proteanme

Hello September! What a stunning start. First the weather: blue skies, warmish temperatures and a little wind. Second the people: new folks, friends in the making, tried and true connections, Portland family, and old friends far way who are on the mend, thank goodness. Third the bounty: corn, tomatoes, basil, green beans out the wazoo, eggplant, zucchini, kale, more tomatoes and pickling with A.M.

Easy to practice gratitude this past weekend. Easy to be in love with the world and chit chat with fellow bike riders and weed and pick green beans and sing along loudly to old soul music and belt out kids songs to distract my favorite  2 & 1/2 year from the sadness of leaving the park. (Who knew you could make the Wheels on the Bus last the course of 10 blocks?! Let’s just say lots of people and farm animals were on the bus.)

I know this is the end of summer and the start of fall and that the change is a reminder of how all things change. Seasons are a pretty perfect reminder and an excellent and obvious example of how life and death work. And Fall seems like a pretty opportune time to embrace all of that. Because it’s beautiful but the beauty is on the wan and because the sun shines but the days are getting shorter, etc. Sometimes I am amazed at how desperate we, as a people are are, to figure out all these life and death mysteries, when nature seems to hold so many of obvious answers answers. We are all connected. There is beauty. There is destruction. Neither one of them are based on merit. It’s hard to to talk about this without lapsing into cliche. I suppose that speaks to my writing skills. This fall seems super poignant to me (even though its just started) and I don’t know why. I think it has to do with getting older and people in my family getting older, too. There were two other milestone birthdays in my immediate family this year. Mom turned 80 and my niece turned 18. Also for me fall may be symbolizing this time of my life, where I’m clearly in the 2nd half of it. But anyway, if you’ve got it in you to spend some time reflecting on change and endings and beginnings, I think this would be a fruitful time.

A quick aside to no where: I am always entertained by Robert Pollard’s fake British accent. Even when I don’t like the song. But a  also good, new Guided By Voice song, is really fun to listen to.

I am really going to miss late night summer bike rides. They are kind of magical, which is not a word I use very often and so you know it really means something when I say it. My watch or something in my room keeps beeping at 5  til the hour. It makes me feel a little crazy. It just beeped, so I feel like I have to say something. Like a kind of virtual, did you hear that?

Anyway, tonight I rode my bike  at dusk to a queer dance party on the roof top of a hotel by the convention center and then I rode home at midnight. The dance party was a strange scene that kind of felt like queers had invaded someone’s bar mitzvah, but in a good and interesting way. Like that kid was being bar mitzvahed hadchanged locations at the last minute, so it was totally ok that queers took over. At the dance party, I saw my old, as in from Indiana, as in 16 years ago friend, SB, and my new good friend, Nancy. And of course unbeknownst to me, the two of them have met and have become friends, because Portland is a small town, but also I know a bunch of different people even though I am an introvert. And then I also got to hang out and talk with a bunch of people I don’t know super well, but who I like and who I am always happy to see – Peggy, Dexter, Morgan and Maria. And then kind of like a magic trick, Carrot also appeared by my side a couple times tonight and inside I was like “yay, Carrot,” because I like Carrot and I knew that I could tell him that this party was weird but good and he would understand what I meant.

Maybe I am imagining that I connected with Carrot or anyone else, like Peggy or Maria. Although I hope I did. I did have some drinks, which I don’t often do, and it does lessen my inhibitions and make me more expressive and happy. i also kind of bite my lip when I am buzzed. But the good will and affection I felt and I feel, feel very real, though, and I am going to go with that — good will, affection, big heartedness, and hell yeah queers.

I kind of wished I would have danced,  but I just wasn’t in the sweaty dancing mood, even though I’ve been wanting to be in that mood at various times this summer. It’s just never quite right for me. I don’t know why and I can’t will it into being. Why is that? Oh well . It will happen and it will be fun and magical too.