I'm over the moon about my friend and YOUR hometown publishing hero Laura Stanfill's recent win:
(Forest Avenue Press has acquired award-winning author Beth Kephart's memoir, WIFE / DAUGHTER / SELF, in a pre-empt)
Beth Kephart is one of my go-to literary influences for composition in visual to writing flow and presentation. She is a particularly exceptional instructor. I'm excited for you Laura, as always my friend, this town is lucky to have you
I was in my old neighborhood where I was raised for a few years as a child and decided to dip in the old Dunkin Donuts (now Sesame) I don't know why, I just did.
I get to the counter and I tell the gal at the register that I'd first walked in here with my Blue Birds group in 2nd grade. She smiled and said "I hear SO much nostalgia at this location"
Behind me walks in an old gentleman with eyes that look as though they've seen thousands of years of wisdom. Immediately, I knew he was a citizen of a strained income. His stained and ripped coat looked as though it had been loved threadbare and would continue to be until it fell off of him. All the employees said in unison "Hi Hank!" They knew him. He was a daily customer. If money would provide then he'd sit and have a cup of coffee and read the print newspaper all day in their chairs out front. I said, "I'd like to buy Hank whatever he would like this morning."
His face lit up.
"Oh thank you! You know what this means right? I get to sing you a song."
With honestly the most beautiful male voice I've heard in acapella he sang the old tune 'Hey Good Lookin' He hit every note and the timing was as perfect as if he had a band accompaniment. Everyone at the register smiled. The gal at the register said, "He sings to me too! The pretty girls get the songs." I left there with this feeling that not all was lost. So Hank, you wonderful songbird, I celebrate you and everything YOU do to make this country more bearable. I'm off to go make some art today in Warm Springs. I've got your song with me and I'll play it over and over on the drive over the pass. Godspeed my friend!
It never fails. BAM! I hit the window of life and fall stunned to the ground, reeling. I thought for sure it was a through way. I thought for sure!
Didn’t I see the glare? Didn’t I see it coming? I am wandering, wandering. Soon my milieu changes, where am I? What has happened here? I am soon faced with this larger than life thing. This inescapable scenario. I think I must be the only one, then, a bird hits my window or wildlife takes a wrong turn into my home.
Although, I work to not perpetuate magical thinking, I do have to wonder about the timing. These visitors come to me when life takes it’s most surprising turns.
They arrive with the precursor of big change. It’s always been that way. I’ve no idea why or how. All I know is that, as one who is so strongly attached to nature and her elements, how else is she supposed to carry on a conversation with me? Particularly when I am closed off. Nature, really has been the only constant in my life.
It explains why in so many aspects, I’m so feral. And, after all, in one scenario after the next I look back in hindsight to find that I’d survived. However miraculous that may be. Be that as it may, I wonder, then, why does it remain a surprise, the hand opens to release me back into my habitat. Another day. Yes, another day.
Angels In America
I've actually known Tim and Thor for several years. We have in our little town a small community of travelers. They may roam far and wide, sometimes for weeks at a time, but they'll always return to our little train track town and find minimal shelter in the space of time between journeys.
Tim is a native son of this little town. Just like his fellow travelers he has a story, a story that could be a novel. That story finds the souls that need to hear it, become a part of it, even help write it. How is his itinerary developed? I imagine much like my own story has flowed. A channel meandering through the landscape, sometimes free flowing, sometimes experiencing violent redesign using heavy and sharp machinery. That painful and breaking process producing the most astonishing upheaval, only to yield a new stronger and more sustainable path. Better than before. If we can just get to the other side.
It takes me a while to sit with an idea these days, before I concrete it into a structure in my mind. I started doing this after studying Michael Shermer's writing on the believing brain. This litmus test gives me some hope of knowing a theory has been tested against wishful thinking. This idea that I tend to see these 'angels' like Tim at a time when the universe seems to be driving home a point in conjunction with my current state of mind and life. The universe I believe introduces ideas to us, a knowing, a feeling when life gets critical enough for it to intervene. That ever so incredible moment when it climbs right into the skin of one of us, flowing freely through our bloodstream, coursing ever so boldly to our command center, the brain. We become a traveler, we become the hands of the universe, we, with our novels of life stories, we, with our souls so unmistakably at that critical moment. I wonder sometimes how well we recognize when we become Angels In America.
Full moon glorious she, arriving right on Spring equinox. The evenings serenaded by our Rana Catesbeiana frogs and mornings a chirping chorus of native songbirds. Morning sky of pink haze beat the cherry blossom trees to the punch as if to give a hint of what is to come. A warm fragrant air blows strong enough to tip the crow off his course and force him to bank into the wind. Sometimes he plays with it, enjoying being pushed around in the sky, seeing where the gusts take him. It is nesting season, soon there will be no time for play. The wind brings a message that a peace is coming and with it the resolution I have been seeking for so very long.
With a breath of finality
Blowing away old beliefs
Standing at the altar of ourselves
What does it mean
To get out of our own way?
You were born in New York 9 years ago and raised by a loving silver haired elderly man and his wife for 7 years in a New York high rise. Your loving silver haired master died leaving you alone with his widow. You began to suffer greatly at the hands of her mental decline with dementia. So much damage happened before her children placed her in a home and took you to Brittany Rescue Society. The Rescue Society put you up for adoption three times and all three times you were taken back to the rescue society. The families said you couldn't love. They wanted a dog who could love. I called the Brittany Rescue Society looking for someone who could fill my heart left by the gaping hole of Hope's passing. I was certain no dog could hold a candle to her legacy. I adopted you and my heart sank. I felt like you couldn't love me. I almost took you back for the fourth time to the rescue society, but the next day a miracle happened. I began to notice you had an uncanny ability to sense changes in me and respond. You were cool, calm, collected and eerily smart. There was a deep magic to you that I was beginning to see. That night you decided to sleep next to me. I canceled my appointment with the rescue society. Over the months and years you formed a bond with me stronger than most human relationships. You were a trauma rescue. You taught me that time, love and patience were the only strategies for a trauma survivor, but once those bonds are made they are among the strongest in the world. People are drawn to you. I'll never forget the Christmas when we went down to Burnside's homeless camps to deliver our gifts and you curled up in the lap of the biggest, strongest, surliest resident at the camp and he held you until he cried. "I used to have myself a dog" he said. You make connections with so many. It's like they can see the light in you. I don't know if I deserve to be a steward of such an amazing animal, but I am forever grateful nonetheless. Happy Birthday my best friend. Please give me as many years as you can.
Videos forthcoming!
Sean Davis-
Sean Davis is the author of The Wax Bullet War, a Purple heart Iraq War veteran, and winner of the Legionnaire of the Year Award from the American Legion in 2015 and the recipient of the Emily Gottfried Emerging Leader, Human Rights award for 2016. His stories, essays and articles have appeared in the Smoke, Human the Movie, and Ted Talk Books The Misfits Manifesto. Sean has fought in a revolution, a war, and helped save lives in New Orleans during Katrina. He’s a wild land firefighter during the summers. He has been a police officer, a bartender, an incident responder, a supernumerary in an opera, and currently teaches writing at Mt. Hood Community College and Clackamas Community College. Sean not only encourages communion with Nature, he dedicates life and limb to protect her. Each year you'll find him bravely situated on the front lines of wildfires across the Pacific Northwest as one of Oregon's most experienced and decorated firefighters. Sean's love of Nature and of people is the lifeblood in his particular brand of philanthropy. Sean lives in rural Oregon with his talented wife Kelly Davis and their daughter.
Sean is an interdisciplinary artist and writer. Within the Collective Sean offers his series of paintings surrounding trauma, survival and the interconnectedness with Nature.
Jennifer Porter-
Jennifer Porter is a native of Portland and an artist and conservationist. Her early work and focus surrounded spacial theory, the built environment and architecture. She developed and curated 'Centrifuge' at Art Institute of Portland. Centrifuge was a study of the interconnectedness between the disciplines of art, art theory and architecture. Centrifuge featured master artist and GBD Architecture founder Chuck Gordon, two of Portland’s leading architecture firms and several of Portland’s local artists. She curated a series of shows in a massive artist run pop up gallery collective, Deep Field Gallery. She served four years on the planning committee of Portland’s largest art auction, The Annual CAP Art Auction, overseeing the installation and multimedia program. Jennifer’s interest began to take a more personal tone in recent years with focus on nature and conservation issues and most recently the process of finding the new normal in trauma recovery. Working alongside her family as habitat restoration specialists, reconstructing damaged habitats, she found an inherent similarity to the power of nature in its rejuvenation and restoration, and the healing we do from traumatic instances in our own lives. She is currently dedicated to assisting high risk youth.
Reading: Jude Brewer
Jude’s writing has appeared in Retreat West, New Millennium Writings, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Clackamas Literary Review, Scintilla Press, Typishly, and Cultured Vultures. His nonfiction short was a finalist in the 2017 Montana Book Festival, and he was the winner of the 2017 Retreat West Flash Fiction Prize. He also produces and hosts the literary “radio theatre” podcast Storytellers Telling Stories. New episodes available Tuesdays on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, any podcast app and on sttspod.com
Reading: Jason Arias
Jason Arias lives in Portland, OR. You can find some of his previous work in past issues of Oregon Humanities Magazine, Lidia Yuknavitch’s book The Misfit’s Manifesto, Perceptions Magazine, and Storytellers Telling Stories Podcast as well as other publications.
The other day I was thinking, I hope I get a shot of him when the leaves turn... Well he granted my wish.
Yesterday while on a walk with Grace we found her. One of Magellan's roost members had flown close to the garden to pass away. The neighbor and I picked her up and held her warm but very still form in our hands. We watched her eyes close as she became even more still. It was the first we had been able to hold one of these magnificent creatures in our hands and study the genius of their natural aviation. Magellan was not grieving over her when we found her and so we are unsure if it was his life mate Maria who passed. The evidence showed that she may have been ambushed by a large cat while walking on the ground near the woods and wetlands. She most certainly was alone when the incident occurred. A cat or dog would not have survived the wrath of roost members who witnessed her demise. I thought of her today when working on a sculpture. It is a bioluminescent under a globe atop of nest filled with the biodiversity of nature. Containing some of Oregon's most poisonous flora, such as Nightshade and Letharia Vulpina. It also contains some of Nature's beautiful wonders, such as gifts that Magellan has left me over the weeks in exchange for his meals. Spun within the nest are gift feathers, some brightly colored twigs and mosses he found, and portions of a wasps nest that he found interesting. All of these items spun together, the bright and dark, the beautiful and the deadly. The bioluminescence atop the nest is a testament to our divine or higher self which is a truth above the worldly cyclone of form, function, world, dirt earth, flesh, bone, pain, perception. It's that transition she made yesterday that had me transfixed. The warmth of her form in our hands seemed to be the energy of remembrance to sheer genius of her mechanics. The energy of flight. It was a profound thing to experience. The neighbor buried her in the woods near the wetlands as two roost members stationed in the trees witnessed her return to the earth. What an incredible phenomena. Nature.
Magellan is my yard crow. Over the last year and a half, I've entered into a neat friendship with this unique and beautiful bird. I like to say he chose me. He's been very faithful and constant. I write about his antics quite a bit on F.B. and he even has his little base of dedicated readership!
One thing he taught me recently, is appreciating the small things.
Magellan will leave trinkets in return for his meals and I've been saving them. I sure do dig that sentient little being. I hope he is around for many seasons to come!
