Diary 16

Recalling summers in Illinois
The hum of cicadas and crickets reverberating from a field of tall grass. The sound of shirring branches getting a mouthful of wind, the air damp with heat from the day. Burrs pulled from cotton shirts and socks like the thistles of a hairbrush my grandma tried to drag across my scalp after using mousse. Purling creeks and lake water lapping onshore. Summer storms, booming thunder and a soft blanket of rain. In June, July and August, the days are melodic. On a walk, I look at a meadow of tall grass and listen to the wind that combs through their limbs, then think of the phrase “prairie harp.” The summer playing it’s prairie harp.

Oregon
Day 1: Flew in late. Went to Albertsons for bread, mozzarella, grapes, steak and beer.
Day 2: Antique shopping in Portland. Boiled bagels at lunch. New book by Hermann Hesse. Gresham food carts for dinner featuring an outrageously long falafel wrap and a Thai waterfall salad with sweet, juicy beef.
Day 3: Breakfast at a “trucker diner,” least a bunch of semis were parked in the lot. Inflatables and a large rubber duck dressed in American flag printed clothing were cluttered by the entrance, and in each booth there were random quotes above the seats (-Buddha, -Abraham Lincoln, -The Book of Psalms, -unknown). Drove to the Sandy River Gorge, which was visible long before we parked the car, between thickets of pine trees and houses bordering the water. I glimpsed people floating along the river on rafts, kayaks and paddleboards. Every couple miles a Pratt truss bridge opened up our view, so that the forest wall on the opposite side of the river was visible against the shoreline, and the entire landscape lay exposed, in one grand sweep of the woodland curtain. I sunk into my seat; felt grounded by nature, yet again, and let the fresh air coming through the window clear my head.
A school of tadpoles. Walking in dry sand (a little clumsily). Horsetail reeds. A striped whipsnake? slithering into the brush. Thin layer of algae over the riverbed.
Dinner at a Spanish/Catalan restaurant in Portland. We sat on the patio, sipped cocktails made with local rye and mezcal. The loveliest summer wind blew through the city; thick with warmth from the day but clean & clear as could be. This coupled with the alcohol lulled me into a bliss while we waited for our dishes.
Salteado de pulpo y camarones: octopus, large prawns, manzanilla olives, cherry tomatoes, picada butter
Chuleta: wildflower honey-thyme brined pork loin, roasted broccolini, pea-celery leaf and carrot puree, black garlic-balsamic reduction
Paella negra: squid ink-seafood stock, cod, halibut, mussels, clams, shrimp, sofrito, picada sauce
Day 4: Slept into the morning. Left for the coast before noon and stopped to get coffee and a bite to eat on the way. Dan found a spot on maps that branded itself as a “deli & pub,” though it was neither. It looked more like a small casino in a rented out office space, with four or five gambling machines in front of a small counter and another room with a sink, coffee machine, microwave and toaster. A neon green sign on the wall seemed to glow with the four items on their menu: “3 cookies, coffee/soda, bagel and cream cheese, hot dog.” We were ID’d, then ordered black coffee and a bagel from a timid woman with shaky hands. Stopped at a jerky shop alongside the highway where I accidentally spent $62? on mushroom jerky, roasted hazelnuts, mushrooms chips, dried peaches, and a local Oregon beef jerky marinated in pinot noir.
Canon beach emerged from the trees. We were driving through what felt like the boondocks when we took a right turn, the country road opening onto the beach town.
We didn’t bring towels so we nestled ourselves into the sand, propped our backs up against a log and read, until I couldn’t resist the urge to jump into the ocean any longer. Later stripped out of wet bikini bottoms laden with sand.
Beer and house-made coleslaw for a late lunch. Stopped off of Highway 26 on the way home, drawn by a restaurant with a collection of old logging machinery spread around the yard. Monolithic equipment. Vintage dinosaurs from the late 1800s forward: steam donkeys, railroad cars, self-propelled steam cranes, and the t-rex of the collection, a massive sawmill bandsaw. Dan nearly shit his pants. Naturally, he knew more about the equipment than I did, and helped put them into context for me as we walked. Gravel crunched under our feet. In the restaurant’s backyard, a trail ran into the woods; a creek to our left and a forest drenched in moss and lychen to our right. The air seemed to be charged with our walk through the museum, history imbuing us with a sense of connectivity, of an ongoing story. I trailed behind Dan and looked at the back of his head and the surrounding nature and tried to find a foothold. Something to cling onto to make the moment last a little bit longer. Awestruck by the machines and their history, overwhelmed with woodland beauty, and brimming with love for my partner, I wished I could live in that moment forever.
Day 5: Visited Dan’s classroom for the first time. Gresham food carts for lunch- drunken noodles and mango lassi. Flew home.