Spring
Most people are surprised to learn that two-thirds of Oregon is high desert, filled with sage brush and juniper trees and rocky scrabble. East of the Cascade mountains, you get into landscapes and plant life that remind me a lot of the areas of Colorado where I grew up.
West of the Cascades, however, in the verdant Willamette Valley where I now live, it’s a very different story. Here, we get rain, and lots of it. I knew this when I moved to Oregon to go to college thirty years ago, and this fact was one of the the area’s most appealing features. I had visions of walking with cute umbrellas and rain boots, sipping tea while reading by a cozy fire. I knew that ivy-covered hillsides, flowering evergreens, clean air, and year-round green grass owed their existence to lots and lots of rain.
Which is all well and good, unless you’ve lived in the Willamette Valley over the past couple of months, in which case you slowly go, as my good friend Elizabeth says, stark raving mad. In the month of March, we had record levels of rain, making it the wettest March in over fifty years. Some days, walking around under looming dark clouds in a wash of grey mist, you just want to punch something. And still, all we seem to be able to talk about is how much it’s been raining, as if we all don’t already know. We are smack in the midst of that awkward time when we are still months away from summer (which usually arrives on July 5th), but can’t really remember the glorious crimson leaves and crisp sunshine of the past autumn. It all feels pretty bleak.
There was a moment this week, however, that caught me by surprise. I was walking from my car to the front door of my house, glad that the rain seemed to have stopped for a moment. The sun broke through the clouds and I paused to appreciate the way it lit up the dripping, green plants in my front yard. From a distance, the gardens still seem sparse and colorless. The trees haven’t leafed out and it’s too early for the blazing colors of azaleas and rhododendrons that will arrive in a few weeks. Still, if I looked closely, I could see signs of life peaking through. Flowering trees—pear and star magnolias—sent out scented blossoms, white and fragile.
Fern fronds broke through the bark-dust covered ground, beginning to unfurl, their spiraled tips geometric and gorgeous. The color green, an Oregon staple even in winter, was refreshed by the arrival of new grass.
The delicate pink petals of false begonia that border my sidewalk will be gone in weeks, soon to be replaced by the more vivid, saturated blooms of summer flowers. They are easy to overlook, as are the carpets of tiny grape hyacinths.
None of these early ambassadors of spring shout or demand your attention. It’s easy to make a mad rush from building to building to avoid the dripping weather. After a bleak, dark winter, it’s easy to forget that you’ve ever seen the sun or will be likely to see it again. Fortunately, Doug went out into the front yard and documented everything in the photos you see here. It did me good to notice. Maybe—just maybe—I can make it until summer. By then I’ll be able to appreciate the wonderful things rain brings to my life.
But give me a few days….
Breathing Lessons
The vacation was over, the holiday done. This week, I returned home, unpacked my suitcase, and set about dealing with the inevitable return to normal life. It’s been very cold lately, even for an Oregon winter, and I’ve been bundling up in turtleneck sweaters and thick socks. I’ve been drinking hot beverages.
I’ve also been a little bit anxious and unsettled, trying not to panic over piles of unopened mail on my desk or my growing To Do List. I shuddered when I opened my email inbox.
So what did I do? I went out for coffee. To Peet’s, with Doug. I ordered a medium, non-fat latte in a ceramic mug. Many of the people who work at Peet’s seemed happy to see us and welcomed us warmly.
After draining our cups, we decided to take a long walk. We have several routes we often follow, but chose instead to walk down to a new park in our town that runs along the banks of the Willamette River. I say “new.” The park has been there for many years, but we had not yet taken the time to see it.
Down the hill we walked, crunching through fallen autumn leaves. I pulled up the collar of my coat and buried my hands deep in my pockets. I noticed the steam rising off the surface of the river, the water warmer than the air.
The park was silent and deserted. Our only company was a flock of geese that settled on a grassy field. Even they were quiet. I felt something inside me start to settle and shift. Ahhh.
And then, at the end of the path, we came upon a circle of tall basalt pillars–I think they’re called steles. It was a sculpture commemorating the poetry of William Stafford, a man who lived and taught in the area for much of his life, a Poet Laureate, and a favorite son of my city. He died in 1993, but his work has captured the attention of our community, and I am deeply moved my much of his poetry.
Most of these pillars–I’ll call them the Stafford Stones–were polished on one surface and engraved with sentences, fragments really, of Stafford’s poetry. Things like:
“The river keeps looking for the perfect stone” or
“Oregon is insanely green. It is the thin light left over from Eden” or, my favorite,
“The stream is always revising. Water is always ready to learn.”
One pillar didn’t have a polished side. Instead, words were cut into the rough surface, sentences circling the stone itself. I had to walk around and around the stone to read:
Before you have your dreams, your dreams have you. I turn my eyes carefully. I am loyal to the place where I happen to live.
At that moment, I certainly felt loyal to this small city of mine, to the people in this place who thought it was a good idea to create this oasis of words.
There was one pillar, however, the polished side of which carried a longer poem. Its title literally beckoned me. I stepped up before it:
In case you can’t make out the photograph, it reads:
You Reading This, Be Ready
Starting here, what do you want to remember? How sunlight creeps along a shining floor? What scent of old wood hovers, what softened sound from outside fills the air? Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect that you carry wherever you go right now? Are you waiting for time to show you some better thoughts? When you turn around, starting here, lift this new glimpse that you found, carry into evening all that you want from this day. This interval you spent reading or hearing this, keep it for life– What can anyone give you greater than now, starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?
The poem, from the Stafford book, The Way It Is, stunned me. I stood before the stone, stilled. Everything in me circled and swirled at my feet, and quieted. Notice this moment, a voice said. Feel how cold your face is, your fingers. Feel how the breeze coming up off the river ruffles your hair. Hear the rustling of small birds in the barren bushes at your feet. See the pebbled path. Slow down and pay attention. It doesn’t get better than this.
I breathed air deeply into my lungs and let it all out. The tensions of a frazzled morning slipped and fell away. I had already witnessed miracles that day: a warm cup of coffee with my husband, a welcoming community of baristas who are also friends, a crisp Oregon day with no rain, the black and white beauty of winter geese, a quiet park all to myself. I had been ready to overlook them all. Instead, this poem slowed me down long enough to see.
I don’t need “better thoughts.” There is no better gift I can give the world than my breathing, respectful attention.
Pieces of a Christmas Village, by Sarah Burke, age 14
It is getting close to the holidays. Just about the right time for traditions to come stretch their legs. Everyone has a tradition of some sort. Whether it is as small as getting a new ornament for the tree every year, or as large as having a wreath decorating party, it brings people together.
One tradition in my family is my favorite: setting up the Christmas village. For thirty or forty minutes each year everyone would drop what they were doing and come help. Being a large family of six, we all took turns picking a piece and adding it to the empty village, consisting of a church, bakery, flower shop, etc., set up by Mom and my sister Katherine beforehand. We were usually pretty cooperative about which piece each person set up. If there was a piece that someone had his or her heart set on, the rest would leave it alone. There were a couple of pieces that were put up by the same person every year, and earned the name as that person’s piece. Kate had the boy pulled on a sleigh by a dog, Katherine the couple sitting on a bench, and I had the marching band, which I would say counted as my next three turns. Sam never really got his trademark piece, mostly because he was always open to giving someone else the piece they wanted. He was always the one to ask if Mom or Dad would like to put up the girl building a snowman, or the couple shopping, most likely feeling bad that they were stuck putting up the trees, lamp posts, and the mailbox every year.
After a few years though, the tradition changed. Katherine went off to college and was not home to put up the village, and Sam and Kate were in Kansas during the Christmas decorating time (mostly because I did not want to wait any longer). Even now though, some things are the same. The houses are in the same order, it still takes twenty or thirty minutes, a little faster but still time consuming, and each piece still has its reminder.
A few days ago my mom and I had finished putting up the houses and fake snow. Once done with that my mom went on to something else, but I stayed and put up the little pieces that I once had to share with my siblings. Sticking to tradition, I put up the ones that I put up every year, back when it was all four of us instead of one. When I came to the pieces that my siblings had put up though, it felt weird for me to do so, like I was intruding on something. I realized that it was the tradition, of each of us having our own pieces. When I picked up the boy being pulled on a sleigh by a dog, I immediately thought of Kate and a few memories of past traditions popped into my brain. Setting the couple sitting on a bench, I remembered Katherine setting them on several benches before deciding on the one by the pond. Each piece had its own memory, and each piece had its own meaning.
I do not know why traditions are so important to me. I remember freaking out at my mom when she suggested that we not continue one of our traditions. I think for me being separate from my siblings, the main factor is that all of my favorite traditions consisted of when all six members of our family were together. There were a couple of moments that were sure times of getting to spend time with Sam, Kate, and Katherine, knowing that they would not change and that they all have their memories. Something that I have realized now though is that traditions are not about never changing, they are about making memories that will last forever. And no matter how big or small a tradition is it creates memories. Traditions change, people get added and subtracted, pieces get broken, locations change, some end and some start when families grow and change. But even if a tradition ends, the memories last forever.
The Last Summer Together, by Sarah Burke, age 12
All you could hear was the sound of three coins filled with wishes dropping into the water. The splash making droplets of water rise into the air and hit three girls standing, backs turned, eyes closed, next to the fountain. We turned around and laughed.
My whole life I’ve seen pictures of Italy, the lights, the hills, and the Trevi Fountain. In each one I saw people, smiling or laughing. Finally, I got my chance to be in one.
We started in Rome, moving to Florence after five days of sight seeing. After that we did a day visit to Pisa, then spent a few days in Venice, Lake Como, for a break from the sights, then we flew out of Milan for a total of seventeen days in Italy. In every city we got gelato. After all, when in Rome, do as the Romans do!
The “gelateria,” down a narrow alley near the Trevi fountain, was small, but cute with its yellow tiled walls. We didn’t care, all we wanted was the gelato. After ordering with strange Italian words we heard a familiar song on the radio. It was, “You’re the One That I Want” from the movie Grease. My sister Katherine, hearing the song, leaped out of her chair like a frog, and started singing and dancing along to the music. Before I knew it, my other sister Kate and I were up there with her while my brother Sam laughed with us on the sidelines. The storeowner turned up the music for the excited American tourists. Then the moment froze. I looked around, there were my sisters laughing and having fun, not caring if they were making fools of themselves. People were watching, but judging by the smiles on their faces they seemed to find us entertaining. By the time the scene burst into life the song was over. So we sat down on the barstools with our family and ate our gelato. The storeowner turned the music back down as bystanders carried on with what they were doing. But the three of us smiled at each other, knowing this moment would stick with us forever.
Now, a year later, with Katherine and Sam in college and Kate in High School in Kansas, we are four kids in four different states. I realize that when we left the United States we were only siblings, but after coming home, we were friends. Spending two and half weeks in a foreign country with no electronics, no cars, and no distractions brings everyone closer together. It helped us start long-term relationships with each other no matter what the distance was between us. It didn’t matter that we never saw our friends, pets, television shows, or have instant messaging. All that mattered was that our last summer together, was one to remember.
Denver, by Barbara Allen Burke
I was born and raised in Colorado, so when it came time to choose a college, I decided to use the opportunity to live in another part of the country. I chose Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Although I’d never seen the school or visited the state, I had checked out books from the library and liked the pictures of tall green trees, misty bridges, and ivy-covered buildings.
I spent the next four years trading time between my Portland world – academics and dorm rooms and friends – and my Denver world – family, my own bedroom, and work to help pay for college. These two worlds rarely overlapped.
I got a job during summer and Christmas breaks working as a legal secretary for a law firm in downtown Denver. Each morning I took a one-hour bus ride from the suburbs to the tall office buildings in the heart of the city. I spent the day at my desk, typing up contracts and pleadings, proofreading legal descriptions, and organizing trial documents. I’d take a book to a nearby restaurant and read over my lunch break. Other than casual conversations with the attorneys for whom I worked, I didn’t really talk to many people; the secretarial staff changed frequently and, after all, I was only there for four to eight weeks at a time. It was a solitary life, but I didn’t mind. I enjoyed spending time with my family, filling my bank account, and getting ready for my next term at school.
And then I graduated. I decided to stay in Portland to live and work for a while before deciding on graduate school. It was relatively easy to find a job as a legal secretary for a law firm in downtown Portland. With the exception of the fact that I now lived in my own apartment instead of my family’s home, my life that first summer after graduation was eerily similar to the summers I’d spent in Denver. Each morning I took a one-hour bus ride from the suburbs to the tall office buildings in the heart of the city. I spent the day at my desk, doing the same legal work I’d been doing for years. I didn’t know many people in the city, so I’d take a book to a nearby restaurant and read over my lunch break. It was a solitary life, but I didn’t mind.
I say all this as a way to provide background and, perhaps, an excuse for what ended up being the most embarrassing moment of my life.
It was a typical day in my new Portland job. I’d spent all morning on a detailed contract and was grateful for the lunch break. I went to the coffee shop in the building, ordered a turkey sandwich and read a few chapters from my book. After lunch, as I walked through the glass-lined, plant-filled lobby, I saw someone who looked familiar. She was standing by the coffee cart along with a few other girls, none of whom I recognized. Her name was Kristen, and she’d lived in my dorm on campus. She was more an acquaintance than a friend, but we’d spent enough time in each other’s circles over the past four years that we knew each other’s names.
Maybe it was because I was starved for conversation. Maybe I was confused because the lobbies of office buildings all over the country look alike. Maybe I was feeling drowsy from my turkey sandwich and quiet lunch hour. Whatever the reason, in that moment, seeing Kristen across the room, I knew with utter clarity and confidence that I was in a building in downtown Denver.
I didn’t even pause. I just tucked my book in my purse and marched across the lobby toward someone I didn’t know very well, surrounded by people I didn’t know at all.
“Kristen,” I called. “How are you?”
She glanced my way, pausing a second to register my name.
“Hi, Barbara,” she said. “I’m fine.”
Something should have stopped me, but my early warning system completely failed me. I barged on.
“What are you doing in Denver?”
It took a couple of moments, seeing the confused stares on the girls’ before I realized my mistake.
“Denver?” Kristen asked. “What do you mean?”
I felt my face flame and desperately wished I could reverse time for just a few seconds. Five measly seconds was all I needed. But there was nothing I could do to recover. Not that I didn’t try. I explained about my summers in Denver, about the similarity of office buildings, about my turkey sandwich. Nothing erased the growing sense of alarm and embarrassment in me, or in this group of girls. I eventually stopped babbling, excused myself and headed for the nearest open elevator. I didn’t check to see if it was going up or down. I just wanted the comfort of those doors closing between me and the scene of my self-induced humiliation.
It was years before I could admit my mistake to anyone. With enough distance, I was eventually able to laugh about it. My kids love to hear about when I acted in such a brash, brainless way. I’ve accepted this part of my past, and I’ve moved on.
But if I ever see Kristen again under any circumstances, I swear I will turn around and walk the other way.
follow:
