Not

Evidence of a lingering recession is ubiquitous here on the Oregon Coast: empty storefronts, closed restaurants. And yet a friendliness abides in every encounter with locals, decidedly different from the reserved nature of many Seattleites.

My hopes were high that this visit would supplant my constant desire to return to Ireland — there is so much to love on this rugged coast, and, well, I can drive here, for significantly less $$$. But it hasn't happened.

A fresh trigger fired this morning when a facebook friend I haven't seen for 30 years posted from Westport, Ireland —everything flooded back.

It's our last day here, and we'll go beach walking in a blue mist. I'll love this stretch of Pacific coast for what gifts it does offer — massive wave-tumbled logs, volcanic rock outcroppings, mussel beds, spouting horns — a drama quite its own and strikingly beautiful, but it's not the west coast of Ireland.

Ocean

The Pacific disappeared yesterday evening well before sunset, slipping into a veil of fog just beyond where the foamy edge of waves rolled onto the beach. I stood on the (Heath)cliff edge of the headland held back only by salal and scrubby junipers, the path down to sea level slippery and steep, eroded. No way would I attempt that descent, even with the help of the thick coil of rope strung for a railing. A few hundred yards south, a hobbit path on level ground winds through a tunnel of rhododendrons and blackberry vines, followed by a more civilized concrete stairway. At what point in the past few years have I lost my desire/ability to dare myself down a tricky slope? It happens, I suppose, when one is least paying attention. I recall my mother, about my age, taken to falling, and I get it now.

Sometimes it's okay just to walk beside the river. Sometimes there is no need to cross it.

And in the swirling light I found a hidden garden, where I'm certain the air held droplets of reflected blue —

Loghenges

Longhenge I

Loghenge II

Loghenge II Panorama

Retirement

This was so good that I brought it over from facebook —

Holding the Sun in the Center of an Agate

North of the Redwoods

The Pacific at my feet, a martini at hand, a suffering of sun at my back: it's all good.

I motored six miles to Yachats to collect ingredients for dinner: some tri-tip steaks, mushrooms, a lovely bunch of organic beets with greens (beet greens are the absolute best!), apples for a pie tomorrow. Not much ado in the Yachats, population 688.

Driving back to the See Vue Motel, a trucker bore down on my tail (and he with the heavy load), and when it came time to turn into the driveway of the motel, he jammed his brakes and screeched, undoubtedly cursing the driver (me) of the car with the Washington plates. Damn foreigners.

There are few things better than a wide stretch of beach and few humans....

Sedimentary

Avenue of the Giants, Northern California

In a Redwood grove, among the oldest living things on the planet, we found — after only a few turn-arounds — the resting place of two very dear friends, their ashes scattered at the base of this twin tree:




The late afternoon sun barely broke through the dense growth, and all sound was absorbed in the thick underfooting of dry needles. My friend T. launched ahead with his dog, and I found myself slowing and lagging, as a deep hum began inside me, a vibration, and there was no option but to stop and attend to it as my friend disappeared up the path. But what was it? I was in the presence of sacred beings who possessed an unwritten language in basso profundo, and I was caught up in the resonance.

I sat down last night and tried to write about this, but all that I could manage were a few sentences which I quickly deleted. These trees defy language. The oldest documented Redwood was logged in 1933, and a count of rings at the stump-end of the severed trunk revealed 2,200 years. I gasp and shake my head at this number.

We met a 28-year-old Cajun man who was 2/3 of the way into a 40 day writing retreat in the Redwoods, camping on closed-off trails, his short-term "home" set up in the burned-out stumps of several trees: kitchen, sitting room, bedroom.

He took us on a short walk to see a rare albino Redwood, one of only 25 known specimens. He said that, between 2:15 and 2:45pm, sunlight illuminates the needles, and the tree appears to be electrically lit. He also said that at night in this forest, everything changes. Said he's never known such absolute darkness, and never known the kind of fear that night after night in this forest has engendered in him.

My head is still a bit wobbled from yesterday's events, even as I sit and type at a cliff-edge six miles south of Yachats, on the Oregon coast, the sun teetering on the horizon, a glass of Piersporter Michelsburg at hand. Battling the muse, who appears in fits and starts, mostly not present, despite these bucket-loads of seemingly perfect inspiration.

Night Sky, Vines

Mold

Glow

Watch the eyes....

Diaphanous

Found this gem while mindlessly watching wimp.com videos —

Population: 3

A shift in the rhythm of life: I have a new roommate.

She's 28, with a lovely calm energy. Has taken up residence in the front bedroom, along with her grey cat. Wanted to know tonight if I ever wanted to do communal dinners — YES!!

I've dragged my feet on getting a roommate for over a year, but reality has sunk in (finally) and I pulled the trigger when this young woman was sent to me by a friend. Having grown up in a large family, I've always loved having lots of people around, and while one additional person (after my son and me) don't exactly equal "lots", it's 50% more "people" than just the two of us were.

So move over blender, coffee pot, cuisinart. Make some room sofa, table, pillow. Carve out a little space in your boundaries, self; and open up your heart/home to another soul.

(Advice to self: taken.)

Happy is the Hour

I thought we'd enjoy Tuesday Happy Hour together.

May I offer you a wee glass of my fermented concoction of cheap white swill, vodka and a vanilla bean with a float of fresh blackberries? (The fermentation has lasted two years, and it hasn't killed me yet. Fingers crossed.)

Good, yes?

I thought you'd enjoy that.

How about some music?
Ah...one of my faves — My Romance....



Damn but I love this tune. My father-in-law played this for me on his trombone at my 50th birthday party. He suffered a number of strokes last summer, and hasn't returned yet to his horn. Sixty+ years of playing.

I suppose I should offer you a snack or two.

A bite of gorgonzola?
Apple slice?
Crust of bread & such?
(You can help yourself....)

Maybe I'll pop some corn.

Shall I refresh that drink?

Now laugh:

A priest, a rabbi, and a vicar walk into a pub.

The barman says, ‘Is this some kind of joke?’

 

Gotta run — see you tomorrow!

Tuesday Poem

To Thank You For Blackberries 
                                           --for C.M.

Folded into the slurry
of my daily steel-cut oats,
each mouthful
is a burst of summer,
an August afternoon
sun-sweetened
with violet juices—
plucked and gathered
by the handful,
risking thorn-slash
and sticky webs,
the last of the season
staining my lips.

© T. Clear 2012

(To be honest, I was standing on the sidewalk
struggling to reach the berries growing
from the top of my neighbor's hedge.
I heard her call out "thief!" as she came
around the corner, laughing.
Then she offered me the use of her step-ladder,
thus facilitating all future theft [by me]
of her luscious berries.)

August, Ending

It's happened — that ever-so-subtle shift of afternoon light that foretells the oncoming change of season. And although it's still a month or so until the official summer-to-fall transition, it was today when I began to feel summer begin to slip from me. The beginning of a sadness, with the scent of apples in the air — and inexplicably, because I live in the city. But the memory of the ripening apples of my childhood — the four apple trees in the back half-acre — is so deeply embedded in all recollections of my earliest years, that once this lengthening of shadows occurs late August, there is that faint apple-air,  always just beyond reach.

We're nearing the end of the growing season when it seems to have only just begun. A desire to prolong things — the blossoms on the tomato plants, the warm nights with every window flung wide, ice cream at midnight on the balcony. And yet I can't imagine living Equatorially, minus these rhythms, these fluctuations from heat to ice. And equal dread and desire for the stripped-down trees of winter, and the interminable January nights. (Beginning to crave hot tea with milk.)

Every year at this time I think the same thing: I've always wanted to fall helplessly, hopelessly in love in the fall.

There's still time, is there not?

Beloved

The last thing I wanted to do today after work was go to Safeway. It was a draggy Monday, and I suffered from a dearth of energy (owing to my non-stop [alas] weekend). I slogged through every minute of every detail of August 20th from 9:20am-5:05pm.

But essentials were in demand, and I wrenched the steering wheel northward instead of my usual easterly single-mile trek home, and pulled into the manic, rush-hour parking lot of a mega-grocery in the heart of Rainier Valley.

Inside, there were no small baskets in sight, and I hunted among the check-outs until I found a tidy stack. Forced a tunnel vision to avoid "Strawberries! $1.99/lb." and whatever else the local comestible marketing geniuses had dreamed up to distract me from my mission to get a)deodorant, b)peanut-butter and c)yogurt. Wait! Cat food! And evaporated milk! And Aleve!

Knowing I was forgetting something (in this case it was dishwashing liquid), I chose the shortest line, and began to unload my few items onto the conveyor belt. An elderly woman was in front of me, struggling to get her items from her rolling cart and onto the counter. I offered to help her, and the minute she turned to me and said, slowly and deliberately, "Well, yes....", I knew that it was Mamie.

She confirmed that she was indeed Mamie, and I nearly cried for joy.

When my youngest, Nelson (who just turned 24), was an infant, I had no choice but to go back to work 8 weeks after his birth. A nearby daycare center seemed a reasonable choice, and Mamie was in charge of the infant room. She was warm, capable, gracious and possessed a loving and generous sensibility. And although I felt as if I was abandoning my baby to the care of strangers, Mamie quickly put my fears at ease. Once I got to know Mamie, I realized that the bundle of gold my husband dropped off each morning at the daycare was going to be cherished all day long, every last minute.

Mamie truly loved "her babies". And Nelson settled into the arms of a pro — Mamie had raised six children of her own.

While chatting with Mamie this afternoon, the purpose of my mission to Safeway fell to the wayside, and I suddenly realized that we were holding up a growing line. I apologized and explained to the woman behind me, who spontaneously shared with me her story:

Many years ago, she was in the hospital battling a rare illness, on a respirator with a questionable prognosis. One day, a woman (who never identified herself) visited, and shared that she too had this illness, but had recovered and was now leading an active life. The woman in the hospital bed burst into tears, and was unable to speak — tears of gratitude for the gift of hope this stranger had given her. The stranger, thinking she had upset the patient, abruptly departed, not allowing the patient the chance to explain that her sobbing was for gratefulness.

Twenty years later, both women ended up sitting side-by-side in an art class. There was immediate recognition, and a long-overdue expression of gratitude from one healthy woman to another.

(More people were now lined up behind us.)

I thanked her for her story — wanted to hug her, really. She twinkled her eyes, a moment of grace.

Then I eased Mamie and her groceries out of the store and into my car (she was planning to call a cab), and drove her home.

I asked about her family, and she said, "I raised three sons and three daughters, and my three sons have all passed away."

How could I possibly respond to that when everything I wanted to say seemed inadequate? Here was the woman who'd cared for my infant son as if he'd been her own, and yet her own three sons had already left this life. I was sitting beside a woman whose existence contained exponentially more sorrow than one should expect to endure in a lifetime. And yet there she was — cheerful, smiling, ever-gracious.

I wouldn't dare ask Mamie her age — that seems to be a closely guarded secret among many woman of her generation, and I have nothing but respect for Mamie.

I pulled into her driveway — she lives alone in the same house where my late husband used to pick her up and drive her to the daycare along with our two sons — and helped her out of the car. She moved slowly and with what is obviously tremendous pain. I took right hand and she maneuvered her cane with the other as we traversed the uneven terrain of her lawn, inches at a time.  She told me she could manage the steps on her own. And although I carried all 5 bags of groceries to her porch, she insisted that she bring them in herself. I did not want to leave her alone with those bags, but respect won out in the end. She insisted.

It's been many years since I've seen Mamie, perhaps twenty. When I saw her in line in front of me, my first thought was, that can't possibly be Mamie. But it was.

There was a reason I went to Safeway this afternoon, and it wasn't — apparently — only for peanut butter.

Again with the Hummingbirds

This all began a year ago last May with an extraordinary dream, which I recounted here.

Most evenings from 6-8pm I'm on my deck, and I've been practicing my hummingbird calls. Usually one or two visit, maybe hover close, but tonight I was outside with Nelson after dinner and told him to watch. He was talking up his usual storm, sitting at the table, and I stood at the railing and began calling. After about two minutes, one showed up, hovered around the feeder, then perched on a branch. We did a call and response, but Nelson didn't seem to notice. I told him to stand next to me, and when he did, the bird flew to about three feet directly before our eyes and hovered & did its tiny chirp.

"Did you see that?!" The bird got Nelson's attention.

We continued to stand there, and two more came, one after the other, and performed for us the best show they've done all summer. My son was astounded. He spent a good part of third grade sketching hummingbirds, and I have a paper mâche´one on my windowsill that he made at age 8.

A little later, after Nelson had gone home, I was sitting on my balcony eating the last of the blackberry pie (yum), and had another visitation, on the potted geranium, just a few feet from me.
Delight!

It was hot.

I picked blackberries.

I made pie.

And ate it.

The end.

Late

It's late, and my son is outside two stories below my open window aerating the massive pile of wood chips that were deposited — free of charge! — by the tree maintenance company yesterday. I arrived home from work today to a ripe farmy odor emanating from my yard and couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was, and then it dawned on me. Must've been the alfalfa-like scent of it, old memory from the Renton feed store where I bought rabbit feed (not robot, which my fingers seemed to want to type) for my pets, many moons passed.

But three yards of shredded honey-locust in my driveway is impressive, spontaneous combustion aside.

And then there were the hummingbirds, all evening buzzing and chirring out back, perched on apple tree branches, on maple twigs.

And the James Fenimore Cooper book on the railing, hardback, mildew drying up in the summer sun. Part of a set that was a precious possession of my late husband, inadvertently left on the basement floor last winter, and grew spotted with grey mold. Come June I set one volume in the sun to see if the rays would zap that fungus, and it's sat there ever since. Rain, thunder, lightning, fog. This morning a baby squirrel ran to and fro, back and forth over it in a scurry to avoid the sight of me through the glass door. The cats have traversed its engravings.

The most curious thing is that not a soul has asked me anything about it — neither of my sons have so much as mentioned it. As I see it, it makes not a whit of difference whether it's ferreted away safely in a box dark in the basement or exposed and flapping every page to the frivolities and whims of nature on the back deck.

In the end, I suppose we all face the same fate as that pile of simmering mulch whose fragrance now pervades every bit of my olfactory senses.

The hummingbirds are quiet, and so am I.

Revisiting Ireland

I was scrolling through my iPhoto last night, deleting non-important pics, and came across more than a few (important) photos from my Ireland days.

Ah.

I spent a lot of time there, over a seven year period, with my ex-husband, in his "holiday home" in County Mayo. In a house overlooking a saltwater cove, in view of St. Patrick's holy mountain, and sheep-filled pastures. And islands. And horses.

My forays there abruptly ended, another casualty of divorce. And while I'm extraordinarily fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend so many glorious days in a landscape that was to become for me a great source of inspiration — counting my blessings! — I'm still in a state of shock and withdrawal knowing the likelihood of returning is slim. I've not yet written to my friends in the cove; every attempt at a letter ends in my holding down the delete button until the screen is white.

Sitting in front of those photos, I imagined walking into the Ireland house: the tricky lock on the front door (lift the handle and turn the key to the left), the "whoosh" of the door opening, wiping my feet on the mat. The sharp, piney-smell inside.

Dropping my luggage in the bedroom, the sound of my shoes clicking on the wood floor.

Emptying the bags of groceries. (Inhaling the scents in the produce department at the grocery. Weighing the apples, affixing the weight sticker. Finding some Carrowholly nettle cheese. Pushing the odd cart.) Slipping the apples from their plastic bag into a basket, holding one to my nose and inhaling an orchard. Hearing the sound of the wrapper on the soda bread, a soft crinkle. Putting a fresh box of tea in the cupboard. Assessing the pantry for the unexpected leftovers from previous guests: brown beans, a bag of lentils. Instant mashed potatoes.

Wanting to take it all in at once: the view of Clew Bay and the 365 islands. Opening the sliding glass door (which always sticks), standing on the patio facing west. Inhaling, the Atlantic stretching out for 2800 miles in the distance. The constant wind.

Sitting on the worn leather sofa, the way the leather sticks to the skin. Feeling the itch of the two wool throws on the sofa. Taking out the teapot collection, remembering where each was purchased, from which artist in which village.

Walking up the stairs to the three upper bedrooms, laying in succession in each bed, taking possession. Opening every closet. Looking out each window.

Opening a drawer in the hutch, taking out the collection of ordnance maps, begin planning a back-roads search for holy wells and druid cooking sites, standing stones.

An overwhelming flood of sensations, wave upon wave. 

And not realizing the absolute perfection of each of those moments until now. 

On my last trip there, I took a walk one afternoon along the far side of the cove. The tide was out and I could meander across mudflats and under barbed wire that was usually inaccessible when the bay pushed its sparkling waters high up onto the bank. I found an alley-way of sorts, between unmown fields of hay, blackberry and fuschia hedgerows on either side. I picked my way up the hillside and somewhere along that way, lost an earring. I doubled back to try to find it, stepping slowly and with fierce intent, but to no avail.

A half-mile-or-so-away, a farmer, in tilling a field, had once upon a time unearthed a 5000-year-old gold bracelet. In comparison, my vanished earring was unremarkable: a pearl, a blue glass bead, silver wire. I returned the next day and retraced my steps, checked low-slung branches of stickery gorse, checked weeds and tipping meadowsweet blossoms. Nothing.

But that afternoon of the lost earring, up that passageway and farther, cresting the hill between two coves, in a rare burst of sunlight and cows lumbering to the fence-edge to investigate the unexpected wanderer — that was an interval of complete and utter contentment, of conscious momentary perfection.

I don't want to relive it, nor do I want to relive my time there. Doubtful that I could revisit those county Mayo back-roads without a truck-load of buried sadness unburdening itself on my shoulders.

Those memories, I think, will exist in their own category of appreciation where I was the recipient of innumerable generosities. Necessary to sift out the good from the cruelties of failure.

Ireland, old love, my muse.
I'm not ready to seek out your replacement.