Memoir:
- Roses
The light that evening slanted across the porch through the white sun blinds and between the posts of the gray porch railing in golden streams. The rare roses caught the rays of sun and glowed hues of burnt to vivid orange as she spent another gorgeous summer evening sitting in her rocking chair, contemplating her roses and the moving sunlight.
The senator sat near her, regarding her with his usual alert, intelligent face and observed the stream of neighbors passing the house. The fun interactions were with the pedestrians who stopped to admire the roses, usually with children or dogs in tow– sometimes both.
It was a languorous, golden, serene passing of those long northern evenings filled with such rich, life-enhancing light. This light enchanted all things it touched, from the flowers to the watered emerald grass, to the heavy laden plum trees, to the exploding roses and the glistening white hydrangeas. And the light fell on her too, warming all corners of her being with a feeling of deep connectedness, belonging and oneness.
The light reached towards the senator as he purred contentedly, and continued to swish his glossy black tail in a slow, friendly arc, regarding their friendship quietly, in certainty of common affection and the enjoyment of the bounties of a beautiful evening.
- FISHING
I barely remember that one fishing trip you & me went on Daddy. I remember it was just you & me. It was our one golden time together overnight in a pup tent, with a breakfast of orange-y pancakes with a strange tangy taste since you forgot the milk.
You tried to help me tie a fly on my line and pick a safe rock to perch on with my pole in the rushing gurgling stream. I was so awkward and scrawny with my coke bottle glasses glinting fiercely against the sun-drenched stream and my bad eye. I couldn’t really see anything, and I didn’t catch anything, but I wanted to be with you, and to please you, and to succeed.
You were so strong, and big, and powerful, and smart. Mommy said you came home from two wars with medals and did a bunch of dangerous stuff — spying and all. I couldn’t even see well enough to swim or catch a fish, and the pancakes were terrible, but I wanted another fishing trip with you up by Salmonberry Creek so badly!
And all I have is that one fading 60-year-old memory of that last summer, and the knock at the door that ended it all, with Mommy falling to the floor wailing, and me falling asleep on Linda’s bed, because you and she never made it home from that farm auction.
III. Blooming
How would I blossom? Is it like breaking through a membrane into a greater beauty, a different knowing, a new experience?
Would it be like a butterfly breaking out of a chrysalis?
Does a caterpillar know it is metamorphosing through the seasons, into a spring butterfly?
How would I feel if I could spin myself into a cocoon, encasing my lumbering, painful body into a shell, only to awaken, seasons later, breaking through the swelling bud of my chrysalis into an unfolding butterfly?
I used to dream of flying as a child, using my human body. As I grew, I continued to dream of flying. But now, with the encroaching aches and pains of my older self, the dreams have stopped.
What would it feel like to bloom out of my body, and all my grief and pain, into a beautiful, delicate, lacy butterfly, perhaps as my favorite blue copper here in the valley? Oh how glorious it would be to soar weightlessly on the summer breeze and flit from sunlit flower to vine ripened berries! Color and scent, nectar and pollen embracing me in such an evanescent, shimmering season of blessed fulfillment.
Bio: I love the north Oregon coast and have vacationed here for many years. I have a home here and have been full time at the beach here in Rockaway since Covid arrived. I walk the beach in all seasons. I never tire of the magnificent sea.
