I've had a driver's license since I was 16, but I didn't own a car or really drive on a regular basis until I was 40.
week 2: undulation
I've been a practicing full-time massage therapist for 20 years. While my skills have improved vastly over the years,
week 1: pushing out/wandering in
I finished writing a book this year. Unlike the novel I wrote (and almost immediately threw in a drawer to forget),
month twelve: giving up
It's 2016, March already and for some reason I was compelled back here today after many months away. Part of it is my own completion complex, that thing in me that makes me clean my plate and read a book to the end that I don't really like. It's not a very useful impulse, but... Continue Reading →
month eleven: thankyouthankyou
As a kid, my prayers all started with this: "Dear God, thankyouthankyouthankyou for..." I was pretty sure that the more times I said thank you, the more sincere my prayer was. On nights I was tired, I only eked out a couple thanks. Other times, I dug in and let it roll wanting to make... Continue Reading →
month ten: practice
Art month was fun, even though I didn't actually make as much art as I thought I would.I made this really silly gif from pics of my bedhead every morning. I had a ton of fun at collage night at the IPRC (collage is zen!). I also wrote a whole bunch. I read a whole bunch. I went... Continue Reading →
month nine: artsy and/or fartsy
My August challenge of completing one of Lynda Barry's daily diary exercises was probably my mildest challenge yet. It was short and fast and easy: A list of Things I Did, Things I Saw, One Thing I Heard and a 30 second drawing every day. I filled in the exercise in a composition notebook every night... Continue Reading →
month eight: Lynda Barry’s daily diary
I admit it, turning the TV off for the month of July was not entirely successful. I cheated a bunch. I'd come home from work exhausted and sit and watch Anthony Bourdain eat delicious-looking food in beautiful-looking countries. I did fairly well, however, at avoiding the useless local news. My partner was less committed to... Continue Reading →
month seven: turn off the idiot box
First, let me say that June's sweet-free challenge was, for the most part, a little easier than I anticipated. I got cravings now and then and occasionally drooled longingly at a friend's chocolate bar, but it wasn't too bad. I didn't feel physically different having removed sweets from my diet. To me, this signals that even... Continue Reading →
month six: sweats and sweets
My month of mindfulness, in perfectly ironic fashion, lost most of its deliberateness about three-quarters of the way through. I stopped looking at my list of exercises because so many of them seemed to be guiding me in the same direction. Let go, they told me. So, I did. I let go of the formal framework... Continue Reading →
month five: update – now, now
This month's challenge of doing a different mindfulness exercise every day has, in many ways, been the easiest one I've done so far. It's not that I'm so good at being in the now. I'm often thoroughly distracted, mind racing off in dozens of directions, but there is gentleness in this practice, a necessary attitude... Continue Reading →
month five: mind empty/ mind full
For some time now, I've been aware, mindful you might say, of how I drift. Instead of feeling the skin/muscle/bone beneath my hands while giving a massage, I am building imaginary conversations or going on imaginary road trips. In the middle of listening to the music, the poet, the friend, I realize I've stopped hearing... Continue Reading →
month four: update – jumping ship
This anti-procrastination month is going really well so far. There's a small moment of panic each day when I realize I have to face something on my list. But I make my choice and just run with it. At the end of the day I get to add a new thing to the checklist of... Continue Reading →
month four: eliminate the procrastinate
An incredibly unappealing list sits in my notebook right now. It's a page and a half of things I've been meaning to do but haven't. I wrote it out one afternoon in January and was very, very tempted to put off making that list my challenge for yet another month. I just know I'm going... Continue Reading →
month three: summary
It's good to be happy with small accomplishments. That's the size they come in where my writing is concerned. With just a few days to go, I'm confident I can reach my goal of writing every day this month. More often than not, twenty minutes flew by and I kept on, making it half an hour or... Continue Reading →
month three: aim low and write
I've been writing and avoiding writing since I was a teenager. I used to read a lot about the writing life and all the myriad ways writers kept themselves on their creative paths, hoping I'd find the perfect clue on how to make all this work. Now, barely a day goes by that I don't... Continue Reading →
month two: summary
I'm whipping this post out before I head over to the yoga studio for class. I love the woman teaching this morning. It's amazing how someone just giving a simple but different cue for how to do a pose changes everything. One class, a couple weeks ago, she told us that it should feel weird, maybe... Continue Reading →
month two: update
I'm sixteen days in to my month of daily yoga and have run the gamut of emotions from elation to teeth-grinding frustration over what my body can and cannot do. Going to my mat every day gives me the chance to try and move through these extremes of emotion and settle into something a bit more balanced.... Continue Reading →
month two: 28 days of yoga. 28 days of sober.
I'm not the kind of person to read a self-help book and follow through on the suggested activities, reflections, etc. I don't want to keep a gratitude journal. I don't want to write a letter to my future self or a thank you note to my inner child. I don't want to make a dream board.... Continue Reading →
month one: solo swim
I'm not one for New Year's resolutions, but I am one for new projects. Or at least, continuing old projects that involve doing new things. So I'm back to it around here. My goal is to venture out and do something new at least once a month that's worth writing about. That feels like the... Continue Reading →
addendum b: lookout
For the week of my birthday, which was otherwise celebrated in subdued fashion, I snagged a night in one of the cabins at Cape Lookout State Park. The price was a bit steep for what it offered, both more and less than what I needed, but the view on a still and sunny fall day... Continue Reading →
addendum a: the wax bone apprentice
As I neared the end of this blog project, I thought I might continue it in a more casual fashion, posting only when something worthy happened. I didn't imagine that something worthy would happen so soon. I didn't know that meeting a friend for lunch would turn into me making wishbones out of wax. I've... Continue Reading →
week fifty-two: fuck yeah
I feel the need to swear more than usual. Fifty-two fucking new things! That's right, motherfucker! Okay, many of them were silly and small. One week, I climbed a bunch of stairs in the Alameda neighborhood and called it good. I rode the municipal elevator in Oregon City. I went to a few different reading... Continue Reading →
week fifty-one: sing, dance, share
This week I was reminded of why I need to get my ass in gear and make some more goddamn money. Oh sure, it would be good for all sorts of reasons (retirement...what's that? Safety net...uh, no thanks, I guess). But the main reason is for stuff like PICA's TBA Festival (that's Portland Institute of... Continue Reading →
week fifty: pitch and yaw
The only time I'd been in a really small plane was on a sightseeing trip over the Grand Canyon when I was a girl. All ten or so passengers threw up on the turbulent flight except me and that was only out of sheer will. So a few months ago when my friend first asked... Continue Reading →
Week forty-eight: stand up and read, sit down and float
I kind of can't believe I have 48 of these things. At the same time, it really feels like this is the 48th. All I want to do is list the two new things I did this past week, upload a photo and call it a day. My reluctance to elaborate or dig deeper just... Continue Reading →
week forty-seven: silly summer adventure
The Enchanted Forest theme park sits on an oddly tantalizing perch visible from I-5 just south of Salem. Every time I was on that stretch of highway, I'd see the fake tudor buildings peeking out of the woods and promise myself that someday I'd go. So what if I didn't have kids? So what if... Continue Reading →
week forty-six: soaking it up, sweating it out
My new thing this week was going to be floating down the Deschutes in Bend. But the weather was against us. Cool temps and thunderstorms meant I decided to stay at home while my partner went off to Bend to visit his dad and play a gig. Two days off with no plans and no... Continue Reading →
week forty-five: the anticlimactic volcano
The 198o explosion of Mt. St. Helen's has been a point of fascination for me ever since I moved here. What must it have been like to be witness to that kind of crazy power, that kind of wild disaster? I can get lost in looking at pictures of the aftermath. Everything thick with ash.... Continue Reading →
week forty-four: the big float
My neighborhood in southeast Portland provides all the essentials within easy walking distance. It's easy to exist in a little bubble over here, rolling back and forth over the same 10 square blocks. Ever since I stopped commuting to the west side for work, I sometimes forget that there's a great big river that flows... Continue Reading →
week forty-three: under the bridge
I've never been in the loop. As far as new and local music goes, even in my twenties I was pretty clueless. I had friends that were regulars at Satyricon and La Luna and where else? See, I don't even know where else. I love music. I'm deeply moved by music, but I've never been... Continue Reading →
week forty-two: lake!
The last time I was in a good, swimmable lake was so long ago, the only photos I have of it are printed out and pasted into a photo album. That was a lake near Bar Harbor, ME in 2000. There was one float across a seaweed choked pond just off I-84 near Multnomah Falls... Continue Reading →
week forty-one: care a little less
I struggle with what I want my writing life to be. Struggle isn't the right word, though. It's too active. Too involved. Me and my writing and my caring about my writing create a fairly passive, only slightly more than occasional dynamic. But it does come up. I've sworn off writing entirely more than once.... Continue Reading →
week forty: dead lazy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFCLWytjcUY My father's nickname for me as a kid was DL, or Dead Lazy. Of course, I hated this, even if from an objective point of view, it might have been true. I blame it on a Leo Lionni book I loved as a child called Frederick. It's about a field mouse who sits and... Continue Reading →
week thirty-nine: minor achievements, minor rewards
I've had the great privilege of sculpting my life into a shape of my choosing. It's comfortable here. All the curves and angles fit together really well. One reason it's such a good fit is that the vast majority of my responsibilities are to myself alone. While I honor the trust my clients put in... Continue Reading →
week thirty-eight: the first last goodbye
In a few weeks, my parents will be moving from the Boston suburbs to Portland so that they can be close by in their old age. This event has been in the works for years and for years I've pushed the idea out of my thoughts, insisting that I'd think about it later. Later is... Continue Reading →
week thirty-seven: botanical dreams
Many, many years ago I drove to a house that sat along Johnson Creek and the Leach Botanical Garden to do a trade with an acquaintance. I remember being surprised that a street so deep in southeast, just off Foster Rd. could feel so tranquil, lush and foresty. The trade was entirely unremarkable, but I... Continue Reading →
week thirty-six: the strange and untidy
This week I found out that the food cart pod near my office is being dismantled at the end of the summer to make way for a condo development. This is happening to several cart pods throughout the city. I know it's kind of petty to be saddened by the loss of these empty lots... Continue Reading →
week thirty-five: new art, new artist
This week I got a new tattoo surrounding an old tattoo, both done by the same artist, Joanne Martian. I hadn't been to the shop she and her husband own, the wonderful Martian Arts Tattoo, but the process of getting the tattoo was very familiar. The stinging, nagging pain of it was familiar. The artist... Continue Reading →
week thirty-four: unchaste
Work your way past the brightly lit pool tables and sports-filled TVs of The Rialto and go down into the basement, into The Jack London Bar. It's better down there. It's very dark and kind of cozy and the bartender is nice. I discovered this on Tuesday when I went there to attend the Unchaste... Continue Reading →
week thirty-three: sportsball redux, beach redux
This week's two new things sit on opposite ends of the socializing spectrum. On one side was a stadium of chanting, scarf waving, bird-flipping soccer fans. On the other was miles of hot sunny beach with nothing but crows and crabs for company. Going to a Timbers game has been on my list of things... Continue Reading →
week thirty-two: a (mostly) funny thing
This week was kinda the pits. Almost everyone I know seemed to be feeling a little wonky at best or completely miserable at worst. I'd spent my day off feeling soaked by the full, steady mist outside despite the fact that I was never really out in it. I'd been planning on one of several... Continue Reading →
week thirty-one: the new inside the old and the old disappeared
Sometimes the new thing is barely visible inside the old thing. It wasn't new that I got a massage this week, but it was an Ashiatsu massage, a technique I'd never tried before. In this form, the therapist uses their bare feet instead of their hands to release tight muscles. I don't think I've ever... Continue Reading →
week thirty: go it alone
I take walks by myself on a nearly daily basis. Sometimes it's just up the street to Mt. Tabor Park. Sometimes it's an urban stroll through a new neighborhood or a trek downtown. But I've never headed out of town for a hike on my own. On some level it's because I have a handful... Continue Reading →
week twenty-nine: a trip slightly south
It feels funny to swing wildly from the leap I made last week to the beautiful mundane pleasures of this week. One of the lessons of this year-long project has been to see how as soon as a new place is visited or a new thing accomplished, it quickly fades into the background or settles... Continue Reading →
week twenty-eight: an unknown shape
This week's new thing is an adventure in self-publishing and vulnerability (stupidity?). I've been thinking for some time about publishing one of my personal essays here. It would have to be something not written for this blog, but something languishing in a file on my computer. It would have to be important to me, not... Continue Reading →
week twenty-seven: winning (kind of)
I never win anything. Mostly because I never try to win anything. I don't play powerball, enter contests or buy raffle tickets. I don't play sports or board games. When I get into an argument I usually give up or change my mind before ever achieving victory. So, what a surprise it was when I... Continue Reading →
week twenty-six: on the up and up
I love the butter-light glow of houses at twilight when the lives of strangers are on display. I love the unkempt, backyard views from trains and trams. Seeing a bit of what is usually hidden is immensely appealing even if what is there is immensely mundane. The hidden staircases of Portland appeal to me in... Continue Reading →
week twenty-five: rose city rollers
The last time I went roller skating was about 20 years ago when a group of us went to live organ music night at Oaks Park. We didn't fit in so well with the older couples dressed in matching outfits swirling around the glossy floor with grace and ease. We were young and clumsy and... Continue Reading →
week twenty-four: elevator speech
Maybe you'll laugh. I know I did. On a beautiful mid-week morning, I got in my car and headed south down 99E to Oregon City just to ride our country's only outdoor municipal elevator. Kind of a ridiculous thing to do since it's just an elevator. It's just another small Oregon town. Why bother, right?... Continue Reading →
Tracy Burkholder 