Sunshine Assessment

Let's assess. It hasn't rained in like, weeks? The days have been sunny in a windy, bone-chilly kinda way, and the nights—especially starry. This makes things like dry-pawed dog walks and skating out of doors all possible. More than possible—probable. But! I'm gonna say something weird right now: I miss the rain.

Here's where I'm at with this:

1) Sunny January days fill me with dread because of a sense (irrational?) that we're stealing sunny days from the tail end of spring. What if for every nice day we get now, there'll be a raw, gray one tacked onto June?! I'll be fragile by June. I'll need summer to start promptly.

2) Weather breaks! See, it’s oddly moving when a long stretch of weather—even if it’s not bothering you none—ceases quietly in the night, and you wake up at dawn to find a fresh situation outside your windowpane, kinda like an old friend you forgot you were missing.

3) We need the water. The gardens are parched. There's no snow on the mountain. The summer is due to be hot and dusty, with ominous red sunsets colored with wild-fire smoke. (Global warming is pretty skeeery, if/when considered seriously.)

Estacada park under golden rays of sun. Photo: Cutright

Saturday Smith grinds on the dry concrete. I like.

Blackfish

Of a Sunday morning, I sat down to watch Blackfish. Have you seen it? Crikey!!!

Centered on a performing killer whale called Tilikum (who's killed a couple people over the course of his captivity), the documentary's actually a tough look at greed and the innate, really unavoidable cruelty of the captive-animal industry.

Let's set aside the discussion about how keenly intelligent whales have long been known to be—how they navigate complex emotional landscapes and live by tight-knit social structures that we burn to the ground every time we snatch one into captivity.

Instead, let's reflect on nobility.

Let's talk about the ink-black underbelly of the corporate race for dollars, how SEA WORLD LIES, as most (all?) corporations do—like a motherfucker, in fact—even when human lives are at stake.

Let's explore the reason that a captive-animal industry even exists—because we're curious, us humans. We want more than just to glimpse a dark fin cutting through silver ocean waters—we want talk to and touch the behemoth creatures; we want to KNOW them.

And finally, let's start a new story with ourselves and our kids and shit—something about treating everything with respect. I mean, let's find some goddamn grace or whatever. Ok, I'm done.

On Dog Mountain

Hi from Portland, friends. Yesterday morning was all dark and gloomy, but still, Tricia, Lisa and I met at the base of Dog Mountain and hiked straight up into the spooky billows of fog. We passed through dark, quiet woods that may have been haunted. We plodded up windy scree meadows that fell steeply away into thin air. We sweated. We wheezed. The trail was very steep. Rain commingled with perspiration to soak our jeans and shirts entirely. And the wind blew fiercely then, sending icy shivers to our very core. But! The view! As we neared the top, the clouds split open and we found ourselves staring straight into the vacuum of space—dark purple faraway mountains cut by silver river waters, the promise of a golden sunset off to the west. These are the kinda gifts you get from nature sometimes, ya know?

Sojourning

In fact, sometimes you gotta get out of town. Even if it's just to the beach for the day—even if it's just to walk all clumsy through the deep sand with ocean-bred ions washing over you and the dog running far in the wildness of joy. The drive's only an hour, it's not like you went to Mexico or anything, but a short trip like this can be just the thing for telling at least one embarrassing story in the car (maybe about your freshman year in high school), and then eating a couple diagonally cut sandwiches in a parking lot near the beach trail—the food tasting resplendent because you're outside in the salty air. It's not like you conceived the fucking meaning of life, but you did get out of town. Do you know what I mean about this?

Also, maybe you'd have enough time to stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and watch people in hairnets and safety glasses chop colossal blocks of cheese down into the manageable 12oz hunks we see in the grocery. Frankly, the enormity of those primordial cheese blocks will be forever emblazoned in my memory. So. Much. Cheese. If a girl like myself had to measure my cheese intake for the year, would it amount to one of those?!!! And after seeing said measurement, would I ever eat a bite of extra sharp cheddar again?!!!

Island Time

It's Indian summer! The heat's very close, like a dog panting down your neck.

But! The idea of fall was already loosed upon us. Last week—with the season's first real rain.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd gone to the river because I didn't know it was gonna be the last time—I didn't even get to say goodbye! Closure is what I needed, so I planned a Sauvie Island river excursion for a steamy mid-week day. We sat in the warm sand and dove in the warm water, and our plastic wine cups shined like jewels in the sun.

But! It wasn't summer. The sun didn't burn me, the sky was a different color blue altogether, and the heat was cut with a pesky little breeze whispering of fog and falling leaves. Still though, it was a lovely day and a lovely drive home, and I totally wouldn't hate living out there on the island in one of those homes where water laps against your yard that are going for around 3 mill these days.