The glorious Portland Japanese Garden was built after WWII to promote an understanding of Japanese humanity, traditions, and ideals, while creating an urban oasis here in the city. That bridge would be built through nature, something that needed no translation. Our spring walk was full of contemplative beauty.
Back to the Garden
You can't turn your back on nature around here. Even after a dozen visits to the same place, it's different every time. In Portland's temperate rainforest what's here today is gone the next. What wasn't here recently, unexpectedly shows up. We had the rainiest April in history and the only recorded April snowfall as well. Add in some intermittent sunshine, and Elk Rock Garden was again delightful.
Jubilation
On the right day, which was this one, Cooper Mountain Nature Park is a jubilation of greens and blossoms, prairies, wetlands and woodlands. Layers of texture roll out before us; trees are still bare, or still flowering, or in nascent leafiness, or are evergreen. What a difference a few days makes, when we were just dodging hailstones and driving through hail and slush!
Measured Steps
I recently joined the flocks of Fitbit aficionados, in hopes of discovering a better me. The learning curve has been steep with its many screens and buttons and parameters and graphs and comparisons. I've been talking to it, this slender bit of plastic, asking about my sleep and movements and habits, muttering to it when it annoys me, and staring at it as I would a new lover, waiting for intimations of love or approval. It hasn't been as forthcoming as I'd hoped.
It’s A Brothel Out There
Spring colors have been vamping it up all over town. The gaudy celebratory technicolor blossoms bring unfettered joy. You can't not notice, no matter how grumpy or anxious you're feeling. Then I began noticing the backdrop of the quieter plants, the greenery, the natives. They're doing a happy dance of their own, their desire on parade, just not as flashy as the flowers...
Balancing Act at Tryon Creek
Tryon Creek State Natural Area is a place I go back to for the re-balancing of life's delight and anguish, the glory and the suffering. I find all that amongst the second-growth trees, native plants, birds, and a babbling creek, and most especially, among the spring trilliums.
Under the Cherry Trees
You only get about a week to see the cherry trees at their peak of full open blossoms. Portland's exquisite beauty also guides our attention to our wretched history of immigration and discrimination, still so current.
Bird World
Training Scrub-Jays to trust you is time consuming work. I've been tossing peanuts to them from the doorway all winter. Now the couple waits and watches from their nearby home in the back shrubbery, and even if I pass the doorway, they come out to watch and wait.
Spring at Powell Butte
Powell Butte has wide open spaces alongside forest that gives you big sky and a fat dose of trees and meadows. An oasis amidst gritty city commerce for birds, animals, and humans. And clouds. So many clouds.
Love and Death
A friend died this week. One moment she was living life deeply and the next unable to speak or move. The suddenness was jarring, and it knocked me back a bit. The odd thing was that we'd never actually met, at least not in person.
Rivers and Roads PDX 