I haven’t exactly gone underground, but I have been truckin’ a lot lately, thus the blog has not been attended to as regularly as I would like. On May 16^th I hopped in my ’93 Mercedes at 5:30 AM, swung by and picked up my friend Seva and off we went on a road trip—heading due north up the I-5. In no time (a little over six hours, actually) we cruised into San Francisco and being a little worn out from the early start we snacked and napped in our hotel room. I’ve always loved to visit San Francisco. The architecture and the vistas are incredible. It’s been years, probably ten or more, since I’ve been there and now that my son has taken up residence there, I imagine I’ll get there more often.

To put the rest of the trip into a mini-version here’s what happened: visited my son at the Presidio Native Plant Nursery where he is doing an internship for a year; had dinner (Thai food) with him and friends in the Haight-Ashbury district; the next morning ate breakfast at the Stanford Hotel on Nob Hill, lunch in Dunsmuir (just south of Mt. Shasta), where the sun was shining and the locals were quite colorful; decided to keep on driving to Sisters instead of stay the night in Dunsmuir; arrived at the house, after buying groceries, at about 6:30 pm; unpacked, ate some dinner and crashed in our respective beds.

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It was a gorgeous, clear day in San Francisco. The view from our hotel window.

The next morning the notorious SF fog was doing battle with the rising sun.

The Native Plant walk at the Presidio, all in bloom.

Inside the large shed where the employees, interns and volunteers work.

Mother and son hamming for the camera.

It’s been a busy week, with the focus on fixing up my husband’s office/art studio area downstairs. It needs everything: paint, carpets, shelving, desk, art table and lighting and chairs. After a few days of cruising Bend and Sisters going to second-hand stores, hardware stores and paint stores we rented a big-ole truck for a day on Tuesday to pick up the various pieces we had decided on, with the last stop being the carpet remnant, which turned out to be six feet too long (12 feet total), thus leaving it hanging out of the truck bed. To keep it from flying out of the truck as we drove the 20 miles from Bend to Sisters, Seva sat on the end of it to weigh it down and off we went down Hwy 20. I only wish I had picture of that!

Spring is making its way slowly but surely up here in the high country. The creek in the meadow is full, the grass is already a foot high and the birds are everywhere–robins, Steller’s jays, nuthatches and woodpeckers—making nests and chattering up a storm in the early morning hours. The weather is never predictable this time of year, with temps ranging from the 30’s to the 80’s and rain, sometimes even snow, that can come out of nowhere to send you scuttling indoors for a jacket or to start up a fire in the woodstove. In our yard is great rock garden that I just love because it is so ungroomed and random. The rocks are all native (the former owners took them from the property) and there are wildflowers of all sorts that poke out of the nooks and crannies. I may just go get a couple of those wildflower seed packets at the nursery in town and throw them out there helter-skelter to see what comes up.

This second week I’m here by myself, still working on the house projects, but now having more time to devote to some writing and reading. Speaking of which, I just finished Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, which I totally enjoyed. I’m also reading a book I found at the local bookstore called, Writing to Change the World by Mary Pipher. This book I couldn’t pass up, for obvious reasons. I’m also a few pages into an oldie, but goodie, that I never read in my youth, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. I’ve also watched four movies this week on DVD: Sweet Home Alabama (one of Seva’s favorites), The Barbarian Invasions (my second time for this touching film), Les Choristes and A Love to Hide (both of these are French movies and excellent). As for poetry, I am reading poems by Tomaz Salamun, a new poet to me, from his book, The Four Questions of Melancholy. Powerful stuff and a style that seems to be a direction my own work is heading in.

Well, I think that about does it for catching up. I leave you with a poem by Tomaz Salumun and some more photos of the wildflowers amongst the rocks (and a local woodpecker lookin’ for some morsels).

THE TREE OF LIFE

I was born in a wheat field snapping my fingers.
A white chalk ran across the green backboard.
Dew made me lie on the ground.
I played with pearls.

I leaned fields against my ear, and meadows.
The stars were crackling.
Under a bridge I carved an inscription: I don’t know how to read.
They rinsed the factories with salt water.

Cherries were my soldiers.
I was throwing gloves into the thorn bushes.
We ate fish with the golden break knife.
In the chandelier above the table not all the candles were burning.

Mother played the piano.
I climbed on father’s shoulders.
I stepped on white mushrooms, watching the clouds of dust,
Touching branches from the room’s window.

Tomaz Salamun
 

Lupine with a touch of dew. 

  Looked this little guy up (yes, it’s a male) in my bird book. He’s a White-headed Woodpecker.