The First Week

It’s been a helluva week. I am possibly the most accident-prone field technician in history. First, I slip on ice and land on my ass in an impressive fall (score: 8.7) in front of my boss and a cop car in the parking lot of the Life Science II building in Southern Illinois University. That was Tuesday.

Then, I rip my thumb open while attempting to nail a sardine can to a tree. Of course I pretended everything was okay. After all, all I had to do was take a nail and nail it through a sardine can to a tree. And I might have gotten away with my blunder unnoticed had the sardines been packed in tomato sauce, but they were packed in soybean oil instead. So, I drip, drip, drip blood all over the sardine can, hammer, nail, and pretty much most of my gear. That was also Tuesday.

On Thursday, I noticed my right toe was swollen. I iced it. Odd … don’t remember hurting it. It’s the top of my toe too, below my nail, so I would have had to drop something on my foot, and surely I would have remembered that. The next day, while nailing a sardine can to a tree (another day, another can, another tree), I drop my hammer to pick up wire and a wire cutter, except my right toe got in the way of my hammer and the ground. That was Friday (and apparently Wednesday too) and yes, my right toe is still swollen.

Remarkably, I still have the job, working with a great team of four (total). I am one half of the East crew, stationed out of Harrisburg. The other three, all of whom have homes in Carbondale take turns working the East and West crews, so every month, I get a new flat mate during the work week. This month, it’s Carolyn, a Masters student at SIU, who’s from Michigan and likes Celtic folk music.

What a week.

Southern Indiana

 

 

…the land flattens

 

Many miles and too many two-faced truck cabs later…

Kentucky

 

Not quite the welcome I imagined to the bluegrass state

New Year (Almost!), New State (Not Quite!)

It’s New Year’s eve, and I’m where I want to be. Holed up in a motel, off Interstate 64, without a bar or any revelers in sight! I’m more than halfway to Carbondale, IL, where I start my new year with a new field job.

I took an almost immediate wrong turn when I left this morning from New York, and ended up driving the very city I was looking to avoid because of New Year’s eve madness. It was surprisingly traffic free and looked especially beautiful with just a touch of snow falling. Or maybe I was just nostalgic to be leaving NYC again.

Interstate driving is highly uneventful. And now in West Virginia, I can’t say I have a sense of John Denver’s country roads, though I did pass the site where Noah’s Ark was being built in Virginia. Must have missed a flood advisory.

El Chapter Final … not!

There’s a fine line between knowing who you are, and hoping you are who you would like to be. I wanted to do more, be part of something greater, step outside the commercial world, step into the natural world, adapt, transform, transcend.

I learned a few things about myself this summer – most importantly that I have much more to learn, to do and to try. And that remaining a work-in-progress is not such a bad thing. After all, how else am I going to amuse myself for the rest of my adult life if I’ve figured myself out already.

It sure feels like I’m walking on the right side of that line for now.

What’s next? You’ll find out when I do.