Forest Escapism
Hello to you. Here's a picture of me, standing in the woods—but not just any woods, my woods! As mentioned elsewhere, I bought some land in Central Oregon. This was like, four or five snowstorms ago. Due to weather (and due to life), this weekend was my first opportunity to walk ’neath the grand Ponderosas as their bonafide owner. To have your own forest. How cool.
The plan was to build a cabin of dreams on this lot ... and maybe I still will. But as it often does, reality has set in. Permits cost money. Septic systems cost money. Materials cost money. Your hopes and dreams—they cost fucking money!
No matter. I've settled on a different plan. A for-now plan, involving the purchase of a decently cute camper trailer to park amidst the greenery (anyone know anyone who's selling one?!). This, along with a fire pit and a fence, are all that are standing in the way of me and an epic summer of escapism.
This Time Last Year
This time last year, it was a lot more like spring, remember?
There was a barely warm breeze on the loose, causing me to browse the nursery for seeds for my future veggie garden (all the while caught up in a kind of frenzy dreaming about the fresh salsas and salads I’d make when the warm months returned).
There was a quick trip to Astoria to shake off the cobwebs. Despite my my longstanding grudge against the Oregon coast (too crowded in the summer, too gloomy in the winter, altogether too many windsock shops), I really liked the city's ancient crumbling victorians and colossal freighters anchored in the inlet. I liked the melancholy place names—like Cape Disappointment, where all the ships crashed, even the one carrying supplies to build a new lighthouse. It's all exceptionally Northwest!
There was also a life-affirming first-ever backcountry trip to a fire lookout in Central Oregon. I’ve almost never felt happier than I did on that first night spent rolled up inside a sleeping bag on a tiny bed atop a towering mountain. This is because I was incredibly warm and comfortable, I was tired from wallowing 4 miles uphill in the deep snow with a heavy pack (an act that I would call mountaineering, but I know if I did real mountaineers would pat my head and say, “Hush”), I was among several people that I liked very much, and I was there in the cozy dark surrounded by 360 degrees of windows that held nothing but stars.
Anyhow, in keeping with the New Year Vibrations of early Feb, I support getting 100% back to basics, getting 100% serious about clearing out clutter both mental and physical. This year, though, I don't have the energy for renewal. With the short days and darkness of weather—and with death all around—I feel like I'm only now coming out of a deep, dark hole. My current energy stores are reserved, it seems, for just keepin' on.
So hey, winter of 2017, I apologize. I'll do better next year.
Burning The Old Year
For certain reasons, as well as no reason at all, I didn't go out on New Year's Eve. The trick here is to plan your no plans in advance. Don't do any "we'll see what happens," or "maybe we'll check out that one party for a little while." Decide ahead of time. Put your sweatpants on early. Then when the light falls, you're already settled in and cozy.
Anyway, as holidays go, this one was a bit sad—a night full of memories. However, we were warm inside by the fire and our plates were pleasantly full, which, despite anything, is a life affirming way to spend a winter's eve. At one point, a tidy package was discovered outside our front door. We unwrapped it to reveal a candle smelling of cedar, along with the loveliest note. "Can't help but feel the emptiness. I hope this warms your heart and home." I lit the candle and cried ... for him ... for both of them.
Early the next morning, we drove up a volcano through the blizzarding snow. Tony and Ryan were awaiting us at the ticket line. We hopped the lift and rode hip deep powder until our faces froze off. It was smooth and creamy. It was largely untracked. We whistled and hollered. We went fast. We were happy.
And just like that, a cycle starts anew. Happy 2017, everyone!
2016 By The Numbers
1 mini ramp. What happened was, it rained a lot, and I started missing my old mini ramp this spring. I didn’t tell anyone, though. Within a week, the universe, along with Colin, Johnny, Niki and Deva, had delivered a lovely used ramp to my residence. Some things just work like that.
2 border crossings. I've taken to making a list of places I wanted to go. A "to-go" list. For years, the little surf/hippy town of Tofino, B.C. and the medieval ocean-faring country of Portugal have been on that list. Now they're not. Because I went there, to both places, THIS YEAR! On the making-shit-happen scale, 2016 was a level 10, I'd say.
5 months living with Mark. My steady boo moved in on August 1. After what amounts to years of living alone, the struggle to not become curmudgeonly was real. But turns out, having someone at the house when you get home is quite lovely, because then that someone is around to open stuck jars of jam, and there’s someone to drink wine with as the light falls, and when that someone happens to be someone you love, well isn't that just a little bit of life magic?
6 nights sleeping out under the stars. I thought it was more. Surely it was 15 or 20? It's one of those mysteries of memory, how all those nights sleeping in my old bed, the shades closed just so, one just like the next, they all blend together, and so 1 or 2—or 6—nights passed bathing in starlight, an owl crying over there, the tallest of the trees rustling and creaking, or if in the desert, a coyote howling in the nearby dark ... Nights like these are so full of sensory experience that they just take up more room in your mind.
2 broken hearts. Twice in 3 months, I held the head of the dog I love while the life passed right out of him. Lefty? I think about him all the time. I dream of him often. And now, with a little perspective, I can look back and be proud that I didn't cling, that I was afraid but didn't let the fear rule me, and that I was able to walk with him into the best death possible.
For Durango, our lil pup, barely 5 months old, Mark and I are still struggling and struck dumb, with no understanding and no peace. Durango departed us one week ago today. Christmas, Twin Falls, Idaho. 10 p.m. We left him in the car. He was alive. We came back, he was dead. I shook him, pressed his little ribs cage and blew into his little lungs, we panicked, we yelled, we called every vet in town, we didn't know what to do, our hands froze, we cursed the cold, we drove too fast up the dark highway to an emergency vet hospital, we got pulled over in their parking lot, the cop saw Durango and said "Go!", we rushed him in, they stuck a tube down his throat, they stuck a needle in his heart, but it was all ... too late. We had to leave him there, on the table. Just leave him and walk out. Get back in the car. Drive home to Portland, 12 hours through a cataclysmic snowstorm, staring out the windows, pits in our stomach, suffocated by the stillness in the car, feeling like everything was the same but impossibly, irreconcilably different.
My dear friend Genna said to me recently, "Sometimes there's no lesson to learn, no 'takeaway.'" I shall choose to believe that. Or maybe the lesson is just how we get to know our own capacity for love when faced with its sudden absence? Anyway, for now I'm staying in, living a sparrow-brown existence, avoiding my phone with it's many megabytes of puppy photos, and pretending everything is alright—because eventually, it will be.
Ice World
A snowstorm blew into town at around 12:18 p.m. on Thursday. The weather persons had predicted it, so when the sky went from hard gray to feathery white, no one was surprised, and we were all delighted to run out into the office parking lot and turn circles amidst the billowing flakes—each of us inwardly pretending that we were the very center of the snow globe. Mark came to pick me up from work around 2, as I refuse to drive in the snow. We put his truck into 4 wheel drive and rolled Northeast-ward from Belmont through the peaceful streets. Inside a Chinese restaurant in Hollywood, I ate hot noodles and felt happy.
Everyone in Portland (as no one in Portland is from Portland) laughs about how the schools close and the city grinds to a halt at the first hint of snow. We all come from heartier, colder places, it seems. In truth, there was only one snow day ever that I can remember growing up in Colorado. And yet, I get it. Things are different here. Portland doesn't have snow plows. We don't have salt or sand. Snow shovels? Naw. Also, the temperature hovers right around freezing, turning snowy streets into stone-cold ice rinks. Even with 4-wheel drive, hills you didn't realize existed, like the one on 47th and Broadway, become insurmountable Everests in these conditions. Momentum is your friend—every intersection, a total hail mary.
Anyway, I like the mythos of the storm. Storms create stories. They're rememberable, they're romantic. Even in a place like where I grew up, where it snows professionally, we had our storms. I'll forever remember this one Christmas eve—I was young. 7? 8? It snowed nearly two feet. Our power went out in the night, and my sister and I laid awake staring at the digital clock blinking 12:00, feeling like the only people on the planet, wondering, desperately, if Santa had come?! When we couldn't resist any longer, we snuck out to look under the Christmas tree. You couldn't even see the tree there were so many presents! A mountain of them. Dark shapes in the dark. We didn't peak under any wrapping papers, or shake any box to determine its contents. We just just stood there and soaked up the potential energy of all those unopened presents. Minutes later, we slipped back into our beds and fell asleep softly, deeply—as softly and deeply as the snow falling down outside.
