Winding up, winding down
Stories from my neighborhoods
Check in
Never lose your place
—Caption on a bookmark from Powell’s Books
We all know our place. The comfortable spot we return to. The burrow lined with memories. The camp by the waters of Babylon, where we remember how to love, how to understand our yearnings, how to be our best selves.
We never lose our place, because it is home.
Three words
Align
Contrary
Ornery
Align
To align is to make straight, To set something nearly perfect, making it part of the gridded world, where everything is regular, regulated, as expected. Combed and ready. Happy in conformity.
We think we don’t like conformity, but we do. We conform to certain TV shows. To certain memes. Who doesn’t like cat videos? I don’t know if I do. I’ve never seen one.
That’s because I’m contrary.
Contrary
I wish I could find that photo of the smiling kids in my kindergarten class, International Falls, 1955. Then there is me, arms crossed and scowling at the camera. From an early age, I didn’t get with the program. I was contrary.
I wanted to be a boy, not because of gender issues but because I could see they got all the perks. Boys could have paper routes. They could go into bars by themselves. They got to have really short hair, no tangles to comb out.
Meanwhile, I was stuck with girlhood. I didn’t want to wear nylons. I didn’t want to carry a purse. But eventually I had to wear and carry. These things remained utilitarian, not part of my persona as a woman.
I’ve never yearned for an expensive purse, either, although there are places, like bagborroworsteal.com, where you can rent an authentic designer handbag for mere hundreds of dollars a month.
I read in The New York Times a long time ago that fashion matters. No, it doesn’t. Not for me or for legions of Americans who keep their garages clean and never update their kitchens.
Ornery
This is such a weird word. I couldn’t even spell it right at first, because either the “r”isn’t pronounced, or if it is, I don’t hear it.
Ornery is wedded to contrary, except that it’s a step beyond. It’s the digging in of heels, the stubbornness of a worldview that won’t budge. It can have to do with bad temper, but I think of it as mulishness.
Reflect on all those cops and cowboys in books and movies who won’t stick with the official line. They get results by breaking the rules, by mulishly insisting on doing it their way. They are definitely not aligned.
And we, poor saps, root for them.
Going Fourth
On Independence Day, I figured out how to display a quilt of the US flag I had made during the COVID-19 lockdown. A woman from the neighborhood named Pam, who happened to be walking by my house, came onto the porch to help me hang it.
I went outside to take a picture of the quilt, then continued on into the neighborhood. It was early in the afternoon, and the temperature was starting to climb. Hot weather is forecast for the next week and more.
The houses in the Buckman and Sunnyside neighborhoods are old Portland stock, with deep porches. I seldom see anyone hanging out on those porches, but today I waved at many people sitting in chairs and on porch swings, enjoying the holiday.
I stopped to chat with a new friend who also lives on Main Street, and I went on to the Belmont Library to pick up a book I had waiting from interlibrary loan. Silly me, the library was closed because of the holiday.
Instead I basked in the warm sun, waved at more folks on porches and marveled at all the voracious bees covering summer blossoms.
Then I went to H Mart and bought some fermented black beans and Chinese Shaoxing wine. I’m going to use them to make my own black bean sauce. The recipe looks easy.
Catching up
I feel like I’m always behind. Do you? I make lists of things I need to do, then I don’t do them. Organize this, take care of that. I’d rather play solitaire.
I took some time to organize my photos, though. Here’s one I found. It has no point except that it’s fun to look at.
A change in perspective
What if I just flip the whole concept of being behind? Turn it over. Tickle it until it giggles and lets me win.
In this new reality, I am not behind. I am on top, right where I have always been. I know that what needs to be done will get done.
Lots of stuff doesn’t get done. So what? At some point I need to lighten the wagon, throw the excess overboard. Toss out stuff I thought I loved and needed.
I’ll start by revamping and rethinking my overwhelming list of to-dos.
Email, for example. It piles up and piles up and I lose track. I can’t read it all, but I don’t want to cancel every mailing list. I like this idea: set a timer for an hour and a half or two hours and just delete the email I would never read. Resist the urge to read any of it now. It’s kill time.
Or, an easier way. Other than being clutter, do those aging messages matter? No! They are sitting there taking up a few electrons. Just let them lie. So many more things are worthy of my time than excising old email.
Time for fabric
I spent 20 minutes last night rearranging some scraps that may or may not become quilt blocks. I like having my hands on fabric. I don’t do this as often now that I’m writing more. Yet, over time, quilts will happen.
I love quilting by hand—the flag quilt was hand-quilted—but this week I gave up on hand-working a larger quilt. Pain in my shoulders and the sheer immensity of the task meant I couldn’t do it myself. Instead, I took it to Nancy Stovall at Just Quilting to have her long-arm it.
Another neighborhood
It was June 30 and I had earned a monthly bus pass by charging $28 in fares on my honored citizen Hop card. So I could have ridden for free. Instead, I drove around in Hosford-Abernethy, the neighborhood south of Buckman.
I found the garden I thought I had lost forever, the one that calls to me to linger and enjoy.
There are hundreds, thousands of lovely homes in Portland with overgrown front yards like this one, but only this garden speaks to me in this way.
While I am admiring the flowers, the owner comes out on his porch and introduces himself as Curt. Thank you, Curt, for your beautiful yard.
Just down the street from Curt’s, someone is practicing the drums in a house where the front door stands open. Sorry, that drummer has no sense of rhythm. It’s just percussive noise, never quite on the beat.
More neighbors
At the 7-Eleven at Southeast 20th and Hawthorne, Allison McClay is putting the finishing touches on a mural depicting the neighborhood. Aided by Gina Parks, she’s incorporated local landmarks like St. Sharbel Maronite Catholic Church. Some of the people depicted are local residents, too, as are the animals, mostly dogs.
This mural bookends a similar one at the Plaid Pantry at Southeast 12th and Belmont. That one has been around since 2008.
More murals
At a business on Southeast Hawthorne, a woman named Maddie is peeling away a truly hideous mural. It features mushrooms that look like penises. She’s not sure what she’ll do with that blank wall. Graffiti is expected.
Just a block away is a long-standing mural featuring famous writers. It has never been tagged, although the Dumpster next to it has not been so lucky.
Utility poles
Justin from PGE was dosing a utility pole at 27th and Hawthorne with an antifungal chemical.
I had lots of questions about phone poles, and Justin was able to answer them.
For instance, I wondered why phone and electrical wires weren’t buried in the street. That could’ve happened in my neighborhood, where the city of Portland recently tore up all the streets, putting in huge new concrete sewer pipes to replace connectors that were nearly 100 years old.
Burying cables would keep residents from losing power when wind knocks over poles or silver-thaw ice weighs down and snaps wires.
But, Justin informed me, there isn’t much more capacity under the streets. Sewer, water, gas—and most streets aren’t very wide. Plus, if something were to malfunction under the street, it would be hard to fix.
Why wood?
He pointed out that the utility poles in Buckman, now approaching 100 years old, are remarkably resilient. With treatments like the one he was dosing the pole with, they should be good for decades longer.
Still, some poles, like the insect-infested one on my parking strip, will probably have to be replaced. Why not with metal?
Because iron rusts and steel can buckle. Concrete crumbles under the weight of heavy wires.
So that leaves wood. A plentiful, natural solution.
Summer bug
Breaking the tension on water, Skimming in summer heat. Water and air on the surface, Never the depth of the deep. My life will end soon; I’ll either Just die when my time’s up— Or no, I’ll be feast for a fish, Jumping to catch me mid-flight. Step into the dance of the species Primal protein, the eternal feast. Fish to pelicans, killed by coyotes. Grass to cows, cows to humans . . . My little form starts the process Never-ending, an eternal strife. Next time you swat a mosquito, Remember its place in your life.
Obit recipe
I had never seen a recipe in an obituary before The Oregonian carried one on June 30, 2024, for Kristine Olson. She died after a fall in her garden at age 71.
The obit suggested donations in her name to the Oregon Humane Society. Then it included this:
Kris would also love it if you would put out a hummingbird feeder, and be sure to make you own food for it (four parts water, one part real sugar), and make sure you switch it out during ice storms so the little guys never grow hungry.
I never saw a hummingbird before I moved to Portland, and now I see them all the time. They absolutely love the weigela in our backyard.
Checkout
Juno
Juno, in her work as an arborist with Portland’s Urban Forestry Department, rescued a fallen birch limb on the job. As she prepared to take it on the bus, I asked whether she planned to make it into a walking stick. That, or a splint broom, she said.
You can make a splint broom yourself from a birch log. If you want to learn how, this man from Newfoundland explains (in a charming Canadian accent) how to make a birch broom on Youtube: You peel the birch limb, then separate its fibers. It’s both easy and complex. You can tell the process is important to him.
Writing elsewhere
I’ve written a new meditation/creative prompt centered on the word “gravid.” Find it at Juke.
Vacation
This is the 99th straight issue of Becoming. Every week, I find things to write about—or rather, they find me.
Even though I still have plenty to say, it’s time for a break.
I’m going to take a few weeks off from heavy-duty creating. There will still be posts, but they will highlight photos and poems and links to great stories from my archives.
An actual vacation . . . I envision reading more. Hand-piecing quilt blocks while listening to audiobooks. Making big batches of food in the Instant Pot and freezing it. Dreaming and meditating. Going on adventures in the neighborhood or on the bus. Playing the violin or the piano. Enjoying my friends.
Maybe I’ll read some email.
I’m still going to write every day. I’m used to it. I like doing it. I want to do it.
A colleague once said he didn’t particularly like writing, but he surely did like having written.
Nope. I enjoy the process itself. Specifically, I love when I start to write about one topic and other ideas bubble up. I never know what the destination will be, but the journey is one wild ride.
Housekeeping
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—30—
I so enjoy your diverse observations throughout your days. I love that flag especially since a few of us on Substack have expressed our dismay at how it appears to have become a symbol of hatred and prejudice rather than a unifying one. Also, as one tomboy to another, it's not the gender, it's the fun and freedom. So glad I don't have to wear dresses anymore, but do women have to wear stuff that looks like they've been ravaged? Middle ground, please, ladies. (Shut up, Sue, get off your soapbox.)
I rather like the idea of being one of legions who keep their garages clean and don't update their kitchens. Who knew there were others belonging to this exact subset of folks?