Green…Then Not Green

NSP Meditations

Didn’t know how to caulk—now I do.

Didn’t know about George Simenon’s Maigret series—now I do.

Didn’t know how to use a channel wrench to stop a hose leaking from a spigot—now I do.

Didn’t know the healing properties of turmeric and purple cabbage—now I do.

Didn’t know how to make field espresso—now I do.

Didn’t know how incredible a novel Jim Thompson’s The Grifters is—now I do.

Didn’t know about the magic of Monmouth in my life—now I do.

Didn’t know how to trim a beard—now I do.

Didn’t know how to be a great friend—now I do.

Didn’t know how to properly clean a toilet—now I do.

Didn’t know how to heal and ailing shoulder—now I do.

Didn’t know how to fish for surf perch—I will soon.

All this new knowledge came courtesy of new teachers in my life. I hope to always remain a person who continues to find new teachers who teach me new knowledge. There is so much still left to learn.

But She Don’t Care

NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches , , , ,

I walked the beach in the early morning, thinking about an Oregon Christmas tale I want to write and publish in secret, when some writing in the sand caught my eye. It always does and always read every word. You typically get two subjects: love and death, with sometimes a wild card political statement thrown in.

The writing read: But She Don’t Care.

Interestingly enough, it was one capitalized word per line and the lines weren’t flush left, but written in a ragged left typesetting format. And of course, the statement was ungrammatical and practically screamed out for a country song!

Oh what a story prompt this would have made for my creative writing students! You can take it a million directions. In my mind, standing there, I took it on a mini-memoir route and recalled the only time I wrote in the sand in a moment of anguish about a break up (I was dumped.)

I simply wrote her name and then Why? I did use a comma to separate the words.

Church Fort

Driftwood Forts, NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches , , , ,

I considered attending a Sunday morning church service for the first time in 45 or 47 years. That’s a pretty long stretch in heathen time.

Why? Why not? There’s something in my irregular preacher kid background that calls to me every now and then.

A curiously named church, off a dead end road, stuck back in some woods, had caught my eye as I was dodging an octogenarian man wielding a cane, walking his dog. Both were wearing bathrobes.

The church’s facade was somewhat streaked with mold and the roof appeared capable of sinning rain onto the congregation. The grounds were unkempt and the parking lot dotted with potholes. A rangy-looking black cat stared at me from a stump. Adjacent to the church, leaned a brown and white single-wide manufactured home, with a sagging, jury-rigged wooden porch.

In other words, disheveled. Give me disheveled or give me death! Give me disheveled in taverns, cemeteries, parks, dogs, thrift stores, and occasionally, human beings. Following the disheveled always proves interesting. There are no stories in wrinkle-free dogs or groomed bars.

But before church, before my ass hit the pew (and it better be a wooden one), I visited the beach for my usual Sunday service.

I saw two bald eagles, found a crab pot float, rope and two excellent pieces of beaverwood. I also encountered a large pile of driftwood in assorted sizes that I instantly knew would yield a fort of my eccentric making that would delight others who happened across it.

Of course I would build it. I might even try for a steeple effect or confession booth effect.

I went to work and the fort rose from the dead. In short order, the fort was finished (although forts are never finished) and fit for occupation, for one person only, perhaps a sick and wayward or searching soul.

I checked my watch and realized that I would miss the opening hymns (or rock and roll set) but probably make it for the sermon. I suspected I would know what the preacher would preach but, then again, the church was disheveled and the preacher lived next door in a fatigued manufactured home and quite possibly addressed his flock wearing a corduroy blazer. Maybe the preacher would quote Rachel Carson or Karl Marx. Sometimes when you walk into an expected cliché, there is utterly originality. That especially goes for people.

One question dominated my mind: would they serve grape juice or wine for communion? Would I partake?

I pulled into the parking lot, exited the car, shook out the sand, and unpacked a corduroy blazer from the trunk (you never know when one will come in handy.) I donned the coat and walked toward the church. The black cat watched me the whole time.

Trump at Low Tide

NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches , , , , , , ,

I was up early and walking down a remote beach as dawn arrived. I meandered, dodging the incoming tide. It was coming on fast, but I felt no sense of urgency. All of that is gone from my life.

I found a wonderful piece of beaverwood and carried it like a staff.

Some writing in the sand caught my eye. The surf was lapping at its edges.

I suspected it was the usual beach writing fare: sweet horny math.

I adjusted my route to read the writing.

There it was: “Trump 2020.”

The reality of this statement instantly cohered to me: a Trump supporter had beat me to the beach in the early morning and left behind his or her terse political conviction that practically no one else would see before the tide washed it away. Incredible! What a battle cry for the sole benefit of the believer! What was going on in the person’s mind at that particular moment at the ocean’s edge? There you are, on the beach, at dawn, a new day and you think of…Trump?

I’ve read millions of words from studies and commentaries why people voted for Trump and continue to support him. Anger. Fear. Racism. Fox News. Bad food and reality TV for 20 years. Declining white and male status. Economic dislocation. Jingoism. Democratic Party ineptitude. Hillary. Pills.

Nothing seems to definitely answer the question. It might be unanswerable. It may take a century when historians get a crack at it with the perspective that comes with time.

I had the beaverwood in hand and could have easily scratched out Trump 2020. Or I could have written a pithy or profane retort. I could have expressed my main political conviction: “workers of the world unite.”

That’s not the paradigm I’m into, however. It gets us nowhere. We’re there now and seemingly on the brink.

I wanted to meet the writer in the act of writing, right there on the beach, and talk, listen, ask.

I walked past the statement and reengaged with the ocean and not sociology.

An hour later I returned, and the statement was gone. The tide has erased it.

There was something in that, I think.

Dusty at Dawn

NSP Meditations , , ,

A new friend asked me to pet sit his dog while he drove a long distance and attended to family matters.

Of course I said ‘yes.’ This is the way I get my dog time these days until I adopt a dog from a shelter or one intersects with my meandering life, as two of my great dogs did in the past.

It was dark when Dusty and I set out to the beach, but dawn was coming on and dawn is my favorite time of day. There is always possibility in dawn. The day is yet unspoiled. That morning light of a faded yellow and blue seems brightest to me.

Dusty is a large dog, orange and white in color, a mutt, a sweetheart. It’s one of the happiest dogs I’ve ever met.

We reached the beach, I set Dusty free, and he darted to the surf, circled me two or three times, dug furiously in the sand, rolled on his back…all within the first 30 yards!

The light gained strength. I walked and hunted for treasures. Dusty ran and went mad. I found my new goofy voice and nickname for him, as I do with every dog I hang out for any length of time. Why is that? I think more of us should do that with human beings we enjoy being around.

I don’t know how long or how far Dusty and I traveled. I can’t recall what I thought about. Probably nothing useful or useless. It was most likely in between, like dawn.

Earl’s Portable Coffee Shop

NSP Meditations , , ,

On a crisp, sunny morning not too long ago, my good friend Earl parked his car in front of my home, got out, opened the hatch, and produced a worn, brown, soft leather valise that contained his portable coffee shop: a propane stove, Bialetti espresso maker, espresso, milk, cups and homemade biscotti.

It was the first time in my life that a friend had come over to my home and make me coffee.

As Earl set up shop on an outdoor table with exquisite care, we discussed the subjects that interest us: Oregon history, Oregon literature, Oregon geography, basically all things Oregon. He just might be the most hard core Oregonian with the most varied and searing Oregon experiences I’ve ever met and it has been my sincere honor to assist him in the forthcoming publication of his first collection of poetry, She Oregon. I consider this book will be a unique, important and timeless contribution to Oregon poetry and is utterly unprecedented in format and theme.

Earl has four more collections to publish after his debut!

At one point, Earl motioned me over to see the Bialetti machine work its bubbling magic: a veritable tiny fountain of espresso that Earl dipped his finger into and then tasted. Then he suggested I follow suit. I did. Delicious. I’d never tasted espresso that way.

The espresso was ready. Earl poured the brew into cups. We toasted and sipped. Then we talked and talked, sipped and sipped, outside, surrounded by native Oregon trees, as the ocean sounded low in the distance.

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