We’re in Portland just now, and it’s in the 20s outside. I ran three miles here yesterday and walked a couple more, up and down NW Portland streets. I planned to walk three miles this morning, but maybe not in this cold.

We tested negative again yesterday. This means I have not been sick (with anything) for at least three years. Well, there is an issue with the blue cheese… But no cold or flu or covid. We are fully vaccinated and boosted and hopeful we will be able to see family next weekend.

Eagles, hummingbirds, teaching writing, childbirth, and life expectancy. What we saw a few days ago on the coast:

Miraculously, I wrapped all the gifts the other day, mailed just two packages, and sent out holiday cards. I had filled my Rapidograph pen with ink and considered drawing a tree for a card design. Instead I spent three days addressing envelopes by hand. Then I began making enclosures using what I had. I used leftover paper and prints for the cards. I pieced leaves from scraps of batik fabrics leftover from quilting projects. Some of the scraps were tiny and some of them were scraps of scraps. Each leaf was different and I went through two spools of sewing thread. At the start, I thought I would need at least 25 leaves, but then I put some on the little tree we light up in a western window. So I made more, usually just five each day. Then I counted again and decided I needed still more leaves. This went on for a couple of weeks. It did occur to me to photograph the row of sixty-odd leaves before putting them into envelopes, but I didn’t do it. If I’d realized how large my project would become at the start, I probably never have begun.

Most people know that a bald eagle has a white head, adult bald eagles, that is. Juveniles are all-over brown. But adults also have a white tail. I have probably seen white eagle tail feathers on the beach without recognizing what they are. I rarely gather feathers, but after forty-odd years living on the coast, I have a fair collection: blue Steller’s jay tail and flight feathers, “two-spot” feathers, flight feathers from gulls and pelicans. They are stuffed into jars in and out of the house. Crow and raven feathers lose some of their blackness once shed, but I have a few of them as well.

[My computer is red-lining the word “lose” in the previous sentence. It wants me to write “loose,” the adjective rather than the verb. It is not so very smart, this computer auto-correct. There are new software programs that apparently can write on just about any subject, causing a couple of journalists and many educators to worry about whether it’s even worthwhile to try to teach writing. If you can ask a computer to speculate about what Columbus would think were he to “discover” New York City in 2022, and the software can spit out a credible response… why bother teaching writing at all? they asked. I have an answer to that: the purpose of writing is not about typing or inking words on a page, it’s about thinking, reasoning, and making sense. We teach students to write because sometimes they—to coin a phrase—do not know what they think until they see what they write. It is process, not product, that matters. I generally had my students write their first drafts in class. Further, “We Are the Stories We Tell.” Witness: this blog.]

This morning I read about new studies finding that most conservative politics are associated with earlier death. Maybe the more conservative politics is associated with anti-vaxxers or other lack of basic support? It wasn’t always so. The Republican and Democratic policies of the 1930s through the 60s brought access to health care, highways, and great public schools. (Yes, public schools can be great and some were in my day.) Things began to change in the 70s and 80s. We have our issues as a nation, and caring for vulnerable people seems to be one of them. International research has shown for decades that Americans do not enjoy the life expectancy we might expect as a wealthy nation. “Americans live shorter lives than people in peer nations, in part because it is the worst place among high-income countries to give birth.”

[My mother was mostly unconscious when I was born. She fed me with a bottle because that was what women were doing in the 1950s. When I was pregnant, I planned a birth with as little interference as possible. I took the classes, assured myself that no one would shave my pubus (which had been standard), signed the form that refused silver nitrate (required by law to be put in newborn’s eyes to prevent passing an STD to the baby), and knew that my milk would come in eventually. I was in labor for over three days because the local hospital was sure I was delivering a 3-pound preemie; Alan was 5 lbs. 8 ounces and fine. For three days after I got home my mom paced about, insisting I needed to bottle-feed. I nursed each of my sons for close to a year.]

Eagles are not having this problem. The bald eagle pair was not here when we moved into my great grand aunts’ home in 1979. The species has made a strong comeback since DDT went off the market, our local couple raising as many as three eaglets in a year. They are indifferent hunters locally, but will eat whatever is weak onshore. Gary, as a pigeon lover, has mixed feelings about raptors in general, but we both enjoy seeing many species of birds every day. Our front yard is somewhat “wilded” with seedheads and flowering shrubs years around. I don’t know what the little guys pecking around in the grass are finding to eat this December, but a half dozen are busy in our yard every day.

I saw a hummingbird in Portland on my run yesterday morning. It was buzzing through shrubbery without pause. I looked around and saw nothing blooming on that side of the street. But across the way, there were winter-flowering shrubs. I am reminded that at least one species stay all year around in Oregon. “The Rufous Hummingbird breeds farther north than any other hummingbird in the United States. It’s an aggressive species which makes it an unwelcome guest among hummingbird feeders. This hummingbird is an important part of the Pacific Northwest ecosystem, acting as a pollinator where the insects are at a disadvantage due to their cold-bloodedness.”

Years ago, a large hummingbird was feeding on the original clump of “Lucifer” crocosmia in our courtyard garden. I watched for a time as he went into one tiny red-orange blossom after another. I was quiet but stepping closer and closer. When I got too close, the bird abruptly turned toward me and flew directly at me in two rabid dashes until I quickly drew back. Then he went back to feeding.

Yes, we share this planet with other people and with wildlife. We can share.

In an hour or so, we might get our walk.