We’ve had a bit of a heatwave here in Oregon this past July. Temps hovered in the high 90s to 100 degrees for over a week. Even though I had AC installed in the house as a result of the catastrophic heat dome a year ago in June, Raymond and I were feeling a bit housebound. For a reprieve from the heat we headed out to Netarts Bay on the coast to kayak for the day.
Coincidentally, also seeking the bay’s refuge was a population of brown pelicans who were aerial feeding- quite a sight. Watching them was the highlight of my day. This poem came to me shortly thereafter.
I was on an amble on Franklin Street in Astoria, Oregon last weekend when I came upon this remarkable rock wall below a Victorian home. Little pink flowers were growing from the cracks of the stones of the wall. Had I been in a rush, I would have failed to notice this striking little art gallery. Here are a few examples of natures hand on a city side street.
Tarry
to see
flowers rooted
in cracks of cold stone
Who doesn’t love flowers? There seems to be even more of a special place in people’s hearts for the wildflowers found in nature. Here in Oregon it is prime wildflower season. Some are even blooming currently in my new native plant garden. Especially prevalent right now are camas (Camas quamash), beautiful blue-violet spikes of star-like flowers that pop up in the meadows. They were a significant food source for the Native Americans that once inhabited the area
About 40 minutes away from my home in the town of West LInn a new Nature Conservancy site opened up last year, the Camassia Nature Preserve. The 22 acre parcel is a mix of lush forest, meadows, and oak savannah with a boardwalk that meanders the main route. There is about 2 miles of hiking trails in the area. Also prevalent are glacial erratics- boulders from Montana and Canada that were dropped in this area after the great floods that occurred after the melting of the ice sheets that covered the north during the Ice Age.
Yesterday the weather was lovely, partly sunny and in the 60s, a welcome change from the rain and cool temperatures. I decided to take a drive and check it out. I was not disappointed!
Here are some of the things I saw in this special place.
Camus
Indian Plum
Buttercup and camus
not identified!
meadow with sea blush
glacial erratics and Oregon Grape
Camus meadow
Sword fern fronds unfurling
Sea blush
Wild rose
Madrone
Camus
Honeysucke
Wood violet & syringia
meadow mix
Meadow mix
meadow mix
fringe cup
Solomon’s seal
A bit of wildflower trivia…
The reason you may often see the dazzling combination of bright yellow and purple wildflowers together is that it attracts pollinators- and humans seeking beauty.
And…my photos really don’t do this place justice!
A wild iris blooms in my garden
Wild Iris
Looked what bloomed today!
a wild Iris
a queen amidst my garden
her lilac petals arch gracefully
like arms in a curtsy
about her throat a white collar
etched with fine black lines
with a blush of gold
Gaudy hybrids shout for my attention
down the driveway
but it's her sublime elegance
that captures my wild heart
In the last two weeks, I’ve buried three wild birds- a robin, a pine siskin, and a hummingbird- such a tiny, little body. The last two were from my cat which makes it even worse.
Two dear friends were also lain to rest from this life. One passed away unexpectedly in his sleep. The other reached the end of an eight-year struggle with ovarian cancer.
The events in Ukraine disturb me daily. The weather has been unusually cold and wet on top of such sorrow.
I find it interesting how our culture puts so much value on vintage things but not vintage people. Elders are often dismissed. Youth is revered. On a construction job recently a contractor told my 71-year-old husband that he was “outdated” -never mind that he finished his work smoothly and on time.
Seriously.
Us older folks? Beneath our innocuous, wrinkled, gray, balding exteriors is a wealth of experience and wisdom. The boomers of today were the changemakers and protestors of yesteryear. My body is more fragile now but in return is insight and wisdom. Contentment has replaced the incessant searching of youth. With a wealth of experience comes stories to be told. Want to be entertained? Drum up some conversation with an older person you would otherwise ignore
I let my hair go gray during covid ready to embrace my age. Why hide it? There is nothing to be ashamed about. This is me, I’ve survived and I have thrived.
Then, there’s something to be said of the people that can still navigate the world when the power goes out.
“The Journey of a Thousand Miles begins with a single step”- Lao Tsu
This is one of my favorite quotes. It’s been a mantra for my life. I would add to that “keep going.”
Sitting down to a blank canvas or piece of paper can be daunting. Procrastination takes over. but it’s action that inspires creative energy not necessarily the other way around. Risk is inherent for a full life and with that risk comes failure. Any type of artist will tell you that you have to be willing to fail to learn. Just check out their recycle bins. Only their best work goes on display.
I just finished planting my native plant garden. It looks very sparse right now as the plants are still sleeping awaiting the arrival of spring. I’ve been rather awed by how this project manifested in relatively a short amount of time considering my lack of knowledge. Like the rest of my pursuits, it started with an idea followed by one action after another. I’m sure I have made some mistakes. So be it. Completion is my preference over perfection.
Commitment is a powerful force. The hardest part is starting and getting past the fear. I wrote this poem about it.
My only big regret in life is that I didn’t take the time to document my experiences more. I’ve kept a journal on and off since I was 16, which is admiral, but I wish I had expanded my entries to snippets of sensory experience and fascinations other than just emotional spew. But, in my defense, I was a teenager and I avoided language arts classes finding them tedious.
Looking back even recording one thing that made my day would have been such a precious collection to look back on. No one told me then that those little vignettes from my life in Alaska, raising my son, and those hilarious “kids say the darndest things” moments teaching 6th-grade science would be so longed for. Of course, I have hundreds of photos but without some words as accompaniment, they are incomplete memories. I was always too busy, thinking I would remember everything. Then “poof” those clear memories vanish like steam. The same goes with some solution to a nagging problem or those creative inspirations I get as I drift off to sleep.
I have been on crutches for over two months now from a serious knee injury I have mentioned in previous posts. Ten days ago I was given the green light from my doctor to ditch the crutches and begin weight-bearing around the house. Sadly, after 3 days the pain returned. Instantly I went from hope to a state of despair. How much longer will I have to endure this?
By “chance” I tuned into an episode of the OnBeing podcast called the “Future of Hope” an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert, who happens to be one of my heroes. During the interview by Pico Iyer, Gilbert speaks of how she navigated the pandemic and also the death of her life partner, Rayya from cancer. Here are two excerpts from that interview which I needed to hear…
“if there is one thing that I, if I had the chance to do it over again, could’ve done differently, would’ve been to walk into it in a stance of surrender — arms collapsed, no clipboard, no agenda, no cherished outcome — and to have almost gone limp into it, which is not the same thing as hopelessness, but it is a very powerful stance to take in the wake of something that is bigger than you are.”
“And a friend of mine gave me a tip: to lower my standards of gratitude, to lower the bar and to catch the low-hanging fruit so that it’s not — it doesn’t have to be these huge, epic, grandiose gratitudes. The more physical they are, the more I felt it in my body. My gratitude for these slippers that I have that have an insole that you can put in the microwave and you can warm up your feet, that’s on my gratitude list almost every day. And I feel it neurologically. Even when I say it, I remember how comfortable those slippers feel, and remembering that doesn’t necessarily send me into despair over the state of the world, and it starts to kind of rewire my brain.”
Such good advice in tough times be it a pandemic, death of a loved one, or an injured knee.
“…when you’re on the right path, the universe winks and nods at you from time to time, to let you know. Once you start noticing these little cosmic cairns, once you understand that you’re on a path at all, you’ll begin to see them everywhere.”
I’ve had times when my world is a muddle, guidance will appear in unexpected ways – something I read, hear in an interview, a conversation with a stranger. These incidents usually occur in clusters when I have let go of fear and lean into trust. Often I’ve experienced them while traveling alone and am literally lost .
Such a state happened to me recently when I accepted my knee injury, framing it in a more positive light. Before a concert, my friends and I were out in NE Portland at a little eatery. The server, a young man took one look at me on my crutches and my imposing exoskeleton of a knee brace and said, “ Oh, it’s going to get better. You are going to get through this.” I said “really? You’ve had an injury like this before?” He proceeded to tell me about the broken femur and broken wrist he sustained while snowboarding a few years back. I was almost in tears. His words were like balm for my soul.
Later as one of my friends pushed me in my wheelchair in a very crowded line to get into the concert venue (James Taylor and Jackson Brown!) A woman with her husband said to me “Sweetie, you go right ahead of us.” I replied, “You make me feel like a queen!” The woman replied, “ You are a queen. Own it, honey!” By the way, it was a faboulous concert- but more on that in another post.
The following day, a dear friend I hadn’t heard from called me out of the blue and gave me a good dose of Jewish mothering wrapped up in a pep talk. , “Listen, you are going to get through this. You are a strong woman and you will find your way.” Then she sent me her comprehensive favorite movie list for streaming.
Now to some this would be a series of unrleated events but not so to me. I had to let go in order to open myself to what I needed- a good dose of mothering and encouragement to get me unstuck. Call it God, call it the universe that helps one along when they are lost. Sometimes the cairns appear in the mist to mark the way forward.
(Another take on my knee injury a couple posts back…)
The doctor reviews my MRI and informs me it’s a wear injury- a polite way of saying you’re getting old. The cartilage in my knee has worn thin from age and a simple turned ankle on a hike tore the meniscus which led to a stress fracture to the head of my femur. “Stay off your knee for 4 months, non-weight bearing- crutches. Watch that left hip. It shows low bone density. Don’t gain weight. We’ll go from there. No surgery, no easy fixes. See you after the first of the year.” Appointment concludes. Crabby surgeon departs. I remain in a state of shock.
What the doctor didn’t tell me is how to cope with this loss, this massive change in my life- no walking and no clear path to recovery, no dangling hope. All he sees is the injury and not the humanity surrounding it. The quick fix laparoscopic surgery I expected disintegrated into months of recovery with no clear resolution. My world shrinks from a universe to the size of an orange. Will I get to walk or hike with my friends again? Will I ever again see the tips of my cross-country skis cut through sparking snow?
Every day humans are faced with diagnoses, injuries, and other nasty things that upend their lives instantly. It can be a lonely path to navigate. Every day you’ve got to stave off the demons and keep on going, reframe your life, lower your expectations. For me being a highly creative person and very goal-oriented, this is a challenge. My big native plant garden project? – canceled until further notice. Travel? I don’t think so. Grocery shopping, housework? NO. Cook?- barely. This is my first major injury in six decades of living. I am such a beginner
After weeks of flapping my wings against my cage, I’ve had to revise my life.
Focus on what I can do…
Get a new doctor (check)
Write
Draw
Read
Watch movies
Sing
Play guitar
Swim
Ride my bike
Get outside
Clean out some drawers
Breathe
Meditate
I have to remember to ask for help (hard).
I have to permit myself to pamper myself- hire a housekeeper, get a massage, buy audiobooks, get a therapist. (hard)
Be humble- I just ordered a wheelchair as my back aches from weeks of crutches.
I have to allow myself some days of just being pathetic even though I know things could be worse. (easy)
I emerged from the doctor’s office that day feeling my mortality diminished
By Alanna Pass 