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)

The Tao of Pho

Everyone's been asking me how it's going, the school thing. And laugh at how I smile like a kid on Christmas morning. It's true, that's how the school thing is going for me, better than whatever Mary Poppins magic Santa ever left under the tree for me. I was always one of those kids who loved school, played school during the summer (when I wasn't reading under a tree) and thought August was truly the cruelest month.

It reminds me of that phase of infatuation when you don't need to eat, sleep, rest or think, the rosy sparkle cloud just carries you along effortlessly, buoyed by love and seeing the perfection of the Universe in everything.

That's how my first week of school has been. Sometimes the sparkle cloud is sky blue.

This morning I finally purchased my biological anthropology textbooks that came in last night, so we get a chance to catch up on all the reading before class on Tuesday. My first History of Prehistoric and Ancient Art class was divine yesterday, I barely got into it, thankfully a few people dropped it between Tuesday and Thursday. So for a few weeks I will be traveling in Deep Time and early history in all my classes, and reading for real what I've been gleaning from popular culture and cable TV for years. Like the 'Hobbitt' skeleton found in Sumatra that is in the center of controversy in paleo-anthropology right now; is it a new subspecies, or a child with encephalitic disease? This was on the National Geographic channel the past few months, and is showing up in my class, too. So so cool.

I'm finding out the category of anthropology I've always been the most interested in, it's called Post-processural Anthropology, uncovering the whys and hows of cultural history, and opening up the perspective to other viewpoints other than Euro-centric, Judeo-Christian, white male based. There. So now I know what it's called. (so happy)

Sipping chrysanthemum white tea and listening to classical 89.9, I find myself in a beautiful and unexpected place. There is a wonderful Vietnamese Pho restaurant near the campus that I stopped at on the way home for some lunch and chance to see the student flurry go by outside the wrap-around windows of the corner location. There are these occasions where I like to just observe and witness the whole picture and experience, to make it real each time while still marveling that it's happening. The restaurant was very busy at 12:30, and there were 5 or 6 women my age doing the 'table for one' thing, so I ordered a beer and the Bun Ga (chicken with vermicelli and the cilantro-mint-sprout-cucumber-carrot melange and sweet vinegar-chili sauce) and just relaxed. What a week! What a great beginning! Such a happy kid again. What a strange trip the past 12 months have been, and I could not have foreseen being here, now, doing this, from where I had been last January 11th, closing stores, ending so completely that 10-year phase of my life. It was a vast void of misty uncertainty to me then, what would start February 1st 2007. I like fog, I'm comfortable in it, can maneuver fairly well, and wound up here doing what has always been my greatest wish---going to school. Finishing school. Learning for real. And today the sparkle cloud is sunny yellow and gold, warm all around me, and stretching ahead as far as I can see.

Rainless in Portland

STOP THE PRESSES

Dawn breaks without rain today, I can trudge up the hill to campus with my face lifted to the mist lingering on the West Hills, the building facades blushing rosy and gold, looking like I feel; vintage but restored, in my best light, ready to face the busy day.

And already I'm behaving like a student, I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to drop my Asian Women's class and take an Ancient Art History class instead, more lecture and note taking instead of grooming to be a TA next term and too much outside of class group meetings. And one more degree requirement taken care of, so I just hope the prof lets me squeeze in as a transfer student because the class was already closed online. (push push push)

I was telling my friend how I leave the house earlier than I need to in the morning, so I can sit in the student lounge before class starts and catch my breath, journal a bit, and observe the current student body. How is student life the same as I knew 20-some years ago? What are all the ways it's radically different? In what ways do they look differently, the changes of fashion and the return of fashions that lull me into thinking it's still the '70s. One thing I felt is that "my whole life is still ahead of me" feeling, and I am caught up in it as well. I don't want to waste time being bitter or sardonic, this is a fresh bag of salad I'm opening this year, let's be ready, let's be as unbiased as I can, open to the experience.

Amazing---blue sky out my north window, a small 'V' of high-flying geese, squirrels and crows in a stand-off in the back yard. It's great to be in the right place at the right time.

After School Snack

Well, really it's lunch, but it is after school, my first day of school, my first round-trip to class and back. Toasted white tuna sandwich with lettuce and sweet relish and an orange.

Bliss.

And even more synchronous, my textbook for today's class arrived in the mail this morning already, so I can do the reading assigned before the next class on Wednesday. Is this perfect OR WHAT? My Intro to Archaeology prof is a funny woman who manages to keep her reading glasses hovering above the very end of her nose and they never slide off. About 40 students in all, three over 40 years old, and only two cell phones rang during class. Prof showed some slides at the end of the class period, and then it was suddenly over. Sixty five minutes, syllabus in hand, I went and activated my student email account, then headed home. I'm also seeing new shoes in my future, because it is quite a hike from the bus top to campus and all my Birks need re-soles.

I know it's goofy to be this excited about undergraduate classes, but getting to this humble place has been a 25 year journey. Bringing lots of baggage along. Yes, I'll get a job doing something, I reassured Betty, and gave up trying to explain why I'm majoring in Anthropology. She thinks I'm going to do Forensic Science like on television. Whatever. It's my money, I'm not going to worry about who gets it or not. Everyone else I know is thrilled for me, and that warms my heart so much, my enthusiasm is contagious, my face glows with it. "I got a fever, babies!" says my inner Christopher Walken. Say no more.

Chop wood, carry water. That's what you do before you are enlightened, and what you resume doing after you are enlightened. So today, I'm doing laundry and washing dishes, while reading my text between loads of clothes and dishes. I'll try not to be a total spaz and call everyone to twitter about class. But as I went over the Hawthorne Bridge this morning, it dawned on me how many of my deepest life wishes have come true in the last couple years. Big BIG wishes, major Life's Dream types. Going back to school, to get an upper college degree---in motion again. Meeting Robert Plant in person---September 2005. Having my own bookstore---done. Being a writer---varying degrees of consistency, but happening. What's left? Well, going to Provence is huge. And large-canvas painting. Singing in public. Creating a permanent grand-scale garden with a varietal bamboo grove and tea house. Finding a great guy. I think that's about it. And I think they all look doable from here, because the really big ones at the top of the list are checked off already. Holy shit! So so cool.

Tomorrow morning is Intro to Biological Anthropology, and Asian Women's Studies, a senior level class. Hominids, neolithic tool makers, the beginning of art. Asian cultures to prehistory and the roles of women in it. No wonder I can hardly sleep at night, I feel incendiary about this stuff. "So why aren't you taking any business classes?" Betty wanted to know. There's no fire there for me, it's a bucket of someone else's cold ashes, not even mine. Finally, I'll quit explaining, it should be evident to everyone by now.

It's So Funny

Finally, this school thing is starting to feel real to me. I was protecting my fragile heart from disappointment all these months, with the missing transcripts, delay delay, uncertainty about the process, the worry that it's really just too late to be relevant.

It's real. It's really happening, I am now a full time student again, it is OFFICIAL. I did it!

Crossing the line of demarcation almost effortlessly yesterday, while standing in a line for my photo ID, gripping my stack of 'welcome students' materials, smelling the strange mix of fruit gum, coffee, vintage 70s student lounge and youth in the air, I emerged a student. Say hello to the new peculiar institutional structure, go stand in long lines, there's always a few hundred people doing exactly what you want to do when you want to do it, and off-campus living means structuring my time when on campus to get more things done. But I quibble.

My hair looks fabulous. The gray was growing in fast and furious, so the fine student Emily at the Aveda School salon layered in some warm brown and light blonde to take 10 years off me, and gave me a swingy flip cut that brushes my shoulders. That photo ID card will be my constant friend for a few years, and I didn't want to scare myself each time I pulled it out. After scoping my required textbooks at the school bookstore, I came home and ordered online for a fraction of the price, saving enough to pay for half a new laptop. That student discount can really come in handy.

Most of the orientation was kind of a snooze, I'm afraid to say. It was a full force gale outside and the tour leader's voice was whipped away, and we all just followed her like baby ducks from stop to stop as her arm waved in this direction and that. Okay, there's the library, look up the hours later, here's the music building, looks neo-classical easy to remember, here's the athletic complex, check specifics later, student parking structure, dorms, health clinic, student center, engineering , let's go back check your maps. Since I hadn't waited until the very last minute to register, I skipped out on the 'how to register' section at the end of the afternoon and went to the text bookstore before the other 350 newbies headed over there. The campus looks very urban after dark while rush hour traffic crawls by at 4:30, the bus really is the best option.

It just feels so perfect, completely right, on-target, natural and fulfilling. So I'm already thinking ahead to grad school. A four year plan to getting my masters degree is the bigger picture as it appears to me from here, and it looks doable. Anything else just fades into unimportance in comparison, except the usual; animals, friends, crafting, Porch Time, and gardening. Gone gone gone are all the days and years of not feeling genuine in my own life, going through the motions. Instead of automatically reflecting back to my old retail-centric life, I'm enjoying the distance I feel from it all now, it's really fading away, too.

It was easy to close down my booth at House of Vintage, it felt like the right thing to do, and the rumor is the building is going to be sold anyway. I'd made about as much money with it as I was going to without a cash infusion to keep buying to restock it, and that wasn't happening. So, I'll keep crafting to sell online, which is no rent, and I can work on it at my own allowable pace with school and everything else. It's all good. Fabric Depot was having a 40% off sale yesterday and today, and I found some yardage I really love for a futon couch cover, so I'm going to head over there later this afternoon when the Estrogen Brigade thins out at dinner time. Why bring toddlers to a crazy-busy fabric store? It's insane. Shop in shifts and leave them home. Please.

Betty is waiting for me to call and give her the report on school updates. Better have some breakfast first.