A few nights ago we watched the movie "Monumental: David Brower's Fight for Wild America", released in 2005. It was one of the most inspiring documentaries I have ever seen. It reminded me that there is so much I don't know about the history of the wilderness preservation movement in my country. There have been decades, centuries, of passionate work which happened long before I, this tree-hugger-hippie child, was even born. I call myself that tongue in cheek of course, just to make light of the fact that each generation seems to carry the perspective that we create the world we know.
It is an auspicious time to be celebrating wilderness, as the fall equinox has just passed, the harvest is in full swing, the air smells like warm flowers, ripe fruit, dry grass... what else? Memories?
While I am out blackberry picking other years come back to me. I can hear the school bus coming down the road carrying my boys home. I am out in the patch near the house, picking into my big tupperware bowl. They climb off the bus, and wave to me, maybe walk over and pick up an apple off the ground to eat for snack. We had eight old apple trees which always bore every year in the rich aluvial soil of the Elwha River Valley.
David Brower would be elated to know that the Elwha dams, both of them are in the initial process of removal. Twenty years ago I was involved in testimony concerning the community impacted by those dams, as they were directly above our home, and a failure could have been catastrophic. Yet, the very worst aspect of them was that they destroyed an incredibly large salmon habitat. The Indians were wronged immeasurably by their construction.
It seemed like a long shot that we could secure a government decision to remove them. There was a crack in one of the dams, and it was up for being recertified according to safety standards. It could not be certified to codes, and it could not feasibly be repaired. The time to start the process of lobbying for it's removal was seized. Twenty years later, removal begins. It has taken this long, and I thank those who stayed with the process. Maybe in our lifetime we will see the return of the legendary "Elwha King" salmon. I dream about that fish, even though I only know it through stories my Indian neighbors told me.
I will go out to pick more berries, to make the seedless jam again, remembering when it was for the kids' peanut butter and jelly lunch sandwiches. I can still bring them jam, even though we are all in different homes now. We remember the Elwha, and watch the news unfold. The largest dam removal project ever undertaken, a reason to celebrate the equinox.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Gravenstein Apples to a Legendary Wedding Dress
This morning I am with my folks. We crunched into cold, freshly cut gravenstein apples for our first part of breakfast. I watched them close their eyes for the first bite, and I could literally see childhood memories flowing out like an aura around them. We had a gravenstein tree in the first house I lived in, from 1956 to 1967. Now that I think of it, that was the first home they purchased with their growing family. They moved in with four children, ( I was 5 months old) and they moved out with Eight.
The apple tree bordered our alley, and was large, but not prolific for some reason. We waited all summer watching those apples form, not picking them green to toss them for sport as kids love to do. That tree has made it into a song my brother Tom wrote called "If You Don't Like the Rain, Go Back to California". It was our island when the backyard flooded during winter rains. It was the site of our Barbie gardens ( our Barbies liked to get dirty). It was the place a kid could climb up and hide when the world became too much.
While Mom ate her apple slices she began to talk, " I remember when I first saw an Apple in California that cost 10 cents. I was so shocked. When we were little we lived around orchards and had all the apples we could eat." I asked about when that time in California was, which took us on a little journey into her young adult life. I could feel the magic of the fruit bringing forth memories which were so strong, at times she had to stop and breath through a sob.
She told of being in San Fransisco after college, living at the YWCA, and then in a rooming house as she worked for the Veteran's Administration. Dad was finishing college at Santa Clara in San Jose, a year behind her in college at that point because of his time serving in WWII. The year was 1947. Mom chokes up when I ask her how she decided to stay in the Bay Area, even though her hometown was Portland. She wanted to be near my Dad, and they would walk the streets of the city on weekends, dreaming of the life they would have after they were married.
Mom's mind shifted to a girlfriend she had who was a co-worker. .....had just gone to a fashion show and saw a gorgeous wedding gown, she told mom she had to see it. It had been the finale of the show, with matching bridesmaid's dresses too. Mom and her friend went to the store together where it was being sold. It cost the huge sum of 138.00. That was the fabulous dress she ended up wearing, and it lies preserved in a cedar chest now. She spoke of wanting to write a note with the dress history and leave with it with the dress in the box. She has been doing this these days, leaving notes on her projects, in 'case'.
Three of her daughter's wore that dress, feeling like princesses. Not every marriage lasted, but wearing the dress was a great thing all by itself. Slipper satin is what the cleaners told me it was made of. I hand repaired the cream colored lace around the sleeves and the bodice, feeling the history in my hands. Kate Middleton's dress resembled it very much, yet Mom's dress is far more elegant. I'm sure you would agree if you saw the two side by side.:)
We went from the taste of old fashioned apples, ones which are rarely grown these days because they don't keep, to a string of memories of my Mom's life when she was in the prime of her youth. I could see her eyes brighten while she recounted the various jobs she had, and all of this before I even existed. The wedding dress was the precursor to my being ushered into the world. Inconceivable, really, to think of how it all happens. How people fall in love, and then make children and then grow old, and watch their grandchildren begin the whole dance again.
I shall make applesauce, and fill their house with the smell of cooking apples. We will eat our memories, breath them in, laugh about the past, and catch a little sob here and there too.
The apple tree bordered our alley, and was large, but not prolific for some reason. We waited all summer watching those apples form, not picking them green to toss them for sport as kids love to do. That tree has made it into a song my brother Tom wrote called "If You Don't Like the Rain, Go Back to California". It was our island when the backyard flooded during winter rains. It was the site of our Barbie gardens ( our Barbies liked to get dirty). It was the place a kid could climb up and hide when the world became too much.
While Mom ate her apple slices she began to talk, " I remember when I first saw an Apple in California that cost 10 cents. I was so shocked. When we were little we lived around orchards and had all the apples we could eat." I asked about when that time in California was, which took us on a little journey into her young adult life. I could feel the magic of the fruit bringing forth memories which were so strong, at times she had to stop and breath through a sob.
She told of being in San Fransisco after college, living at the YWCA, and then in a rooming house as she worked for the Veteran's Administration. Dad was finishing college at Santa Clara in San Jose, a year behind her in college at that point because of his time serving in WWII. The year was 1947. Mom chokes up when I ask her how she decided to stay in the Bay Area, even though her hometown was Portland. She wanted to be near my Dad, and they would walk the streets of the city on weekends, dreaming of the life they would have after they were married.
Mom's mind shifted to a girlfriend she had who was a co-worker. .....had just gone to a fashion show and saw a gorgeous wedding gown, she told mom she had to see it. It had been the finale of the show, with matching bridesmaid's dresses too. Mom and her friend went to the store together where it was being sold. It cost the huge sum of 138.00. That was the fabulous dress she ended up wearing, and it lies preserved in a cedar chest now. She spoke of wanting to write a note with the dress history and leave with it with the dress in the box. She has been doing this these days, leaving notes on her projects, in 'case'.
Three of her daughter's wore that dress, feeling like princesses. Not every marriage lasted, but wearing the dress was a great thing all by itself. Slipper satin is what the cleaners told me it was made of. I hand repaired the cream colored lace around the sleeves and the bodice, feeling the history in my hands. Kate Middleton's dress resembled it very much, yet Mom's dress is far more elegant. I'm sure you would agree if you saw the two side by side.:)
We went from the taste of old fashioned apples, ones which are rarely grown these days because they don't keep, to a string of memories of my Mom's life when she was in the prime of her youth. I could see her eyes brighten while she recounted the various jobs she had, and all of this before I even existed. The wedding dress was the precursor to my being ushered into the world. Inconceivable, really, to think of how it all happens. How people fall in love, and then make children and then grow old, and watch their grandchildren begin the whole dance again.
I shall make applesauce, and fill their house with the smell of cooking apples. We will eat our memories, breath them in, laugh about the past, and catch a little sob here and there too.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Movie Reviews
Sweet Land - 2005
Sweetly inspiring to this wanna be farm wife. No steamy scenes, or violence, it left me feeling peaceful.
I wanted to take it immediately to my parents, and sit with them as we imagined our own great grandparents coming to farm the land and having to somehow learn English in the process.
I have never seen a film which so accurately depicts the shear exhaustion of work by hand at harvest time.
The Grocer's Son - French., subtitles, but worth it. Contemporary and still very French, the life of a family in a rural area, who run a small grocery store. This is a perfect statement on why small business is important to community, and the complex family dynamics are darn real.
Thank goodness for netflix, eh? It has never been so easy to get little Indie films as it is now.
Sweetly inspiring to this wanna be farm wife. No steamy scenes, or violence, it left me feeling peaceful.
I wanted to take it immediately to my parents, and sit with them as we imagined our own great grandparents coming to farm the land and having to somehow learn English in the process.
I have never seen a film which so accurately depicts the shear exhaustion of work by hand at harvest time.
The Grocer's Son - French., subtitles, but worth it. Contemporary and still very French, the life of a family in a rural area, who run a small grocery store. This is a perfect statement on why small business is important to community, and the complex family dynamics are darn real.
Thank goodness for netflix, eh? It has never been so easy to get little Indie films as it is now.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Letter to a Writer Pal at Hedgebrook
I find myself in the landscape of simplicity - yellow flowering rabbit brush, seepweed, sage brush. Five or eight black cows laying in the corner of their field, which is on the other side of the fence to my corner in the campground. They take the heat without complaint, watch me with their slow, bovine eyes.
The Eastern Oregon desert sun beats out it's afternoon rays, mating dragonflies dive about my camp chair and the Stinkingwater Mountains rise calmly in the distance, This is her, me, this girl in a body with graying hair, wishing to write, thinking of Tamsugah, the 'Shug', pal from my Puget Sound life, sleeping tonight in Willow Cottage at the Hedgebrook Women's Writing Retreat Center. Tam, writing her heart out there, for the month of August, writing and being out in the wilderness too. I am thinking a letter is in order:
Dear Shug-
You, your sonorous laugh, your penchant for biting commentaries punctuated with snappy street girl slang, slick one line descriptions, the agile ability to change the subject at just the right time, your giant heart, I am thinking of you.
You are in Willow Cottage, or at the beach, or soaking in the tubs in the bathhouse - or playing hooky with the wildest girl in the area.
Whatever you are doing, it is better, healthier, more high class than that terrible High School PE teacher jock who made you and your friends bend over and hold your ankles for the disciplinary swats. You made it out of the sludge, the mediocrity of American midsize towns which lie too close to big military bases. You are proof positive that there is a tide rising - a tide of women who won't take the same shit, and who have the words to tell the real stories, who love fiercely and realistically and passionately all at once.
Women who write, and write with courage. A whole bunch of shit's been buried you know ( you do).
The buried shit, some of it is too awful to dredge up, but some just needs the light of day, to compost and become fertile ground for new life. You, I am confident, will give it the light of day. The old and the new, mix it up sistah.
If you had been my sister in childhood, you would have taught me fearless being, you would have taken me to the right places and showed me what is what. Instead I met you when I was 52 years old, and you 39. You asked me to read some poetry with a group for Women's History month. I can't imagine what luck it was to find your writing group during my lonely lost winter in a new town.
Today I sit writing this at Crystal Crane Hotsprings in what you might loving refer to as B.F. nowhere, Southeastern Oregon. (The road sign last night said 'Winnamucca, NV- 222 miles'). From this desert I write this love letter up to the islands of Puget Sound, on this gorgeous August day.
Write girl! Write like you are on fire. Write like no one's watching. Write for women throughout time who never had the time or opportunity because they were enmeshed in a patriarchical world which did not want their stories to travel. Write like a dance that moves to a perfect rhythm.
You are my beacon as I sit writing this, trying to put words to life.
From my camp spot with the funny, stolid cows, we all salute you!
The Eastern Oregon desert sun beats out it's afternoon rays, mating dragonflies dive about my camp chair and the Stinkingwater Mountains rise calmly in the distance, This is her, me, this girl in a body with graying hair, wishing to write, thinking of Tamsugah, the 'Shug', pal from my Puget Sound life, sleeping tonight in Willow Cottage at the Hedgebrook Women's Writing Retreat Center. Tam, writing her heart out there, for the month of August, writing and being out in the wilderness too. I am thinking a letter is in order:
Dear Shug-
You, your sonorous laugh, your penchant for biting commentaries punctuated with snappy street girl slang, slick one line descriptions, the agile ability to change the subject at just the right time, your giant heart, I am thinking of you.
You are in Willow Cottage, or at the beach, or soaking in the tubs in the bathhouse - or playing hooky with the wildest girl in the area.
Whatever you are doing, it is better, healthier, more high class than that terrible High School PE teacher jock who made you and your friends bend over and hold your ankles for the disciplinary swats. You made it out of the sludge, the mediocrity of American midsize towns which lie too close to big military bases. You are proof positive that there is a tide rising - a tide of women who won't take the same shit, and who have the words to tell the real stories, who love fiercely and realistically and passionately all at once.
Women who write, and write with courage. A whole bunch of shit's been buried you know ( you do).
The buried shit, some of it is too awful to dredge up, but some just needs the light of day, to compost and become fertile ground for new life. You, I am confident, will give it the light of day. The old and the new, mix it up sistah.
If you had been my sister in childhood, you would have taught me fearless being, you would have taken me to the right places and showed me what is what. Instead I met you when I was 52 years old, and you 39. You asked me to read some poetry with a group for Women's History month. I can't imagine what luck it was to find your writing group during my lonely lost winter in a new town.
Today I sit writing this at Crystal Crane Hotsprings in what you might loving refer to as B.F. nowhere, Southeastern Oregon. (The road sign last night said 'Winnamucca, NV- 222 miles'). From this desert I write this love letter up to the islands of Puget Sound, on this gorgeous August day.
Write girl! Write like you are on fire. Write like no one's watching. Write for women throughout time who never had the time or opportunity because they were enmeshed in a patriarchical world which did not want their stories to travel. Write like a dance that moves to a perfect rhythm.
You are my beacon as I sit writing this, trying to put words to life.
From my camp spot with the funny, stolid cows, we all salute you!
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
A Centuries Old Practice
Driving down the dusty hills this morning, in the dark, preparing my mind to lead an early morning yoga class, the radio told me more than I wanted to know. The stock market fell 2000 points. Immediately I switched the station, and my head, back to the present. I refuse to be drawn into the negative emotions of the money world, even as it is all too apparent that my IRA's will be of questionable worth, if and when I need them. My yoga practice is still worth millions though, and gaining each month. My practice is my health plan, my retirement happiness plan, my being a grama someday plan, and my staying creative and inspired plan.
One of my students today pointed out that yoga has survived worse historical times, in it's 5,500 years. It will prevail on, and those of us lucky enough to come together in the 6 am dark to share it are reaping the benefits.
What can we do when things look tough? Breath first, that is a natural place to begin. Secondly, we can do our homework, what ever that is. Today my homework is writing, because I've been away from that part of my practice.
I just spent 3 days out on the North Santiam with a group event called "The Fishing Trip". We noted this year that it seems to be more about wine and food than fish. Of course most sport fisherman on the rivers now don't keep the fish, they throw them back to keep the populations growing. Grapes, however, are becoming plentiful, and wine is our consolation prize for being human.
The Fishing Trip consists of 50-75 people camping out in an old growth fir grove along Whitewater Creek. It has been happening for 44 years, always in early August. The regulars work to create the campsite kitchen, showers, sanitary facilities, trails, bridges, food, firewood, and so many more things too numerous to list. Every year I am amazed, and every year I learn something about the power of human cooperation and altruism. The camp goes up in a day or 2 and in 2 weeks it is gone, only the trees and the cold flowing snowmelt fed creek remain.
In camp, after a day of hiking, swimming, a group baseball game, even a golf tournament, folks sit about the fire in the evening. This, after some lovely healthy dinner, like stir fried veggies and salad, not many sugary or processed foods around camp.
We sing into the night, the same songs shared every year, and some new ones. The old and the young sing together. The trees I'm sure listen, I can feel them telling me they remember when my kids were little, and came here with their Uncle Tom to play with the other camp kids. Now all those children have graduated from college, and are part of the working world. The trees remember for me though. When I find my way back to the tent in the dark, I can feel the years, and the trees show the way.
One of my students today pointed out that yoga has survived worse historical times, in it's 5,500 years. It will prevail on, and those of us lucky enough to come together in the 6 am dark to share it are reaping the benefits.
What can we do when things look tough? Breath first, that is a natural place to begin. Secondly, we can do our homework, what ever that is. Today my homework is writing, because I've been away from that part of my practice.
I just spent 3 days out on the North Santiam with a group event called "The Fishing Trip". We noted this year that it seems to be more about wine and food than fish. Of course most sport fisherman on the rivers now don't keep the fish, they throw them back to keep the populations growing. Grapes, however, are becoming plentiful, and wine is our consolation prize for being human.
The Fishing Trip consists of 50-75 people camping out in an old growth fir grove along Whitewater Creek. It has been happening for 44 years, always in early August. The regulars work to create the campsite kitchen, showers, sanitary facilities, trails, bridges, food, firewood, and so many more things too numerous to list. Every year I am amazed, and every year I learn something about the power of human cooperation and altruism. The camp goes up in a day or 2 and in 2 weeks it is gone, only the trees and the cold flowing snowmelt fed creek remain.
In camp, after a day of hiking, swimming, a group baseball game, even a golf tournament, folks sit about the fire in the evening. This, after some lovely healthy dinner, like stir fried veggies and salad, not many sugary or processed foods around camp.
We sing into the night, the same songs shared every year, and some new ones. The old and the young sing together. The trees I'm sure listen, I can feel them telling me they remember when my kids were little, and came here with their Uncle Tom to play with the other camp kids. Now all those children have graduated from college, and are part of the working world. The trees remember for me though. When I find my way back to the tent in the dark, I can feel the years, and the trees show the way.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Hot Springs, Montana
These days, when it is common to make internet hotel reservations for places one has never visited, there is a small amount of gambling to the traveling experience. How lucky we found The Alameda Motel, which is not fancy, but there is a lovely vegetable garden, to which Paul, the owner, immediately gives you free access. Baby carrots, the real thing, still covered with the silt of the Missoula flood soil of this western Montana land.
We hiked up to the hill above, where a view of the snow covered Rockies rises in the east. The little town, struggling for years after it's main resort closed, lies in a a bowl below.
The Hotel owner tells us about the town, while we eat honey sweetened, no sugar, whole wheat cinnamon rolls in the breakfast area. There are lots of organic slow food lovers here, so unique for such a tiny community. There are no franchises. Paul wants to build geothermal greenhouses, and have his hot spring water drain off to have a double use. I practiced yoga in his dome tent, which has a clay floor heated with hot spring water. Lovely!
We imagine the day when this town will come back, as it slowly is. The Zen Cafe will be the lunch spot, and The old Symes Hotel will carry the history. What a cool experience this is, being in Hot Springs!
We hiked up to the hill above, where a view of the snow covered Rockies rises in the east. The little town, struggling for years after it's main resort closed, lies in a a bowl below.
The Hotel owner tells us about the town, while we eat honey sweetened, no sugar, whole wheat cinnamon rolls in the breakfast area. There are lots of organic slow food lovers here, so unique for such a tiny community. There are no franchises. Paul wants to build geothermal greenhouses, and have his hot spring water drain off to have a double use. I practiced yoga in his dome tent, which has a clay floor heated with hot spring water. Lovely!
We imagine the day when this town will come back, as it slowly is. The Zen Cafe will be the lunch spot, and The old Symes Hotel will carry the history. What a cool experience this is, being in Hot Springs!
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The Montana Baroque Festival
Since I have been with my partner Curtis, 2 and a half years now, I have had to hear every summer about his week long venture out to Paradise, Montana, where he plays with The Portland baroque Orchestra in a small music festival at a little hot springs resort.
'Paradise" is located in a little valley inside the Bitterroot Mountains of Western Montana, where the Clark Fork River flows along in it's slow green glacial advance toward the North. How fitting for me to be blogging on 'Heaven Now' from 'Paradise'. Fortune sometimes smiles on the least of us.
This year I was invited to go along, so I cleared the calendar for months in advance to make it work. One never knows what to expect when tagging along as the girlfriend, yet I am finding this trip a lovely and unique series of experiences and opportunities to be truly 'away'.
The drive here from Portland was long, we left at 4 am so we had time to stop along the way in Spokane, at the only Independant bookstore within hundreds of miles. Aunties in Spokane is a fabulous place, highly recommeded.
The subsequent drive through Idaho on I-90 is all winding up and down high mountain passes. Huge climbs and long downgrades where one can only hope the brakes are all in order. From Idaho into Montana the mountains continue, and then the turn off, left toward St. Regis and Glacier National Park.
We arrived at Quinn's Resort by 2:30, narrowly passing through a small forest fire which later caused a temporary road closure.
The weather is warm, and there are cherry trees all over the place! The first thing I did after we dumped our stuff in the room was to walk out to see the river. I passed a pie cherry tree loaded with fruit. A rare type of cherry these days. The cherry of my childhood. That reminded me of Trog, the cherry picker I met on the ferry to Alaska back in 1976. He picked cherries in Montana. ( Trog, short for 'troglodyte' hitchhiked with me and we got a ride from 2 guys in a big RV, all of us bound for Fairbanks. We played poker at night in those huge Alaska valleys with barely a sunset and dusk in June.)
Traveling I guess does this, conjures up memories of the distant past. Well, I don't want to digress from being here now. How lucky that life goes on and 36 years later, after my gypsy youth, I am still doing little gypsy things.
The musicians are out warming up at dress rehearsal, I can hear the violins. Monica Hugget, the reason this festival exists, has arrived in her dusty rented Subaru. My own dusty Subaru sits in the parking lot. A strong mountain wind has kicked up, and the outdoor stage is set.My man has gone to work, making music. I get to watch, and hope the rainstorm coming in is kind to this diligent, talented group of interesting players.
Music in the mountains... more later!
'Paradise" is located in a little valley inside the Bitterroot Mountains of Western Montana, where the Clark Fork River flows along in it's slow green glacial advance toward the North. How fitting for me to be blogging on 'Heaven Now' from 'Paradise'. Fortune sometimes smiles on the least of us.
This year I was invited to go along, so I cleared the calendar for months in advance to make it work. One never knows what to expect when tagging along as the girlfriend, yet I am finding this trip a lovely and unique series of experiences and opportunities to be truly 'away'.
The drive here from Portland was long, we left at 4 am so we had time to stop along the way in Spokane, at the only Independant bookstore within hundreds of miles. Aunties in Spokane is a fabulous place, highly recommeded.
The subsequent drive through Idaho on I-90 is all winding up and down high mountain passes. Huge climbs and long downgrades where one can only hope the brakes are all in order. From Idaho into Montana the mountains continue, and then the turn off, left toward St. Regis and Glacier National Park.
We arrived at Quinn's Resort by 2:30, narrowly passing through a small forest fire which later caused a temporary road closure.
The weather is warm, and there are cherry trees all over the place! The first thing I did after we dumped our stuff in the room was to walk out to see the river. I passed a pie cherry tree loaded with fruit. A rare type of cherry these days. The cherry of my childhood. That reminded me of Trog, the cherry picker I met on the ferry to Alaska back in 1976. He picked cherries in Montana. ( Trog, short for 'troglodyte' hitchhiked with me and we got a ride from 2 guys in a big RV, all of us bound for Fairbanks. We played poker at night in those huge Alaska valleys with barely a sunset and dusk in June.)
Traveling I guess does this, conjures up memories of the distant past. Well, I don't want to digress from being here now. How lucky that life goes on and 36 years later, after my gypsy youth, I am still doing little gypsy things.
The musicians are out warming up at dress rehearsal, I can hear the violins. Monica Hugget, the reason this festival exists, has arrived in her dusty rented Subaru. My own dusty Subaru sits in the parking lot. A strong mountain wind has kicked up, and the outdoor stage is set.My man has gone to work, making music. I get to watch, and hope the rainstorm coming in is kind to this diligent, talented group of interesting players.
Music in the mountains... more later!
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