Back in Boise
by Anton Zuiker on March 2, 2020
Anna and I are in Boise, Idaho, visiting Katherine and Tom and their children. It’s my first time back in this state since I left with my family in 1983; we lived in nearby Caldwell for five years, and moved to St. Croix that March. Tomorrow Anna and I will visit the street where I lived, walk along the downtown shops, then meet a couple who also served with Peace Corps Vanuatu and who now live in Nampa.
Today we shopped the Boise shops, then toured the studio of Boise State Public Radio, where Tom is general manager. In the afternoon we took a drive to Horseshoe Bend and the Payette River.
Anna is on her spring break, and we came here so she could ski for the first time. Yesterday Tom and Katie drove us up the mountain to Bogus Basin, a nonprofit recreation area within the Boise National Forest, where it was just around freezing and in full sun. We had a blast on the beginner slope, and thoroughly enjoyed the day. I want to bring Oliver and Malia and Erin here next winter.
We arrived in Boise Saturday afternoon, stopped by Hops and Bottles to catch the end of the Olympic marathon trials—a couple of Boise women ran in the lead pack but missed qualifying—then went next door for a leisurely lunch. Katherine showed us to her art studio, and the Boise River and the green belt path directly behind.
That night, I accompanied T&K to dinner with musician Phil Roy, who had decided to revive his tradition of inviting strangers to the table for a meal and conversation (back east he would also play and sing). This reminded me of my Long Table dinner, and the evening in Paris with Jim Haynes. In Boise we ate food prepared by a woman originally from Kenya, and we talked with filmmaker (Return to Mount Kennedy), a nurse who works with refugees at St. Alphonsus health system, a Québécois therapist, and a former reporter who now advocates for immigration policy and who maybe knew about the Idaho law that my father had pushed to make farmers provide portajohns for their workers.
So far, an enjoyable visit.
An accounting
by Anton Zuiker on February 7, 2020
I spent much of the last year reflecting on my place in this world, struggling to find my meaning and purpose, and wondering how to remake myself and my blog in 2020, during which I will have been in my job at the Duke Department of Medicine for 10 years, I will have been a blogger for 20 years, and I will have lived for 50 years. It feels like the year ahead is one to chronicle.
Dave Winer recently advised his readers to “always think of your blog as if you were starting it now, not in the past. The world is different.”
My personal about page, at antonzuiker.com, has long described my origins as a blogger, how I’ve used this medium to connect my far-flung family members and honor my dying grandfather, and what drove me to organize online communities and face-to-face gatherings. I wrote a lot about my childhood, about my experiences as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in the Republic of Vanuatu, about my being a loving husband and father and son and brother, about my decade of narrative, about my work at Duke.
In 2014, my blogging changed, first through silence as I contemplated the lessons of my projects and successes and failures, then through a return to the Zuiker Chronicles with an attempt at slow blogging, then again through a strategy to write short and talk more. I’m still not writing as often or as much or as observant as I want to be, in good part because I seem to have lost sight of what I’m for. Though who I am for is clear to me: I am trying to be a part of a better world for my family, my friends, my community, and you. I recognize that there are important global emergencies, political issues, and societal inequities all around me. I can’t give up or give in.
I went to the dictionary on my bookshelf (The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary) to check the definition of chronicles—“a record, register, narrative, account”—and of chronicle—” to put on record, to register”—and was reminded that this blog still has a good name. Zuiker Chronicles can continue to honor my forefathers, and can travel with me in the months ahead, to New Orleans and Frederiksted, to Saxapahaw and Alaska’s inner passage, to Alabama where we’ll visit the Equal Justice Initiative.
I recently read Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, by EJI founder Bryan Stevenson. Early in the book, Stevenson quotes his grandmother’s advice to him: “You can’t understand most of the important things from a distance, Bryan. You have to get close.”
This week my ophthalmologist adjusted my prescription so I can see close better. Perhaps that will help me in blogging in details, chronicling these days, noticing people. Perhaps this should be a year of close blogging. Perhaps this will remind me of the important things, and give me purpose.
Moonlight in the woods
by Anton Zuiker on January 8, 2020
Back from a meeting of the science writers book club (we discussed Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer) I checked in on my daughters, and found Oliver and Erin already asleep. I went around the house shutting off lights and locking doors, and stepped outside to unplug the string of lights that hang in the carport. It’s not too cold tonight, clear, and the moon will be full soon. It’s bright outside, and so I pulled on my boots and took a walk.
I walk our land as often as I can, in the early mornings or during the day or as dusk settles, always looking for turtles or antlers or snakes or ferns. I love the woods beyond our house. Tonight, and a few nights last month, I walked out in the moonlight halfway down the slope, and stood still for a few minutes, just enjoying a new way to sense the land around me, and marveling at the moon shadows dappling the soft carpet of fallen leaves.
Happy hens
by Anton Zuiker on January 4, 2020
Fresh wood chips for the chicken yard.
My plans for an early Saturday run were canceled by the rain falling at 6 a.m., so I rolled over and fell asleep, and woke again at 8. In the kitchen, as I drank a glass of orange juice, I could hear the hens squawking in their yard. I put on my green rain coat, I pulled on my work boots, and I walked outside to check on the chickens. It was clear they wanted out of their pen. On weekends, when we’re outside working, we open the door and let them out to scratch under the trees. But the pen was a muddy mess, and I didn’t want to be out in the rain, so I promised them I’d be back.
I got into the truck, drove to J.V. Brockwell Trucking in Calvander, and paid $15 for a yard of wood chips. By the time I got home, the rain was mostly mist, and the chickens still clucking loudly, impatiently. I opened the door to let them out, and they went silent as they stepped beyond the pen. I collected five eggs inside the coop, and then used the wheel barrow to transfer the chips to the chicken yard. Within an hour, the sun was out, and the hens had come back inside their pen to explore their clean, tidy yard.
Garden report
by Anton Zuiker on November 14, 2019
An arctic blast reached into North Carolina this week, but the chickens up on their roost inside the coop survived the freezing nights. Right now the temperature is hovering above 32, and there’s a cold rain falling. The growing season is finished.
I wanted to spend more time in the garden this summer. Even so, Erin and I were able to keep it watered, and it had plenty of sun, so the tomatoes did well, and I gathered enough cayenne and habanero chiles to make a couple of batches of hot sauce. The roselle grew tall and I made syrup, which the family enjoyed mixed with soda water. The herbs spread out in their box, and I’ll have thyme and parsley and sage to put into next week’s stuffing. The watermelon vine snaked around and flowered all summer but gave no fruit. A bean grew up the wire wall.
Soon I’ll start to plan for the spring, sketching out the boxes to arrange the plants differently and ordering seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.