My birthday is two months from next Friday. I will be 74, the age my grandmother and also her elder daughter died. When my mom turned 80, I teased her that she hadn’t expected to live that long. She laughed and said it was true.
SEVENTY-FOUR
running
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My goal was to post once a week on Fridays. I had posted randomly, sometimes a few times in a week, sometimes a few times in a month. It seemed to me that reliability should count for something. Mostly often, I plan ahead; sometimes I write a post at the last minute. Like today.
LOOKING AHEAD
I have a cold and our building fire alarm woke me just after 4am this morning. I would have liked sleeping a bit longer. But since I was up and a neighbor sent me a link to his father’s obituary, I looked up my father’s obituary and found my grandfather’s obit and naturalization paper (I was 8 when he died, which explains why I have so few memories of him) and my great grandmother’s obit from 1918 in the Daily Astorian. He was 75; she was 60. My other great grandmother, Rosetha [Stiles] Pride was 90 when she died. The last time I tried searching for family, I didn’t get far. Now, if I cared to, it seems I could easily trace my entire family. Instead, I’m looking forward.
It’s hard to write about my recent decision without being depressing or sounding depressed. I’m coming to terms. A much more talented friend declared they were done writing, but they still write. A longtime friend sold their loom. Other friends purchased century plots. Someone moved into a retirement home that also offers assisted living. Planning ahead. My husband and I bought our little condo in a Portland neighborhood where we can walk everywhere, a place with view of sky, an elevator building with no requirement to climb stairs, a place where grocery stores are walking-distance and groceries can be delivered, where local restaurants are across the street and around the corner, and we talk to people in the building. Life goes on; sometimes differently. This is our next life.
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On Monday, Gary and I covered at least ten miles. I ran two of them. Wednesday I ran three miles and we walked. I scheduled a 3-mile run for this morning, but Gary wasn’t feeling well so I went out alone. I’d decided to run two miles instead of three. How many did I run? One. I came home and worked for a while, and then I lay down. I felt rotten too. We tested for Covid and that was negative, and we’re feeling better after hot showers.
I generally introduced assignments with a story, so here it is: Before we married, and while we were both students at the University of Washington, Gary and I managed a once-notorious apartment building in the University District known locally as Big Pink. The FBI and the Seattle Police came several times while we managed the building, but the last of the prostitutes had just left before we moved in, and the last drug dealer accidentally set fire to his kitchen soon after, so he was gone soon enough. This was in the early 1970s, and my memory is not entirely reliable, but what I’ll write what is still vivid and accurate.
CROSSING TO SAFETY
When I cross the street I look both ways, even when I’m in a crosswalk, even with there is a light telling me I may, and I look both ways even at a crossing of two one-way streets where I shouldn’t have to look. Drivers in the early morning aren’t always paying attention to someone like me.
People like me are concerned about where our country is headed, but first: Safety while running.
SAFETY
It’s May Day. I hope you find an opportunity to walk near a garden, into a garden, a place a little bit untamed, wild, and a place to find a quiet place to feel safe.
When I was a teenager, I used to sneak out of the house at night. I suppose a lot of teens did that back in the day. Maybe some still do. I didn’t sneak out to be with a boyfriend or any friend. I didn’t go to parties or score drugs. I walked to be alone and think. I went walking in the dark entirely by myself because I was miserable most of my high school years and walking in the dark was a comfort. I’d walk a few miles on the gravel shoulders of suburban roads and go home to bed.
Continue readingMY FAVORITE BIRD
Six months ago, Gary and I stopped drinking altogether. Gary tells people who ask that he stopped because I asked him to as a birthday present. Okay. Maybe. It saves money, spares us hangovers, and mostly preserves our minds. We would deal with the pile of diapers, the alcove deep in gin bottles, and the damage—the work cleaning up the mess in our rental ADU had only just begun. For years, Gary talked to our longtime tenant most every day, sometimes for an hour or more. He’d been afraid the man would kill someone or at least himself driving drunk. Fortunately, he survived. We finished the repairs and improvements right at the beginning of last month.
Yesterday, we disagreed about how far to walk before heading out for the day. I said four miles, Gary lobbied for two. We were a few hundred yards out when the hail began. If we’d waited ten or fifteen minutes, we wouldn’t have been wet by the time we scampered home!
I’m running a mile every other day now. Not easily, but I’m making quicker progress than I had any right to hope for. I started with a challenging half mile on the April Fool’s Day—yes, a joke on myself and also the anniversary of my first run decades ago. I’m starting from scratch—no condition at all. Last year, I injured my feet doing very long planks, and then again while on my hands and knees working on that rental. Gary pruned (butchered) the escalonia in order to give the new tenants a broader and clear view of the ocean. Apparently, they don’t look west and hadn’t noticed. sigh I’ve been walking daily but had been injured out for most of a year. At my age, “coming back” is not a given.
The other morning there was only the gale wind and a little rain. Tuesday, there was a “dust devil” in the sand just up shore from where we walked. We walked about four miles, all the way to the waterfall just south of Hug Point. The rain started right then and poured all the way home, right into our face with a full gale. A dead owl, we think, lay in the tideline, head naked, short and dark hooked beak, dark flight feathers well over 12″ long, barred tail. By the time we got home, we were soaked and cold, had oatmeal for breakfast, curry for dinner, and went to bed early. But this morning I managed my planned 1-mile run. Best I can tell, I’m managing miles in under 12 minutes, which is not bad considering everything. My realistic goal is a 5k run by August. My “secret hope” is to do the Bridge Crossing in October again. That’s a 10k, 6.2 miles, and usually bad weather, but I’ve done it several times. At least Gary I expect to do the Zoo walk/run in Portland on Thanksgiving—that ranges from a 5k to 6k, with no warning in advance of distance—and we can walk as much of it as we choose. I ran it last fall.
In the mean time, Gary is playing his guitar as I began writing this post on Wednesday morning. That alone could make me cry. It’s been too long, his fingers sore and cracked, but he rested after our soaking walk, and maybe he’s back. He’s taken each one out and tuned it, played a bit. He says his guitars are “not in bad shape. I don’t see any bad things.”
The focal fabric of my next quilt, “Otherland II”. This is a hand-dyed “batik” and I’ve studied on it for a couple of decades, maybe, trying to decide how to cut it. It’s just so gorgeous on its own. Last month, I thought I’d cut triangles—a design I’ll save—because this will zigzag.
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It’s a rare fabric, not stenciled or printed, but with both color and resist hand applied—spaced and dripped—and similar in process to the fabric in the quilt top waiting for quilting in my closet. I hope to be able to have this new quilt and the earlier “Otherland I”, below, machine quilted this summer.
In other news, I have chosen a press for self-publishing my novel. No money for it at the moment since it all went on repairs, but in the fall, perhaps. I am thinking of my birthday in October. A friend has given me notes on my ghost story, so there’s that to work on.
The sun is peaking through.
I RAN TODAY
I am aware this sounds like an April Fool’s joke, but it isn’t.
SUGGESTIONS for 2026
It’s New Years Day, the day we make promises to ourselves about how to have a good or better year. But I’m not making promises, only suggestions for myself. Here’s the short version:
- dress crazier
- watch what I eat
- vacation even if it’s just for the day
- walk long and run short distances, no hurry
- write and create objects to please myself
- try
In 2025: I went through dramatic changes with my novel, the most notable of which was sending back the advance, cutting it to 60k words, and recognizing that if it’s going to be published I will do that myself. We stopped drinking altogether in October as a result of observation of a friend’s disastrous decline. I injured my foot in May and recovered enough by November to run.
Gary and I quit drinking in October. He was having a beer or three each day, and I averaged a glass of wine. Then our tenant totaled his car and left his home in filth to go into assisted living—that was September and we’re still repairing the damage caused by incontinence, smoking and drinking, and neglect. We were surprised by how easy we found our choice to quit drinking, we don’t miss the alcohol or the hangovers, and we’ve noticed we’re saving more than a hundred dollars each month, which is particularly welcome.
The national news was mostly awful, but we are well.
One more personal suggestion for this coming year… I was once an eight-hours-sleep-a-night person. When I was still a child in the early 1960s, an article about sleep made me determined to get my eight hours of sleep each night, and I maintained that excellent habit all through college and parenting and teaching Art and English and writing. But in the 2000s, I found teaching while caring for my mother did not leave me much “free” time to write, so I deliberately cut an hour from my sleep schedule. Seven hours allowed me to write novels and complete an MFA, but I’m now down to an unhealthy six hours of sleep and I’m missing those other two hours.
I really want that sleep back, and I will be taking steps.
I’ll probably read at least 50 books in 2026 and worry too much. We’ll pick up litter on the beach, hopefully find someone to rent our rental, and visit family and friends. I’ll bake and cook and make stuff. Gary will do kindnesses, remember, listen to music, and garden. No promises, but we’ll try not to do anything stupid while staring into the face of fascism and maintaining some level of optimism because we are hopeful people.
May it be enough.
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ALL HALLOW
It’s the end of the month I turned 73, and we were busy with cleaning and walking; I’m running a mile at a time on the flat and writing and reading. There’s more. The basalt shore is stirred up along the edges and we’re finding things.
IMPERFECT PATIENCE 