Leap Day

Back in the Ann Arbor days, the early 80s, when I was doing a lot more writing, I composed another front stoop poem, on a strangely warm, sunny day at the end of February. The house on Bath Street was perched next to a woody ravine on a dead end street, surrounded by bungalows with rampant herb gardens. Purple sage can survive a cold Michigan winter, shrinking under the snow and waiting for spring. I sat on the listing plank steps with my face to the sun, and waited for the clear sign of what to chose next for my life; go to Florida and a new life, or stay here and find another job. Re-reading the poem, I knew I had already made up my mind, I was going to go, and I'd never sit in the warm sunshine in late February on these steps again.

Waves of that day came back to me this morning, walking downtown and seeing clumps of drowsy purple sage next to gray lavender and blooming rosemary in a large planter. What was a complete anomaly in Michigan, is a normal winter's day here, and I much prefer it this way. I can sit on my stony concrete steps with my face in the sun in late February in this place, on these steps, and it all comes washing back. That I am finally back in school, dealing with the Biggest Incomplete of my entire life, but outwardly doing much of what I was doing back then in Ann Arbor, is kinda funny. Almost like the last 22 years didn't happen. More and more, it even feels that way.

To some, this may look like Being Stuck. As in, "Ma'am, it's done already, move on, get over it, drop the baggage!"

And I reply, "That's what I tried to do those 22 years." I did the Job Thing, the 'My Beautiful Career' Thing, the 'Serious Adult Relationship' Thing, the Survival Strategy Thing, and even the Not-Caring Thing. Years and years spent in the wilderness. One or two major choices I may have done differently, looking back, but if presented with the same circumstances, my path would probably look much the same. I mean, living in a condo on Highland Beach, Atlantic Coast South Florida for free for eight months at 24 years old---who is going to say, "Uh, no thanks, really, I much prefer my unheated room in a run-down house with flaky roommates in a Michigan winter, a chronic respiratory illness and being unemployed,"?

Today was the first time since that last day at the B-store that I walked past my old workplace downtown. It felt weird. Past the bank where I spent so much time each weekday afternoon waiting to make a bag of deposits, past the parked FedEx truck of my old driver, with a ticket on it (as usual). Past the mall, past the Russian 'kofe' place, smelling the Mexican lunch place; how many hundreds of times did I make that walk, but veer left to the wall of glass doors? Today, I was smiling and just kept walking past, towards the river, towards home in the middle of the workday with my class notes in my book bag. No big deal, I know, but for a fraction of a second I was time traveling, 22 years, then 13 months, but also into the near-future. Because Portland is the place to navigate from, for me, and no condo in a warm place could change my mind. PSU has no clue what mad power it has to change the stream of Deep Time.

Today's Teardown

As pleased as I was to see the wall mostly still standing, I was then horrified to see what they were doing today to the huge trees on the lot. It seems they're removing the back fill that was put in at least 40 years ago to create a parking lot (by the size of the trees) and maybe leaving the wall intact? The backhoe operator is very delicate when digging near the wall facade, and is working on taking out the big slabs of asphalt and pounding them into smaller chunks that can be scooped up with a bulldozer. He takes out a chunk of the old concrete that's behind the flagstone with the vest guy guiding him, then he comes back for the soil. None of the rest of the wall is being disturbed (today) but since they're taking out the trees, maybe the wall is part of the preservation of whatever the future use the site will have.

This is what's on the other side of the street, facing the moss wall, the modern alternative.
Say it ain't so.

I know, why do I care, right? I don't work or live there, it didn't belong to my family or anything, so who cares? This wall is an historic part of the whole St. Mary's Academy & Church complex and is at least 100 years old, if not 175, and there's no replicating it if it's torn down. I mean, look at this gray nothingness---

The moss, the placement of each stone by human hands and mortared generously, the quality that has lasted this long, that's what I value in my urban surroundings, why I love Portland so much. If it's gone in a few weeks, someone noticed it happening, and took some last pictures of the beautiful stonework and inner-city mid-winter greenness of it. It's a living wall, it really is.

more moss

Just in Time

Since I've been walking back and forth each day to class, I keep going past this wall, and thinking, "I really need to bring my camera and shoot this wall, one of these mornings, these stones will be on the sidewalk."

Today, the entire block south and west of this corner was barricaded off, yellow police tape, cones, detour signs, the works.

So after I finished class, I went back there and filled the memory card, getting yelled at by guys in reflective vests and hard hats working on the other side of the street re-directing traffic. Some change is pending with this wall, and tomorrow it maybe started.

This wall was the main impetus for the Moss Project, although I've been thinking about it since November while leaf raking and noticing the amazing moss specimens glowing in the low sunlight. I felt like I was in a magical Welsh forest, here come the primeval wood sprites.
So, this is my newest garden in winter project, and saw all these camellias in bloom, and a trail of what I swore was jasmine. I had to track it down, and found this: below









So while I'm doing all this urban trekking, and in the barest time of year in foliage and bloom terms, this city is full of winter color and growth.
And the Moss Project will go on for a while...



This giant auger was getting placed as I was catching my homebound bus this afternoon...I'd have kicked myself for catching this amazing image but not having my camera with me. The antique steampunk pile driver was resting as the crew was smoothly landing this screwdriver from hell. I love this picture.

Here's another one, looking south:


So this huge build is at the base of the Hawthorne Bridge, and all this rich brown earth is being loaded onto double trailer trucks, hundreds of years of Willamette River floodwash and wharfside debris, clinking red bricks and crusts of old asphalt paving slipping down a thousand years into the pit. Welders, crane operators and hardhat conferences going on around the perimeter, and the rain starts coming down in a mist. Climate is a constant, and I get onto the warm dry bus. Will the wall be there in the morning?

Porch Season Exhibition Day

By noon, the icy fog had burned off on the east side of the river, and the air warmed from 28 to 55 degrees, because the sun broke through and won the day.

What's a Wicked Woman on the Porch to do? HIT THE DECK!

No shorts and tank tops yet, but I turned the gold chair south into the sunshine, and cracked open the Sunday New York Times, a POM peach tea, and some Fred Meyers sushi, whereupon the bontemps de soleil laissez roulez. (bad neworleanese for let the sunny good times roll)

All the dogs and their owners were out, gradually sporting shorts and t-shirts as Oregonians tend to do when it's over 49 degrees, the neighbor on the corner was doing some pre-spring gardening. The daffodil shoots are showing already, and the birch catkins are out. I love love love this 6 month spring thing here.

Of course, there will be snow, when the Pineapple Express hooks up with the arctic blast coming down the Gorge, and we get hit with some February Freezing Sleet. But that melts so fast, it doesn't really make for a full season of Winter. Under the snow will be crocuses and hyacinths coming up already. Gentle, easy river valley winters are wonderful.

The extremely low sun position does make for a short spell in the full sunshine, and the shadows are still in chilly January mode, but the first pre-season Porch Day was successful. I'm hoping it carries over into tomorrow a bit, because I'm taking my camera to campus for some winter in the park shots, and to start the Moss Project. (teaser)

Silent Solstice

A dear friend of mine is the happiest little Christmas elf I've ever known. She's sparkling with that classical Christmas Spirit that is sincere, heart-felt, generous, and evergreen. We can out-do each other in snark contests, but when Autumn and Thanksgiving roll around, she creates the traditional Christmas Home and Holiday experience for herself and her lucky family. And she enjoys doing all of it, fits it all into her working schedule, and pulls it off splendidly. She gets her Christmas cards mailed before the 15th. This morning I received a beautiful ecard from her, with a chorus singing 'Silent Night', of a snowy lake shore and gazebo, cue snowfall, light Christmas tree, skaters glide, night falls and the moon rises. It reminded me of being about 6, the Mythical Winter of 1967, when my dad stood outside night after night spraying water onto the backyard to create an ice rink when I got new ice skates for Christmas. He installed flood lights on each corner of the house so we all could skate at night, and the neighbor kids came over with their hockey skates to play off the street (which was solid ice for weeks) and I spent hours out there. We didn't have a gazebo, just a big white doghouse, but the moon did rise beautifully, and it was so far below zero for days at a time, that you could hear the Milky Way tinkle and chime overhead over the scrape scrape of your skates. The big multi-colored Christmas lights on the eaves around the ranch house made it all feel even more magical and outside of time, and the sub-zero silence was profound, even to a 6 year old.

That is the Magic I love to create this time of year. Even without ice skates, without the home-made ice rink, the 10ft high snow banks, or even the 30 below zero nights playing outside, what I love about the start of winter is the deep stillness you can find, and how the chill makes all the lights even brighter. This time of year all the colored and white lights come up, but to me it all has little to do with Christmas, even though that's why most get put up. The darkest time of the year, with short and shadowy days, calls for the most stars and moons and Milky Ways we can find, to bring outside for each other to admire. Late December to me is monolithic pine and fir trees blanketed in snow, then shrugging it off later in a good wind to sigh all night in relief. I got to wear the hand-knitted sweater my grandma made for me that was too big the year before. It's hanging on to the nylon rope while our black Lab Whiskey pulled me in my slick plastic boots down the icy road fast enough to make my eyes water. Outside was where it all was for me, the fun, the beauty, the make-believe kingdoms.

Holidays, cooped up indoors with uneasily blended families, lots of cigarettes and alcohol, hurt feelings and other injuries---"I'm goin' outback to skate!" met with some chuckles, a reminder to wear the dry snowpants, and go through the garage. Within minutes, I was free.

Hours would go by, people would start to go home, one of the neighbor kids would come over with his new skates, it was so quiet, the air smelled so fresh and blue, the fireplace smoke would float by once in a while, and to me, the whole Santa and Jesus thing just wasn't this good. Polar winter was what I loved, snow forts, tobogganing, your nostrils freezing together, all the ways the snow sounded depending on how cold it was, the green smell of cloudy afternoons, the liquid amber sunsets glowing through the icicles on the front of our house.

Working retail and restaurant jobs for so long brought me to a high bitterness with the whole Christmas idea, the cranking, wheezing and groaning machine of it, the Mall of it. Tuning in to Solstice is closer to what it means to me, but not in any kind of organized Pagan denomination either. Work-wise it was always a misery for me in my professions, then add on what people in your life expect you to play along with. For years, I just boycotted the whole thing, played Scrooge better than anybody and meant it. Anyone who's heard David Sedaris perform his piece "Holidays on Ice" has an understanding of my personal take on American Christmas in my tarnished experience. To those who love and do it so well----I salute you.

My neighbors throw an outdoor winter blitz that can only be a Rite of Baccus, and I think they frolic naked and debauched around a roaring fire, but I don't want to look. With all the leaves gone now, and the bloated chorus at 1:45AM, there are just some things that should remain a mystery.

This year it's different, in every way.
There's no sick employees and customer madness, no greasy aprons and slow-healing burns, no drunk and surly boyfriends or relatives, no feuds or car wrecks, no frantic, no airports, no bad Jello to choke down. The sourest part of my Inner Scrooge is getting some rest and twinkling lights therapy, does not have to teach a lesson about over-consumption when someone wishes me a Merry Christmas, and is taking the next few weeks off in honor of my Christmas Elf pal.

I almost don't know what to do with myself. Got on a hand-knit sweater, strung up some colored lights, and I even saw a movie filmed in Siberia that just blew me away. My bones like the milder Portland climate these days, but Elemental Winter just awes me. There's so little human interference with it, and I respect that power, and find it hauntingly beautiful.

Under All That Weather

I'm so sick.

Ugh.

So today is short and crabby.

PSU has my transcripts and all is underway now.
Saturday I met the Jasmine Tree Girl for lunch at the Kennedy School---so much to say, but not today.
Never underestimate the power of Taco Bell to raise the dead( or someone who looks like it, feels like it and drives like it.) Two double decker taco supremes and a large Pepsi made me believe I was going to live again.
While in the fever stage, I hallucinated an entire three story haunted home with made up best friends and we were ghost-busting and painting the walls, reinforcing the assorted balconies, setting up a pink fur bar and lounge area, fighting over the secret rooms, hanging lights and putting in cable outlets. I woke myself up, shouting for help to get unstuck from between the worlds, hanging by a piece of loose carved molding over the cobble stoned street, and the shimmering, evil hungry ghost was ready to annihilate me. The two cats were looking at me with worried faces, from the safety of the hallway.

When I wake up again this afternoon, I'll take the long hot shower, change every linen and article of clothing anywhere near me, and try to make it up to the cats. I'm not usually violent.

Here Comes the Fog

The fog each morning since the storm is comforting, healing to the ravages of the wind, and wraps me in a cool woolly shawl I didn't have to knit to enjoy. I think many of us are feeling a bit raw these days after the thrashing of the weekend, and feel fortunate when we glance outside hopefully and don't see splintered branches on our cars or upended root balls yawing like the threshold of Hell in the yard.

Ai-yi-yi I think, being on the side of a hill, how did we wind up with 6 inches of icy water in our newly finished basement? We thought that was all taken care of with last year's giant foundation shoring project, drains installed, weather-proofing. Not so. Only last night did I find out that there used to be a creek that flowed through the neighborhood, which didn't just disappear with homes and sidewalks, and our water table is higher because of it. The winter hurricane that screamed through here brought down the Sitka Spruce, velvety with glowing moss, the tallest in the world, twisted and shattered and pulled down to only a 70 ft trunk surrounded by spines of raw wood. The coastal flooding, power outages, the trains halted, the Interstate closed, airports shut down---everybody stop. Everybody just stop.

The indigenous people would have stopped and hunkered down and waited it out. Don't endanger yourself by pretending this storm is just a little rain, and insist on making a long trip.
Many of us made soup while the power was still on, I think it's in our DNA to do this. Make soup, gather around the hearth and stay warm together. Tell stories, mend something, doze off, find another blanket, stoke the fire, conserve your energy for the work of cleaning up after the storm blows through.

December is here with it's holidays and manic energy, the whole Christmas Machine whirring and grinding away, and the weather seems to be the only element that can slow it down. For a day or two, then it's back up to speed inhaling dollars and time and high expectations. I keep thinking "simplify, simplify, simplify" like a mantra, bring the circus down, keep your dollars and take care of yourselves, be in tune with the December Elementals of cold and wind and rain or snow. Be snug. Stay home. Don't be foolish about Nature and high waters. Mend something. Make soup and share it with people you're fond of. Tend your home fire.