The Furious Spinner

Solar Eclipse on the New Moon, April 8th. Did I say? We walked up the mountain, to the top, but not to the peak. You know what I mean?

Sunday, April 10, 2005

We go to Falling Creek. Not feeling good until my feet hit the trail. We breathe rain, although it isn’t raining. I like to call it cloud sweat. The trail is cinnamon-colored. Douglas firs rise above us like the giants they are. The skinny deciduous trees still only display green buds that look like the flames at the end of Aladdin’s lamp. We start counting flowers. The counting keeps me grounded when my mind starts to wander out of this beautiful forest into slaughter fields. The trilliums are nearly transparent—as if they couldn’t quite manage the energy to be white this year. Still, they’re dressed well: the green leaves are shiny green. We count eighty-two trilliums.

Deer’s head orchids grow along the trail here and there but mostly amongst the chaos that is forest. Delicate, elegant, seemingly overdressed in this place where grunge is the norm. Yet here they are: each one a surprise, each one a simple kind of miracle of survival. Each and every one of the nineteen we count this day.

The trail snakes (that’s the best word to describe it) up and up. I nearly always feel healed here. My symptoms are not as bad; I can keep most of the awful thoughts at bay. It’s a kind of torture though. I am filled with joy, knowing this time I am certainly cured—only to step off the trail and find it isn’t so.

How many cures have I sought? Let me count the ways. Modern, traditional, alternative, bizarre. At various times I have thought walking, dancing, sex, writing, the desert, the mountains, the ocean would cure me. Hasn’t happened. I’ve had people say, “Well, someone can be healed and not cured.” And I always want to scream, “Fuck you and your New Age bullshit.” Except Linda says it, too, and I nod and am glad she finds comfort in that idea. She also thinks of death as slipping off a too tight shoe. I see it as the end of everything. My dancing shoes may not have been that comfortable, but I ain’t ready to take them off. Got some more dancin’ to do. I no longer look for cures (liar), but I still hope for one.

The trail ends too soon, and we go home.

Monday, April 18, 2005

Linda still does not have water. It has been nearly three weeks. She’s had two infections. In addition to the cancer. Chemo every week. She has to drive an hour and a half there, an hour and a half back. She called me crying one day. She doesn’t do that. Her landlord comes to fix the water and pours industrial strength chlorine into the water tank to kill anything in there. Linda doesn’t believe they actually drained the tank; she’s sure dead rodents are still inside. The smell of chlorine fills the house and drives her out. It is the last straw, she says, as she sits in “her chair” in our house. She doesn’t like sympathy, doesn’t want anyone feeling sorry for her. I understand that absolutely. I don’t like people looking at me and thinking I’m sick. “Keep your fucking evil eye (and thoughts) off of me,” I want to scream. Linda is kinder about it, but she feels the same way. I want to feed her as she sits in my home tired and weepy, but she still doesn’t have her teeth—because of the infection the dentist caused when he pulled the mold for her new teeth up off her gums and created a bubble on her gums. She’s been on a (basically) liquid diet for five months. I want to do something to help her. I listen. I listen. I don’t talk politics with her. Who cares about what the Bushies are doing when you’re just trying to live?

Later I walk down to the Columbia River and ask for help. Please help Linda with her water and her water. By that I mean the water to her house and her urinary tract infection. The River is high. I try to listen for an answer, but I can’t seem to be still.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

I drive to the mountain ten minutes from our house. Mario and I have hiked to the top (but not to the peak or the end of the trail) before. Mario is at work, so I go alone. I’ve been sick for weeks it seems, along with Linda. She finally got water. The day after I asked the River for help. Now I get out of the car and look up this green mountain—do I actually see green? No. I breathe water again and step onto the overgrown path that goes up, up, up. And I walk. Everything throbs. I try to pay attention. Ferns everywhere. Fiddleheads, too. They’ve uncurled enough so that now it looks as though a rusty-green seahorse is hanging from each fern stalk. The image makes me smile. Some people believe ferns are protective; if you plant them near your house, then your house will be protected. I look around at the wild ferns and wonder if they protect this mountain.

I keep climbing. I feel tight. I touch my pocket to make certain I have my inhaler. I glance up and down the trail. No one else around, as far as I can tell. I’m safe. I can see the forest for the trees and beyond: more trees. Although beyond doesn’t look like a true forest, more like a tree farm. Here on this mountain none of that matters. One foot in front of the other. I start counting the deer’s head orchids. One. Two together. Then three together. I pause. Not sure I can go any further. I am still, trying to listen, but the ringing in my ears is louder than anything else, my vision pulsing with the throbbing of my body. Was there a time when I felt normal?

I make it to the plateau. The deer’s head orchids are tiny bursts of purple amongst the darkness of the forest floor. I’m feeling dizzy. I walk to the nearest and biggest Doug fir, and I sit at its roots. I pray to the tree. Can you help me?

After a couple of minutes, I feel steadier. I slowly stand again and continue up the trail. Two huge Douglas firs stand on either side of the trail. This feels like an entrance, a threshold. I put my hands together at my heart and ask for permission to enter. “And harm to none,” I say. I hear a woodpecker as I step through. I continue walking. So many deer’s head orchids. I stop counting at about 80. I’m on the south side of the mountain now. I can hear Highway 84 across the Columbia River, yet it sounds like ocean waves. I swear.

It’s getting late. I’m tired. Still a bit dizzy. I decide to turn around. I won’t make it to the peak today. I like this place, though. I feel...something else besides myself.

I thank the spirits and beings of the place, and then I walk down the mountain again.

Thursday, April 21, 2005

I walk up the mountain twice. Once in the morning. I reach the plateau and then come back down. I go home and eat lunch with Mario. Then I go up again. I’m overdressed. It might be time to get rid of the winter jacket. I can’t seem to stay away from this place. It talks to me. How can I explain? I’m not sure I should even try. Trying to put into words that which is sacred often feels like trying to catch clouds with a butterfly net. Or maybe it’s more like trying to catch a butterfly with a net: if you actually do net a butterfly, it usually doesn’t survive intact. Let’s just say this mountain whispers to me. Much is going on here. More than the trees, orchids, Oregon grape, and ferns. The place is spirited.

This time I make it up, up, up to the first talus slope. I breathe deeply as I stand at the edge of this treeless expanse. I stare at the rocks on the trail; they’re white. Pale green moss covers some of rocks beside the trail. My chest feels too tight and my knees too fragile to go on by myself this day. I say my goodbyes, and I turned around and go down the mountain.

I stop by the library, and someone tells me I am very brave to go hiking by myself. She wouldn’t do it. I think that’s what she says. I say, “Well, on this trail I can see if someone is coming, because the slope is too steep for anyone to come from any other direction.” She stares at me, silently. Then I say, “Oh yeah. I don’t know what I’d do if someone came up or down the trail—someone who could do me harm. I hadn’t thought that far.” Which is strange for me. I was too busy listening to the spirits. “I guess I’d act crazy. It’s worked for me so far.”

Friday, April 22, 2005

The pain in my knee keeps me up for half the night. My knee started hurting hours after my friend Dave told me about his knee injury. It’s this strange empathy I have. It’s terrifying, really. We’ve long ago given up thinking it is a coincidence. So sometimes I’ll hide from people for weeks—I don’t have the energy to take on their pain. I’ve become the Picture of Dorian Gray for my friends and family. Only I don’t seem to be alleviating their suffering, just adding to mine.

In the morning, my knee still throbs, but I want to go up the mountain. It’s sunny and windy. Mario and I drive to the beginning of the trail. I ask for permission to come on up, and then we step on the trail.

Mario tells me about the lunch he had with a friend of his: an artist who complains about having too many friends. Mario does not understand the most recent cause of this man’s angst: he wants his art to mean something; he doesn’t want to be part of the commodity culture. Doesn’t want his art in a box. With a ribbon on it. For sale. He’s trying to think outside of the box. Wouldn’t that be outside of the frame?

Neither of us feels any compassion for his “suffering.” It seems trivial to us. Mario is not impatient with many things but he just shakes his head as he talks about his friend. “I tell him that I want to sell my writing so that I can make a living. He’s only been painting a few years and he’s sold many many paintings. Some artists never sell a single thing. He thinks if his work is a commodity he’ll start to paint for the market.” I laugh. “I’m not into the commodity culture myself,” I say, “but he has control over whether he is trying to change his art to fit the market.”

His angst seems specious to me—it is the angst of someone who hasn’t truly suffered. It is the angst of someone who has the luxury of angst. I probably feel less sympathy for him because I don’t think he likes women much, especially mouthy ol’ broads like me. He appears to be perplexed by Mario’s relationship with me, as though he’s wondering, “You really love her?" His problems seem contrived. He has never seen the true face of suffering. Do I seem judgmental? I guess I am.

Recently I read an interview of an editor—someone I respect—who said he wished writers would go back to writing for the sake of writing. Or something like that. The implication was that once long ago writers wrote for the art of it: they weren’t trying to make a living. I wondered (and still wonder) if I misunderstood this editor’s words. What he seemed to be saying is that we (as artists) should work without getting paid. This is said by someone who has a regular paycheck. Now every editor I know works very hard, and most don’t get paid very well, so it can’t be that simple. Mario’s artist friend thinks there’s something unseemly about getting paid for his art. This is ridiculous. Why shouldn’t artists get compensated for their work? We have to buy food, pay the electric bill, etc. The editor longing for the good old days has forgotten the history of literature, perhaps. The people who wrote without worrying about getting paid were most often from the upper class: they already had money! The other writers most certainly wanted to get paid. Charles Dickens wrote for money. A few dollars might have saved Edgar Allan Poe. Maybe Van Gogh wouldn’t have sliced off his ear if someone—anyone!—had been buying his paintings.

But I don’t want to keep thinking about any of this as we go up the mountain. We shake off our words like dogs shaking off mud. I watch the words scatter throughout the forest. “May they cause no harm,” and we continue up, asking for entrance as we step over the threshold created by the two old Dougs. Tenemos. A woodpecker taps a wooden greeting.

The trail curves. Sensually. I encourage Mario to go on ahead of me. Each to her/his own pace. We remark to one another that this mountain must have been used for vision quests. Something about this place...

Up. Forest darkness all around us. The wind keeps the distant sound of traffic distant, until I am on the north side of the mountain again. Then it is just the sound of soft needles brushing against soft needles. The lullaby of evergreens. It feels as though someone has her hand on my forehead, whispering, “It’s all right, darling. It’s OK. Shhhh.”

We come to the talus slope and cross it. I look down at each rock before I step on it, trying to pick a flat solid place for my feet. Mario stares at the talus. “Something about these stones,” he says.

We get to the other side of the talus and walk into darkness again. Forest darkness. Semi-darkness. Dream darkness. I put one foot in front of the other. It’s all uphill. Up mountain. We come to another talus slope. In the distance, tree-covered hills curve up and down, up and down, looking like green velvet. I want to run my fingers across them. Anger falls away from me, as I climb. Usually I am angry the way other people sweat, only it never washes away; my skin—my being—soaks it up again. So much to be angry about. Fury—righteous anger—has its place. But me being angry because Mario’s friend worries about things I consider trivial—well, that just seems small. I know why I’m angry, though. I know why. Anger keeps me up. Anger keeps me standing. When it dissipates, I fall over. Anger is the fuel that energizes me.

If I wasn’t sick, I wouldn’t be angry.

Hah! That’s a laugh. You came screaming out of your momma’s womb, girl.

This trail goes on forever. As if I’ve been climbing this mountain for fifty years. Five talus slopes we walk over? Maybe more. Then the trail curves, and we are on a sloping tree-covered plateau. Large healthy white trilliums wave in the wind all over the forest floor, amongst the huckleberry bushes and beginnings of hundreds of starry Solomon plumes (smilacina stellata). Trilliums are the harbingers of spring here. Every year, the paper publishes a photo of the first sighting of a trillium.

Mario and I laugh, quietly at the surprise and beauty of it all; we have stepped onto a sacred place. A sign gives us proof. Really. A sign: this is a fragile archaeological site which the First People used for a spirit quest. Young people would stay the night hoping to find a spirit guide.

One would have to be very brave to stay up here all night.

We look through the trees and see the sky. It is so vast and beautiful that my voice catches in my throat, and then I realize it is not Sky: it is the River. My knees shake. I am standing a thousand feet above the Big River, yet she looks like the sky. A Northwest sky. Always ready for a storm. Bring it on!

The trail goes on for a bit, so we walk east and up, toward a squat old Doug fir. At least that’s what we think it is. It is the heart of the place, of that we are certain. We are drawn to this tree like magnets finally finding true north. The trunk is as wide as those we’ve seen tipped over at Falling Creek, with over 400 rings. Yet this tree does not tower. It hunkers on the edge of the mountain, overlooking a talus slope.

One branch that is thicker than my body dips down like a hammock, or a swing, thick and solid, inviting us to rest a spell, only I cannot sit on this tree, this ancestor. S/he has been in this spot for 400 years or more. We stand near her, our feet on the talus, which is now made up of large slate-like rocks. We look west, down at the river and the sides of the Gorge. In the distance is Beacon Rock. Almost directly below us is a mill at Home Valley--ugly and industrial. But the only other thing which uglies the view is a golf course in Carson. Acres and acres of brown. They must be re-landscaping it. Otherwise, we try to imagine what it looked like when this tree first became a sapling. Ahhhh, wilderness.

After a while, we move away from the tree. The trail goes on a bit more. I gasp as I step out into the open. We stand looking east, on the top of the mountain. At our feet and below and all around us is the talus field. Flat black-gray rock after black-gray rock. Only the rocks all look organized, like the slate walls in some gardens or fireplaces. As though someone has shaped rocky nests and paths to the nests. This would make sense, actually. Perhaps the spirit-questers stayed here for the night and watched the sun come up. Wouldn’t that be a sight to see? As the sun rose, sleepy heads popped up, until all around young people sat cross-legged, watching the sun move higher and higher.

I step out on the talus field a few feet. The East wind is blowing hard, as usual. I stand with my arms wide open and I ask the spirits and beings of this place for healing. As I ask, the wind blows so hard I am nearly knocked down—only my walking stick keeps me from tumbling backwards. Then I close my eyes and wait.

But I will not take out the butterfly net. Imagine what would heal you.

Sometime later, I look over at Mario. I am so glad to be in this place with him. We leave a piece of apple on the tree and pour some water on the ground and whisper our thanks.

We look at one another. It is one of the most amazing places we have ever been.

We walk down the mountain together.

I awaken in the middle of the night and look out my bedroom window. The moon slips in and out of black clouds. It seems to mean something. This moon. Those clouds. Me standing at the window watching.

I glimpse beauty.


Sunday, April 24, 2005

We sleep through the eclipse. The end of the two week cycle. From New Moon to Full Moon. In the morning of the Full Moon, we drive toward the mountain. When we’re almost there, I say, “No, I don’t think we should go there today. They’ll say, ‘Whaddya doin’ back here so soon?’” So we go to Falling Creek instead.

We walk the path and count flowers. The trilliums look tired or wounded here. Too much water? But the deer’s head orchids are everywhere. These little miracles in the woods. They’re also called “fairy slipper” or “lady slipper.” They’re shaped like a tiny slipper. I read in one place that they grow out of leaf mold and if you cut them, they seem to bleed. I don’t know if that’s true—I would never cut one. Their scientific name is “Calypso bulbosa,” after Calypso. She was a daughter of the ocean, an Oceanid, who offered the wandering Odysseus immortality if he stayed with her on her island. Each and every one of these Calypso bulbosas seems like a siren, calling for us to walk on the wild side.

We walk and count our way to the falls. We have seen 82 trilliums, 45 anemones, 7 currant bushes, and 249 deer’s head orchids.

Miracles abound. I have to remember that. Miracles and suffering. It’s like the path we walk on the way to the falls. It follows the creek for most of the way. We go through life with miracles and suffering side by side. Sometimes the creek and trail move away from each other, just like life: sometimes we have more miracles or more suffering. Eventually they come back together. Side by each. Which is the path and which is the creek? When you’re on one or in the other, it’s difficult to imagine there’s anything else.

I don’t know. Two days ago I stood atop of the world and opened my arms to it. Today I counted two hundred and forty-nine orchids growing up beside four hundred year old Douglas firs. At the end of the trail, I watched water plunging down over rocks into the creek below, like a giant milky mermaid who just goes on and on and on...

Life is a Siren, isn’t it? Even when we’re about to give up, it just calls us to its bosom. Its heart. I give in. Today the seduction feels good. 0 comments

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