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Eugene Spring

The meadow is flooded. Our small manmade pond has overflowed into the shed, filling it with inches of standing water. I unhook the hose from the spigot at the back of the house, and carry it over to the pond, then swish it through the water. Brian has the other end of the hose, laid out across the yard to the low point, at our neighbor Bob’s fence. After we siphon the pond water to lower ground, I use a push broom to sweep miniature tidal waves out of the shed and into the overburdened yard. It’s marshy. I can see the low points of the garden. Pathways fill with little rafts of floating wood chips. My birdbaths seem ridiculous, dripping like waterfalls. My raincoat is soaked through, has been for hours after spending the day in the nursery at work. My thick wool sweater is still warm, though spongy, and smells like wet fleece. I re-sweep the water that has seeped back into the shed and puddled, pick flowering kale greens for dinner, and walk towards the house on the stepping stones Brian has laid over the sidewalk, to keep our feet up out of the deep water. Inside, our cat sleeps curled up in Brian’s clean laundry basket. I rinse rice, and fill a pot to simmer on the stove, watching the raindrops on the flooded patio. The forecast for the whole week shows rainclouds and varying degrees of drizzle. Unrelenting rain.

Work holiday party attire. Winter bear.

Winter mornings, view from the skylight.

Until the light fades.

I’ve been thinking about my mother a lot lately. The last time I saw her was September 2009, the day I moved away from Illinois.

My mom spent her whole life running away. Didn’t finish high school. Left home young. My dad met her during his truck driving days. He stopped at a bar in Massachusetts, and once inside, saw a pretty woman fighting with her boyfriend. When my dad asked her if she wanted a job as a truck driver’s assistant, moving furniture, she took that exit, joining him in his travels across the country. They settled down in Illinois, close to where my dad was raised. She had my sister, then 11 months later, me. Their marriage lasted 11 years. A little bumpy sometimes, more so towards the end, until one day, without warning, she left. She was always looking for something, or someone, that she thought would make her complete, and ease all the troubles her mind gave to her. From then on, my dad raised us on his own, and I saw my mom sporadically. More frequently at first, then tapering off to just a few times a year, usually around holidays, during my teenage years. She had many boyfriends during those years, a couple which led to marriages, and subsequently, divorces. The one constant in her life was her garden. At each new house, with each new man, she would carve out a slice of the yard and grow tomatoes, zucchinis (never harvested small, always allowed to reach maximum baseball bat proportions), green beans, peppers, and tons of flowers. Her gardens always thrived, even when her relationships didn’t.

These days, I find myself in my backyard, transforming compacted, bindweed ridden soil into raised garden beds. While I sift tangles of white roots from the soil, I often listen to country music from my childhood, which was my mom’s preferred music. 104.9 was the country music radio station back home, and that’s what her car radio was tuned to. As I weed, hazy memories from my childhood arise. My parents rototilling the garden plot. The rich, dark, glacially smoothed soil. In my memories, the vegetable garden was expansive. A giant rectangle, down the right side of the backyard. Separate gardens for flowers, although marigolds and giant sunflowers bordered the vegetable garden. Rows of tomatoes, hot peppers for canning, green beans (my favorite!), and squash. My mother wouldn’t come in from the garden until it was too dark to see. She’d spend hours weeding. My sister and I would make various pleas to convince her to come inside and make dinner, each time she would reply: ‘In a few minutes’, but she wouldn't appear in the kitchen until after the sun set.

I weed, and move rocks, and plan what to plant where, and think about my mom. Near the end of October, 2015, I received a phone call from the Maryland Police Department, letting me know that she finally stopped running. Her journey had ended. Maybe she didn’t think she had anywhere left to go. Her brain was not kind to her. I’m sorry she never found what she was looking for. I miss her. We weren’t close. We’d go a year without a phone call. She struggled with being a mother, sometimes throwing herself fully into it, and then breaking under the burden of raising two girls and all that entailed. She used to sew elaborate dresses for me for holidays and school pictures. Several years running her handmade Halloween costumes won ribbons at Spook Hollow’s costume contest. She was an excellent cook. She was the leader of my girl scout troop for a couple years. She really loved animals, always had pets. She was terrible at self control, bad with money. She was loud, crass, and drank iced coffee with lots of cream, and always had sore feet and asked us to rub them and we never wanted to, because she had rough, dirt covered gardener’s feet. Now I have gardener’s feet. And I stay out in the garden until the light fades and I it’s too dark to see.

This is my life and these are my Brian's and I love them so much.

#lifewithbrians

This year is year. Be kind to yourself. Indulge if you wanna.

You are essential. Be kind to yourself and others.

There is a pie cooling on the counter, a cat sleeping in a sunbeam on the couch, and the sounds of hammering coming from the backyard where Brian is assembling bee hive parts. I'm thinking about luck and why I am currently able to enjoy so many comforts when so many other humans are struggling to survive each day, being poisoned by the water from their taps, or the threat of destruction of their sacred lands. It's chance that we are born into easy situations or impossible ones. It's through understanding this that we can think critically about how to create a world where we don't have some folks living cushily, feeling uncomfortable, knowing other folks who are the same as we are inside, are fighting for survival. It isn't morally acceptable. It isn't ok. I'm trying to think about the best way for me to help, given my luckiness to be where I am.

Thunder is rolling overhead, unusual in Oregon. Or perhaps a nearby neighbor is dragging their recycling and garbage cans out to the street for collection. I want to look out the kitchen window into the winter back yard and see orange globes ornamenting the branches. No one has yet planted a persimmon tree in the backyard. I want to. I want to spend every moment that I feel helpless and useless and small, making a pie from last summer’s blueberries. Or brushing the long haired coat of my cat while she purrs, curled up on my knees. I could put on my rain coat, leave the warmth of my home, throw handfuls of sunflower seeds into the brambles for the juncos, and towhees, and thrushes to find. The squirrels would also approve. I could take up the broom from its corner, sweep the dust that accumulates into small piles and vacuum them up. Empty the dish rack. Write a letter to my sister, or my father, or my far away friend’s grandma, who signs every letter: 'your forever friend, Janet’. I could take the dry poppy seed heads, given to Brian, and shake them out over any bare soil in the garden. Water the houseplants. Make soup. Tend. Just wait. In a few weeks, small, pale green leaves will emerge. And in the summertime, nodding buds unfurl to blossoms, irresistible to bees, and to humans. A nice reminder, when I start to feel hopeless or restless, alone in my city, despite so many faces that bring me joy when I encounter them. Rainy winter days will yield sweetness if you have the patience to wait. In the meantime you can create sweetness of your own to share.

goodson

good morning

quietroots

This is so pretty and perfect. Windows open, basket of fennel and citrus, pots and pans on the walls. <3

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Brian in action. Delightful little creature!

A rough self portrait, from last fall. Fox girl, moving leaves around.

#watercolor

Summer evening in the garden.

allyouneediswall

quietroots

Someone has an excellent mushroom brain! (Russian artist, Alexandra Dvornikova !)

Spring, summer, fall, winter. Seasons in the backyard.

Reflecting

What was the best way you used your time this past year? Hauling rocks and dirt around the yard. The garden was pretty magnificent this year. I put lots of infrastructure in place, raised beds, leaf mulched the pathways, planted some perennials that should fill out nicely. I grew the best green bean teepee, better than I hoped for. I like that it’ll never be a finished project. Always more things to add, and plant, and harvest, and change.

What was your single biggest time waster in your life this past year? I struggled with wasting time in the online realm. So much unthinking consumption, so easy to do. In the summer, on my days away from work, I would sometimes spend hours scrolling through various feeds, rechecking email accounts... In November I let go of my Facebook account, which gave me some respite. Actively trying to use it as a tool for inspiration, and sharing my life, not as something to spend hours refreshing to see if anything new is happening in the constant goal. Sometimes I fall short of that.

What would you try if you knew you could not fail? The idea of having some land, a small flower farm, and maybe a flower of the month club, with a ceramic partnership to make seasonal vases and floral arrangements is so appealing. Last summer I made several small arrangements from backyard flowers and foliage and gifted them to friends, but to do so on a larger scale, or to learn more about flower arranging and ceramic work is daunting. What is a skill you would like to focus on learning? I would love to get to know (and master?) my sewing machine. I have a Singer Curvy, and it is very mechanized. The thread tension has been hit or miss. I would love to be able to make my own dresses and summer pants as it gets warmer this year. There are some excellent looking patterns out there (everything in the 100 Acts of Sewing collection!) that I want to try. What was an unexpected joy this past year? Watching my sister put so much effort into her community garden plot, and seeing it thrive under her care. Best new gardener award goes to Julia, easily! All of the tomatoes (grown from seed!), and radishes and beets for you.

What was an unexpected obstacle? Grieving the unexpected death of my mother, who I wasn’t very close to, and thought there would be time for that to change. This was the first time I've lost someone. Also, learning to unschedule my time, and leave space. Turning down offers to take on more. Our culture puts a high value on staying busy. It’s a tough mentality to let go of, that if you aren’t filling your schedule with classes or volunteer time, or other plans, then you are wasting it. I don’t feel good living that way. What were the best books you read this year? Spirit and Place, by Christopher Day Negotiating with the Dead : A Writer on Writing, by Margaret Atwood A Sense of Place : An Eastern Oregon Anthology, by LEO (Libraries of Eastern Oregon) Fool on the Hill, by Matt Ruff A Tale for the Time-Being, by Ruth Ozeki Any Ursula K. Le Guin books I could get my hands on

Who were your most valuable relationships with? My family! I am greedy for more time spent with my sister, who lives several hours away and has a full life of her own, and my dad, who lives thousands of miles away. Also my boyfriend/roommate/coworker (trifecta!) Brian, who has been a part of my life for a couple years now, and is a neat person to be around. Finally, my circle of coworkers is the most solid I’ve ever had, many of whom I spend time with outside of work, and all of whom I enjoy seeing on a regular basis. What brings you the most joy and how are you going to have more of that? Striking the right balance between time spent at home with my Brians and in my garden, and time spent socializing with folks who I love. Perhaps structuring more time with friends into my life, more weekly coffee dates and craft meet ups. I’m so reluctant to do things away from my home in the evenings, but more time spent reaching out to folks for morning and afternoon hang outs would be excellent. And spending time in my yard, working in the garden, as well as making my space in the loft just how I like it, and cooking meals in the kitchen fills me with joy. What is one change you could make to your lifestyle that would give you more peace? Shifting away from buying cheaply made, inexpensive goods, at great cost to the environment and folks’ lives, and beginning to choose to buy things that support individual makers and artists. Especially food and clothing, but not limited to those categories. Along with this, getting rid of the things I’ve been carrying around for years that I don’t look to anymore. How would you like to positively influence the life of a child this year? Be an excellent role model to Brian’s nieces. Send them letters, ask them questions, support them. Keep in touch.

What’s one thing that you could do to give yourself more peace financially? Be timely with keeping the status of my student loans updated and accurate. Pay them when I can, defer them when I can’t, and be ok with that. Start squirreling more money into my savings and stop spending it so freely on little unnecessary things that add up. Be more aware of my purchasing habits. Do some little jobs on the side and save that money.

What exercise will you like to try this year? Is this the year that I begin regularly stretching? Probably! I can feel my body beginning to take longer to recover after hard physical activity.

What types of food will you like to incorporate more in your diet? More fresh fruit and vegetables! I am a hot foods person. I don’t naturally gravitate towards salads, or cold fermented foods (I’m looking at you, kimchi & sauerkraut). My diet is mostly beans and grains and roasted vegetables. There is definite room for improvement. What body part needs more attention and loving care? My hands. These poor nails are always bitten too short (a nervous habit that I enjoy), I nicked the tip of my thumb with a sharp knife while cutting onions, and the hard skin of a garlic clove stabbed that same thumb where it bends. My feet could use some love as well. What will you be willing to try outside your comfort zone to increase your health? This year is the year that I’ll sit a Vipassana meditation course. What music or art class would you consider taking this year? The Craft Center at the University of Oregon offers beginners ceramics classes, so I signed up for one that runs just over a month. I want to make things for the household, and the garden, and for gifting. How would you like your style to be different this year? Eugene is kind to folks who embrace how they want to look. I want less man-made materials and mass produced clothing. Ideally I would spend more time thrifting natural fiber clothes, and dyeing them, as well as learning to sew my own. Where would you like to go on vacation this year? This March, Brian’s parents are coming out, and we’re all trekking up to Washington to visit the Olympic National Park rainforests. Late June and into July, Brian and I are spending a week or so camping with his family somewhere in the middle of Oregon, near Bend. How would you like to grow emotionally this year? Less bursting into tears (of rage, despair, or embarrassment), more thoughtful, straightforward articulation of how I feel and what I want.

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