A Writer in Peril

Driftwood Forts, NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches , , ,

A good friend gave me a brownie for breakfast so I brought it to the driftwood fort, along with cheese, peanuts and coffee.

She had baked an excellent brownie with flourishes of coconut and yogurt.

I sat on a driftlog near the entrance to the fort, the one I’ve been building for six months. The sun was shining and no one was around for as far as I could see. I ate the brownie while reading some of the messages left behind in the latest installment of driftwood fort writing project.

The topics included:

Complaints of wind and stinging sand.

A haiku.

A desire for beer.

Praise for being alive.

A YouTube address for a video of the fort.

Questions of the fort builder. (Why did you make this?)

And…a note that read: “I wish life was easier. I miss so many people. I don’t want to live anymore.”

A person in obvious peril wrote the note. Perhaps the writing helped. It was unsigned. It was written at the beach and the writer was on the beach in crisis and had to climb inside the fort and investigate the box stashed in there. There was curiosity still within the writer, a good sign I think.

I’ll never know where any of these projects lead. That’s their very nature. I do it because it is novel way to engage people with writing and thinking (in nature) and certainly not a novelty. Indeed, I’ve read messages that indicate the writers were clamoring for such an opportunity, a real tactile one on paper with Keno pencils (thank you Oregon Lottery!). People often leave gifts behind that go well beyond word: pot, liquor, pennies, agates, shells, feathers, condoms. There are frequent comments of appreciation for the projects and the groovy containers that facilitate them. (Axiom: the groovier the container the more participation in the project.)

The projects continue. I keep learning more. I keep providing fort-inspired possibilities for human media. Interestingly enough, I have never seen anyone actually writing a note.

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Back Deck Cogitations

NSP Meditations , , ,

I am sitting on my back deck and watching Youngs Bay ripple in the distance. There is a gillnetter near the bridge. I am making sun tea in a mason jar. The ferns are ferning. A bumble bee prowls the lawn and reminds me of how Sonny used to love chasing them. That dog will never leave my thoughts.

The heat on my face feels strange. It’s been a long time. The garden is sprouting. Another garden in Astoria. I didn’t think there would be another on for me, but here it is. I’ll make it my best one yet. I’ve had deer in the back yard the past few days so we’ll have to have a conversation. They can have the leftovers on the last day of harvest, like last summer.

Colors are becoming vibrant in the back yard. I hear morning doves and hummingbirds.

The nation seems very sick to me, sicker than usual. The chief sign to me at the moment is the overeliance of taking prominent social justice cause cues from celebrities. I am sick of celebrities acting like they are leading anything. What is the work they are really doing? It’s still part of the National Entertainment State, as Gore Vidal memorably described it. There are such richer stories of people, real people, on the ground, fighting to make positive change and not having it tied to the promotion of the careers or a new movie coming out. I think if I read another profile of a celebrity in the New Yorker who is in the alleged vanguard of anything advancing social justice, I’m never going to read that magazine again. Moreover, you never hear anything from celebrities about the income distribution crisis in this country—the number one problem.

I do what I can to fight off the disease afflicting my nation: I write, garden, extend kindness, take the high road, teach, counsel writers, read, publish, build driftwood forts, help friends, talk to birds, watch deer, and I dismiss the ease of seething about this or that.

The mailman approaches. Will I receive a letter from a friend?

It is nice to have new people come into your life and refresh ideas or present novel ones. That happened to me about a week ago and I’m still marveling.

A few more sales for the Bonnie and Clyde book. I’ll head out to the sanctuary later to see Bonnie. I sure miss Clyde.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

Returnable Kindness

NSP Meditations, Oregon Coast_History , , , , ,

A man with the look of living outdoors sat on a lawn chair in the asphalt parking lot of the Seaside recycling center. He was organizing his returnable cans and bottles with meticulous care. His bicycle leaned against the fence and was rigged up for heavy transport. I came over and said hello and offered him my beer cans. He thanked me and called me brother. I asked him how he’d fared since the amount of deposit doubled from five to ten cents. He told me he’d doubled his wages to $50-$75 a day and that his standard of living had mightily improved: better food, medicine, clothing, etc. I told him I used to collect cans and bottles as a kid growing up in Oregon City for movie and candy money. He wondered if there was a single kid left in Oregon picking up cans and bottles for candy and movie money. We both had our doubts. I asked him if he knew anything about the Bottle Bill, Oregon’s visionary 1971 law, the first of its kind in the nation, that mandated a five cent deposit on returnable cans and bottles. It was the very law that now employed him. I mentioned it was signed into law by legendary Governor Tom McCall (the tall man pictured here). The man didn’t know anything about the bill or McCall but he did now and seemed utterly delighted with the new historical knowledge. It’s fun being a continual part of something historic and visionary! (I feel that way every time I visit one of Oregon’s free socialist ocean beaches.)

I said goodbye to the man, walked away, got in my car and started the engine. I saw the Kindness and Gratitude publication on the passenger seat. I picked up and brought it over to the man. I explained its origin from an Astoria-based writers’ group called The League of Intertidal Writers. He handled it with care as he perused its contents. He looked up to me and said, “I’m a writer, too.”

“Join us for our next workshop,” I said. “You can even haul away the cans and bottles!”

He said he’d consider it. He said thanks for the publication and called me brother again. I got called brother twice in the space of ten minutes. That was his gift.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

The Selfie Sign

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

I walked west on a trail through the dunes that led to the ocean. It was a familiar trail.

Then ahead I saw something unfamiliar: a large sign erected at the perfect spot atop the dune to view the limitless Pacific. I approached the sign and read: (see graphic).

An immortal line spoken by Al Pacino in The Scent of a Woman came immediately to mind: “If I was half the man I used to be, I would have taken a flamethrower to this place (thing).”

Let us wrestle what that sign represents: the National Park Service (in this case the Lewis and Clark Trail branch) invites people on the threshold of reaching the ocean to stop, pull out smartphones, take selfies, and then engage with social media, thereby aiding and abetting gargantuan media corporations to earn profits from people’ experience in nature. It is quite likely that the National Park Service has some kind of deal with social media giants to promote visitors to share selfies. Surely, the users will be targeted with ads related to this outdoor experience. Thus, the experience has become a form of commercial transaction where the creator of the content earns nothing and debases the very act of going to interact with the ocean.

I’d like to meet the National Parks Service manager responsible for this selfie promotion campaign. I have a lot of questions. One of theme would be: why would you encourage someone about ready to engage with the ocean to engage with social media? Shouldn’t the sign read: “Give up social media for the next hour or two.”

That’s the sticker I might affix to the sign. Is that considered vandalism? Or enlightenment? You can get into trouble enlightening people in this country.

Back in my teacher days, I would have used the picture of the sign to stimulate discussion and serve as a critical thinking writing prompt. I know at least one student would have said, “Well at least they were at the ocean Mr. Love…isn’t that your goal for everyone?”

Or: “You always want us to document our experiences in our journals Mr. Love. Isn’t this sort of documentation to a digital journal?”

My retort: when someone engages with social media in moments such as the one we just discussed, (well, every engagement really has the same outcome), it becomes stripped of its presence and beauty and totally commodified. It turns a profit for a corporation. The data is sold to nefarious agents of marketing and cultural mayhem. Writing in a journal doesn’t do that. Writing in your journal turns a profit for your soul and removes you entirely from the lucrative mayhem our digital culture has become.

Some student would rebut my claim and the discussion would pick up and move in wonderful unforeseen directions.

I sometimes miss the classroom.

Bouquet for the Eagle

NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches , , , , ,

I saw a long-stemmed yellow flower at the wrack line. I picked it up and kept walking south toward Saddle Mountain. I saw another, red, and picked it up. Then two others—purple and yellow—my collection grew—and I had no idea underlying the inspiration, although I did have a candidate for the bouquet, assuming she’d accept dead wrack flowers reeking of decomposition of the sea.

By the time I’d walked another hundred yards, I had gathered almost a dozen flowers. obviously from the same bunch. How in the world they arrived here on this morning in such pristine condition was unimaginable. I could only speculate that someone brought them for an intended proposal or an apology and that proposal or apology didn’t flower. But why abandon (trash) them so evenly? Why not dump the bouquet in a pile? Ahh, the vagaries of the human condition—they induce and compel me to write and harvest ditch dandelions to decorate peoples’ lives.

So there I was walking with a pretty bouquet of discarded flowers, wondering about their fate, when I looked up to the trail into the dunes and beheld a bald eagle perched on a sign. She was the nicked veteran I’ve seen here for years and our paths had crossed many times.

Why not? She was a friend, an intimate. I approached the bald eagle and offered the bouquet. She lifted off from the sign and flew away. In my mind, she accepted the gift and that augured something well, I’d like to believe. Or maybe it was just a gift to a regal bird who has given me such joy in recent years.

Consider this question: aren’t the best bouquets always found, stolen, picked (for free) or salvaged? Another question: are the best bouquets actually comprised of flowers?

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

A Walk With Bonnie

Bonnie and Clyde Files, NSP Meditations , , ,

Barn swallows dipped and dived. Cows mooed in the pastures. Gray draped the clearcuts. It was just me and Bonnie along the trail that paralleled the river and the current seemed more pond than river.

I noticed fresh gopher mounds. Young Sitka spruces sported lime-green buds. Beads of water clung to leaves and branches.

Clyde was gone from our lives, but not really. No more Rolling Stones tongue. No more fiendish moves to procure treats. No more preposterous whimpering for treats.

Things die and you must adjust. I died two years ago, an extinction of self, and I’ve adjusted and continue to adjust. There is no final adjustment.

We passed the spot where I had a snowball fight with Clyde. I felt ready to cry so I did.

I thought of all the deep spiritual sickness in my country, and how Clyde and this river provided me an antidote.

Bonnie and I talked as we reached the river. I fed her treats. Everything seemed so concise at the moment so I pulled out my notepad and wrote with concision.

I returned Bonnie to the house and walked to the car. I heard howling from inside the house, a strange sound not heard in all my previous visits. It had to be Bonnie because she was the only large dog in the sanctuary capable of producing that volume. The howling continued until I got inside the car and drove away. I felt like howling myself.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

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