to start my new job in Idaho, I’ll be missing these Northern friends more than I think I can realize at this point. I didn’t mean to come back to New England at all, but I wouldn’t trade my 10 months in New Hampshire (which led to my current winter in Maine) for the world. This area draws people back, and sometimes they just never leave. I have always said that I didn’t want to be drawn back to Maine, that I liked living here for college but I’m outta here and on to new faces and places. But jeez, I’m just feeling really glad that I ignored Past Annie and let New England draw me back for another round.

But, I have a lot more places I want to see, so I’m making the decision to cut the cord of familiarity and that rugged rocky Maine beauty and head out to find my next community. I’ll be once again living communally at a remote base and on the trail with a trail crew corps in the Salmon-Challis National Forest in Idaho.  The lure of my next chapter in the great West makes it difficult to feel present here in Maine, but I’m going to try. And you can bet that for my last month here, for my trip down to DC, my measly day in DC and on my road trip to Idaho in April I’ll be stopping by to see as many friends as humanly possible!

mail mail mail

This winter I got to have my very own P.O. box, which was exciting for me, mail nerd that I am. I'm currently back at my favorite address (sans P.O. box) but I'm really getting a kick out of the P.O. boxes that I get to send postcards to.
Here's a list of some fun towns that I've sent mail to in the past week:

Death Valley, CA
Bishop, CA
Moose, WY
Ely, MN
King Salmon, AK
Grand Canyon, AZ
New Orleans, LA
Northfield, MN
St. Paul, MN

Friends, you are in some cool spots! I'm excited to pen-pal it up to all these far-flung places.

Need Some Butter with that Corn?

Things I am obsessed with, not necessarily in this order:

• Jr. Ranger badges
• National Parks
• Snail Mail
• Postcards
• Public transportation

This post is about postcards.

My postcard collection was probably a side effect of my packrat tendencies to collect everything-- bottle caps, rocks, quarters, flat pennies, boxes, Coke bottles, you name it. But postcards hold a special place in my heart, because there is no better feeling than getting something in the mail. As much fun as it is to write postcards, it's much more fun to have a pen-pal situation. Especially pen-pals who appreciate a good ol' corny postcard. In fact, due to different pen pals traveling and living in the midwest, I'm discovering just how many postcards involving corn exist out there!

My first pen-pal was a girl named Dawn. She was from Kansas, and my third grade class exchanged letters with her third grade class. I didn't like her, because she wrote about how much she loved pink. Our exchange didn't last long.

I currently correspond via postcard with a few regular pen-pals, spread across the country. I find that it is the best way to keep in touch-- more thoughtful than sending a text, less time-consuming than writing a four-page letter. Most of these pals are camp friends who always seem to appreciate snail mail the most, having lived in a place with limited internet for weeks at a time.

Pen-pal Story Time:
This one time, D-Rod, Maia, and I were headed out of the backcountry of Denali on the bus. We trooped to the back to sit with the other dirty backpackers, and met two guys who had also just come out of the wilderness. We shared stories and met up for celebratory we-didn't-get-eaten-by-bears pizza, then traded addresses. I didn't know then, but one of these guys turned out to be a stellar pen-pal!* You never know where you'll meet a new pen-pal!

Here are some corny postcard winners, if you are wondering what constitutes a good amount of corny:

Over the years of collecting and receiving corny postcards from all over the country, I have compiled some take-aways.

1. The best states for corny postcards are: Alaska, Iowa, Idaho, Minnesota, and South Dakota.

2. Common themes for corny postcards are: cute animals, large vegetables, bears, jackalopes, factoids, cowboys, and hillbillies. 

3. Always check out the postcard section in thrift stores.

4. One dollar is way too expensive for a corny postcard, but is legit for an arty postcard.

5. Old Western postcards can be found in most gas stations out west, and they crack me up the most (ahem*send them to me*ahem).

*Note: To reach the level of Stellar Pen-Pal, you must sent postcards often, and they must be corny.

All the rooms

I spend excessive amounts of my free time on decorating my room, in part because I have way too much stuff that can possibly fit into it, no matter what size. So I just move it around from wall to wall, and call it 'organizing'.  What follows are some of my college rooms. It's like a game-- can you spot all the same items in different locations in each room?!

First year- Dorm explosion.

Second year- The house on School Street-- my attic cave.

Third year- Prescott semester-- when I didn't bring everything I owned.

Fourth year ish- Tiny cabin on the hill, Calypso Farm in AK.

Fifth year- Cottage Street with slightly less shit.

Not pictured: Pleasant Street room, Cleftstone Room. Don't worry, I still had all of the same things.

Post Office Obsession

I heard the worst commercial recently. It advertised a website called stamps.com. 

Avoid a time-consuming trip to the post office by purchasing and printing stamps online!

It even kind of rhymes. Barf.

I can see how some people would benefit from this-- post office hours are not conducive to folks who work from 8 am to 4 pm, and sometimes there are lines.

But...

What about the JOYS of walking into a bright post office?? You go up to the counter, and peek behind the scenes at the buckets of mail ready for sorting and delivery. You get to choose what unique varieties of stamps to buy. Sometimes there is candy. You get those wax paper bags with the USPS logo, full of stamps... ahhhhh, what could be better?

I have recently started a project of post offices, where I will attempt to visit and send mail from as many post offices as possible. This idea came to me when I laid eyes upon Wisconsin's Northernmost Post Office in Cornucopia. How cool is that?? So I took a picture and sent a postcard, and now I am hooked. Who knows what other unique post offices are out there? I must find them! I must send more mail! I am on a mission!
A very important one, duh.

This post is dedicated to Addie, because I sent her a postcard from Cornucopia.