A blustery front blew down out of Alaska, all cold and grey, hard like chiseled granite.
And in true Oregon fashion we went strolling in the big woods.
R called Saturday afternoon and asked if we were interested in hiking with her. We drove up past Fall Creek Reservoir, past the damned dam, past the old homes owned by people who like to split their own wood, up into the big woods. Trees too big for the three of us joining hands to encircle. Moss on every horizontal surface, ripples and rills of water on the narrow steep path.
The wind made the big sword ferns wave their fronds at us and blew the rain in our faces. We scaled the cliff above the ravine and could see the big creek below like a black opal, like something from a dream, a dark shadow punctuated by brilliant orange and red leaves floating on the surface like kindred spirits.
We were quiet, we were quick.
We took care to not slip on the green sheer of rock and the slickery wet big maple leaves, leaves so big we could have worn them for hats. We sat for a while by the water, each still and quiet in our own thoughts, watching the water churn in the rapids and then swirl down into a great deep pool and we couldn't see the dark bottom. I could see some leaves caught beneath the surface of the water, small red vine maple leaves, twisting and turning and plunging then rising in the current.
I sat for a long time in the rain and watched the splash of raindrops on the surface of the still pool, I watched the currents deep in the shallow rapids, I looked across the stream at the opposite steep bank, sheer cliffs and crimson and cadmium bushes and the sentinel firs, the draping hemlocks, the silvery cedars with their red bark. S wandered upstream and found a possible fort, in the break of a big boulder and a fallen fir that towered above us five feet. It was a shady bottom, dark and dusty and dry. He said he didn't want to return home, although it was getting dark and dinner beckoned.
We walked slowly back to the car. It was dark before we returned to the main highway.
We had dinner plans with our tall thin friends who live in a tall thin house; they met us and we went for burgers and beer, and then back to our house to watch The Filth and the Fury, the Sex Pistols documentary that came out a few years ago. When S & I picked it out, the small mouse-like kid at the video store wriggled his mousy mouth at us and said the name out loud, like it was a dirty movie or something. He blinked his small, bespectacled shiny eyes and rolled the word "filth" around in his mouth like he had never spoken that word before and liked the way it fit.
It was a cool video, well done. When I was in junior high I had two guppies I named Sid Fishous and Nancy. Nancy ate Sid and then she jumped out of the bowl, and I always considered it my fault since I named them such fateful names.
I don't have guppies anymore.
Today has been craft day. S made great production of getting all his painting tools together and I made equal fuss with my velvet dance costume I've been making and we listened to Tom Waits all day long. The weather is whippy wind and cold air wild with rain, I can see the clouds out the window just swirling like water, and the tree branches have been shaking off their leaves in an incredible and unequaled stripping. The dark is falling, and I have reached the point when S is practicing his fiddle and I am typing this very sentence.
Caught up to myself, perhaps.
So that's all, for now.
Tonight will be a quiet dinner and woodstove fire to burn away the chill and some wine and a good book on the couch.
And in true Oregon fashion we went strolling in the big woods.
R called Saturday afternoon and asked if we were interested in hiking with her. We drove up past Fall Creek Reservoir, past the damned dam, past the old homes owned by people who like to split their own wood, up into the big woods. Trees too big for the three of us joining hands to encircle. Moss on every horizontal surface, ripples and rills of water on the narrow steep path.
The wind made the big sword ferns wave their fronds at us and blew the rain in our faces. We scaled the cliff above the ravine and could see the big creek below like a black opal, like something from a dream, a dark shadow punctuated by brilliant orange and red leaves floating on the surface like kindred spirits.
We were quiet, we were quick.
We took care to not slip on the green sheer of rock and the slickery wet big maple leaves, leaves so big we could have worn them for hats. We sat for a while by the water, each still and quiet in our own thoughts, watching the water churn in the rapids and then swirl down into a great deep pool and we couldn't see the dark bottom. I could see some leaves caught beneath the surface of the water, small red vine maple leaves, twisting and turning and plunging then rising in the current.
I sat for a long time in the rain and watched the splash of raindrops on the surface of the still pool, I watched the currents deep in the shallow rapids, I looked across the stream at the opposite steep bank, sheer cliffs and crimson and cadmium bushes and the sentinel firs, the draping hemlocks, the silvery cedars with their red bark. S wandered upstream and found a possible fort, in the break of a big boulder and a fallen fir that towered above us five feet. It was a shady bottom, dark and dusty and dry. He said he didn't want to return home, although it was getting dark and dinner beckoned.
We walked slowly back to the car. It was dark before we returned to the main highway.
We had dinner plans with our tall thin friends who live in a tall thin house; they met us and we went for burgers and beer, and then back to our house to watch The Filth and the Fury, the Sex Pistols documentary that came out a few years ago. When S & I picked it out, the small mouse-like kid at the video store wriggled his mousy mouth at us and said the name out loud, like it was a dirty movie or something. He blinked his small, bespectacled shiny eyes and rolled the word "filth" around in his mouth like he had never spoken that word before and liked the way it fit.
It was a cool video, well done. When I was in junior high I had two guppies I named Sid Fishous and Nancy. Nancy ate Sid and then she jumped out of the bowl, and I always considered it my fault since I named them such fateful names.
I don't have guppies anymore.
Today has been craft day. S made great production of getting all his painting tools together and I made equal fuss with my velvet dance costume I've been making and we listened to Tom Waits all day long. The weather is whippy wind and cold air wild with rain, I can see the clouds out the window just swirling like water, and the tree branches have been shaking off their leaves in an incredible and unequaled stripping. The dark is falling, and I have reached the point when S is practicing his fiddle and I am typing this very sentence.
Caught up to myself, perhaps.
So that's all, for now.
Tonight will be a quiet dinner and woodstove fire to burn away the chill and some wine and a good book on the couch.
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