alone stranger

*from my sketchbook*

Today I am a city girl, from Elsewhere. I no longer feel ownership of this place. I'm older, more urban, an interloper. Today I'm the stranger in this place that used to be mine.

The campsite I find is perfect. Just before a little creek crossing, a turn-off, a wide circle, a clearing with a huge fire pit. Boulders have been strategically placed to prevent drivers from going into the creek bed. There is also a two-by-four nailed across the span of two ponderosa pine trees, the type of thing for stringing up game. There's a green metal smoker someone has left behind, obviously with the intent to be back to use it once again. This is public land, but it feels like someone else's space; well-used but spotlessly clean. Again the feeling of being an intruder creeps up on me.

I stay, trust the wilderness, trust the dry, dispassionate nature of the Central Oregon fisherman to let me borrow their camp spot for the night. The tiny creek is not for sitting by; its banks are overhung with trailing sagey-green willow branches, but it burbles nicely against the buzz and chirp of crickets.

I hang my red chinese lantern from a manzanita branch. Dusk plays with my eyes and there's a distant tree stump, white with stripped bark, that looks like a person emerging from the woods every time it crosses the periphery of my vision. I'm too tired to start a fire. As darkness falls completely I feel, ironically, more comfortable. By this time I doubt anyone will come along and I know this campsite is mine for the night. I turn off my lanterns and the stars begin to pop out of the trees. I can see the orange glow of the campfire of my closest neighbors - down the road and across the other side of the creek. Funny how I came here to be alone, completely alone, but the sight of that fire glow reassures me. What I really want is privacy and sanity.

One beer later, I crawl into my sleeping bag, and before I know it, I'm waking up at dawn with a day on the river ahead of me, and my old desert feet already feeling the land seep back into my soul.

the not work

I've been working a lot lately. Job work, letterpress, bindery. Work in my own studio, and work at Oregon College of Art & Craft.

This makes me hugely thankful, actually. I feel so incredibly lucky to do what I do for a living.

But sometimes the work-work takes over a little, and the art work suffers.

Part of the art making process is what a friend of mine describes as the not work. The not work is what's happening when we do the dishes, fold the laundry, space out, play guitar on the back porch, cook pork ribs. The not work is actually a necessary part, an essential part of my process.


I've been in the planning, germinating, seeding stage of a project that's been held in my mind for over a year now. I'd love to start telling you about it...but I'm not quite ready. It's still in the not work stage. But this week I've been sitting on the back porch more, thinking about the work more, sensing that subtle tickle telling me it's time.

This week I'm going to throw my sleeping bag and my drawing supplies in the back of my subaru and take off for a few days. I hope to return with a little more not work under my belt, but who knows. It's about time, anyway.

a list of july

lavender in full bloom

mosquitos

peach crisp

coffee on the back deck in the morning

baby sparrows with gaping mouths

a temporary baby crow resident

old friends, new friends

running

ignoring the weeds

working - lots of work

{soon, a little vacation}

yoga

the pleasure and inspiration of watching master printers at work

a summer cold

warm cat fur

full moon up all night

sunrises

sunsets

the monkey

gentle day

In the wake of bonfires, barbecues, beer, bratwurst and sauerkraut, motorcycle rides, exploding things, we wake up reluctantly and groggy. The still overcast air feels a little more like looming winter; that we should stoke up the woodstove and warm the couch cushions instead of jumping up and out of doors into the woods to cleanse the gunpowdery residue from our lungs.

Indeed, a few false starts are made in the pursuit of hiking trails and mountain air. A town trip is decided upon. Coffee is sipped while the Le Tour De France dances across the periphery of our vision. Should we see the R. Crumb exhibit at the museum? No, closed on Mondays. Japanese Gardens? We haven't been there in a while. But do we want to share the experience with half of Portland and a good chunk of Minneapolis, Austin, L.A., Phoenix, Athens, Georgia?

GPS helps us find the Marquam Nature Park. There's a smooth, weekend hangover kind of trail. We walk. It climbs a little, and we're above Portland and on a green expanse of park. The clouds start to break up and the reluctant sun starts to warm the grass.

Being lazy and indecisive has made us hungry. The trail winds down in the direction of town, the direction of the river, and we sit on a patio with our final beer and final greasy spoon eats before the weekend is over.

Today is beautiful and sunny, and I'm out to my studio to throw open the windows and get back to work.

for ever and ever

I've been wanting to get around to doing this: homemade strawberry jam.



Years ago, during a long, hot summer in Bend, I worked in the kitchen at a tiny family-owned health food store and deli. I slung soups and salads, dips and salsas, the occasional baked sweet thing, and the occasional grilled savory thing. Then one day the owner arrived with an armload (+ a dolly-load more) of flats of fresh, organic strawberries.

I was introduced to the world of canning jam over the course of a couple of long, sticky days. I had the company of a teenage co-worker to keep the fruit stirred over the boil, and to help wipe jar rims after slurping the bubbling pink goo into little jar openings. The workers from the front of the house only dared to peek their heads in tentatively as we edged ever closer to delirium and hilarity the stickier and hotter we became.

The end result was sweet and rewarding. A fruity, sugary success.

I haven't made strawberry jam since.

Until the other day. I awoke with a purpose: to the farmers market for a flat of no-spray local strawberries, and on to the kitchen.



Making jam is pretty straight forward. You need a couple of big pots.





A goofy makeshift apron.

A gin and tonic doesn't hurt. (tonic with real cane sugar and a generous slice of lime.)

A helper cat for company.



And you have jam.