Potluck Moments

Last night we had a potluck dinner out on the CoHo walkway. Everyone brought out tables and chairs. Yummy food appeared. It was a beautiful, cool evening with all the wonderful components of a perfect summer picnic.

I stood in the midst of it all, holding a half-empty bottle of Leela Devi's homemade Sweet Chery Mead. I'd been serving out tastes of the 10-year-old beverage, eliciting appreciative responses. Most of the eating was finished. Beside me Jeremy sawed out a soulful tune on his fiddle. Looking up the path toward the fallen old oak tree, I saw people chatting and milling about. Beer had been brewing in a heated vat. The serving tables still held plenty of tasty food. I turned my gaze west toward the Common House where children chased each other with handfuls of clover. One girl was in a tutu, another flaunted the gown of a princess, and another wore almost nothing. Scooters and tricycles weaved in and out.

There was so much motion and energy and such a variety of noises, I thought I could catch an interesting video shot -- one great sweeping pan of kinetic frenetics with the violin player in the middle. I scurried off to get my camera. When I returned, I asked Jeremy to play the same thing again. He agreed to play something else, and that was okay.

Alas my batteries were dead, and the moment passed with only these coarse words as documentation.

Climate Refugees

Climate refugees -- that's what we are, if the truth be told. "Amenity migrants" is another term, perhaps more precise because it covers a broader range of reasons for relocating. We moved to the Northwest not only to escape the heat and drought, but to trade the big city for small-town life. And for the adventure of a new life in a new kind of community far away from home.

At one time in my life, I dreamed of living on another planet -- Mars perhaps. The idea still holds more than a little allure. If I did move there, no one could accuse me of being a climate refugee or amenity migrant. It would be very cold and dryer than dry, and no natural-food store within walking distance. But perhaps adventure is an amenity. It's certainly a luxury I'm fortunate to be able to afford.

Whether the Weather Withers or Not

Yes, I really like the weather here in Corvallis. I like the rain and cold of winter. I like the cool mornings and evenings of summer. Once in a while it gets up in the 90s, even touching 100, but it doesn't stay there long. Evening usually brings breezes from the coast, and we're back down in the 50s or low 60s.

I keep the Austin weather page bookmarked on my computer, just so I can assure myself that I'm in the right place. Yep!

We don't have air conditioning, and most people here don't. At night I open all the windows. Before dawn I put fans in the windows. When the sun comes up, I shut the windows and trap the cool air. Sometimes I kind of overdo it, keeping the inside temperature in the mid-60s all day long. I've still got my Texas weather wariness -- worried that the house will get too hot. Maybe I overreact. But most of the time it's very pleasant inside our home. There have only been a couple of days when we wished it were cooler.

Extreme Berry Picking

Early morning. I walk the straight path, intent on my purpose, which is to get some exercise before the day's heat comes on, make my circuit and move on to other things. Blackberry bushes loom on both sides of the path. With each passing day, the fruits are turning blacker, juicier, sweeter. They're a blur as I stride along. But suddenly one berry, fatter and darker than the others, comes into sharp focus. And before I know what I'm doing, I'm over there, reaching. I get it, and it's tastier than I thought it would be. So I go for another. And another.

Then I'm stepping over the tangle of thorns, reaching for the clutches of berries farther back. I don't care that my legs get scratched, my clothes get torn. I barge farther in. I have an attitude: these are my berries and nothing will keep me from them. The plant's spiny defenses do not deter me; on the contrary, the pain and difficulty only stimulate my urge for reward.

I trip, fall. I'm down on my ass on a mat of thorns. If I try to push myself up with my hands, I'll get punctured palms. No matter -- I'll just eat some of these power berries and pop back up later. But first I'll take a nap, like a yogi on a bed of nails. My weight is distributed among the sharp points, and I don't feel much. I dream of nirvana.

The Art of Hanging Out

Having the time.
Taking the time.
Time to read the paper or a book.
Time to talk with a friend.
Preferably while sitting in a coffee house late into the morning. Or at a table on the sidewalk where others, in their hurrying, will see you and perhaps wistfully wonder when they will have time.

I have been among the wistful -- wondering, wishing, imagining that I could be reading a novel on the shady side of the sidewalk late into the morning, no other needs pressing in. Then maybe a friend shows up and we have a long conversation about the novel, or about love, or even the price of gasoline.

But my days have been full of errands and chores and little tasks I've set for myself, seemingly urgent stuff that takes priority over activities that smack of vacationing. Oh, yes, I take a furtive moment now and then to browse through a magazine or chat with someone. But where is the time for serious, intentional hanging out? I see others doing it all the time -- or at least I think they're doing it. They don't look as though they have anything more important to do, anywhere else to be. From my perspective they're suspended in a tableau of socio-intellectual titillation, poised between fellowship and solitude, doing and being, pleasure and fulfillment.

I decide this hanging out thing must be an art. I'll give it a try. Maybe I can develop my skill. So I stick a science-fiction novel in my fanny pack and hop on my bike. I plan to ride around town a bit, and then maybe stop at the Beanery or some other coffee shop with sidewalk seating and just read for a while, pretending there's no time like the present.

But once I get on my bike, my mindset shifts. I don't want to stop. This is a good time for zooming around on two wheels. My legs are loving this! Why would I want to stop and buy expensive tea that's not as good as the tea I have at home and sit in an uncomfortable metal chair and try to read with cars and other people shuffling about? Better to read in the cool peace and quiet of home, sitting on my comfortable couch with my favorite beverage at hand.

But then where is the fellowship, the cozy feeling of being among others enjoying the same activity? And isn't the surrounding hustle and bustle an essential ingredient in the process of throwing such timeless moments into relief?

Okay, so I don't quite have the hang of this public hanging out thing. I'll work on it.

Bicycling

I bought a bicycle a couple of months ago -- a very nice recumbent. I haven't been a bike rider since college. Now I'm all over town on this thing. I like to get up in the high gears and crank it like crazy!

And this is certainly the town for it. Corvallis has been cited for its bicycle-friendliness. There are lots of bike lanes and trails, paved and unpaved. Automobile drivers seem generally courteous. And downtown every block seems to have a bike shop. In with the crowd of normal bikes, I see many odd rigs -- extreme recumbents, tricycles, tandems, sidecars, trains of trailers. One of our neighbors made a bike trailer for his canoe.

Leela will get a bike soon. She bought a helmet today and promptly took off on my bike -- gone for over an hour. "I was starting to worry," said I on her safe return. "Like I do when you're out," she replied.

In Austin the idea of bicycling frightened me. It can be dicey here too, of course, but it's not overly intimidating. Many activities are less formidable in the doing than in the imagining.

Will the winter rains cool my enthusiasm? I don't know. Right now we have only one car -- our little Honda Fit. We don't plan to get another. The rain and cold don't keep many of the bike riders off the road. They just put on their gear and go.

Retirement of a Sort

So I had this job as a technical writer for the Texas Department of Transportation. I didn't plan to stay with it for 19 years, but they treated me well, and the pay was good, and it was kind of interesting -- so... Before that I had been doing freelance work -- technical writing, ad copy, video scripts. It was pretty much a hand-to-mouth existence. The competition started getting fierce. My daughter was getting ready for college, and I decided I needed a regular paycheck. I told myself I'd just stay with the Department until she got through college. She got through college in four years and took off. I stayed on and on at TxDOT. One thing led to another, and pretty soon it was 2007 -- time to move on.

Under the arcane rules of state employment, I was able to retire at age 60+ with a decent pension and benefits. I consider myself a lucky man. I'm healthy, happy, in love with my wife, debt free, living where I want to live, and writing what I want to write.

I had an odd career as a technical writer. I call it odd because it was unlikely for a person of my abilities and education -- slow reader, poor speller, and only three years of college. But I've always had a knack for grammar and syntax. Even the shapes of letters and sounds of words captivate me. And I loved stories and the process of their unfolding -- still do. Somehow by my late 20s, I had decided to be a writer. I'd done lots of writing before that -- comics, movie scripts, short stories, poetry -- so maybe it was natural, or maybe it wasn't. Everyone probably has a peculiar story.

Berries I Have Eaten

Exactly one year ago, Leela and I visited Corvallis for about a week with the explicit purpose of checking out the town as a possible place to live. We liked what we found, in spite of the fact that we both got very sick -- some kind of flu.

The illness didn't keep us from exploring, though, and one of the wonders we discovered was blackberries. It happened to be the height of the season, and they were everywhere -- an invasive species, we were told. Animal instinct compelled me to gorge on the messy fruit. I climbed right into the thorny tangles. My body needed this; the appetite was like nothing I've experienced before or since, an intuitive somatic need for whatever antioxidant or other special curative nutrient the plant offered.

So I partook of the fruit of the invasive species, and thus became one myself. Now we've been living in Corvallis since February, and I've picked four kinds of berries, each in its luscious season:

• strawberries
• blueberries
• raspberries
• and lately blackberries again.

Except for the blackberries, these were all from you-pick-'em farms. I go crazy eating these little sweeties right off the plants. The blackberry plants are all over everywhere, including the park near our house. They're coming in late this year, as everything is, due to the protracted spring. I like the protracted spring.