when dan was late 11.29.02

fog arrival 11.02
(image to come)
thanks for scanning, Dan

Earl was cool

I keep writing about how tired I am, how overstimulated - and it's true. In an attempt to turn that around, today I did nothing - at least as nothing as I could. Sleep seems to be the only method of clearing my head - something about a silent room, electric heater and a low playing radio. I read the NY Times, the Stranger - eyed my journal... Everything felt as though it were at the limit of what I could stand. Then I slept. Sleep felt good. I've been feeling a cold coming on and sleep (plus hot tea) seemed to take the edge off of my thickening throat and dry, achy head.

My evening has been chock full - I awoke to a call from Jason's brother, who is watching every acclaimed movie from the last century it seems, eating them up and getting ready for more. It's good to hear his take on films - feels a bit like to hear him piecing together his own story. After the call we went down to Earshot Jazz. John Zorn played tonight - a double set that Jason's volunteering at. I'm off to meet with friends to go over an ongoing online project. We spend an hour talking about everything and still manage to get a coherent list of goals at the end. I'm home again and ready for another nap. I've been wanting to write about the pumpkins - so I'll give it a shot tonight:

Our project started in earnest about two weeks before Oct. 31st. We have just started working on projects together. Dan is crazy about Halloween. Crazy about horror flicks and crazy about dressing up, throwing good parties, making good stories. It's the story part that we ended up deciding to do.

At first it seemed like all we needed was 1,000 pumpkins. Just enough to surround Green Lake, facing inward, faces blazing. But there wasn't any time to carve 1,000 pumpkins, even if all of our friends could help. We resigned ourselves to photographing one or two pumpkins and scaled back the story.

This story is the thing we're working on now. Quality and presentation are everything here and we don't want to squander the work we've put in thus far. But back when we were scaling downward - emails were exchanged about a project at the Woodland Park Zoo, where 1,000 pumpkins were being carved for a "pumpkin prowl". A few phone calls later and the pumpkins were ours, not all 1,000 - but as many as we could handle. Another few phone calls later and we had a truck to haul the pumpkins down to the beach - our new destination for the pumpkin faces to blaze. We called friends to come help, re-scheduled other plans and pulled together an outline of what we could do in the time we had.

But before we made it to the beach, we drove through the Zoo, following a security guard on his bike to the pick up area. We arrived and heard an announcement over the loudspeakers for people to come get as many pumpkins as they'd like. I imagined fighting over pumpkins with strollered parents and crying children. But I hadn't accurately predicted the physical impact of 1,000 pumpkins. There was such an excess, there wouldn't be any struggle. An hour later, we had picked over 100 pumpkins (faces only, no pumpkins carved with witches or bats or wolves). We set them all in the back of a 14' u-Haul truck, packed in tight against each other across the floor.

Careening down the switchback road to the beach, I'm laughing at the likelihood that the bouncing thuds we hear are former pumpkins. I'm trying to go slow, I swear, but it's tough to fight momentum. We arrive at the beach and scope out the setting, just after sunset. The murky twilight obscures our view. We wander down to the water, hoping to shoot pumpkins sinking into waves and back up past the parking lot, where a tunnel echos night sounds and is perfect for another shot. We've taken more time than I scheduled in and I have to leave to turn. I drop Dan off and head home - eerie thudding noises making me laugh again.

The next morning is jammed full with work. I'm barely done before 4:30 comes and I'm out the door - hurtling through traffic into the most gorgeous sunset I've seen. I'm passing cars, all stopped due to hideous traffic, in any lane I find open. I'm obeying laws, but just barely. I fly across the 520 bridge to get home to the truck and the pumpkins.

Reflexively checking the pumpkins when I get home, their sweet faces are all still intact... the drive down the switchback road is less humorous now. I'm impatient and carrying a fragile load - not a typical success story for me. But I manage to make it down the hill and meet Dan - who is signaling me with a flashlight at the entrance of the park. We drive quickly to the spot where we'll unload the pumpkins and get ready.

Unlit, pumpkins bobbed across a damp field to a group of fragrant trees sprouting out of night blue sand. Dan walked me through a path in the trees and we raced to put the pumpkins in place before the sun went down. Our friends arrived and hustled many pumpkins from truck to beach. Finally, we lit them. Orange grimaces and vacant smiles marched silently through the trees. While Dan got his dv camera, I propped my tripod on the beach and started snapping pictures. Then Dan took a turn, walking the camera over the lined up faces and again from a distance. Our friends went off to get warm and get warm food. We stayed and fussed over the shots we were getting. This part went on for a long time. I was cold.

The shot ended and we started collecting our equipment. I was loading my tripod into its bag and turned as the melody for A Love Supreme repeated itself behind me. It was Jason, who forwent the night's activities for his studies. I was really glad to see him. Not a few moments after he arrived, plans were made to pile the pumpkins on to a tarp and drag them over the 100 yards to the truck. I watched, grimacing inwardly, as everyone tossed the pumpkins into a central heap. I had wanted to see what 100 pumpkins would look like in my backyard. I grabbed three pumpkins and put them in the trunk of Jason's car. We raced across the field the second time around. Winners won by releasing their hold on the tarp as we drew close to the truck. I counted them as disqualified, but I don't think anyone else paid attention. It got funnier and funnier to see tired pumpkin handlers lob pumpkins into the back of the truck. With the last pumpkin loaded, it was time to go home. Later that night, Dan called to confirm that the dump would be open early. We agreed to meet at Vera's for breakfast around 7am.

There was a rain of pumpkins and pumpkin parts in the end. Dan and Jason both throwing pumpkins with great force into the compost bin. I stood aside, choosing not to risk today's outfit. I'd had terrible luck keeping the pumpkin crap off my clothes and was on my way in to work, afterall. We made short work of it and, checking to make sure the truck was clean, headed over to the u-Haul offices. I had received a phone message asking for the truck back the day before, that I defied. I wasn't looking forward to dealing with an irate u-Haul cashier. Earl was cool, though I could tell he was pissed. We just turned in the truck and left.

That's the end of the part I wanted to write about. There's lots of work left to be done.

Dear lord, I may have had it. This last month has been more than I could've envisaged. We're still weeks away from the complete film and days from setting up the next project. I've finished the last of three releases at work. Reconnected with old friends, mostly online. Turning proceeds apace. Still there's no ribbon to wrap this day with.

Spent some part of this evening waiting for Jason outside of his building. He's in the same building that Michael Kinsley is in and I could see Kinsley in his office clearly from where I stood. He's leaving Slate to tend to his poor health. He was packing tonight. Slowly moving from the bookshelf to box. I felt sad and eerie watching him. Jason came out so that we could walk through the cool rain and smell the sodden trees. It was a relief to have him near. We talked about a million things. I listened too, feeling nostalgic for the times we spent when we first met each other - wandering over Washington at night - both of us at loose ends and too alive to sleep.

When we returned, Jason mentioned that Kinsley had hundreds of books outside of his office, all up for grabs. He suggested that I go up but I hesitated - Kinsley was still there and it felt like an intrusion. After hemming and hawing, I went upstairs. A calm man was stacking the books in the hallway, looking at them one at a time. He said he felt like a kid in a candy store. He left with just two books after searching through the last stack Kinsley dropped off. I looked through the books and picked about a half dozen, stopping to smile at Kinsley before lugging them back to my office.

I am jammed full with feeling - stay away from me with pins... I feel impatient and fretful and tired like a small child. I want to stare, just stare - watch rain slide down windows, be silent. Or work. This work right now is great for clearing my mind, forces me to be communicate effectively. But what of work that shapes one's life? I could stand lugging those pumpkins back and forth across the field again. cold air in my lungs and tired, heaving muscles. Clean tired. Instead I'm stewing, I can feel it.

Tomorrow Dan and I will meet to finalize budget details for this next project. I'm hedging on asking for what I want. What's it worth to coordinate and to make sure things are as they should be? What's it worth to photograph a ceremony. It's looking more and more like I will be turning in the ceremony... Another quake - insides clashing against one another.

We turned two nights ago. First there was zikr. Breathing perfumed air into a cyclone - shaped into Ross and a woman whose name escapes me and then around the circle. Then up again for the careful spacing and constant maneuvering of the turn. There were around a dozen people to fit in a fairly large room. Each of us taking up scads of space. The point of dignity is finally driven home to me. That it makes sense to allow each person their space. Not that I have the lesson down, by any stretch of the imagination.

While I turn, I imagine my heart growing strong through the axis of my body. Unnerving when I misstep. I struggled a lot with balance Monday night. Thinking I had it nailed, some part of me would wander out of the centrifugal motion to break my moving meditation into separate pieces, leaving me surprised and grimly focused on returning to the turn.

The point of this work, this absurd, graceful and enigmatic work, is to toughen one's heart for life. I am an inveterate softy. Having been exposed to senseless violence and it's aftermath as a child, I swore off it and kept swearing off it until it actually meant something, all this swearing. And now that I've got that out of the way, it's time to keep going past the point of comfort. Life is so vast and I'm so curious - tough is my only hope for enduring. So I'll practice and probably will be in the Sema this year, not photographing it like I thought.

I've wanted to write about the days spent concocting the plan for the Pumpkin Piper. How little clues as to what was possible led to strategies and plans with friends. How lists were formed and torn up at the last minute and moments built into moments that required more strategy than I had planned. But that will have to wait, it's time to go home.