While sitting here in my chair by the open door, suddenly the scent of rain hit me and I lifted my head to look outside to see that it was pouring. We were expecting a storm with thunder and lightening… the precursor to rain all week long.
I’m so happy, otherwise if we don’t get enough rain in Oregon and Washington we are going to be on fire this summer. Blessed rain. This is the Pacific Northwest and I am not a stranger to rain nor to thunderstorms.
Though I have lived where there was big sky, there’s something about being four stories up where you feel like you could touch the sky. I’m not just four stories up, I am on a knoll on the side of Rocky Butte… an extinct volcano cone.
My view is mostly sky but it’s even broader than that. Stretching up to the sky are giant Douglas fir and deciduous trees of all kinds including the beautiful spring blossoming cherry and plum. It’s been a spectacular spring.
But beyond that, I can see busy Sandy Boulevard and beyond to the airport and beyond that to the Columbia River and even beyond that into Washington. Then the eye travels up into the sky.
Really, I think besides not having to pay utilities, I moved into this small apartment because of the view. The living room wall is mostly glass leading to a Juliet balcony. My view is unobstructed.
Though there is nature all around, which includes the heavily forested Grotto next door and the Rocky Butte Nature Park, the sounds of traffic and of the airport creates an urban soundgarden.
From my favorite chair at the door, I watch hawks and crows and every kind of small bird… some even land on the railing of my balcony. This panorama makes me wish I had my mom’s old binoculars.
But what holds my attention most is the sky. From my vantage point, I have been watching some of the most spectacular Portland sunsets that I’ve been privileged to witness. I’ve always lived, while in Portland, on the city streets and we’re surrounded by hills. So to the East and to the West we rarely see the sunsets and the sunrises except for the amazing colors reflected up onto the clouds.
That is not to say that we don’t have stunning sunsets because we do but there’s something about being up higher that changes the view. One’s perspective is altered.
So back to Friday’s sky and the storms. Most of you who know me, know that I’m afraid of everything. And nothing more pronounced and intense than of nature.
Quoting Georgia O’Keeffe, I have been absolutely terrified every moment of my life… and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I have wanted to do. Because I have felt this way for most of my life, it has been such a comfort to read such a quote from an artist that I so admire.
I have been bold and brave. I survived two illnesses that nearly killed me and yet I have hiked up mountains, swam in the ocean and big rivers, ridden mountain bikes, I’ve traveled alone throughout Mexico, and attended four universities and had an exciting career. And yet fear was my constant companion.
For the first time I think, I felt fear of the sky yesterday night. The black clouds came out of the North, dragging curtains of heavy rain, darkening what had been a sunny day. They came in low towards me roiling and lumbering appearing like angry giants. Out towards the West there was a line of clear sky over the hills where lightning flashed repeatedly.
Those dark entities seemed creature like or perhaps more like wild spirits. But too heavy to be ghost or spirit like. More like giants whose arms and hands could reach down through the clouds to carry one away. I stood my ground, not looking away but marveling at their power as they seemed likely to soon engulf my house.
I was mesmerized and watched the clouds and the pouring rain until night came on, melding Darkness with Darkness, and until all that was left was the flashing light out over the West Hills, too far away to be audible.
Did those creatures carrying their cloaks of grey and the blackest clouds think of me as bold and brave as I stood my ground against them? I believe it’s possible.
As you would know if you follow my blog, when I moved from our large four-story house, repleat with our dog, Yum Yum and our two cats, Eris and Fran Ham, I brought Fran Ham with me to live in my small apartment.
Fran Ham is a very lovely cat. She’s big, not unusually so, but enough so that her nickname is “Chonky”. As you can see from the photo, she is a medium-haired tabby. She wears white stockings and a white dicky but the rest of her is a lovely gray and golden and black coat of distinctive patterns.
She is very affectionate and loves to sit on one’s lap and talks incessantly in kind of a high squeaky chatter, and will follow one anywhere never stopping to take a breath. It seems she has much to report.
She’s very insistent about her meal schedule and lets you know, in no uncertain terms, that breakfast, lunch, 3:00 pm high tea, dinner, and before-bedtime snacks are due. She does this by, instead of her high-pitched conversational tone, she begins to wail quite loudly, walking, one might say insistently, between the refrigerator, her bowl, all the while, circling your legs. She is not to be denied.
When she came to us from a sister of a friend, she had been leash trained and box trained and was strictly an indoor cat. But being the people that we are, we did not deny her access to the outdoors through the cat door from the very beginning. She was well-mannered and came and went at will and never wandered far from the yard.
Though Eris, tiny warrior cat, was brought home first from the Humane Society (in an attempt to clear out the mice in the attic, which she promptly did), Fran Ham wanted to be Top Dog. Right away she started slapping Eris around, hiding and stalking her, jumping out of corners and pouncing from tables causing a terrible racket. Such a cat fight you have never heard.
Eris…Tiny warrior catEris… After a mouse
Fran Ham won. To our chagrin Eris acquiesced. She began to walk along the perimeters of the rooms and gave up her favorite sleeping places and even gave up her food before she was finished. But she never stopped being the warrior kitty. She continued to bring in mostly mice and the occasional large rat that stalked our neighbor’s chicken coops.
Eris is tiny with large green eyes, a pink nose, a pink mouth with long sharp dagger like teeth and has never grown larger than a kitten. Why she gave in to Fran Ham is beyond me. Maybe it was the size differential and that was all.
So now the cats no longer cohabitate. From what I’ve seen and from what Hannah says, Eris is a much happier cat now that she doesn’t have to contend with Fran Ham jumping on her and slapping her and taking her food and bogarting her way into Eris’s favorite sleeping places.
But it was sadly certain that in the first month of living with only me, no other members of the family, and no dog, and no access to the outdoors, that Fran Ham was lonely and not the happy contented cat that she was. And perhaps she also missed tormenting Eris.
At times Franny would lie in my arms and look at me with the most forlorn look in her eyes. But there was naught to do since we were in the same boat, having moved away from home and family. I’m sure she saw that same look on my face.
It’s been over 2 months now and we are slowly adjusting. But curiously, when family comes to visit or when anybody comes into the apartment, Fran goes under the bed and refuses to come out. There’s only one exception and that is if Ancel (geandson) comes over on his own and the two of them greet each other with great affection.
I too, Fran Ham, get misty-eyed after a visit with family. But one thing is certain, that I am glad to have you as my companion. We’ll be fine.
I’ve been noticing what I thought was a toxic chemical smell since moving into my new apartment… I thought. That was my first mistake.
I thought it was coming from my refrigerator like “freon” or something. Like a responsible tenant, I put in a work order for the maintenance guys to come up and take a look.
One guy came in and said he could kind of smell something. But it wasn’t the refrigerator, he assured me.
He sent up the main maintenance guy and the head staff person, clipboard in hand. After pulling the refrigerator out from the wall and opening all the cabinets and closets, they also said they couldn’t smell anything but thought that perhaps it was my plethora of jars of herbs and spices.
So they sent up another staff member, head financial officer, who they said has a better sense of smell. She said, “What I’m smelling is something like old fruit, you know when it begins to decompose”. I said, “No possible way, everything I have is fresh”.
She kept looking around, not willing to give up. Finally she opened up one of my vegetable drawers and sure enough, when she moved my bag of lemons, they were rotting, molding and off-gassing.
Well, as you might imagine, I was embarrassed. From what I could see looking into that drawer, they were fine. I swore everything in my refrigerator was fresh. But obviously not. They were busy hiding a secret. How could I have missed this?
There’s still some residual odor but I’ll make sure that it’s just the lemons. Because to me it smelled like a chemical. I even claimed the smell was giving me a headache.
Of course, fruit, when it off-gases and ferments, puts off a chemical smell, like ammonia. It’s definitely a chemical process. Right?
The worst part of this is that I alerted the entire staff of the apartment facility. All but the leasing agent showed up. I can just hear them now, “You know that new tenant? Did you hear what she did?” I’m probably marked as “that crazy person in #409”.
I’ll laugh about this later but right now it doesn’t seem so funny.
I most definitely must resist texting friends and family about mundane daily thoughts and happenings so as not to bore them.
I woke today almost at noon after falling asleep after 4 am. I had a sleepless night, thanks to chocolate. I never worry at this. I know I can sleep eventually. And so I listen to meditations, wisdom talkers and utter foolishness.
I found that sleeping in the early morning hours until late morning are some of my most valued times of deep rest. The dreams are more vivid and profound. I seem to go deeply, deeply asleep and am not easily woke. I wake with a sense of deep rest, my body relaxed, maybe even a little bit out of body and refreshed.
I wake hungry and look forward to my first cup of coffee of the day. I’m anxious to check in on social media to see if anyone has something to say about anything. I wonder if anyone is wondering about me,
I wonder if I’ve had a call or a text asking if I’m over the flu, how the unpacking is going and if I’m feeling settled yet, if I’m ready yet to meet for lunch and checking if I’m ready to go back to the pool anytime soon.
My first thought is to text somebody, and to say, ” I couldn’t sleep last night, so I just woke up and it’s already past noon.” I want to tell them that I’m planning on unpacking more dishes today. But perhaps these aren’t the things that people look forward to reading.
Then, why are these the things I want to share? I want to tell somebody that the blue sky is mottled with soft scattered clouds of beige and grey, that I can see the hills beyond the river.
I want to tell somebody that it’s imbolc, and actually there are already the first signs of spring. That I’ve given up insisting that spring comes only on a certain calendar date and not before, in spite of what my eyes tell me.
I want to share with someone that the palm I brought home from Arizona is living, and that a hummingbird came to my door. I want to explain that I’m still not knitting. I want to say that I’m too tired from moving.
And there are thousands of other things I want to share. And so dear reader, you are my someone with whom I can share these thousand and one things.
I hope you don’t mind my sharing of small things, of this, that and the other thing. I hope it brings you closer to the meaning of life. That it is these small things that make up a life.
So, feel free to share with me, dear friend, your small things. I’m waiting to hear them.
After 13 years of living together with my daughter in a big old house in NE Portland, with my two grandchildren, it’s time for us to part ways. The children are grown and my daughter is seeking her freedom.
If it were plausible and possible, I would stay here for the rest of my life. But now that I’m 77 years old, it’s time for me to have found cheaper digs and fewer stairs.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’m full of trepidation about my physical well – being. I survived polio at 5 years old that left me with a weak right arm, the deltoid not having survived the paralysis. I also survived a terrible bout with cancer and 8 months of chemo when I was 56 years old. One does not escape cancer or chemo unscathed.
I’ve had a very eventful and adventurous life. I went full bore into it. Because of this, my body, my soul, my head and my heart are full of memories. I realize now that there are fewer years ahead of me than are behind me and I fully enjoy reminiscing and writing about my life.
I have said this before and I’ll say it again. I’m not afraid of dying, but I am afraid of living. Age is taking its toll on me with crackling joints and weakening muscles, a slower and less elegant gait and increasing girth.
I understand fully our vulnerability. We are assailed on all sides by decline and a world made very scary by other humans, natural disasters and accidents and by other living things and the intervention of technology. But I have lived bravely and brightly.
So because of my age, I admit to some fear about moving on my own into unfamiliar territory and at this age, when I am not in my prime… not even close to it. And we are living in uncertain times. Let’s not get into politics, except to say:
I would be foolish to not wonder if this country will continue to support me with MY Social Security and MY retirement fund, which I have earned and are not a hand out from the government.
What began this story was when a friend asked if I were worried about my daughter going basically on her own without children and without me. I responded with a resounding, NO! and here’s why:
At her age, I had been divorced. Had started going to university. Spent a year in Mexico, including a semester at the University of Queretero and traveled throughout Mexico with the curator of the Museum of Art of the same cty.
Upon returning I had an amazing 3 year affair with a beautiful Cuban. Moved to Tallahassee on a fellowship, traveled cross country on a train. I found shortly after one semester that the deep south was not for me.
So I moved to Santa Monica to attend UCLA on another fellowship. By that time, I had finished 11 years of university at 5 different schools. I moved back to Portland and started a beautiful career at OHSU as their first and only professional archivist, retiring after 16 years.
When I moved back to Portland, I moved my mother in with me. Fell for an Indian Sikh. Had cancer and survived surgery, and 8 months of chemo. My mother and I lived together 8 years when she passed away. She stayed at home with me until the day she passed.
Since moving back to Portland, I had moved 4 times by the time I moved in here with my daughter. And now, here I am, moving again, not totally by choice.
So do I have any worries concerning my daughter?
She is made up of the same stuff as I am and maybe more. It’s her story so without giving any detail, I will just say, she got her massage therapy license while she raised two children alone and finished her BS degree. She’s now Spa Drector where she has worked as lead therapist for 14 years. She supports herself. She’s physically healthy and strong.
Nope, I’m not worried about her at all, any more than any mother would. For sure this is more about me than about her. But when my friend asked, if I was worried about this time of change, it caused me to reflect on life. Actually, I look forward to hearing about her adventures from here on out, about her brave and bright life.
I wanted to tell you something just in case I forget. It was New Year’s Eve and…
we were out on the sidewalk about to get in the car to drive to a party. We were stopped in our tracks and we quickly hushed. Was that an owl? Yes. It had to be a big owl because it had a very big voice and its message was urgent, if I might extrapolate. It was in the fir tree next door to our house.
I was surprised because I hear owls all the time in our yard, but they’re small owls. Neighbors have been able to catch photos of them but I have only heard them on *Merlin. We live just blocks away from a large park where predator birds are regularly seen.
This might have been a forewarning of what was to come at the party that evening.
The story is about crows and owls and not the disturbing occurrence at the party that night. But there was a huge upset that evening. We left the party early. I didn’t think of the owl’s presence and warning until days later.
On our way home, we drove downtown to look at the Christmas lights and the street parties going on. Cafes, bars and restaurants were in full party mode. People filled the sidewalks and were walking al】nd standing in the streets as music emanated from indoors.
The annual Christmas tree in the square was lit up and probably could have been seen from space. The theaters were emptying out after shows onto the streets.
In the square, live music was playing, and it was packed out with people streaming in, dancing and laughing and talking. Everyone was in a party mood.
On every street corner, there were people selling the most amazing lights suspended on poles. They looked like giant dandelion seed heads of iridescent colors swinging in the night air.
In spite of the upset at the party, the night ended well. When we got home, we made mimosas and stayed awake until the clock struck midnight and we welcomed in 2026.
I didn’t think again about the owl until the day before yesterday, I woke early in the morning just at daybreak and looked about a block away at a very, very large deciduous tree. The entire tree was covered in crows. I mean covered. More ornamental than bobbles on a christmas tree.
More crows were attempting to land on the tree but there wasn’t much room, so an occasional displaced crow would fly into the sky while another landed. Suddenly, the sky was filled with crows, heading for that tree from the east.
There were hundreds of crows in the sky, and the crows on the tree flew up into the air as well, turning the sky almost black with a riotous noise of crowing.
At the time, I couldn’t imagine what might be going on that there was such a gathering. Was it an event of the local groups of murders? Was it something in the air, at a specific date and time? Was this an ominous warning from the crows that I should be paying attention to?
All of a sudden and all at once:
they headed towards our yard and like a black cloud they landed in the maple tree next door to our shed and in the maple in our yard. It was mind blowing, to say the least.
What I didn’t know was that Hannah was outside, under this huge flight of crows, so she had a better view of what was really going on.
In the maple tree was a gigantic owl. Could it be the same one that had been warning us on new year’s eve? As the crows came in for a landing, the owl stretched its huge wing span and took to the sky.
Hannah swears that the crows were chasing the owl out of their territory. As the owl took off, the crows lifted from the trees where they had landed and soon vanished.
It was absolutely amazing. I know the Audubon says that we need to accept the crows as the new urban bird. But I’ve struggled with that because they do eat the eggs of our song birds. But it was both beautiful and frightening… ominous.
I’m so glad I woke to see it.
* Merlin is a free bird ID app by Cornell Lab of Ornithology
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