This Time Last Year

This time last year, it was a lot stormier. Remember?

There were torrential downpourings that caused almost-floods in my basement (thanks for helping me bail water, Nick!)—leaves and tree limbs littered the streets.

The days were cooler. There was already an acceptance of fall, an acceptance that longer, darker nights are restorative—that “rest” is allowable, that sitting on the couch under a blanket under a cat is a more-than-fine way to pass an evening, that all the “going” and “doing” you did this summer is somehow JUST NOW catching up with you and maybe that’s why you are suddenly so FUCKING EXHAUSTED every night at 6 o’clock …

My birthday weekend passed in a blur of cake and candles—candles on the cake, and candles for the darkness of a 9-hour power outage in SE Portland on the very eve of my birthday fete at Commonwealth. Remember? We all sat there in the dark, talked, drank wine.

In the early days of October, I cooked a big soup out of tomatoes and potatoes and sage. I dipped toasty bread in. I thought about all the life things that needed doing before 2014 would come barreling through.

And one day, I climbed up Dog Mountain with Tricia and Lisa amidst spooky billows of fog. 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 ... Remember?

I do ... but only cuz I wrote it down.

Ancient (Garden) History

I'm not writing this from the table on my back deck ... but I could be. It's where I spend a lot of time—sometimes reading, most times doing nothing. Just sitting there, being human.

I'm able to do this (i.e. nothing), because I know what the yard looked like before I moved in 8 years ago, and what I'm really doing (besides nothing) is just kinda savoring what's become of that gloomy dirt/weed patch. Something green and vital. Something that hums.

Yes, yes, I've done a lot of work. But now the garden runs itself, I swear. I am particularly proud of how much the bees love it in there. Those guys work hard—it feels good to make them happy. Also? There's still an excitement every time something comes into bloom. That's fun.

I don't think modern folks feel much of a bond with where they live. We travel too much, and we move all the time. But I was thinking today, when I came across a couple ancient house pics on my hard drive, that propagating my garden—it's how I've connected with my land, primordially speaking. Cool, huh?

Circa 2006, when pulling weeds was my life.

Spring 2007, when my mommy came to visit and helped me plant some starts.

Spring 2014—a horticultural bonanza.

Waterfall Wanders

Heat. Haze. Big roving rain clouds. Trails carved out of cliffsides. Waterfalls that drop loudly into deep, green pools. This is the seduction of Oregon in late August. Last weekend, Kelly, Marsha, and I were its victims.

After dealing with real-life bullshit all morning, we gathered at my house midday and drove east into the Columbia Gorge—for that is the province of waterfall hikes. On this day, we chose Eagle Creek Trail, a pretty famous Oregon hike that leads you ramblingly into the wilds by following the Eagle Creek itself.

Now, this trail is part of the Pacific Crest Trail, and as such, we passed tons of "PCTers" on it; all of them friendly, all of them covered in dirt—reeking of moss, earth, and abiding body odor, all of them heading north to Canada as we forged south toward Punchbowl Falls. In comparison, we were just lowly day hikers, carrying—all carefree-like—nothing but water bottles in our hands.

Lifestyle Adjustment

There's no such thing as how things should be—there's just how thing's are.

I read that recently. It's true.

This morning I was thinking ... it's cool how when you have a dog, you're forced into securing a life that has plentiful helpings of outdoors and physical activity, of simplicity, of kinda semi regular schedules involving not staying out til 4 a.m. (and then sleeping through the fresh morning when dog walks are best due to the cool air and clouds of just-open blossom scent).

In other words, Lefty—who's both my dog and my dawg—makes me live a good life. Oddly, it's not something I might do (or have done in the past) for myself. It's easier to do something for someone else ...

Stretching our hammies.

Look, I don't want to go to the river every weekend ... but I HAVE to. Because of THIS FACE.

Camping trips, wilderness meanderings, and pondering the void with my bud.

Waldeinsamkeit

Did you know that in German, there's a word for that feeling of being all alone in the woods? "Waldeinsamkeit" they call it. Lovely, no?