The Volcano Period

I went to Exploratorium in San Francisco last week and they had this amazing demonstration.  It was a plate of sand and when you turned a nozzle at the bottom, a stream of air started to flow into the plate.  For a while, the pressure just built at the bottom, making a little air bubble.  But then it built up so much that it broke through and the air started to come up through the sand.  It looked like a volcano, and it was amazing.  Under pressure.

Just wanted to point out a strange theme: the last year of my life has been characterized mainly by volcanos: emotional poo-canos, six months living on an active volcano in Hawaii and now my newest adventure being shut down by an Icelandic volcano.  Maybe Freud would say that I need to come to terms with own inner explosiveness or something.  Or maybe I was a volcano goddess in a past life.

This is one of my favorite photos from the batch I got developed this week.  The arrows and the colors and everything just make me happy.  When I look at it, it reminds me of some x-rays that I used to have up on the wall.  I like to image that is it an x-ray of my feelings: red and volatile and moving forward.

Travel Update

I have spent a huge amount of time waiting to speak to someone this week.  Because of these volcanic interruptions, I have had to hunt down my airlines to find out what the hell is going on with my flights.  But let's start at the beginning.

Saturday: I get a call from my father to wish me happy birthday and check in before my flight.  He tells me there is a volcano in Iceland that is keeping all the flights in Europe on the ground.  I think "WTF?" and call my airline, Jet Airways (not to be confused with Jet Blue), an Indian company and the cheapest way to get into Europe these days.  I speak to someone who tells me that, yes, some flights are grounded, but mine is not until Monday evening and this definitely should all be cleared up by then.  So I get on my flight to New York on Sunday morning, confident that I will be arriving in Marseilles Tuesday morning.

Sunday:  I fly from San Francisco to NYC to see my sister and take a connecting flight to France the next day.  We eat amazing food at Dinosaur BBQ in Harlem, have a lovely chat during dinner and I go to bed happy and assured that tomorrow my next adventure begins.

Monday: I wake up and book my shuttle to the New Jersey airport (it's a really long way from Harlem and my suitcase is disgustingly heavy).  I decide to call Jet Airways again, just to check and make sure everything is running smooth before I get there for my flight.  I wait on hold for an hour and a half.  Finally someone picks up the phone, but the connection is horrible and all I can hear is something about how flights are now being re-routed through Athens.  Then the line cuts out.  I think, "Well at least I can get over there," and try the number again.  FOUR HOURS LATER, I still have not had an intelligible conversation with a human being.  

During this purgatory of waiting I also get an email from my shuttle company saying that I cancelled my reservation and would I mind filling out a customer satisfaction survey? So I call the shuttle company and say, "What the hell?"  They tell me that the price quoted on the website was wrong so the computer automatically cancelled my reservation.  At this point, the company was fully booked.  They gave me the number for another shuttle service.  Great.  I book the other, more expensive shuttle service.  

As far as my flight is concerned, I decide to that all I can do at this point is go down to the airport and see what's what.  (I still have not talked to a human being.)  So my shuttle arrives, I lug my huge suitcase into the back of the van and settle in for the long ride to Jersey.  I travel exactly one block and my phone rings.  It's Jet Airways calling to tell me that my flight has been cancelled.  I wonder at the huge irony of this.  I have just spent $28 to go exactly one block on the shuttle, spent 5 1/2 hours on hold with this airline and two minutes before locked my sister's keys in her apartment.  Now I am stuck on a sidewalk in Harlem with a ginormous suitcase, no flight and a shuttle that is of absolutely zero use to me.  And, Marilyn from Jet Airways informs me, they have no idea when the flight will be rescheduled.  Maybe Thursday. 

Today: Jet Airways is now more than willing to fly me to Brussels.  Alas, dear Jenny, this is but one leg of your flight to cheese heaven.  Air Brussels (which is supposed to take me from Brussels to Marseilles) is being a real snatch-ho about getting me to France.  I called their customer service line about my great news ("Hey guys, I can be in Brussels tomorrow morning!") and those damn Belgians gave me the slap down; "Miss, this is a volcano.  We have no control over it and cannot tell you when we will be operating the flight into Marseilles (insert grating, condescending Belgian accent here)."  Me: "Can you guess?"  Snatch-ho: "We do not try to guess when it concerns the whims of nature."  Me: "So are you gonna call me when I can fly out?"  Snatch-ho: "No, there are too many passengers for us to call each one.  Check the website each day.  Pray that the Icelandic volcano god relents."

I'm thinking about sacrificing a seal.

Starting Again

I finally got around to having some film developed.   My sister gave me a Diana F--the type of camera that actually takes film...that you actually have to get developed.  Unlike most things these days, it's a process where there's a gap between the exposure and seeing the image you've created.  Isn't that a tempting metaphor?

I took all of my film in to be developed at once and it certainly had been accumulating.  There were five rolls of film, some of which I honestly could not remember taking.  So I get this grip of images and all I know for sure is that they were taken some time in the last year, they must have been of something I thought was important, and obviously I was present at that particular moment of light.

I just turned 29 this week.  My 28th year didn't treat me so kind, so I'm getting a little philosophical this birthday.  I'm starting to comb through the strands of my thoughts and trying to find some wisps of insight, some clues to keep 29 from repeating the mistakes of 28.  But I'm finding it just as difficult as putting a place and time to these rather abstract images.

I keep looking at these pictures and wondering where I was when I took them and what I was thinking and who I was with.  And, more importantly, what can I learn from them so that 29 is a happy year for me?

All these question seem particularly important since I am starting this year much like the last one.  Last year I began a year of journeying by coming to New York, doing a visiting tour of my family and friends, and then taking off for an indeterminate amount of time on an agricultural adventure.  So it was for year number 28 and so it shall be for number 29.  I really do not want to be just a skipping record.

The journey is experiencing some delays, however.  The plan: fly to France to stay at some farms and learn how to make goat cheese.  Last year I crossed the Pacific, this year I cross the Atlantic.  There's just one little snag: a pesky volcano in Iceland is keeping me USA-bound and I'm here in limbo, with too many strange pictures and too many questions.  As my friend Lu put it, I've got a little dust in my wings and its keeping me from taking off.  So here I sit to think and wait and, after 3 long months, take up this blog to untangle my thoughts.