SLOWER

/ janpriddyoregon / 19 Comments

Before I thought of myself as a writer, I thought of myself as an artist—not incompatible identities. Among the many lessons I learned as a visual artist that also apply to literary arts: slow down. Wait. Wait. Wait. The eye (thought) moves faster than the hand on the page; you have to slow down so that the hand can keep up.

Thought is like that too. We can think 1300 words a minute. We can read a fraction of that and write even fewer. Everything jumps ahead of itself with the result that what we read or record skips like a pebble over a smooth pond. What we think we know and what is there, if we take time to look. All that water below… If we want to reveal it all, we must slow down to see it.

The gray gulls above are juveniles; the white-headed and breasted ones are adults. You might guess from this photo: there are a great many kids this year—more than half of those resting onshore. Forty-seven birds shown; seventeen are adults. Mist began yesterday on our shore and the air quality index began to drop. This morning the drizzle started and air quality became breathable throughout the western edges of the Pacific NW from the Willamette Valley north to Puget Sound, Portland to Seattle. I got my short two mile run this morning. Ballots arrived today. Our property tax info came in the mail and the RMV (real market value) of our home has been set at one and a third times what it was last year.
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FRESH BREAD

/ janpriddyoregon / 8 Comments

This is what happens when you bake weekly for almost three years. A high rounded loaf just the way you assumed it would come out of the oven. Without support beyond experience, bread is the result of healthy ingredients and practice. That’s the way life goes, I think. We work at it, do the best we can, and we eat what we take from the oven.

About 10″ across and 5″ tall, I “wind up” the dough to shape a loaf without a pan. It was baked in the middle of a flat pizza pan. (Even the Haystack loaves had special pans with short sides providing some support and structure.)

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SEVENTY

/ janpriddyoregon / 26 Comments

Yes, today I am a septuagenarian, seventy years old. (Please don’t say “seventy years young”—I find that too sticky-cute and somewhat insulting. I’ve earned my years.)

I made myself an applecake yesterday evening so that we could have it for breakfast after my run this morning. I used heritage pink apples gifted by a friend and the green ones that were in the crisper. I love baking and rarely have an excuse to bake other than bread, so this was fun. I made lemon curd the day before yesterday for a lemon pie this evening. We are having Dungeness crab mac&cheese for dinner and Gary has put a bottle of genuine Champagne in the fridge! Yes, it’s all about the food.
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HOMELESS

/ janpriddyoregon / 11 Comments

No answers, but some observations.

I’ve been irritated since the other day when Apartment Therapy did a feature on a perfectly serviceable walk-in closet remodel for a mere $4500 (wallpaper, paint, cabinets), plus the two chandeliers that a commenter found cost $2k, each. Yes, the newly redone closet looks very nice, but it’s a closet and not even one of those bedrooms redone as a closet with space in the middle to sit down, just a fair-sized walk-in closet. Some people become creative in divesting themselves of too much money.

I bought art. Because artists need support.

So do others.

“Homeless” people and encampments are all over Portland, and Seattle is rumored to be worse. I had no idea Los Angeles considered itself the epicenter. “Sam Quinones traces the recent epidemic of homelessness in western states, the one marked by meth abuse and tents, to LA’s Skid Row.“

Gary took this photo of a seagull poop because he thought it looked like an egg, sunny side up.
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RUNNING A RACE

/ janpriddyoregon / 16 Comments

The Great Columbia Crossing, a 10k run mostly on the Megler Bridge, limited entries this year to 3,500. It filled last month. We started on the Washington side at Dismal Nitch, ran west a mile to the first suspension section on the north side of the Columbia River, over that and then south three miles on the flat portion which is really not a “bridge” by my reconning. It is an elevated two-lane highway. Then the highway tips upward for a killing hill (okay, killing for me—I could not run that hill 20 years ago and not today either) and over the suspension bridge on the Oregon side, down a long curved ramp and a final mile or so, west and east, at the Port of Astoria.

I’d run it before, meaning to take my time, but hustling in the face of the crush. I had much the same intentions of not hurrying this morning. I would not run that awful hill in the fifth mile. I would not.

Before the start at Dismal Nitch on the Washington side of the Columbia River. Andrew is a former student who graduated with my older son in 1998. He recognized me first. Another student Nora (SHS 1996) ran up and gave me a hug before the start. I saw each of them again on the Washington side in my last half mile! (Andrew’s photo with his girlfriend at right)
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CLEANING HOUSE, pt. 2

/ janpriddyoregon / 4 Comments

One day I only sorted a single box, the next day I powered through six. Negatives and family photos defy intentions. Nevertheless, I have made progress even during a “Very Bad Week.”

My grandfather’s canes and my dad’s fishing poles remain undisturbed, but the stacks of boxes on the bed are gone, and some of what was stashed on the floor too. The Kitchen Queen in the far corner will be leaving the building, because it can. It is a handsome piece, but no longer fits in our kitchen and does not belong in this bedroom. (Anyone?) The pew is barely visible against the taller windows. It will find its new place once the kitchen furniture moves out, probably next week. I returned new bedding I bought last week. The linen closet is already too full.

My upcoming 10k, diet, and writing. A body and a cherry pitter. Regaining control?

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CLEANING HOUSE, pt. 1

/ janpriddyoregon / 12 Comments

A few days ago I ran five miles and began sorting boxes. Gary emptied the attics last month. Six months ago I began running again. Two years ago I decided enough was enough and I would eat better and lose some weight. We began isolating from Covid in March 2020.

All the boxes stored in the north and south attic went into the largest bedroom. Then we emptied the huge closet in that room and everything from under the bed came out.

I’d already sorted six boxes before taking this “before” photo. The canes hanging from the tester were my grandfather’s. There are leash sticks for a wider loom than I have stacked at right, plus two of my dad’s fishing poles, leftover fabric from upholstering two chairs, empty boxes from Starbucks that are nearly vintage, and boxed Christmas ornaments. Six huge tubs of family photos and negatives are not even visible.
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CALM DOWN

/ janpriddyoregon / 11 Comments

Maybe I should keep it to myself. But no, that would not do. I read most of it aloud to Gary. Then I composed an email, but kept adding to the Bcc. So here. Here it is. It’s unlikely that any (none?) of my family will read it, but sending it as a link in an email probably wouldn’t change that.*

I am calm in desperate situations, sometimes passionate in discussion, but quiet at my core under stress. Pressing down fear, anger, frustration, and other emotion in fraught situations is almost automatic. (Most people who think they have seen me angry have no idea.*) I learned to suppress those emotions when I was being teased, bullied, and otherwise harassed in childhood and adolescence. It is a skill I have fallen back on throughout my life when dealing with mentally ill relatives and grief. And injustice every darned day.

All my life I have vowed to fight the good fight. And if I have had little impact on my world, it is not from lack of trying.
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BLUE DOT

/ janpriddyoregon / 14 Comments

A friend of mine, someone I know only through our mutual blog posts and a handful of emails, the exchanges of notebooks and weaving… lives in a deeply red community of a deeply red southern state, the one blue dot in a red sea. She has found herself in situations where people say what seem such outrageous things that she is too flabbergasted to respond and in situations where she knows she is being deliberately baited. Walking around blue becomes an act of courage.

I get that.

This is probably not the best way to come back from a month of silence. I meant to write about wood carving and jam jars and a train ride, our bivalent booster and books. I’ve started that post. Instead…

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