Calling out and Change

My attempt in a previous post to call out any readers of this blog failed miserably. I ask myself, What do you expect? Do you really think badgering the witness is going to get you the response you hope for? Instead, I suppose the correct technique is to write gorgeous prose or political statements about something people are interested in. Write about what people believe or want to. Write a post full of tags that people might search for on the internet so they find your blog (kidding).

I haven’t written much here because I’ve been too preoccupied with reading and writing elsewhere. I think I mentioned before that I’m in a writing class. The largest task so far has been constructing a short story but I did it, it’s been critiqued by the instructor and my peers, and now it’s time to go over it and make revisions to turn in a second draft in a couple of weeks. I also need to work on a second story that will go through the same process and be turned in as the final. Been reading lots of good stuff, too. Not so much the works of my classmates (although they all have redeeming qualities and some are quite good), but the short stories that are assigned for class or the novel I chose to read for class or the stuff I’ve been reading on the side.

Life is good. I’m back to being myself more often and being okay. I’m fairly busy and that’s been good for me. My own philosophy of life is bubbling back to the surface and it feels like I’ve repressed it for so long. Portland helps draw it out. Meeting new people helps the experience as well, and the combination of this city and my desire to reach out has made it so I’m having some good interactions.

That’s all I’m really going to say for now. I have a new blog project that I started, but I will wait a little while before I make it public here for any random souls passing through to find and look at. I guess in a way it’s good that I don’t know whether I have any readers or not. It frees me to write whatever gobblydeegook I want and not be concerned about the content or writing for a specific audience. It’s just for me. ‘Til next time…

Good to be back

Ah, Portland. It’s good to be back. I wouldn’t have said that a day or two ago. My homecoming was not the most exciting return ever. I was wearing jeans, flip-flops, a short-sleeve shirt and a light jacket as I walked out of Portland International Airport into the gray, steady drizzle that IS Portland. I’ve been freezing my ass off since. I don’t know if it’s because I spent three months in the desert, avoiding the cold weather of a North North American winter, if I just haven’t dressed properly or what. But the cold temperature and high humidity has been killing me. I thought about moving to Tuscon.

Add in jet-lag and a general feeling of “What the hell do I do now?” and you get the idea. But today the sun was shining. That’s happy moment #1. I had some more good coffee, produced by my own hand and 40 pounds of gleaming stainless steel. (Not the first time since I’ve been back, so I guess there were happy moments yesterday–every time I made coffee and felt the rush of making and consuming it cut through the gloom and doom of GRAY and “liquid sunshine.”) So happy moment #2 of the day. And then I decided to go for a bike ride.

There’s something very comfortable about familiar routines, right? We all know it. We’re creatures of habit. It was nice to experience the familiar sensation of getting ready for a ride. I pulled my bike down from the rack, made sure the tires were pumped up and the chain lubed, wiped her down with a rag to clean off the dust, pulled on my undershirt, tights, warm winter jersey and arm warmers. Thin skull cap to keep in the heat and cover my ears. Warm gloves. Shoe covers. Helmet. Glasses. Money and a jacket in the back pocket, along with my cell phone to call for help. This is nice. #3.

And then I hit the road. I decided to do a loop, longer than I probably should after no riding for months and not much physical activity, but I’m always a glutton for punishment on the bike. It feels good. Natural. Like riding a bike. Something you never forget. And it’s a special bike, at least to me. Smooth. I used to race. Everything just feels right. A little discomfort, but nothing I can’t handle. A ride. Happy Moment Number Four. Ahhh.

Riding through familiar neighborhoods, seeing some of the landmarks of Portland, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, the Columbia River, the Willamette, the St. Johns bridge, Broadway, downtown. And these people. The familiar wave from certain motorists who recognize cyclists on the streets and accommodate them. The people wearing funky jackets, boots, hair. “Keep Portland Weird” is a popular bumper sticker. There are rugged individualists, hippies, writers, artists, cyclists, coffee geeks, beer geeks, friendly faces. It’s a city where it’s easy to connect with strangers. I’m waiting at a stop sign for the cross traffic to thin out, next to a woman waiting to turn left in her car. One of the cars crossing the intersection has a window rolled down, the female driver looking around, not sure where to go, I think, talking to her passenger loud enough that I can hear but not tell what is being said. She suddenly decides she needs to turn right halfway through the intersection, still talking, looks to her left at me and the cars that are waiting. It’s humorous to watch so I smile. She laughs a little and smiles back. Little human interactions like that happen all the time, and they’re priceless. Happy moments #5,6,7,8…

It’s good to be back.

The Unafraid Child

I went for a bike ride yesterday. Turned out to be rather nice, and longer than I had anticipated. I was really spent afterward and there is sure to be some soreness in the next day or so, but it was well worth it. I don’t ride as much as I used to and I’m not nearly as fit. I used to race on an amateur level–even won a few races. Now I don’t get out nearly often enough to develop a good aerobic base, but I still enjoy it.

My normal “long” ride around here is to loop out around the airport. It ends up being about two hours or less and nearly 30 miles. This time I decided to reverse it, heading out through SE Portland first to the path that runs along I-205, bumped into another cyclist and chatted for a few minutes before he veered off to go over the bridge into Washington and I stayed straight, decided to go to my friend’s house in N. Portland to see if he wanted to get some coffee and a snack then I planned to continue on to St. Johns. He wasn’t home but his dad was, so I talked to him for a few minutes then went in search of a snack and a shot of espresso.

By this time, I was somewhat delusional. I’m not sure what my riding time was, but I’d been out for at least two hours and ridden 30 miles already. I probably had low blood sugar because I’d held off having a snack the last little bit of my ride in hopes that I would get something with my friend. I wandered around the neighborhood after I left his house looking for a place he’d mentioned, but I couldn’t find it or else went past it without noticing. Finally, I decided to head back east to the Albina Press.

When I got there I stumbled in digging for sweaty dollar bills in my jersey pockets; I came up with a whole $3 and tried to do the math. My addled brain considered espresso a priority, so I got a double and some little chocolate candy thing. It came to $3.15. I apologized, mumbled something about making it a single and the guy generously took my money and said they’d give me a double. He even gave some change back which I promptly, sheepishly, put into the tip jar.

None of this matters. What was truly remarkable about the whole thing and led to this posting was the little girl sitting out front when I rode up. She was by herself and I never saw an adult that looked like her parent or anything. She was wearing a black dress with little pink flowers on it and a wide, white lacey collar-frock thing. It was the kind of dress little girls sometimes wear, but usually only on days when they are going to church and then only if they are from poor families, grew up in the 80s or are from Utah or Idaho.

I don’t know how old she was, but it couldn’t have been more than 10 and it was probably more like eight. She had brown hair, bangs cut short in the front and a kind of bob with the rest of it. She seemed to look right at me when I rode up, or more like right through me. She was totally absorbed in what she was doing, seemingly oblivious to my presence or anyone else’s, yet totally attuned to what was going on around her. I can’t explain it. What she was doing was singing. Unabashedly.

She wasn’t singing like most little girls do. She wasn’t quiet about it, or cute or shy. No, she was belting it out. And it wasn’t in English. I have no idea what it was, but it sounded vaguely Romanian or something like that. The song she sang sounded like a folk song that might be passed down from generation to generation, or something mourners might wail at a funeral. It had a certain weight and sadness to it, and she broadcast it as loud as she could for all to hear. She had a strong voice, not especially beautiful, but she could carry a tune.

I leaned my bike up against a tree in front of the shop so I could see it while I was inside (I didn’t have a lock) and went in. I think I was embarrassed for her since she obviously wasn’t. While I was inside, a couple of hippies on bikes came by with a guitar strapped to the back of one and came by to talk to the little girl. When I went back out she was gone.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how some people put themselves out there to be scrutinized by the whole world, without fear or worries about what others think. I’m sometimes afraid to dance in public because I’m too self conscious, even if the music is moving me and I want to. I’ve learned to reign in my emotions and my personality, to tone it all down for the general public. There’s a fear inside of me that the girl sitting in front of the Albina Press yesterday didn’t have. I don’t know if it’s because she was a child or if she’s just one of those people that radiates their true being without being scared or concerned about what others think. It’s almost as if there was a light shining inside her that I had to shield my eyes from. My soul is darker, less pure than hers, and it’s difficult to look directly into such brilliance. It was a strange experience.