List of posts

  • PASSPORTS + FIELD TRIALS

      We went to Canada last month for two nights. It was a lovely time, made lovelier, I suspect, because we took no photos and accomplished nothing but rest of the best sort: we ate well, walked, napped, and read. The point was to use our passports, that were a week or two shy of…

    Read more

  • THRASHED

    THRASHED

    I thrashed the kitchen the other day and Gary had to clean it. It’s what he does most days. It had been hard that day. His brother called to complain and then hung up on him. This brother doesn’t like Oregon’s Governor Brown and believes Hitler went to Brazil, and worries that Gary is “leftwing.”…

    Read more

  • COLOR BLIND

    COLOR BLIND

    The online test was supposed to diagnose my ability to see colors. I stared at the screen and searched for the number hidden in a forest of little circles. I passed that one. I am not color blind. Then, a few days ago I took one that was supposed to identify a minority of humans…

    Read more

  • PUBLIC COMMENT

    PUBLIC COMMENT

      We found a 10-day-old parking ticket from Portland the other day. Often the plastic trash we find has baby barnacles. It’s been out in the water a long time before we collect it. It’s not the only thing and west is not the only direction. We get our water from the Coast Range. “Here’s…

    Read more

  • THE GRIEF EXCEPTION

    THE GRIEF EXCEPTION

    First, a confession. I am moody. I sometimes suffer from sadness and depression and anxiety. I have, as an example, seriously worried about overpopulation as if it were my personal problem to solve. I can recall lying awake at night, stewing about starvation and disease and the loss of wild places. I can recall standing…

    Read more

  • POETRY + 10

    POETRY + 10

    A friend has posted news of a Texas charter middle school that asked students to brainstorm a “balanced” list of the pros and cons of slavery. This is what is meant by “false equivalency”. All I can think of on the pro side? I am not on that side. On the con side, slave owners…

    Read more

  • PLOVERS, WHITE CLAY, AND SAND

    We drove down the coast, past the place where, last summer, we watched the equinox spread waves of chasing light across the ground. It was a privilege for us to get away, we who rarely vacation and have generally been extravagant only about music and books and art. We drove south to have a night…

    Read more

  • HOUSE OF ORANGE

    HOUSE OF ORANGE

      My friend is mourning a cedar tree she passes each day on her way to work. The droopy foliage has abruptly turned orange, an indication the tree has died, perhaps of infection with cedar apple rust or another disease or just due to a peculiarly hot and dry summer. I don’t know the tree…

    Read more

  • NOSTALGIA

    NOSTALGIA

    [CLICK TITLE TO READ MORE] I made my youngest grandchild a birthday cake for her party today. She is two years old. I also made a 2-year-old quilt, something I also did for each of her cousins. Pink is her favorite color. For now. The quilt is cotton with a cotton filling and a pieced backing that…

    Read more

  • THE LAST CHANCE

    THE LAST CHANCE

    [CLICK TITLE TO READ MORE] Just now, sitting up in bed, I have already updated my progress on Ursula K. Le Guin’s last book No Time to Spare. Le Guin ruminates about, among other things such as her cat and overpopulation, the meaning of spare time. Here I have to stop for a moment. Through…

    Read more