one year ago

when my husband and i saw this picture on my hard drive we both started to laugh.  did we live this crazy life? this was the day we burned all of the old wood from our house.  old window sills, shingles, decks and steps we replaced.  that woods went on forever.  the lone streetlight we had installed was the only one on our entire street.  we are out of focus.  that is how i feel about the past.  memory is a strange trip.  what i remember of it now is tirelessly working outside, looking for bears, working inside, weaving, huddling around the wood stove translating science texts together. i remember relearning the physics behind flight.  i remember cooking on the woodstove.  i remember learning to drive a stick. (making myself cry while driving a stick.)  practicing driving a stick by going up and down our driveway by myself and trying not to ruin the clutch.  driving on the wide open highway to get groceries, listening to the radio change its tune with the changes in the geographic features of the land, how before we got to the groceries (civilization) the radio turned to country music.  having a rigged up internet connection at home that allowed so little.  those nights when we lost the one or two channels on the tv never knowing when they would come back.  seeing nothing but the lights across the bay.  hearing nothing but coyotes.