Author: janpriddyoregon

HEDGE

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Yesterday, someone—I hope it was a visiter and not a local person—ripped the wild seasonal succulents out of the rocks bordering the sand. Ripped them all right out of the ground! The devastation began a hundred feet south of our path and continued north for hundreds of feet north. These people left a long line of plants littering the shore, tore them out by their roots just because they could. Like the party who started a fire of drift logs and abandoned it to smoke and smolder all night long. Like the people staying north of us who managed to drop their kite all the way over our house and into our courtyard (not the first time), and woke me with loud laughter at nearly eleven the other night. They seem like nice people, but they’re on vacation.

There is a hedge in front of our house, what we call the “front” because the ocean is too vast to be anyone’s backyard. The hedge is mostly salal that grows wild. The local rose, which is thorny and has dark pink flowers the size of quarters, is native too. The cultivar montbrecia, which will pop out in racemes of brilliant orange flowers any minute now, is a thriving but benign volunteer. The same cannot be said for English ivy that threatens to take over the world. My step-grandmother may or may not be responsible for starting ivy on its aggressive path in our hedge. I recall a two-inch pot of decorative ivy. Yes, she might have planted that in her garden as a ground cover. Many people did in the 60s. It was already thriving all over local beach gardens. We religiously remove it from the courtyard and fight to a truce in the hedge.

By contrast, I give Genevieve credit for planting honeysuckle, which has spread but without strangling any other plant. And it smells better than ivy, though its foliage is not such a stunning, healthy green.

The salal was not invited or planted. It belongs here. It grows in the forest and along the beachfront except where it has been pushed out by invasive ivy or deliberately planted rugosa roses. White or carmine pink. The salal has stiff, leathery foliage used by florists, and berries I use in muffins. I like that I had nothing to do with it, that I need not water or spray or tend it in any way. It is what it is.

Today is the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, the night gay people stood their ground and refused to be passively bullied any more, the night they began a movement. Some call it a riot or a rebellion or an uprising. Stonewall works for me. Gay Pride.

Gary’s co-worker Chris took his draft physical the day after Gary earlier that same year, 1969. Both Chris and Gary failed the physical, Gary for his eyesight. They compared notes at the Book Store, and Gary asked how Chris had managed to flunk his physical. “I told them I was gay.” Oh, right.

When Gary went to Chris’s house to listen to Ziggy Stardust, he knew Chris was gay but he didn’t want to “try something new.” Chris took no for an answer and they remained friends. That’s usually how it goes. I’ve been hit on, so gently that I only figured it out later, and I’ve had gay and lesbian friends going all the way back pretty much forever. I knew who they were and who they were interested in sexually at least from my junior year of high school, but it was never an issue. Like someone being married or in a relationship: It only matters if you are romantically interested in the person. Mostly I failed to pay much attention. What possible difference could it make to me that the girl, who had done me a kindness when we were both six year old, liked girls? Barb was my friend and I valued her for her friendship. I miss her still.

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The salal berries I use in whole wheat muffins and the wild huckleberries I use in butter cake are among the best things I know to bake. Published recipes suggest that blueberries can be substituted for these NW berries. Perhaps. Perhaps if they were wild and smaller berries I would love them. Perhaps if I could not get the real thing the substitute would be good enough. If I lived in Maine, it would make sense to me. But I live in Oregon and I am pretty sure that what grows here without my help or interference is the best of all.

We are all visitors here. Letting things be is the theme for today. Allow the natural to thrive and you owe it nothing more, no anger or resentment, no ripping up just because you have that power. A pact of noninterference because we all inconvenience and irritate sometimes. At least allow what lives to thrive. Enjoy it or ignore it, as you choose.

FINISH

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Gary vacuuming the floor for the second or third time before the fourth coat of varnish.

The plan was to put down a cheap floor and then after our sons graduated from college we would spring for hardwood.

A contractor suggested particleboard, sealed and oiled. The look was not what I was after. I chose A-face half-inch fir plywood. The A face is solid, with knots filled. It is not expensive—as best I can recall the four by eight sheets cost about $24 each in 1985. Fifty cents a square foot was about our speed.

A professional painter (the brother of an old friend) detailed a plan for finishing the floors. I wanted mostly wood showing but with a simple painted pattern. He suggested specific products and I followed his advice. I did a bedroom first with green zigzags, then the kitchen and dining room with an oversize black check, and finally the living room has dark purple zigzags. For each floor, I sealed the wood and then drew the pattern with a pencil and my grandfather’s steel rules. I painted the pattern with eggshell oil-based paint—on hands and knees—no painter’s tape but a steady hand. The varnish should have gone straight on after the paint cured, but the varnish was the most expensive step and I wanted some wear on the floor. Leaving the painted floors unvarnished allowed the softer parts of the grain to wear away with foot traffic. The grain becomes three dimensional. This is trendy today, but it was pretty much a unique look in the 80s.

Eventually I sealed the floors with the nasty clear varnish, three coats—two in the late 80s and a third in the 90s. The finish is hard but flexible enough for floors “with light use,” though my floors have always seen hard use, the tracks of children and dogs, sandy feet.

Yesterday I brushed on coat number four. Yeah, on my hands and knees with a four inch brush. It took an hour and my knees might be bruised.

Gary took me out for ice creams.

The stink was terrible in the house, but moving the furniture, books and CDs out of the space was probably the worst part of the process. Everything is crowded into spaces that were a bit crowded to begin with. The sofa is upended in front of the linen closet.

Before I could apply varnish, Gary vacuumed and scrubbed the floors once, I went over them, and then Gary went over them twice more. They show their age. Fir is a softwood and this floor has over thirty years of dents and dings and stains. We still prefer it to any replacement. In a week or two, we’ll put most everything back and clear the dining room and kitchen in order to put the last coat on those floors. Most people will not even notice a difference.

In the mean time, we’re sleeping in our younger son’s old room, two doors past the toxic varnish. We will avoid cooking—I will avoid cooking too much. We’d like to tear out the tile shower but scrubbing and scrubbing will have to do. For most of our marriage, we have made do with what was handy or free or could be done with least expense. And even now. But the ceilings and walls and floors all needed a definitive finish. Finishing. It’s an overwhelming task.

This is meant to be the last time. Once we complete the work we plan for this summer, I expect the walls and floors will do for the remainder of our lives—twenty years or so. If the tsunami doesn’t take this house first, our heirs will sell it or put down something else for people to walk upon.

DAWN

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Last night someone was blasting (illegal) fireworks at 10pm. Explosions in the dark—oh what fun . . . for someone. A month or so ago visitors complained to us about construction noise from a remodel across the street from their rental that prevented them from sleeping in past 8:30am. We smiled and exchanged looks. This has become one of our favorite examples of absurdity on the part of people who live in bubbles of their own making.

People complain about the dawn chorus but play their stereos on full blast all afternoon. It’s the same with tourists stepping off curbs in the middle of the block in Cannon Beach without even checking traffic first. They are affluent white people, of course. They are on vacation and everything must be perfect for them.

It’s happening in France too. The New York Times today reports about a French rooster in a favorite vacation spot that bothers vacationers. A fisherman has been asked to replace his hedge with a concrete wall because the birds living in the hedge are noisy and wake vacationers. People move to the country to get away from smog, traffic, and sirens and then object to the sounds, smells, and other inconveniences of country life. They have learned to shut out much of what might bother me about city living, and whine about what I actually enjoy.

My husband opens our bedroom window early each morning specifically so that we can listen to the dawn chorus. We had already been in bed for some time when the fireworks started up last night. Some beachfront homes sport enormous spotlights that shine on the beach (which in Oregon is a public park) because they thinks “it’s beautiful.” But if they wanted to look at the water, they had hours of daylight to admire the view. Instead they really look for a few minutes and then forget to turn off the lights, which shine all night and do damage to wildlife. All because we are afraid of the dark, afraid of wild creatures and of going to sleep when night arrive, of sounds and smells of nature. Even time.

The Grand Canyon is now a Dark Sky Park. “The designation places the Grand Canyon into esteemed company with more than 60 dark sky parks, communities, and reserves in the United States.” Light pollution on our planet is a very real problem. Years ago I wrote a snarky essay as a model for students about how offensive I found lighting when I wanted to run by moonlight. I discovered my personal objection was really beside the point. Lighting creates a host of problems for human beings and animals, birds and general health. We converted our outdoor lighting long ago to avoid lighting the sky when nature is dark. We never leave our lights on all night and not only for that reason. It might be safer in the dark, and it it is certainly healthier. Numbers on the clock have become more important to human beings than actual time. Despite the fact that “noon” means that time when the sun is at its zenith, some people want so-called Daylight Saving Time to run year around, with “noon” at 11am. If people wanted more hours of daylight, they have only to wake with the sun.

Are all these disconnects from the realities of nature a matter of privilege or modernity or just plain stupid?

Instead of resetting clocks, shutting up nature, and sleeping hours past dawn, perhaps it’s time to rethink this absurd denial of nature. Turn off the electric lights. Hear the birds. Understand that we live on a planet not merely in manufactured spaces. Birds sing. A raccoon crossed our yard this morning and they run across our roof at night. A weasel lives in the hedge, and pet rabbits and dogs should not be turned out “to run” in the wild. Baby seals are left to rest on the beach by their mothers and do not need to be rescued. Storm-battered waterfowl will die or survive without assistance.

Allow the wild to be what it is. Live with it.

A TASTE FOR SWEET

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My mother was pleased to read that as we age we lose our taste for sweet. She had a powerful sweet tooth and hoped this aging side effect would lesson her desire for cake and snickerdoodles. Alas, as she discovered later, the change in taste is not that we care less for sweet as we age, but that we lose our perception of sweetness. We do not crave the flavor less, we want more of it to satisfy our tongue.

There are other kinds of sweet.

Gary commented this morning on how I push off hard from my toes as I walk. “Especially the left one. While I graze the ground graceful as a dancer.” He laughed, and I wondered if the habit was left over from all those years of running.

We saw runners and dog-walkers. I followed a deer’s footprints from the tideline to the soft dry sand and lost her. Gary first spotted the raccoon prints. I found three back shells of my favorite “ugly clam” and three top shells that did not match. The back shells are always colorless, translucent, and shaped with a hole in the middle because the Pododesmus macrochisma shapes its home around the point of a rock. These C-shapes are even more delicate and far less common than the tops, which are rare enough. I found shells from four species of limpet. A tiny agate. We do not know what drew the adult bald eagle to the sand near Asbury Creek. She left no trace.

DRONES

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When I was a girl, my dad built gliders and small free-flight model planes. We joined other enthusiasts and took them far out in the country to a grassy field. Some people had remote control and could turn their craft, the chassis a foot or a bit longer. My dad’s went up and then came down. Sometimes this meant a long run to collect them. Everyone flew their balsa wood and silk span planes until they were battered past flight. We took our models home and my dad would splice and repair, adjust balance, tune the tiny engine, spread new paint—orange because it showed up well in the grass.

They were noisy and useless, but far from crowds, never a threat to safety or privacy. Adult toys requiring careful design and skill to fly.

More recently, a drone flew by our front yard, which fronts the beach. The drone paused briefly at eye level, twenty feet from where my husband and I sat in chairs in our yard. Technically, perhaps, its flightpath was perfectly legal.

We flipped the drone off. It was an instantaneous and shared choice. (And not something I am inclined to do. We both laughed.) The device had moved on but turned back immediately and hovered for a long moment, confirming our suspicion that it carried a camera, watching and perhaps filming us.

If I’d had a pellet gun that day and the skill, would I have been tempted to shoot down that spying drone just past my hedge?

You bet.

 

SPRING

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We have been busy this morning: I baked a pie, Gary did laundry, we picked up the mail, I read aloud, but first thing this morning we enjoyed a nearly a three-hour walk. We walked from spring right into summer at 8:54AM. Today is the first day of summer and the morning sky showed cobblestones overhead, mist along the shore.

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The seagulls do not mind us much—so long as we walk in some direction other than straight at them, so long as we do not stare, and so long as Gary does not tease them by making claws of his fingers and muttering Kitty-kitty-kitty. We do not like disturbing them at their rest.

The black oystercatchers who nest at Hug Point did not mind us either today. They glanced at us, but seemed not to mind and continued foraging for sand crabs (?) and mollusks. We assumed their babies must be out of the nest, but then a walker with a dog came along and they went into their act of distraction. Not here! Not here! they seem to cry. They raised their wings and danced all around.

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Hug Point is so-called because in my mother’s childhood and before travelers used the sand to get to our beach, hugging this headland. The highway didn’t come through until the 30s. A path was partially blasted around Hug Point, concrete poured to make it navigable by car, while the horse-drawn milk wagon went right through the creek and tide pools.

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There are still traces of concrete at Hug Point (you can see a bit in the foreground below), but much of that old roadway is worn away. When we decide to “walk long” we mean walking north around this headland.

Limpets and barnacles on the sandstone, shown here. Anemones and gooseneck barnacles and chitons too.

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On the way home, Gary wanted a photo of thumbs-up in front of a rock that seems to have the same attitude.

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LET THERE BE JOY

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Academy of American Poets
75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901
New York, NY 10038
info@poets.org

Dear Friend,

Please join us in congratulating our Chancellor Joy Harjo on being named our nation’s newest Poet Laureate! Harjo was elected an Academy Chancellor earlier this year and received the Academy’s Wallace Stevens Award for proven mastery in the art of poetry in 2015.

As a poet, a teacher, and a literary leader Joy Harjo has touched many lives and many communities. She now has what is one of the largest platforms a poet can aspire to and it is a well-deserved honor. We’re thrilled for Joy and for the nation on this historic appointment.

We’ve enjoyed wonderful partnerships with our Poets Laureate. Since the position was created in 1937—a year after our organization was incorporated—more than half of the poets in this esteemed role have been Academy Chancellors. We look forward to continuing our tradition of celebrating our nation’s Poet Laureate and supporting Joy however we might.

Read this special Q&A with Joy about her new role.

Learn more about Joy Harjo.

Read poems by Joy Harjo.

Sincerely,

PERSONAL

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It was probably 1973 and Gary and I were managing the apartment building while we were students at the University of Washington. I was just twenty years old when we had dinner with the owners of a cat we liked, Slump. Slump’s people were educated and had traveled and in the course of the meal I began talking about an horrifying situation, a news story about abuse of women in an Eastern European country. Gary recalls this and also Tom’s response: “What do you care? You don’t know those women.”

Mitch McConnell does not understand why Jon Stewart is so upset about the failure of Congress to make adequate provisions for First Responders who were exposed to toxic substances while protecting and rescuing people, and later bodies, from the Two Towers after 911. He didn’t get why Stewart was “all bent out of shape” about caring for these sick and dying men and women. (You might recall that First Responders were assured they were in no danger from toxins, which was later revealed to be a lie from the Bush administration.)

“I want to make it clear that this has never been dealt with compassionately by Senator McConnell,” the former Daily Show host said. “He has always held out until the very last minute and only then, under intense lobbying and public shaming has he even deigned to move on it.”

Why, McConnell wonders, does Stewart care so much?

Why should anyone care about anything that does not directly impact them?

I would like to think most Americans would be as confused (if not downright horrified) as Stewart feels. Compassion is not dealt out evenly, but a complete lack of it is puzzling to me. We are seeing it a lot lately, these men and women who have so recently entered politics, this current regime devoted only to power and position.

But still. As you do unto the least of these . . . why is that so mystifying?

TODAY

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The fathers in my life have all been good men. I am grateful, too for the father-in-law who was so kind to me. Not everyone is so fortunate. These men did not ever, so far as I know (and I have always paid attention), abused people, picked fights, or assumed they were entitled simply because they were who they were. They were and are all the other things, the things anyone might hope for in a father: loving, patient, and present parents.

I have decided to cut back on gift-giving, at least a little because I overdo, and to do something otherwise for holidays and birthdays. So today, happy Fathers Day! And may the days that follow be fine and sweet!

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My favorite photo of my dad right after the war. (WW2)

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Gary had pigeons as a boy in Arizona. Here he is on our 40th anniversary on the coast! Today.

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Our firstborn in his daughter’s room. She has two dogs.

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Our son who says he has now “arrived at the fish pun landmark in life.” 

My favorite father poem. A poem I have shared many times. They often struggled to consider discipline a good thing, to recognize that the child’s screams are hysterical, not literal.

The Gift

 

To pull the metal splinter from my palm

my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he’d removed
the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.

 

I can’t remember the tale,

but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.

 

Had you entered that afternoon

you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy’s palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife’s right hand.

 

Look how I shave her thumbnail down

so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he’s given something to keep.
I kissed my father.

 

 

*And while I have your attention: Please don’t smoke. Both my father and father-in-law were killed by smoking, a habit they developed while serving their country during wartime. We know smoking is deadly. We know almost no one begins smoking after their childhood—I think of that every time I see a young person smoking. We all do stupid things when we are young, and cigarettes are designed to be habitual. And they kill. These smoking children cannot conceive of it now of course, but it’s likely that some day someone or several someones who love them will cry over their hospital bed. I know.

My favorite father poem. A poem I have shared many times. They often struggled to consider discipline a good thing, to recognize that the child’s screams are hysterical, not literal.