Party Crasher

by Erin Volheim

Is it a false quiet, a cold stillness brought on by the deep drop in temperature? Have all the guests left? Is the party over? It had been a weeks-long outdoor festival of aerial dynamics and social clustering, while sharing food and drink. Even a day long with rain had not stopped the revelry– it was simply pure public joy washing over abundance. Walking the perimeter of their social gathering, I am their uninvited guest.

Cedar waxwings, American Robins, Acorn Woodpeckers, Northern Flickers, and Steller’s Jays were just some of the species that were on the long guest list for Southern Oregon’s “Treetop Party of the Decade”. The reason for their convergence was the most prolific Madrone Berry crop of the last ten years.

The flavor of the affair had been almost tropical, a celebration of this fall so lavish with fruit. Floral-adorned invitations had gone out in the spring creating expectation for this Burning Man for birds. Those early evenings had been captivatingly fragrant, with blooms signaling an upcoming autumn stimulated by sweet-berried ferments.

This was the place to see and be seen, and as long as I had assumed the role of voyeur, my presence was tolerated. I observed from the shadows, as they flitted amongst the hosts of the party, Madrone trees whom faced eachother animated in conversation. Sleek star-dressers whose tawny, paper-thin wrapped figures were accessorized with bright orange beads of fruit, draped throughout their shiny green canopy. They stood in svelte groups locked in intimacy, growing in free and full expression, since they no longer shared space with old growth Douglas Fir, Incense Cedar or Ponderosa Pine, who had been taken and sold to sawmills fifty years ago.

By noon, a lighter din returned to the festivities with the sun’s warmth. While eavesdropping on their conversations, I noted the diminished decibel level. It was now evident the high point had been reached the day before. Today most trees were now bare, but gleaning was not over. Party people remained. These were the stragglers undying in their pursuit of a good time, living life to its fullest, knowing the party doesn’t really end till snow gives the “last call”.

Who is Pomona?

I am the ancient apple-queen,
As once I was so am I now.
For evermore a hope unseen,
Betwixt the blossom and the bough.  —William Morris

Historically speaking Pomona is a wood nymph who was extended Goddess status in Ancient Rome as one of the guardian spirits. What does this have to do with writers in living in the Siskiyou Crest of southern Oregon? Not much.

We are interested in what is universal.

So, Why Pomona?

With careful meticulousness Pomona cultivates her walled garden tucked deep in the forest. In this place she nurtures all her fruit trees. (Her favorite is the apple tree.) Her enclosed orchard is anywhere in any time.

Pomona represents the edge between what is wild and what is cultivated. Some say this is where all the excitement takes place.

As female-bodied writers we are always tending, nurturing, cultivating, fostering, promoting, encouraging, inspiring, and supporting not only our families and friends but also our own fields, gardens, orchards, forests, wetlands, and uplands. It is in this balancing act that we live and write—at the gate of what is wild and what is refined and developed, what is in or out of our control. And that is universal.

Pomona and Words

Pomona represents fruitful abundance, yet she is unusual in the ancient pantheon of nature spirits. She is not about the harvest. In her garden she nurtures the fruit trees, diverts small brooks to bring them water, grafts variety on rootstock (she has done a good job, there are 7,500 known apple cultivars), and prunes branches that grow unwieldy or sideways. For Pomona the process of growing the trees, grafting, pruning, tending is as important if not more so than the fruit. Pomona’s attribute is the pruning knife; for us, this metaphorical tool applies to our work. We, as writers, delight in a wealth of words and copious ideas. To make our words flourish we must sense when it is time to cut a word, a sentence or perhaps graft one idea, or character to another, creating dimension. We have found that in the process of writing we often discover something deeper than what we intended—a truth. 

Why Letters?

There was a time when the personal letter was the only way to share one’s news—small and large—or secrets—trite or deep. The only place to express joys, sorrows, concern—or words of love that just could not be spoken. While we have witnessed the age of the handwritten letter nearly disappear, the form of writing from one’s heart is timeless. Writing to a trusted confidant becomes self-revelation rather than mere communication. It is in this form we hope to find the heart betwixt the blossom and the bough.

 by Kirsten K. Shockey

 

Singular

“I exist as I am, that is enough” –Walt Whitman

Dear Pomona,

My brother got married this weekend. Only it was not your run-of-the-mill kind of wedding; it was a DIY gay wedding on a cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere sanctioned only by our community since gay marriage is not actually legal in the state of Oregon. Our Midwestern family mingled with friends from Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and our neighbors. It was beautiful and sincere, full of love, tears, and smiles. Everything you could want in a wedding celebration except for the part when my aunt asked for the fourth time if my (non-existent) boyfriend was coming to the wedding and then as they were leaving, several guests asked me, “When will it be your turn?” Ooof! I thought. We were doing so well with the unconventional. Why do we always head “straight” back to the hetero-normative?

I am a heterosexual, but not necessarily pursuing the normal relationship path. If we look at statistics though, I appear to be quite normal because I am single, which is now true for the majority of American adults. And, unmarried women are the nation’s fastest-growing demographic group. We are people who date, have lovers, close friendships, families, successful careers, and are actively engaged in our community, yet marriage seems to be the only form of relationship that most folks understand: a union between two people and typically those two people have to be a man and a woman. In practice though, relationships take many different shapes and sizes, and often, it is not as monogamous life partners.

I could have said to my aunt, “Well, it is possible that one of three men might show up tonight, but given the nature of those that I attract, it is unlikely.” Or something like, “None of my current or potential lovers are here tonight, but three past romances are in the room which I think is a testament to how I conduct my relationships and goes to show that there are many ways to share love, friendship, and intimacy.”

Marriage is defined as a socially or ritually recognized union or legal contract between spouses that establishes rights and obligations between them, between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws. No wonder people are fighting for this status— it also comes with better access to health care, housing, social security, social acceptance, taxes, and political representation. What is it about going solo that isn’t worthy of all these same things? Why must gay couples fight to legitimize their relationships they have carried on for years? Why am I, a single woman in her mid-thirties, not afforded the same rights or benefits that a married woman my age might be? Why is my brother’s marriage still not recognized by the state that we live in? It seems strange to put so much stock in an institution that is only serving a portion of our population.

Seemingly, it wasn’t always this way. In Sex at Dawn, co-authors Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá show that our ancestors lived in egalitarian groups sharing food, child care, and often, sexual partners. They argue that the invention of agriculture, around ten thousand years ago changed these relationship dynamics as the concepts of ownership, surplus, and power created a patriarchal society. This led to the idea that men have to “lease women’s reproductive potential by providing them with certain goods and services, such as meat, shelter, status, and protection. In exchange, women have offered fidelity or at least the promise of fidelity” so that men could be assured their investments were secure. What happens when there is no reproductive potential between couples, or women are independently financially secure, have their own shelter, and have brothers down the road that raise animals for meat and dairy?

Recently, I went out for an afternoon run with borrowed dogs from my brother’s farm.  I was enjoying the thought of not needing dogs of my own, or kids, or a husband for that matter since there are plenty of all of those to go around, when one of my neighbors stopped me on the road for a chat. Completely unprompted, he observed that it was nice to have me in the neighborhood, but he was aware that I needed a man if I was going to be able to stick it out. He then offered to set me up with the one single guy he knows in town. “He lives in a trailer and has a couple of kids,” he said, “but he really is a good, solid guy.” What else does he have to offer– goats? Building skills? Tax incentives? Otherwise, this isn’t going to cut it. 

Unfortunately, relationship status figures so much into one’s identity and our basic human rights. While the gay community is fighting for this right, single women everywhere are rejecting it so that they too may be recognized as equal citizens. Couples are divorcing at an astronomical rate. This all seems pretty ironic, don’t you think? Yet whether you are single or married is still one of the first things you fill out on any form; it is a constant topic of conversation among friends and relatives, and being “alone” is often seen as a problem to be fixed instead of a readily understood and accepted lifestyle.

In truth, being on my own has been a truly transformative experience. It brings a deeper understanding of one’s self and all of our relationships. It can help build community, establish meaningful work, and encourage self-reliance. If someday I am able to stand in front of my friends and family and profess my love and commitment to another human being, then so be it. If not, you Pomona, and everyone else are all stuck with me anyway— as a sister, a neighbor, a lover, a friend, a colleague, a travel companion, a niece, a dinner date, a dance partner, a daughter, a community member, a euchre player, an auntie, a farm hand, an educator, an activist, an organizer, and everything else I may be or become…except perhaps a wife, in the most traditional of ways.

In the name of love,

M. O’Toole

On Despair, then Hope

Dearest Pomona,

I think I’ve been reading too much Albert Camus. I come into times like these, suddenly and without warning, days when I plummet into a place of deep overwhelming despair and disheartening. I come into times like these out of nothing, or perhaps something triggers me—the woman in a wheelchair with twisted limbs and respirator and the family who pushes her with drawn faces and averted eyes. I try to smile, but. Or, I pass a conglomerate of fast food restaurants with their cheap food advertising sickness. Or, I witness another bulldozer digging, unearthing, paving, building another warehouse for some new corporate project, or the urge, our insatiable urge and continual need to make more money at the expense of everything, even people. Or, I go shopping for a simple jacket for my daughter and find everything made in another country, in distant places like Cambodia, Vietnam, Guatemala, where abuse is standard of any kind. Or, I read about the Syrian refugees and cry; or the government shuts down and the national parks close or—the melting glaciers; the chemicals in the ocean; nuclear weapons and to that, nuclear waste; the unkindness of so many people toward one another. I can go on and on. And then of course, I look at the soft and jubilant faces of my children, so purely innocent, so unknowing about what they face as adults. Should I feel guilty having borne them into this world? How do I prepare them for a future that is so frightening even to me? How can I instill in them good values—love of nature, kindness to others, awareness of our actions and the reciprocity that follows? How can I make them good people? How to have hope?

There is a famous poem by Wendell Berry that I go to frequently when I grow disheartened, deflated, overwhelmed with the state of the world. The wisdom of his vision eases my mind. I’ve written it here for you now.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron
feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

So, I went to nature as Berry recommends, as I often do when I am in need of some sort of uplifting, some reason to keep going.

The other evening before the sun disappeared, we took our old Ford to one of the many fields we lease to grow vegetables. We went to harvest broccoli and cabbage for markets the next day. We went together as a family, squeezed into the cab, one seat belt shared for two kids, our hands cold from the coming night. We ate crackers and made jokes. Stopped for deer. We drove slowly because that’s what you do when your two children share the same seatbelt. As my husband cut broccoli down at the other end of the field, my children ran up and down the rows, grazing on their choices—kale, cabbage, kohlrabi. My daughter came to me. Said, “Hold this.” She handed me her leaf and lifted her arms. “I want to fly,” she said and off she went, in a costume of some super hero, the front all dirtied with soil, her rump wet from the ground. “I want to fly,” she yelled to the sky and the sun, it went down then, back behind the trees, and the whole field went gray and fuzzy except for the neon red and blue and bright white of her costume as she ducked behind the truck and disappeared. Our life then, we must be doing something right.

For hope too, I walk. Virginia Woolf used to walk miles each day. I do this too to clear my mind. The other afternoon it was a perfect day for a walk so I did, I walked, but not far, only down the gravel road to our field, which is just brown earth and stubble now, the summer having run its course. I sat in the middle of the field in the bright sun. The sky clear. My neighbor used the table saw across the creek. I picked up my book from the grass, wished my dog would stop its barking. I sat for a long time until after having tried to read, I plunged my hand in the dirt to feel the earth, but why should it matter to you, except that so many days go by without this fortune. What do you touch in a day? A keyboard, a mug, your lover, a child. Go on. Count the things you touch. And to which are the most important? And have you ever really touched the dirt, felt it in its dry crumble, when it coats your fingertips, a fine dusting of particle that makes this whole world?

I think I went to the field for no reason at all except to touch the dirt.

Pomona, I’m reading Gretel Ehrlich’s book The Solace of Open Spaces, a beautiful lament of Wyoming and the people that live and care for the land in that wide open country and in it she refers to Seamus Heaney’s idea that landscape is sacramental. I think this to be true when I go out to my farm and search for what gives me hope when all else fails. The land is a holy thing and in it, we can find comfort lest we forget. So go do it. Go out to the world and feel the dirt no matter where you are because I have a feeling once you do, you’ll see to the world in such a way that tenders your view, keeps you aware of the things that do not seem right, things like metal washed up on the shore, or I guess, hunger on the pavement, where the only dirt present for some is in-between the cracks, or what blows in on the wind, and that’s not enough, not enough to fuel the joy, or give anyone anything.

Shouldn’t we all have a patch of ground to touch?

Go do it. Go touch the earth now and see what happens.

Yours in hope,

Melissa

Photo by Tessa Photography

We are not the freshest loaf of bread anymore

by Kirsten K. Shockey

Dear Pomona,

The room I sit in is quiet, darkened by storm, the stone cold hearth warming for the first time in months, sticks of wood from the forest combusting for my comfort.  Last week’s zinnias are compactly arranged in fishbowl vases (sixteen of them) decking any available horizontal surface. Summer heat and sun is caught in these bright blooms punctuated with scented leaves of mint, sage, and basil. This decadence of flowers is a tangible, yet temporary reminder of our son’s wedding on the eve of Autumn.

It is hard to let go.

This year fall did arrive on the equinox, which is unusual in the Siskiyou Mountains. The breath of fall might inhale in August for a day or two, just to let us know soon. Then summer exhales still fiery. In September and October, the two seasons push and pull until summer tucks tail and leaves. Not this year. One day it was summer—thirsty and grueling—then it wasn’t. It’s like that with a wedding, all effort and preparation and details, and then it’s over, just another twenty-four hours on our whirling planet, the day no longer than any other for all the time spent on the particulars imagined and executed.

That evening at the wedding, those two young people stood simply (not traditionally; she in handmade appliqued peacock blue, and he in sinew stitched elk-skin slacks.) Witnessed by family and community, they declared their love and commitment and humility.  

Donning a wide brimmed hat and a long coat, with the air of a 1900 century circuit rider, the bride’s grandfather, who officiated (and only got a wee choked up once), told all who were gathered his geological theory of love: “I am going to tell you a story. This story might be true, and it might not. I’m not concerned with facts,” he began. “Love is like the Grand Canyon. The top of the canyon has the youngest rock, sandstone, it is soft and not unlike the new love of this young couple.” He continued to explain how just like the layers of rock, love changes and gets stronger as time, pressure, wind, rain, all take their toll.

As he spoke in front of us, this shimmering couple radiated love and hope, many couples were reminded of their own stories, their own love—perfect, or imperfect and for some, love that has broken and mended, hearts bruised, hearts full— all of us clinging to the strata on the canyon wall. For that moment all this fell away as hands were held. Eyes glistened.

“Mr. and Mrs. Shockey?” somebody asked a little later when the party milled about.

My husband turned to answer our moniker but they were not talking to us.

His right lip curled in smile, oh that crooked grin, the one that means trouble. He said, “You know we are not the freshest loaf of bread anymore.”

I looked up at the sequoia-tall dark haired man I married twenty-four years ago. I smiled slowly as images raced through me like a silent movie. That day on a mountaintop when that boy with a scraggly collection of wild flowers tried to find the words, but could not say the word marry. Later, at our wedding, he, so striking in the tux with tails, the aunt who had a heart attack, and the ceiling that caved in at the reception venue. We were the freshly minted. Babies, more babies. Then, Pomona, they were kids hanging like monkeys in your trees, with bags slung from their shoulders rich with your apples. Does time spin faster in a home pulsing with the dervish energy—boundless motion, infinite noise?

I gazed past this man of my soul and saw my parents, the grandparents at this ceremony. Then I watched the boy, our first baby—long like his dad, curly like me—standing with his pretty new bride chatting to a guest. I stared at them, nodded absently, knowing, I said to them in my head, You have no idea.

“You’re right,” I said amused by the marching of time. “We aren’t, but we aren’t the soft rocks on top of the canyon either. We are in deep with the igneous rocks.”

I see a wedge of blue in the sky. I think I will go pick apples. Until next time my friend.

Kirsten

Man of the Cloth

Dearest Pomona,

I caught my husband retching this morning—it must have been pre-wedding nerves. It’s an old joke, but now I can tell it with a fun, new twist: my husband is marrying two men this Saturday.  No, he is not entering into a three-way, committed gay relationship— he is marrying them, as in officiating at their wedding.  Last summer, a different set of friends asked if he would be willing to get an on-line minister’s license and perform their wedding ceremony. When he told me about their request, I responded, “Well, you can’t say no. It will jinx their marriage,” even though he desperately wanted to decline.

My husband is a man of few words who prefers to lurk in the dark shadows of social events on the rare occasions he goes out. He barely showed up at our own wedding, and not because he didn’t love me, I swear. I am not allowed to mention him on my Facebook page or post images of his likeness. He does not know about this blog post, and with your complicity never will.  In short, he is a die-hard introvert with all privacy settings firmly in place.

Perhaps out of a sense of duty, my prodding, or some inherent sado-masochistic tendency, he said yes to the first couple.  Neighbors and friends complimented his public presence and the sweet blend of humor, tenderness and passion he brought to the ceremony.  So began his tenure as our rural neighborhood’s reluctant minister for anarchists and organic farmers.

He can always say no. I tell him not to because of my own desire to be the center of attention, even if I am one step removed. I grew up in a family that values performance and power, charm in the face of a crowd, the limelight at almost any cost. Though not quite as talented or extroverted as some of my siblings, I do love the thrill of getting up in front of people for a show.

Therefore, I must admit that I feel a little jealous of my husband. After all, I am the one who studied comparative religion as an undergraduate and almost attended seminary to become a Unitarian minister. I am the open and demonstrative member of the couple who shares about the trials and tribulations of our fifteen-year marriage with transparency and erudition. Why should my husband be chosen as the sacred vessel of authority in a wedding ceremony?

I am simultaneously proud. He is, after all, my husband, which means that we play for the same team. More than that, I feel a sense of being, well, almost vindicated. My husband makes very little effort to impress people. It takes him years and years to develop close friendships because he only shares a little of himself at a time. But his friendships are deep and rugged and resilient. He is a profoundly loyal and loving man once you have put in your time. I had sex on my side, so the loyalty and love came a bit quicker. When he meets my friends or family members or colleagues, I try to make him show himself, because I want them to understand and love him the way I do. But he won’t perform.

The fact that one couple and now another have asked him to marry them shows that our community has come to see him as I do—solid, trustworthy, kind, funny, reliable, inspirational. The inspiration he engenders arises from his actions and not his words. Day in and day out, he cares for our land, tends the animals, builds the soil, nurtures the crops, asks for little and gives whatever he can. These are the qualities you need to sustain a marriage over the long haul. They are qualities that seem hard to come by.

I have insinuated myself into these weddings by procuring and renewing the $15 minister’s license and writing the ceremonies. I do whatever I can to make myself an invaluable part of the process. My husband appreciates me, while I grapple with a shameless ego.  This Saturday, I will sit back in the crowd as he stands before our community and the families of the two grooms. He will read my words, and I will bask in his reassuring presence. Our marriage will be renewed during the ceremony and I will stand proudly in his shadow.

With love,

Rose

Smoke Signals

by Kirsten K. Shockey

In the morning the smoke stained sun hangs orange, a California poppy in the eastern sky. As it travels across the day we see it in varying intensities. It casts copper glints on anything that reflects—windows, cars, or the slow moving river. The world feels askew like a fanciful dream. When the sun sets it is the red of an opium poppy—red as blood. These are colors I am used to in the vast Western skies where dust and heat, or smoke, mix to create sunsets that will leave you tipsy.

But the smear of smoke causing the sun to radiate a purple hue flings the fantasy dream, spiraling it deep into the surreal imagination of the apocalyptic. A few days ago the sun was completely shadowed by what the DEQ calls particulates. These are the ash and smoke remnants of what just last week were live trees growing on hillsides. The cars wore headlights as if in a winter fog. Dull and hoary there was no concept of time—as if all stood still. Yet dry air cracked with more lightning that cleaved the sky and the leaden grey smoke fog did not flinch. Invisible cumulus clouds billowing electrifying bolts somewhere? (If you can’t see it does it exist?—like the proverbial tree falling in the woods.)  Pedestrians wore shorts, flip-flops, and smoke masks. Winds ushered in a storm unseen.

We celebrated the rain that was too sparse to undo the damage on the parched and thirsty landscape. The raindrops quenched the people though—if only for the few minutes that the moist air smells of settled dust and smothered campfire. But the dragon breathes still. Fire-look outs cannot see beyond the blanket of smoke that weighs thick into our landscape to detect new fires. That makes us uneasy.

The other day Christopher suggested that we come up with an evacuation plan. This is something we’ve never done. For some reason sitting down as a family and talking through an emergency always gets tabled for another day, with the same kind of avoidance that people have towards dental work and writing their wills.

Somehow with the smoke so tangible, smoldering in my lungs, stinging my eyes, and changing the view across our valley the exercise feels real. I am dizzy in my own spinning mind. How will we move the cows, who don’t trailer well, but also won’t run from fire if left in an opened pasture? (Last time we trailered the cows, the Dexter with horns pulled Zorro moves on the placid Jersey, who, after the two mile ride had a dozen open wounds on her left side.) There are three horses, one of which is a Mustang who chooses not be caught on some days. I have been told we can put our name and phone number across the horse in sharpie and open the gate. There is a big fat sharpie in the truck. The two old goats, remnants of our oldest son’s milk herd, would be easy to move. The ducks and their new babies can be herded into a pet carrier. What about the cats who refuse to be found during the day? My anxiety quickens; I know our daughter will not leave until her kitty is found. My stomach lurches, as I run through this mental list I as if they were about to be caught in flames and I all my mental exercises were deciding the fates of these lives—now. It feels as if I carry all of the lives (including our children) in the makeshift pocket of my shirttail held up to my sternum. I do this to pick windfall apples off the ground. And like the apples I pick some up but some fall through the edges. I keep picking them up—like there is a three second rule. (Did I mention our twenty-year-old son will be leaving to fight the fires tomorrow? His first time out.) Breathe. (Not too deeply or you will cough on the smoke.) At least the three dogs will be easy to move. I exhale.

Then there is the stuff. I feel as if I should start packing as if we actually were about to leave and lose everything.  All that matters to me is safety, but if there were time to pack a few things, what would be important? The photo albums came to mind. The computers because they contain the last five years of photos not yet printed. On the walls I saw my children’s artwork. Ranking stuff now—Ahh. The drill was confusing. Seeing items I love thinking. Wow it could me gone in moments. Do I care? I reminded myself repeatedly, we weren’t going anywhere, we just needed to prepare a plan and put important papers in one easy place.  I told Christopher, “I can’t deal with this right now. I don’t want to make any more decisions and it won’t happen here anyway.”

Then as if we were part of a scene in a script where the writer needed to inject the next obstacle for the protagonist, the phone rings. As I am searching for one of the three handsets I hear sirens. I can’t find a handset and the machine answers. A friend’s familiar voice is broadcast on the speaker.

“Hi guys, I just heard on the scanner there is a structure fire at 6900, isn’t that close to you? Give me a call and I will come if you need help hauling animals. Hope everything is okay.”

I am headed out the door to look for the smoke and my son barrels past me, grabs the car keys and he tears back out the door.  As he sprints to the driveway he says, “Those fire trucks just turned up to Sandi’s.”

The rest of us stand outside on the hill trying to spot the smoke within the smoke. There is only tinder between our houses in the form of brown grasses and dry trees, if the fire gets loose we will need to enact our still non-existent plan. Christopher looks at me and says, “You know we probably won’t be as level headed as we think we will be.”

Level headed? Ha, if only you knew. I go inside and pack photo albums.

The fire across the road did not move beyond the back porch of a small cabin. The fires that burn in Southern Oregon are loosing some of their heat and we almost have a completed home fire plan.

A Brew Maiden’s Tale

by Meganzer O’Toole

“Every forest needs a bar,” says my buddy Elwood. “Or two,” he adds.

We are watching a local bluegrass band pick their tunes on a tiny stage beneath the trees.

“I couldn’t agree more,” I reply while taking a sip of beer.

How could he have known that his simple observation is also one of my current fantasies?

I spend a decent amount of time in the city, and have lived there at various points in my life. I am intrigued by how people spend their time in urban areas, and what they choose to do given so many options at any given moment. However, I am always ready to leave, and when I drive home to the country, I do not miss the fast pace of the urban life, all the devices, or the constant consumerism. But, I do miss the ability to easily drop in and chat with someone—either a friend or stranger. I miss going out for a beer in the evening and hearing the news of the day, sharing a laugh and a story with the bartender, or meeting a friend to have some one-on-one time. That is, I enjoy the “third places” of the city and would like to bring that element of urban life to the countryside.

The third place is a term that refers to a social setting that is separate from the two usual social environments of home (the first place) and work (the second place). In Ray Oldenburg’s book The Great Good Place, he argues that third places are important for community building, civil society, democracy, civic engagement, and establishing feelings of a sense of place. It follows then that these third places are fairly important for community life and could help foster broader, more creative interactions than one might get out of the standard chat in the checkout line at the country store.

Traditionally, one of the more common, if not the only, third places in a rural village was the Country Public House, which functioned as a social center. In the past, many rural pubs provided opportunities for country folk to meet and exchange the news, play music together, arrange mutual help, and convivially drink. It is said that these alehouses grew out of domestic dwellings in the British countryside. Once her brew was ready, the Anglo-Saxon Alewife would put a green bush up on a pole to let her neighbors know they could stop in for a beverage.

Throughout time, societies have always had informal meeting places. They have been the spots that have seeded cultural revolutions, invited important conversations among neighbors, and produced songs, stories, poems, and paintings that reflect the times. Now, it seems like we need to intentionally seek them out, even though they are no less vital to our current societal needs.

Or at least, they are vital to my needs. And I suspect I am not alone on this one.

In an urban center or a quaint British village, it is easier to seek these spots out, as it is possible to easily walk to one of these establishments. Even around here at the turn of the century you would have had more luck, as there were thousands of people in the Applegate and several ‘town centers’ to serve basic needs. In the Little Applegate alone, where there used to be at least 4 of these town centers, now the only watering hole around is 10 miles away. These days, things have spread out and you can’t find much of anything unless you get in your car.

To further complicate the issue, our first and second place is often the same place, since many of us are land-based and work at home, so we don’t even pass by this third place on our way to and fro. Perhaps we ought to take the lead from the old Alewife and find ways to create these spaces in our neighborhoods­– home pub nights or a Speakeasy in the back of the barn, for example.

Oldenburg suggests that a true “third place”:

• Be free or inexpensive
• Offer food and drink
• Is proximate and accessible for many (walking distance is ideal)
• Involve regulars – those who habitually congregate there
• Be welcoming and comfortable
• Is a spot where you can find both new and old friends

Last week, while in Portland, I saddled up to the bar at one of my favorite neighborhood taverns. An older gentleman sitting next to me shyly asked if I would be willing to field a question.

“Sure,” I said, “That’s what I am here for.”

Oddly, he went on to ask me why I was there and what drew me to the bar on a Tuesday night. He then proceeded to give me all the reasons why he was there, many of which are outlined above. When given a chance to respond, I echoed many of his thoughts.

“I wanted to talk to the people, hear the news, and feel the energy,” I explained. “I don’t get to do this where I live.”

That led to more questions and I gave him a run down of my rural life, the work that I do, and my living situation. At the end of my long account, he smiled and said, “Thank you. That’s why I came out tonight. That’s exactly what I needed to hear.”

“No problem,” I said. “I’m happy to help.”

And that is the truth. This is why I’m here. I feel it down to my toes. My German heritage, my Wisconsin upbringing, my career as a community organizer, my particular social needs– all could coalesce into the perfect Alewife, or more accurately in my case, the Brew Maiden of the Little Applegate. I want to tell Joe that Frank needs to borrow his mower on Tuesday, and help Sally try to find a ride to Portland for the weekend. I want to listen to my neighbors work out a new tune, tell a tale, or sing a song over a batch of homebrew. I want to taste Laura’s strawberry mead and offer up this year’s hard cider to my neighbors while reminiscing about the past and speculating about the future—every Thursday from 5pm-9pm. I’ll even wear a dirndl on special occasions.

Now I just need to convince Elwood to come down and build me a bar.

Tracking Addie

by Rose Macrory

“Just take a guess. What do you think the animal was feeling when it passed through this spot?” 

What the hell? I thought. A group of fifteen kids and adults kneeled around a smudge left by an unidentified rodent on a dusty path. 

We each studied the track as silence stretched out around us. 

Twelve-year-old Gabriel was the only one brave enough to speak up.  “He was probably mad.”  

Some of the adults tittered.  

“What makes you think so?” asked Sara. “Tell me more about what this footprint tells us.”

“Um.  I dunno. Maybe he couldn’t find anything to eat or he was grumpy from the heat.” Sara nodded cryptically and our group continued moving up the path. I fought down a feeling of frustration that tickled in my throat.

 

My two kids and I spent last week at a tracking camp for families during which the instructors repeatedly threw out absurd-sounding queries. I have been attending the same nature awareness and primitive skills camp for the past three summers and have learned to walk like a fox, carve a fish spear and attempt to make fire with a bow drill. I never become proficient in any of these skills, but I show an enthusiasm and willingness to make a fool of myself that has endeared me to the twenty-something counselors. Unlike those skills however, tracking requires something I am inherently uncomfortable with: wanton speculation and story-telling.

 

Last fall, I began to tire of the short nonfiction pieces I kept bringing to my writers’ group. I figured that life on a small farm would provide endless fodder for a new side-career in creative nonfiction writing. After a few months however, the pieces started to feel redundant and inauthentic as the search for fresh material caused me to stretch the truth beyond recognition. A friend suggested that I try my hand at fiction, a genre I hadn’t touched since freshman year of college. In an English 101 seminar, I wrote a short story about an African- American high school student who gets pregnant and abandons a promising writing career. I never quite shook off the terrible feeling of presuming to understand anyone elses life experience. I also struggled with the notion of creating a character out of thin air and then directing her to walk and talk. The premise seemed once again, absurd. 

 

I took my friend’s suggestion as a challenge, and tried my hand at a young adult historical novel based in 19^th century Chicago. The lead character, ten-year old Addie grapples with social inequality and political issues that threaten to tear apart her family. In doing so, Addie has escorted me through the wonderful world of fictional possibilities. She has become a figure in my life, so much so that friends from my writing group will often ask, “How is Addie these days?” 

I read my son a newly written chapter in May. He was generous with complements and then mused, “I keep forgetting that you are the one that gets to decide what happens next.”  Ironically, I feel the opposite is true. When I place Addie in a new situation, like her 4th grade classroom or a packing house, she suddenly talks and thinks by herself—I am merely her scribe. I may have researched what the streets looked like in Chicago in the 1880s, but it is Addie who stretches her legs upon the cobblestones and interacts with passersby.

 

Back at tracking camp, I am reminded of the process of writing fiction. Both tracking and fiction writing require a leap into the unknown, a willingness to lay out the first words of the first sentence and see what unfolds. As the week at camp progressed and I gained some confidence in distinguishing a feline print from a canine print, I pressed one of the counselors. 

“So you are telling me you can just look at half a paw print in some cracked mud and tell me when the animal moved through here and when it last ate and how fast it was going? Are you serious?” I asked.

Jayden smiled at me with a smidge of condescension. “You know, it took me years to get anywhere with tracking. And then one day, I just made a guess and went from there. You have to just throw out a hypothesis about the animal, and then start testing it and asking more questions to see if maybe it’s true. You have to just be willing to start somewhere.”

And so it is with Addie. If I nudge her along an inch, she leads me along the miles of her twisting life as though I am blindfolded and surrendered only to tell her story.

An Anniversary With Fire

–by Heather Murphy

Eleven years ago to the day, I was driven up to the emergency entrance of the birthing center in a nearby Southern Oregon town, excited, afraid, and as ready as I could be for the sixteen hours of hallucinatory labor that would follow before my stubborn son was surgically extracted from me. The home birth had deteriorated. It diverted as far off course as I’d let my imagination run during the early months of the pregnancy when irrational fears can get the best of you at any given moment.

But I had my game face on. This was going to be a magical experience, regardless of how many surgical instruments might be implemented.

As they wheeled me in, ash rained down on me from the Biscuit Fire, unceremoniously decorating my hair with its ruined confetti. The fire wasn’t “close,” but it was close enough, and it was huge, and out of control, burning hundreds of thousands of acres in its mad, hellish rampage through the Siskiyou Mountains. I had been hiding in the house for days, afraid the smoke would hurt the baby, worrying about those first crucial months that we would now have to spend inside, or go somewhere else, if we wanted fresh air. The birth had been predicted for the end of July and large forest fires that start in July don’t go out until October. The sunsets would be frightfully beautiful for months to come.

The smoke wasn’t leaving anytime soon.

Personnel swarmed the mountains while the nurses and my retinue of midwives kept a watchful eye over me. We had the place to ourselves; no other women’s bodies were allowing births to happen in the entire town, clenched as they probably were, in fear.

There is a primal and reflexive fear response to the smoke and close smell of a large fire. It settles in your bones and sends erratic, mini-adrenaline squirts into your bloodstream. This is so you can break into a run and escape the flames when they finally burst through the opaque blanket of smoke. That’s not the groove you want while you are laboring to bring your first child into this world. Those are not the chemicals you want your brain using in those lovely cocktails it makes so you’ll stay nice and calm during the miraculous and impossible passing-through of a very large object through a very small space.

I willed myself calm. I breathed deep of the bad, recirculated air pouring generously from the hospital’s air-conditioning ducts, and after a pink, fuzzy expanse of strange, countless hours, I got my baby. I then produced the colostrum and compulsory bowel movement necessary to make our hasty exit, with record speed.

For the trip home we donned particulate masks; mother, father, and fire-sign baby. The fire raged on, as forest fires will do and the valley looked like Mexico City, or a scene from a bad zombie movie, as the smoke wafted about with impunity. My husband crawled with the customary speed of a brand new father and I crouched protectively over the baby in the backseat. Neither of us could conceive of hurtling ourselves through space at speeds above thirty five miles an hour with cargo so precious.

But we made it home safely.

Today, my son’s birthday is an anniversary with fire. On Friday night, lightning strikes, like labor pains, surprised the sleeping mountains of Southern Oregon, jolting the body of the earth awake. As he blows out his eleven candles, the windows are shut tight while the mountains again labor with fire, the cycle of which brings new life to the forest.  Embroiled in controversy as it might be, the fact remains—without this fearsome show of smoke and flame, the forest won’t flourish in the long run. Though the smoke is hazardous to people, and at times, flames threaten or overcome structures; the forests have been in this cycle of lightning and fire for thousands of years. The time right before a birth can be a dangerous one, a time of pain and chaos, but the nascent life just beneath the surface, struggling to gain footing, is the strongest force there is; it is the force that keeps our planet spinning.