mattbutler.ca

Easter

Belly

Winter hike

Loyalsock trail, early January. Overlooking Ketchum gorge. No living human human for miles except us.

Flood

Last days of funemployment

After months of delays and paperwork, I finally start work this week. Karma being what it is, I have a lot of work to do to make up for relaxing all summer, and I don’t expect to see much daylight until some time next winter or spring. Being a last-minute deadline-oriented type, I squeezed as many adventures into the final week of not-working as I could. Highlights included two days walking the eastern section of the Loyalsock trail.

Update: I’ve been messing with the display of gallery photos. Added previous and next links, as well as arrow key support. I’m practically running Facebook over here.

Old Loggers Path

This is the kind of thing I’m stuck doing while waiting to start work, since Lora is in the hospital 80 hours a week and doesn’t have a lot of energy left over for adventures. Solo hike of the Old Loggers Path in the Endless Mountains. I tried to wait out some thunder storms in my car in the ghost town of Masten for a few hours. Finally just clenched my teeth and headed out around 1700, and by the time I made camp every piece of gear was soaked (including matches, so no hot food. Rookie mistake.) Late start meant I had 22 miles to cover the next day. Clear weather, cheerful wildlife, and huge vistas made it worth it.

Staying Put

I’m afraid that we’ve fallen off various maps, lists, and radars in the past few years. If you’ve lost track of where Lora and I have been, you’re not alone – we’ve had a hard time keeping it straight ourselves.

Since 2009, when I left Saba, I have lived for at least a month (but never more than four) in the following places: Chicago IL, Kentville NS (twice), Waterbury CT, Miami Beach FL, Hollywood FL, Evansville IN, Chattanooga TN, and New York NY. Lora has been in most of those, plus Detroit MI, Billings MO, and Baltimore MD. Most of the moves had to be done in a weekend.

Medical training is not easy. At any given time our heads would be swimming with laboratory data, drug dosages, journal articles. But at the same time, competing for cognitive space, would be the logistical factoids: Where do I go next? How do I get there? Where am I going to sleep? Where is my stuff? What’s my current visa status? Where and when do I next need to show up and create a credible illusion of being put-together and professional? And always, always, the paperwork.

It has been years since I’ve been in a place without the feeling that I’m just passing through on my way to somewhere else. It’s been years since I fully unpacked the innermost depths of the trunk of my car. I have always had a taste for long, winding adventures, but by the end this one started to get ridiculous. It felt less Tolkienesque than Frazieresque: not a bold journey outward, so much as a long exhausted stagger back to a home that may not even exist.

But it does exist, at long last: we have finally had the chance to do a little nesting. Below are some photos of our current home. Rented, but more permanent-feeling than anything that came before it. It is a beautiful place. A peaceful place.

I still haven’t figured out how to get a picture of the foxes, nor of the fireflies, which might be the coolest wildlife of all. The amusement park over the hill provides us with walking-distance access to pizza and roller coasters, without altering the sense of rural solitude.

We’re kind of in the middle of nowhere here, but visitors are welcome.

Fun around Pennsylvania

Wedding

Lora and I were married on May 16, 2011 in a small civil ceremony in Catawissa, Pennsylvania.

By small, I mean her, myself, and a magistrate. No priest, no best men, no maid of honour, ring bearer, or flower girl. No photographer, no caterer, no band in tacky matching suits. None of it.

Most of which wouldn’t have been our style anyway. The minimalism of it all fit nicely with our general approach to things. After the ceremony we found a covered bridge, less than a mile from our idyllic new home in the country, and took timer pictures. Lacking a tripod, we used bridge beams and piles of rocks. We ate at the Pine Barn Inn and popped champagne from our back deck. It was lovely.

But simple does not have to mean solitary. And to all the friends and family who might have wished to help us celebrate the event, I have to apologize. It was never our desire to exclude anyone, and we very much wanted to host a reception and share the day with loved ones. Sadly, though we had been engaged for a year and a half, circumstances forced us to plan the wedding on extremely short notice.

Once our ridiculously complicated lives have settled down a bit, we are planning at least two after-the-fact celebrations: one in down here in Elysburg, for anyone able to make the trip, and one in Nova Scotia. Both are slated for some time in the warmer months of 2012. Stay tuned.

In the mean time, here are some pictures from our wedding day.