Snovember

Throwback to an old Paint Drawing (miss you, MS Paint)

Yikes, it's November.  This was too fast this year, way too fast.  That quickness of time passing seems to come with age.  My grandmother used to say that "life is just galloping on!" which was confusing to us at the time, because her and my Grandfather used to mostly sit inside their house, make their meals, clean some things, and go to bed.  But that is how fast life starts to feel - by the time I wake up and drink a cup of coffee, the day is almost over.  What happened to the days when that chocolate advent calendar seemed to take forever to eat up?  I feel like I just finished one....

That is why, today, I am so happy that we fell back an hour. It feels like an hour has been added to my morning (even though it doesn't exactly work that way). One whole extra hour!! Hurrah! The tiniest little specks of snowflakes are drifting down through the sky. It's our first day of snow. Jordan is pretending that we're snowed in. This poem I came across illustrates the luxury of a peaceful morning:

“Any Morning”
by William Stafford

Just lying on the couch and being happy.
Only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head.
Trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has
so much to do in the world.

People who might judge are mostly asleep; they can’t
monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget.
When dawn flows over the hedge you can
get up and act busy.

Little corners like this, pieces of Heaven
left lying around, can be picked up and saved.
People won’t even see that you have them,
they are so light and easy to hide.

I love time and mornings and having time and mornings.  They have been hard to come by this year.  It's been a hard year, where I've never been so busy or worked so much in my life.  Carving out and protecting time for myself, with others, exploring, and creating, has been critical.  Luckily, my supervisor days will be over in less than a week (!) and I will be stepping back down into a much more manageable schedule with actual time off each week and each day.  I could not have made it through this year without those little pieces of heaven - such as swimming in the gorgeous outdoor pool at Juniper, watching Stranger Things, walks with Summer, planning getaways for days off, watching the unbelievable solar eclipse totality from Smith Rock, and time and trips with family and friends.  Here's another gem:

“Perfection, Perfection”

Killian McDonnell

I have had it with perfection.
I have packed my bags,
I am out of here.
Gone.

As certain as rain
will make you wet,
perfection will do you
in.

It droppeth not as dew
upon the summer grass
to give liberty and green
joy.

Perfection straineth out
the quality of mercy,
withers rapture at its
birth.

Before the battle is half begun,
cold probity thinks
it can’t be won, concedes the
war.

I’ve handed in my notice,
given back my keys,
signed my severance check, I
quit.

Hints I could have taken:
Even the perfect chiseled form of
Michelangelo’s radiant David
squints,

the Venus de Milo
has no arms,
the Liberty Bell is
cracked.

We had a long Winter this past year, followed by a mostly smoky Summer.  The whole state and the upper Northwest corner of the country were all on fire.  Autumn really helped redeem the great outdoors for us.  Autumn is always the reminder that there is beauty in endings - in wrapping up the season of growth - that last colorful, bold statement of nature before all goes quiet.  Exit the deciduous and welcome the conifers, holding down the arbor fort.  They say fire is healthy for a forest.  I am most certainly wrapping up that season of fire and growth and excited for what I hope are more quiet, thoughtful, and creative days ahead.

Red on Yellow

The Grand Larch

Dillon Falls

Along the Deschutes

Drake Park

Deschutes River

In our Neighborhood

Red on Red on Green

On Fire

Fire

The Glow Tree

Oeuvre

Tom McCall Nature Preserve, Columbia River Gorge

We were recently in Montreal for my brother's wedding and visited the art museum for an exhibition on Chagall.  In the exhibition the word "oeuvre" came up which is a word I felt I should know the meaning, but actually didn't - believing that it was related to "works" or "genre" or something like that.  It refers to the "complete works" of someone - which for Chagall was extensive, moreso that I realized. He was not only a painter, but a costume designer, sculptor, storybook illustrator, and stained glassed windows creator.  Throughout all his work, his style is obvious and identifiable as his own.  What I love is the persistence of our own essence throughout anything that we do, which we can't seem to escape.

I enjoyed this passage from The New Yorker that I read recently:

And I knew that if I told my mother how unhappy I was she would tell me to quit.  Then one day, alone in the kitchen with my father, I let drop a few whines about the job. I gave him details, examples of what was troubling me, yet although I saw him listen intently, I saw no sympathy in his eyes.  No "Oh, you poor thing." Perhaps he understood that what I wanted was a solution to the job, not an escape from it. In any case, he put down his cup of coffee and said, "Listen. You don't live there. You live here. With your people. Go to work. Get your money. And come on home."

That was what he said. This was what I heard:

1. Whatever the work is, do it well - not for the boss but for yourself.
2. You make the job; it doesn't make you.
3. Your real life is with us, your family.
4. You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.

I have worked for all sorts of people since then, geniuses and morons, quick-witted and dull, bighearted and narrow. I've had many kinds of jobs, but since that conversation with my father I have never considered the level of labor to be the measure of myself, and I have never placed the security of a job above the value of home.

- Toni Morrison, "The Work You Do, the Person You Are," The New Yorker

Feeling overworked these past few months, the above passage was reassuring.  Growing up and hearing that your work is supposed to be meaningful and fulfilling yet balancing that with the reality that sometimes a job is just plain work and you have to buckle down and get through it, can feel conflicting.  How much of my life do I give to this position and when and where do I put up walls?  I had been told that being a supervisor is a lifestyle and well, where is the home in that?

Enter, Glorious by Macklemore and a montage of recent photos that I like:

Columbia River Gorge

Punchbowl Falls

Summer on a little dog bed

Hiking up Black Butte

Three Fingered Jack

Mt. Jefferson

North Sister and Middle Sister

Mt. Washington

Black Butte Wildflowers

Don't know why I like this mid-jump pic...

Summer Dress

Hammock Time

Just that average sweet BBQ

Just some Summer BBQ

Cabin Fever

Play Me a Tune

It's a stare-down with the buds this week.

When. are. you. going. to. bloom.  I am watching for the initial gesture and have found it on one particular tree/bush that I walked by today: tiny pink flowers.  I saw it again on a couple other bushes: q-tip sized yellow dots.  There is always this seeming moment where suddenly everything has sprung and I am waiting to catch it.

Spring is the time of year that you sit outside despite the cold-ish temperatures.  This evening, we sat outside at El Sancho taco shop underneath the outdoor heaters and watched the thick gray swarming clouds blanket the mountains.  Half the sky had traces of baby blue while the other half was a gray watercolor disaster.

It's been a thick winter.  By thick, I mean work-heavy and living in the woods of work by which - when you finally get out of them - you cautiously utter, "I think we're out of the woods," fearing that the universe will hear you and shoot fire down on you.  I went for a massage today, after carrying the tension in every inch of my back, and departed with the massage therapist telling me that there was still so much work needing to be done.  She smiled eagerly to help me unknot every last fiber of my being - that had lived up to the metaphor of being stretched thin - by digging deep into the tenuous knottiness that are my back, shoulders, and neck.

I actually like the natural woods and am excited to return to them, once the weather tips the scale in favor of more Summer-ish temperatures.  I found this lovely poem here:

“Jailbreak”
by Maya Spector

It’s time to break out —
Jailbreak time.
Time to punch our way out of
the dark winter prison.
Lilacs are doing it
in sudden explosions of soft purple,
And the jasmine vines, and ranunculus, too.
There is no jailer powerful enough
to hold Spring contained.
Let that be a lesson.
Stop holding back the blossoming!
Quit shutting eyes and gritting teeth,
curling fingers into fists, hunching shoulders.
Lose your determination to remain unchanged.
All the forces of nature
want you to open,
Their gentle nudge carries behind it
the force of a flash flood.
Why make a cell your home
when the door is unlocked
and the garden is waiting for you?

Thank goodness for gardens, but it takes so much work to create them.  May it be time for the arts to flourish, the fighters, the females, the everything and everyone that makes this world different and beautiful.  

Jailbreak time. 

(closing video and thoughts from Sufjan Stevens)

Mug Time.

Ander and Buckley

Beverages

Foods

Birthday Girl

Raise the River!

Chillax

Birthday Gifts

Balloon Time

Balloon Time Part 2

Telephone Pictionary + Dog

Telephone Pictionary Part 2

Dogs + People

February Desert

January was the month of Cascadian snowshoeing.  February is the month of Southeastern desert.  We intentionally fled two hours out of town for short spurts when I had the rare of occasion of a day off.  The desert is full of s p a c e.  The sky and the land meet at one clean horizon line.  We sat in the warmth of the springs from the earth and felt the sun with those Scottish/Oregonian hills and mountains in the distance.  I tried to capture the gradient of the sky, pulling off on the side of the road after we passed dozens and dozens of jack rabbits scampering by the road.  

Someone recently told me that I have 

the 

right 

to 

take 

up 

space.  

May I take up that space and use it well, and you, too. 

Often we think of the wilderness as "out there," yet we all live in the wilderness - some areas of just more populated and built on than others.  It may be more the world of humans that distracts us from that nature - the chatter of who the next bachelorette is (what?!), work stress, family drama, politics.  There is that quote though, something about needing to spend time in the mountains in order cope with the world of people - escaping the chatter to reset and re-center.  There is something about staring into the mountains that gives my mind permission to rest.   

Jens Lekman has a new album, Life Will See You Now.  I'm just listening to it on repeat until I memorize the words:

To have a dream
A GPS in your heart
A path to follow
Through the dark
Well, Jens says, "I write songs sometimes
But they're kinda bad
So if that doesn't work out
I want to be a social worker just like my dad
I just want to listen to people's stories
Hear what they have to say"
My friends say, "Just be a shrink then"
But I don't know, I don't think I'll have the grades
But in a world of mouths
I want to be an ear
If there's a purpose to all this
Then that's why God put me here

(To Know Your Mission)

Another favorite, Hotwire the Ferris Wheel.  

We went out for breakfast yesterday morning, and sat by the fire pit while waiting for a table, me sipping on my coffee and Baileys.  The logs were smoldering and the fresh juniper scent was steaming up through the top.  Though we may live in the wilderness, we don't always get to see it.  There is something about the smell of smoke in my hair that reminds me what life is all about.