Going to College. Again.
After quitting my last job with the County, I discovered anew the problem with having no backup plan. Flagstaff is not a good town to be jobless, or have to pay rent in. I eventually settled on the university, as I have about $7000 that I can only use for schooling. I looked around town and thought that NAU looked promising, specifically their Forestry program.
I figure, I've been doing this kinda stuff for the past couple of years, why not actually study it, and learn more about what I'm doing.
It will however, take me about three years to get a BS in Forestry, due partially to my never having taken such things as Biology, Public Speaking, or a basic computers course. Or my ineptness in getting a D when I took them, in the case of Chemistry. And then a buttload of forestry classes, which I've never learned about before. So it looks like two semesters of 3/4 time plus this summer (intensive Biology and Chemistry, I'll be drowning in DNA, smothered by cell structures, inundated by Elements. . .) and then the final two years in their professional program.
I started working with a tree service this week, and will resume in April. The guy who runs it excels at everything I choose to dabble in, including running, rockclimbing, chainsawing and yoga. I'm hoping this relationship will inspire me to push myself further along one or more of those roads. He's currently sick off his ass, so I only worked about ten hours this past week, but the money is good, the highest I've ever made on a per hour basis. The work will resume in April, when I'm back from the Northeast, and he's got some more contracts together.
I'm headed back East for ten or so days, to see my family, and old friends, and to say goodbye to another who left too early. . .
My friend Ben Powell died two weeks ago, without warning. He and Sarah Beth were headed by a roundabout way to Portland, Maine to work on farms back East. Somewhere in South Dakota, there was a car accident.
I have a vision of icy roads, tired from driving for days on end, the sudden oh shit moment when he saw the truck ahead of him, and then the last moments of panic as he lost control and impacted with things much harder and denser than the human body was ever meant to handle. Sarah walked away with only minor injuries, and is okay. I gather that Ben sustained a serious head injury, after some time in the hospital was removed from life support, and then died a few days after.
I'm still in a bit of denial about the whole thing; how does someone go from seething with energy, screaming laughter, dancing and singing maniacally with friends and colleges for 21 years and then leave us with nothing, nothing at all?
We have his recordings, copied by Brad as they spent a few hours in Oregon on their way eastward. We have pictures, with him and his cheshire grin as he's off on some mental escapade. I have memories, beginning with the pale silent wispy blond-headed boy who arrived a month after me at Arcosanti, who I really didn't get along with at all, and ending with a shared dinner and company with my good friend three years later, and the warm hug we shared as he left my house for the road, and forever. And I have that time in between, three years with few enough memories within them. And it's hard to for me to realize, to make real, the thought that there's no more to come.
"So what happens now?", I asked Sarah a week or so ago. Part of me feels that everything should stop, that's it, show's over. I'm still here, but my friend is absent, and I feel like a piece of my heart was torn away with his passing. I had already constructed an image of visiting them in Maine, I told her, and many more places, and spending hours and days with them both, and still being friends when we were old and gray and sitting around in rocking chairs, and talking about the crazy shit we did back when. I was looking forward to getting to Ben better, and becoming closer over time.
Life has kept on going, and I've grudgingly acknowledged it passing around me, taking me further from the place and time where Ben and I shoveled shit together, put the chickens to bed, and shared the feeling that comes with the combination of good friends sharing food, drink, and laughter, for which the Irish use the word Craic.
An author I enjoy, Joel Rosenberg, has written some thoughts in the guise of a character, one Walter Slovotsky. I wanted to share these two:
"When you say goodbye to a friend, assume that one of you is going to die before you ever get to see one another again. If you want to leave something unsaid, fine...but be prepared to leave it unsaid forever".
I've tried to embrace this one, but have not been that successful, as I remain an introvert with few enough words to share with even my friends. In the case of Ben though, I feel like I did this one right.
And also,
"Involve yourself with the world. Reach out. Touch. Taste. Live. Trust me on this one, if nothing else".
Ben did this, for most of the time I knew him. This makes his passing easier then it would be otherwise. He lived so vibrantly, and experienced things in his few years that I may never do, which is both comforting and inspiring.
So with these words, I say goodbye, good luck, and godspeed, wherever you have gone; be it to be reborn anew, to rest silently in the earth, or some other place I know naught of.
My friend, I love you, and will remember you always.
I figure, I've been doing this kinda stuff for the past couple of years, why not actually study it, and learn more about what I'm doing.
It will however, take me about three years to get a BS in Forestry, due partially to my never having taken such things as Biology, Public Speaking, or a basic computers course. Or my ineptness in getting a D when I took them, in the case of Chemistry. And then a buttload of forestry classes, which I've never learned about before. So it looks like two semesters of 3/4 time plus this summer (intensive Biology and Chemistry, I'll be drowning in DNA, smothered by cell structures, inundated by Elements. . .) and then the final two years in their professional program.
I started working with a tree service this week, and will resume in April. The guy who runs it excels at everything I choose to dabble in, including running, rockclimbing, chainsawing and yoga. I'm hoping this relationship will inspire me to push myself further along one or more of those roads. He's currently sick off his ass, so I only worked about ten hours this past week, but the money is good, the highest I've ever made on a per hour basis. The work will resume in April, when I'm back from the Northeast, and he's got some more contracts together.
I'm headed back East for ten or so days, to see my family, and old friends, and to say goodbye to another who left too early. . .
My friend Ben Powell died two weeks ago, without warning. He and Sarah Beth were headed by a roundabout way to Portland, Maine to work on farms back East. Somewhere in South Dakota, there was a car accident.
I have a vision of icy roads, tired from driving for days on end, the sudden oh shit moment when he saw the truck ahead of him, and then the last moments of panic as he lost control and impacted with things much harder and denser than the human body was ever meant to handle. Sarah walked away with only minor injuries, and is okay. I gather that Ben sustained a serious head injury, after some time in the hospital was removed from life support, and then died a few days after.
I'm still in a bit of denial about the whole thing; how does someone go from seething with energy, screaming laughter, dancing and singing maniacally with friends and colleges for 21 years and then leave us with nothing, nothing at all?
We have his recordings, copied by Brad as they spent a few hours in Oregon on their way eastward. We have pictures, with him and his cheshire grin as he's off on some mental escapade. I have memories, beginning with the pale silent wispy blond-headed boy who arrived a month after me at Arcosanti, who I really didn't get along with at all, and ending with a shared dinner and company with my good friend three years later, and the warm hug we shared as he left my house for the road, and forever. And I have that time in between, three years with few enough memories within them. And it's hard to for me to realize, to make real, the thought that there's no more to come.
"So what happens now?", I asked Sarah a week or so ago. Part of me feels that everything should stop, that's it, show's over. I'm still here, but my friend is absent, and I feel like a piece of my heart was torn away with his passing. I had already constructed an image of visiting them in Maine, I told her, and many more places, and spending hours and days with them both, and still being friends when we were old and gray and sitting around in rocking chairs, and talking about the crazy shit we did back when. I was looking forward to getting to Ben better, and becoming closer over time.
Life has kept on going, and I've grudgingly acknowledged it passing around me, taking me further from the place and time where Ben and I shoveled shit together, put the chickens to bed, and shared the feeling that comes with the combination of good friends sharing food, drink, and laughter, for which the Irish use the word Craic.
An author I enjoy, Joel Rosenberg, has written some thoughts in the guise of a character, one Walter Slovotsky. I wanted to share these two:
"When you say goodbye to a friend, assume that one of you is going to die before you ever get to see one another again. If you want to leave something unsaid, fine...but be prepared to leave it unsaid forever".
I've tried to embrace this one, but have not been that successful, as I remain an introvert with few enough words to share with even my friends. In the case of Ben though, I feel like I did this one right.
And also,
"Involve yourself with the world. Reach out. Touch. Taste. Live. Trust me on this one, if nothing else".
Ben did this, for most of the time I knew him. This makes his passing easier then it would be otherwise. He lived so vibrantly, and experienced things in his few years that I may never do, which is both comforting and inspiring.
So with these words, I say goodbye, good luck, and godspeed, wherever you have gone; be it to be reborn anew, to rest silently in the earth, or some other place I know naught of.
My friend, I love you, and will remember you always.