Plankton Every Day is a blog by Kate Zidar about citizen science and untethered living. These are my micro and macro observations about the daily practice of staying afloat!
It’s coming up on my birthday, and over these past few years I have been feeling my age a lot more. When I get zoomed in on an issue, there is usually a vision board not far behind:
Why, when there are so many examples of women achieving, styling, and laughing their way through middle age and beyond, do I let fine lines and joint pain tell me I am past my prime?
Traveling allows me the experience of seeing how the ages (all ages, not just “the old”) are treated quite differently around the world. However, traveling also propels me deeper into this extended adolescence, where my age-peers are by now well settled with kids, cars and careers. This tension – the perceived one between what I am doing and what I “should” be doing – is something I am trying to set down.
Maybe you can identify? If so, I recommend heading over to This Chair Rocks, the blog of my friend Ashton Applewhite. It is a one-stop-shop of all you need to combat ageism in your own mind and beyond. She has a book that is on the verge of being available, so watch that space!
I lived in Boulder, Colorado from 1995-1998. I went to school there, and I really loved it. I look back on my days there with a mix of feelings that I have been sitting here awhile trying to describe. Can’t find words for it. In the body it sort of feels like a butterflies-in-the-stomach thing mixed equal thirds dread and nostalgia. It’s not a 100% pleasant feeling. But Boulder, USA in the late 90s was a … time.
I didn’t have the most conventional experience at a big state school. I wasn’t in a sorority and I went to only one football game (when my parents visited) – although “Go Buffs!” comes as easy to me as “Go Buccs!”. For my final year, I spent a semester working among a community of nuns in Houston (another post for another day), and then went abroad to Ecuador. I never came back to graduate, and I haven’t been back to Colorado at all since.
On this plane I can already catch the vibe, man. Boulder people. My studio with the red window, Neil Young on rotation, surviving for months on contraband Illegal Pete’s, my Mom’s porch in Chautauqua, the smell of formaldehyde/fruit fly agar/photo lab, Drew leaving, Sundowner vs. Soma vs. K’s China, going as Sweep-the-leg Johnny for Halloween, etc.
I fear that if I spend a day there my memory bank will rupture from the swift return of material long buried deep in the stacks.
I have been spending more time working on the boat. I was sanding off our miserable failure of a paint job, trying my best to keep the toxic dust from spewing overboard by using this little bag that screws onto the exhaust of the sander. A little jelly came by, and I made this video about her. It has photo overlays, blurry fades, slo-mo, and seagulls.
