Chickweed and Acorns

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The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full­summer  day--

*

This week the sky has been almost unbearably blue. The house feels empty; the dog waits at the bottom of the stairs, whines for a walk. But it's just me who walks him, who helps him up the front stairs, who pats his head at the end of the day.

Today, R. and I spent the day at Silver Falls State Park, my small legs straining to keep up with his long ones. In two weeks, I'll run my first in-person race in almost 18 months, and it will likely be the slowest half-marathon of my life. I've been listening to podcasts while I run, giving myself permission to run as slowly as I feel like, stopping to pet each street cat, admire each garden. 

*

Listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live hat way for a while. Used to be a saying  about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.' First thing you know, we'd all be eating  stewed chickweed and acorns.

*

I spend my days in the garden; the side yard which was, by March, denuded by the chickens, is full of hostas and clover and huckleberry and geums; volunteer tomato plants have been appearing all around the raised beds, and I have salvaged some of them. In late July, a crew will come and build a retaining wall, a pollinator garden on the hill behind the house. A Midwesterner, I like to do everything myself, but that steep hillside, covered in invasives (English ivy, autumn clematis, a half dozen tree of heavens) and a steep grade, is beyond my abilities. Just hire someone, R. said back in March. Of course, it's way more expensive than we should pay, but. If I could spend my entire day outside, I would. And on the steep slope that is my front yard, I've given up the idea I can grow anything at all under the deodar cedar and have been replacing the ornamentals with salal, sword fern, kinnickinick. I've dug up the raised beds in front, moved the blueberries, watered the blackberries. It has been so dry; even the falls today were scant. Next week it threatens to be near 100, then again a stretch of 100 a week later.

*

Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still  remembered to use stones. The pile of stones the boys had made earlier was ready; there  were stones on the ground with the blowing scraps of paper that had come out of the box. 

*

My boy's face swims up from me from my laptop, from the small screen of my phone. One week almost gone, 9.5 weeks to go. 

When we drove home from Silver Falls, we kept to surface roads, drove through farm country, through tiny towns with only one flashing stoplight. And we passed truck after truck with giant, tattered American flags flapping above the beds. American flags and thin blue line flags and don't tread on me flags. Is there a protest or is this just a thing around here? I wondered. 

Don't get me started on flag protocol, I said. Don't worry; R. won't, having heard my screed numerous times. Real fucking patriots, I muttered. Just have your license plate say I'm a fucking racist, R. said.

Then, in Oregon City, we passed a group of Proud boys on the side of the road, in full tactical gear, semi-automatic machine guns slung across their chests, pointing their guns, their flags, at the road. Later, they'd point their tear gas and mace at the counter-protesters and Fox News would declare one side "Antifa" and the other "Patriot Protesters."

While in line at Midway, flying to Michigan, a well-dressed older woman turned to me and asked why we were going to Michigan. I explained, she asked where we were from, and when she heard Portland, she pounced: isn't it terrible there? All the...homeless people? Antifa? J's eyes about rolled out of his head. It's a beautiful city, I said. Whatever you're hearing is inaccurate--it's perfectly safe and there are no riots, there is no antifa. 

Later, after the half-dozen delays, when we were standing in line again, she turned to me to commiserate. But it was hot in the airport; but I'm 44 and neck deep in perimenopause. I'd taken off my sweater. Her eyes skittered off my tattoos, and she swallowed her words, looked away.

Guess that's the symbol for antifa, J. said later. Guess so, I said. Wish I had a patch, or a cool secret handshake.

Tonight the light is gold. The chickens have decided to sleep on the roost in the run instead the coop. The air smells of jasmine, of mock orange, of dry cedar.


*All quotes from Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," which continues to be the story I think about the most, and the story that made me a writer.

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