Twilight seduced me. The warm crowded air of the living room took a nice long breath out on the porch. The sky turned a lurid blue. And now, on the edge of September, the moon came out and the lights went on at an hour when I'm not already settled and sleepy. I took my camera and slipped out to spy on the silhouettes and shadows, the blare of orange streetlamps and the steady domestic glow of kitchen windows. I would do this for hours if only twilight would linger.

Happy endings

What's wrong with a happy ending? And by that I mean, a happy ending in fiction, not in life or on the massage table. Is the idea of lasting love just too damn boring? Is it perceived as a falsehood? Is it inherently dissatisfying to leave the reader on a positive, untainted note? Okay...so maybe the protagonist learns something about life or sets off in a better direction or treasures that old standby of it being better to have loved and lost blah blah blah. Regardless, the good relationship almost never survives. Pride and Prejudice is the only example in the realm of literary fiction that I can think of that offers a straight up happy ending. Maybe there are others, but I don't know them.

I've come to accept that I love love stories. Most of my favorite contemporary novels have a love story as a prominent component: The Giant's House, Feast of Love, Bel Canto, The Transit of Venus, Mrs. Dalloway. None of these have happy endings.

What do you think? Can love only be lost? Does love found have to be wrapped in the conceits of romance fiction, chick lit and swoony teenage vampire chronicles?

Five hours south of Portland is the little town of Bandon. The coastline there was dotted with dunes and interesting rock formations and even on a beautiful weekend the wide expanse of beach never had more than ten people on it. The town itself was a couple blocks long and strained at every corner to feel festive despite the lack of visitors and the closed-down shops. The poverty of the place ran smack up against the exorbitant wealth. You could see the disappointment loosened across the landscape and tucked into the tired smiles of the retailers.

It rubbed off on me and by the end of four days, I was cranky and ready to get home. I always miss the ocean when I'm not near it, but for now, it's good to be back in a more lively urban swing.

This has been a backyard summer. I haven't gone camping. I've done one hike, a couple swims, a couple bike rides. I know in years past this would have driven me mad. The need to be out in the woods, in the green and shimmering world, would have itched under my skin. But this year, for some reason, I'm content. I have my forest of sunflowers. I have my basket of tomatoes. I have a breeze and a book and a can of beer. The city breaths beneath a fresh, warm rain. A masterpiece of clouds and jet trails ends each day.

Tomorrow I head to the southern Oregon coast with my folks. This is my father's annual "golf somewhere famous" trip. Apparently, there's some hot shot "Scottish" course down there. Mom and I will watch the ocean. Read. Drink cocktails.

How could I not be content with all that?

I used to want to be a photographer. I even went to Boston University for a year thinking I'd go into photojournalism (a year in which I learned about the history of journalism and how to write an obituary and ran the classifieds section of the student paper but never saw a darkroom...hmm.) I realized somewhere during that year that I was essentially gutless and surprisingly proper and therefore highly unlikely to be good at pushing myself into the necessary places required of a photojournalist.

What I liked about photography was hiding behind a camera and in a dark room and, in the end, having something appealing to show for it. It sounds a lot like my reasons for writing: enjoyment of the solitude and the process and in the end having something worth sharing.

So I went out and got a nice camera. Not a true professional-grade camera. That would just be silly. But a nice camera. A Nikon D40. I love it love it love it. I love it so much I'm waiting for someone to ask me why I don't marry it. It's going to take a while before I figure out how to use it properly and it will take even longer for me to refresh my old photography knowledge and learn a whole host more.

If I slip into photo mode here for a while, you'll understand. If I ignore this blog altogether while I play with buttons and dials, f-stops and shutter speeds, you now know why. Weeee!

Oh...and the pic is of Oneonta Gorge on one of our 100+ days.

What I did on my summer vacation

For the first time in as long as I can remember (which, let's be honest, could be as recently as last year) I took a week off of work without packing my bags and hopping on a plane to visit family or friends or tropical beaches. My nails grew long. Hours and hours were drowned in heavy summer heat and along highways as I drove my broken-footed friend to work or my birthday boyfriend to water. Even more hours were spent trying to sleep off an exhaustion that never quite left me and watering a garden and watching a cat. My little, uncomplicated life.

Looks perfect, right? This is Benson Lake which sits RIGHT off of highway 84 in the Columbia Gorge. The water was about as warm as you're going to find in these parts, but shallow and muddy-bottomed and accented by the roar of passing trucks. Not bad for a desperate dip, but not generally recommended.
After drying off and heating up, we set out for The Treefrogs show at the Laurelthirst which was being recorded for posterity. The air conditioner was broken and nobody could open their mouths without commenting on the steamy heat of the place, but I liked it. I felt like I was in New Orleans, sweating cheap beer and loud music.
The next night, Sean's Afroknot bandmate treated us to a birthday dinner at Urban Farmer, one of the hippest spots in town where her boyfriend works. Sean and I loved the deserts most of all. I'm particularly pleased to be associated with people who are willing to pose for a corny phallic photo in the middle of a swanky meal.
After one camping trip at the beginning of my break got canceled due to unforseen emergencies I was banking on the camping trip at the end of my break. When I went to rent a car, I discovered every single car was spoken for. We borrowed a truck from the above super-generous bandmate and headed out as early as we could manage. My favorite camping spot proved to be everyone elses as well. Not a spot to be had without some sort of fist fight. "I knew it," Sean said and it was true. He was convinced of our curse which has ruined about 50% of our camping attempts. The saving grace of our day was a shallower and therefore warmer swimming hole than in years past. I stayed in the water. Stayed and swam against the current and stayed and floated on my back for the first time ever in Oregon waters. We loved it and went home happy with our little difficulties.

Writing Advice

Last week was the Tin House Workshop held at Reed College. Every year I hop on my bike at least once a day and pedal through the summer heat to the auditorium or the amphitheater to I sit in on lectures and a few readings without paying the thousands of dollars to actually participate in the workshops. Sometimes the bike ride is barely worth it. Sometimes I walk away with a few gems. This year one of my favorite panel discussions was on Beginnings with Karen Shepard, Walter Kirn and Dorothy Allison.

Dorothy Allison listed the three top motivators in fiction as Fear, Lust and Curiosity. "If you can get someone scared, horny and uncertain you've got a franchise."

Walter Kirn spoke eloquently about how beginnings are about closing down your options, and letting the reader know, with confidence, how to read your story. "Beginnings are shadows that are cast across the whole of the story."

Karen Shepard gave perhaps the most useful nugget of advice and that was the simple idea of policing your sentences. "Interrogate them. What are they telling you?"

New Tattoo

A lady on a book? The man getting a tattoo next to me wanted to know what it meant. What did his tattoo of a skeleton riding a pig with an apple in his mouth mean? I didn't ask, fearing the answer. Make up an explanation if you need one. I guarantee it will be more interesting than my own.

Profusion

The garden has tipped over into wildness. The spinach and arugula bolted a week or so ago. The volunteer tomatoes are bowling over the wildflowers while the sunflowers bully the tomatoes. The nasturtium flow like water from their inch of soil. The bamboo seeks the sky.

Now if only I could hide the way the cat does, nestling into a spot between the flowers that smell like Good n' Plenty and the silver-blue grass. Nobody can see me. Nobody knows I'm here. Just watching and waiting and napping.

Eagle Creek

I'm waiting out the neighborhood fireworks tonight. I thought some calm green photos from my hike up the Eagle Creek Trail a few days ago would help distract me from the explosions. Icy water to cool my tired feet, the endless rush of Punchbowl Falls and the sweet cure of dappled light. Aaah, that's better...

Mao grows bored with an article in BOMB magazine about "Nights of Horror" - the sado-masochistic cartoons made by the creator of Superman.

I love that this house is being swallowed by plants, the sidewalk barely passable. I hope that when I'm old and arthritic that my house and garden will succumb to a similar fate. Actually, I wish I could make this happen to my yard right now. I wish I could make everything in my life overflow this way, in wild beautiful bursts. One thing tangled in another. All of it sweet.

Community, Hope and Pyromania

Twice a year at every solstice my friends build and burn a wooden figure along with the wishes of the witnesses. This isn't related in any way with Burning Man (capital B, capital M) and the oddly false, strained and irritating people I generally associate with that drug pit in the desert. I prefer our low key event, one that celebrates a true sense of community, hope and pyromania. Here's to summer!

Suffering under the So What Factor

The symbols of hope have deflated back into normal politicians. The big, nearly ungraspable problems of the world have pulled free and become truly ungraspable. People are buying bread instead of books, booze instead of bread. To all this I say SO WHAT? The days speed and the gray hairs grow and the kids outside take longer and longer to GET OFF MY LAWN.

In the end, the world doesn't care if I write a good book. Even my friends, who will certainly support my efforts to keep writing, to keep striving won't love me less if I fail to do so. In the back of my head I hear half a dozen different writing teachers saying "What's at stake here?" The truth is, not much. This fact alternates between feeling liberating and terrifying depending on how well I slept the night before. The drunkards were out full force last night and I was awake for hours so I apologize if I sound too bleak.

In truth, it's too beautiful outside and my life is too sweet and easy to feel any real depression over this. I don't even know what "this" is other than a pang of existential angst. Maybe I'll head out into the yard, soak up some sun and try to shake it off. And if you have any suggestions, short of having a child or finding god, I'm all ears.

Summer is not quite officially here but it's busting out all over nonetheless. We pick salads out of the back yard and eat them on the patio while we watch the cat stalk the bamboo. We go down the street on our feet or on our bikes, happy to have the warm wind around us, the sun on our shoulders. I think about how different my life would be if I had to hop in the car to get anywhere and feel endlessly grateful for all the years I've been able to stroll the neighborhood. How different would my vision of the world be if my experience of it arrived as isolated points rather than continuous paths. I can't recommend it enough: Take a walk, ride a bike and watch the world slow down.

Yesterday I witnessed a man sleeping on the grass in the South Park Blocks being harassed by a trio of jock assholes. Sean and I approached the scene as it was playing it out; the jocks throwing something small at the man, maybe a rock, then throwing a sandwich at him when his response was less than the jocks had hoped for. Sean and I both wish we'd moved faster and with less hesitation, fast enough to warn the sleeping man or discourage the dumb mob mentality of this pitiful crew of douchebags. We did not. The only reward was that another witness chased them down for several blocks. The jocks tried to play it cool, but two of them ended up running off. The third broke off from his clan, turned the corner and was hunted down beyond our sight.

As a person who was harrassed a'plenty in my youth, I feel a particular kind of outrage and sadness at this kind of behavior. Sure, you can rise above it and dismiss the asswipes, but for me at least, it confirms a dreary belief. I maintain my faith in individual humans as being basically good. That good may be solid and thorough or it may be irretrievably buried under a mountain of bad. Still, I believe it exists in each isolated person. The problem is we don't live isolated from one another and the crap that I witnessed confirms that people collectively are a miserable, sheepish lot as often as they are a supportive, uplifting mass.

None of us are immune. I've had my own cruel moments, my own sheepish nods. Sean too. All we could do was shake our heads in unison with the harassed man then wander back into our day. But today all I've been able to think of is that sweet bland thing called kindness and how we should all dig a little deeper for it.

This week I get the short stick and become the one that stays. You, the one that goes. In your absence, the hours flatten into uncurled ribbon, long and smooth. I gain a wealth of wasted time. I go to sleep beneath a day both unmarked and unremarkable. Not useless without you, but simply not as good.

Go figgy go...

Stretch bamboo stretch...

Though I got me some garden last year, largely with the help of my friend, Rob, this year I've decided to shed as much of my hesitation and doubt as possible and plunge recklessly into it. I've spent hours in the dirt lining our gravel walkways and building tiny walls with bits of kung-fu-cracked brick. I've planted and watered and weeded. I've gone to the store for groceries and returned with my basket full of fescue and poppies.

At first, I saw the task of laying the bricks as a nuisance, once I was out there with my shovel and trowel and my nails full of dirt, I was struck by an old memory. When my sister and I were wee lasses we would go down to the creek behind our house and build bowls and sculptures and walls from the clay soil on the banks. Perfection was in the process not the product. And so it is now. Joy in the digging and in the daily measure of the season growing to its fullest.

Not everything is thriving in part because my "good enough" philosophy doesn't bode well for sensitive plants, but that comes with the territory. I dislike the notion that "if you can't do it right, don't do it at all." I say if you can't do it right, do it half-assed and enjoy yourself along the way.

I know it's not even June yet and that the heat will come on in my house at least once more before the Fourth of July, but let it be known that the toes are silvered up and strapped into their new red shoes. The veggies are planted. The first official camping trip is on the books. How lucky I am to live this.

It's the end of the day and we dip into the early, pale end of twilight. The only clouds in the sky are like sweet exhalations; the breath of a woman napping in the park. I open my mouth. I swallow.