She wants her cup of stars.

Suddenly, in the middle of Powells, weighted down by the books in my basket, everything re-aligned itself and I was left to marvel at how much stress can make you forget yourself. Most the reading I'd been doing in the previous months, since the upheaval and uprooting and reschooling, had served the absolutely linked functions of survival and distraction. The fiction had impacted thinly, the reading a function of habit more than devotion. Which was not to say the reading had been poor, or wasted; but I was suddenly recalled to the bottomless passions the best fiction opened to me when I was awake enough to let it.

Yes I know this is overwrought. I'm reading Ann Radcliffe right now. Cut me some slack.

Every year on TV we watch the same Garfield special, the same Charlie Brown special, and so on, all of which were first animated back in the early eighties. Well, if they can milk those cash-cows year after year, I can replay my Shang-Hai Tunnel post from last Halloween. My parents were in town for a visit and I'd always wanted to take one of the official Shang-Hai Tunnel tours in Portland. They're supposedly the most haunted spot in Portland, if you believe in that sort of thing, and if you don't, they're still wicked awesome as historical artifacts of Portland's seedier days. We didn't see any ghosties, but the photos were kind of interesting. CLICK IF YOU DARES.

 

( ghostly musings of an improbable nature, plus pictures )

 

Today was the first grey rainy day in a while. The rain suits me, to be honest. It's easy on nerves that are sometimes shiver-tight. The colors are quiet and the air smells good through most of the winter. Good book weather, good library weather, good writing weather. I complain about Portland's rain, sometimes wish we had some violence to the weather, some drama. Thunderstorms, temper tantrums. It's nice once in a while. But all in all I am content with the gentleness.

This time of year makes me feel suddenly eighteen again, my first Portland winter, the way the water seems to buoy up depression without breaking it. It's not a bad feeling.

I grew up in Anchorage, where there are three seasons.
1. snow and dark
2. mud and snow
3. exuberance

There are things I always miss, always love about Alaska. But one of the most exciting things for me upon coming down this way was the turning of seasons. I don't always adapt to new things well. I'm not very zen. But the one shift I can embrace, always, is the movement from the white hot sun of August to the gentler gold of September. The breeze carrying moisture through the town, taking us into the calming rains, dove colored sky and leaves drooping under wet. The sun finally cracking through the tedious grey in May. The erratic growth spurts of the days into summer again. You never get tired of the weather, because it is  never here for long. That is where I love impermanence.