"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"

This is the last post from us. The blog began as a means to show family and friends how we were settling into our new life in Eugene and we think we've reached that impasse. It is time. I suppose we'll have to revert to archaic ways of staying in touch: email. phones. etc. 

Michael and I have had a wonder of a year. We swam in the South Pacific, abseiled waterfalls. Michael stopped drinking Mountain Dew. I graduated from Bennington with fifty pages of my own work in tow, as well as life-long friends and fellow writers. Michael turned 30 and we had a Trifecta party. We threw stones into the Atlantic ocean then into the Pacific ocean just a few weeks later. We drove across the country with cats. We found jobs, an apartment, a futon, and a home in Eugene. We climbed mountains and played in rivers. Michael started school. Michael made a 4.2 gpa his first semester. We made New Friends.

Yesterday we said goodbye to our New Friends, now Old Friends, who moved to Colorado. We are terribly sad about it, but they are tumbleweeds in the world. They want to never stop exploring, one of many reasons we love them so. Though it is an awful cliche, it's true: Michael and I both said how we're better people for knowing them. Before they left they bestowed some wonderful gifts, including a record player and records, including MJ's Thriller, Journey, Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, and more. They also passed along their beloved Captain. He now hangs over our entryway, blessing our home with his Whitmanesque spirit.

O Captain! my captain!

"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"

Me and J. We hadn't been drinking. Really.

Favorite peoples

We are glad for our memories and to be better people. Michael and I eagerly welcome 2012, hoping there will be less goodbyes. We have many plans for the new year, including trips to Colorado and hopefully Europe too. We want to hike and climb with every opportunity. We want to do a puzzle together and read a book together. We want to watch whales migrate. Generally, suck the marrow out of life to know we lived.

So, here are some of our favorite pictures, memories of the past year.

Abseiling in the Jameson Valley, Aus. February

Hiking in the Jameson Valley, Aus. February

Sydney, Aus. February

Beavertail, RI, June

Beavertail, RI, June

Beavertail, RI, June

Gradumacated, Vermont, June

Pontificating education. Bennington Campus. June

Saying goodbye to A, L, D, and M. We miss you all. July.

Oregon Coast. July.

Hiking Mt. June. July

Mt. June. July

Hiking Iron Mountain. August

Iron Mountain. August

Playing in the snow in the mountains. Iron Mt. August

Celebrating our anniversary at Crater Lake. September

Crater Lake, September

Katie jumping into Crater Lake. September.

Michael jumping into Crater Lake. September

Camping. Hiking off trail. Our waterfall. September.

Camping. Hiking off trail. Sunset. September.

Camping. Hiking. October. 

Camping. Hiking. October.

San Fran. November.

San Fran. November

San Fran. Michaels and Poets. November

San Fran. November

So, thank you for reading our silly blog. Happy holly days and merriest new year. We love you and miss you.

Katie and Michael

Your Christmas Card

Things are a little tight this year so unfortunately we could not mail our Christmas card to each of you. Believe us, we wish we could. Especially since Michael and I made it ourselves this year! Here it is!

The outside of the card

The inside of the card

More Bathgate!

In October Chris Bathgate did a Tiny Desk concert for NPR. I found it this morning. This is what the good people at NPR said about him:

"Dusky and deliberate, Chris Bathgate's music can be foreboding, even funereal. But the Michigan native invests his songs with warm, rustic beauty — aided by strings, slide guitars and other instruments of emotional devastation — that makes everything too pretty to function as a true downer. A bunch of us at NPR Music fell in love with Bathgate's gorgeous 2007 song "Serpentine," so we'd been looking forward to having him in for a Tiny Desk Concert, but a follow-up to that record took an agonizing four years. (Given that he describes his song "No Silver" as "about living in Michigan and being broke," maybe he was just saving up for the studio time?)"

And here is the link for the 20 minute concert: 

http://www.npr.org/2011/10/14/141135356/chris-bathgate-tiny-desk-concert

A Salt Year

I think Michael and I are starting to feel settled, finally. We've been in Eugene close to five months now, and it's hard to believe we're into December already. Neither of us have experienced a winter sans snow or the holidays without family. We continue acclimating with each new season. 

A couple weeks ago we went to a show at our favorite bar, Sam Bond's Garage. Chris Bathgate, an Ann Arbor local, was playing and for weeks we were PUMPED. We brought New Friends and the four us together made up about a third of the audience. It didn't seem to influence Bathgate and his band though, because they were stellar. Please check them out if you're not familiar with his music. He's a great writer, which I love, and a talented musician.    

http://www.myspace.com/chrisbathgate

They played my favorite of their songs, Salt Year. I was able to take a very short video before our camera ran out of battery. 

"I'm just screaming in the dark here / I'm just choking down a salt year"

 "when sugars all I've longed for // all I've longed for, all I've longed for" 

 

"try again."

Love from the west,

Katie and Michael