Journal Entries and Various Works in Progress
April 5, 2012. Thursday
Drove out here today, 4/5, Thursday, after flying in from SoCal. Eugene—back in the northwest. Small town, rivers, fishing, organic foods, lots of wandering teens with not enough to do. I’m thrilled to be able to spend time at the H.J. Andrews Forest. Charles Goodrich and Kathy Keable have been great. I have my directions, I’ve packed my bags with everything I think I’ll need.
And Eugene feels like the PacNW too. Smaller than Seattle, feels like a Richard Hugo town. It’s cold and rainy. Maybe 50 tops. Gray, but some blue sky too. Distinguished clouds. Nothing boring. Tall, long, gray faced rain clouds. Rain spitting down here and there. Clouds so tall that as the sun set, they caught the light like a net, yellowish and bright against a gray sky behind. Even a rainbow.
Headed out to the 126, stopping in Springfield for food. Safeway. Then out. Rainbows under the clouds as the sun set west. The 126 runs along the MacKenzie and it is swollen, high water, too high for fishing. Impressive to have the water and the river so close to the road. It feels like trout here, or salmon. The fish are carved over mailboxes, on signs, everywhere. Fishing country. Cabins roadside and doublewides, farms and fenced pastures. Sheep, horses, goats. All below the steep hills of the foothills of the Willamette National Forest, this ridgeline of hills and mountains and woods I’m driving into.
Cell phone signal dies fast. Glad GPS is on satellite. Finally find the forest road. A short drive up it, past the Blue River Resevoir. Into a clearing, dark, night. Office to the right, buildings to the left. Several walks, things inside, I’m signed in, stuff inside the apartment. It’s a privilege to be out here with the scientists.
I’d like to be the first writer out here to wade the length of Lookout Creek. Not sure I can do the whole thing. In fact, that’s probably totally unrealistic right now. But to spend time with a closed creek, a forest stream totally unpressured, unfished. That’s great. I want to hike through these woods. There’s mountain lion. Likely bear too. Caution needed. I went to check the door lock late of my apartment in roswell, and I opened the door to see two deer on the lawn in front of the building. Not sure who jumped more.
Deer act like guilty teens who’ve been caught. Skittish, waiting to see if you’re going to yell at them for stealing your beer. As if they’re bad animals for just standing in the dark on the lawn. I took a couple of pictures—not enough light.
I can’t wait to see what things will look like tomorrow. I don’t mind the rain or the cold. Writing projects will sort themselves out over the next few days. Hiking, solitude, drives as far in as I can go. Somehow I always seem to find myself at a residency out in some remote location—far from food, usually no cell phone. Here, I feel lucky to have electricity. This is actually really nice. Stocked kitchen, coffee ready for morning.
It’s been awhile since I stood in the dark, surrounded by trees a couple hundred feet tall. Their tops, the leads are so irregular, splintered against the sky. It’s pretty magnificent. Takes me back to camping as a child. It’s humbling out in this forest. Not to mention thinking of all the work, the science that’s going on here. I wandered through the office—they have a copy of Schumacher’s book. And I almost brought my
copy. Goals? Novel, poems, essay. An essay. Lots of walking. Several new poems, maybe a manu revision. And progress on the novel. Maybe some new memoir pieces. Gotta review that.
Tremendous day. 10 am meeting with Tim Fox. To see the sites, get a tour. Looking forward to it. And some coffee in the am. I forgot to bring any poetry. Forgot my Hugo, forgot Oliver, any of the other usual suspects. Wanted at least one Hugo. Ah well. We’ll make do.
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