It is March, and spring, and that means the cherry trees are blossoming like mad in Portland. They are so ephemeral, easily tossed in the wind, and incredibly seductive when they explode on the branch. They are everywhere near my home. I happened to stop at a place where I know they look pretty good, on the campus of Reed College. (Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
All around me in Portland, magnolias and cherry trees are blossoming, and daffodils are in full color. It is pouring rain, but it does not matter amid the color and sounds of songbirds. I wanted to share a picture that captures the feeling of this time of year. It is the same feeling I get from the clip from Singing in the Rain, where Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds look out the window and see pouring rain, smile, and break into heavenly tap and sing, “Good Morning.”
So, good morning every one, and hello spring! (Click on the photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
To those who have never lived without knowledge of their past and their genetic kin, they will never know the visceral desire that dwells deep under the skin to find one’s biological and ethnic ancestry. It is utterly primal, completely natural, and as important as breathing. For adoptees, particularly those born after World War II and through the 1970s, this knowledge was systematically hidden from them by nearly all U.S. states to promote a radically new idea of kinship. This new model of family, composed of strangers, largely denied the essence of what it means to be a human and to ask, “Who am I?”
I spent 24 years without this knowledge, until I found my blood kin. It took years of looking. This story is unnecessarily sad because my biological grandparents never knew of each other’s existence, and in the case of one set of grandparents, my existence. They lived the last part of their full lives mostly ignorant of this missing story in their family narrative. One set of grandparents passed away without any knowledge they had a grandson–knowledge hidden intentionally from them by their son. Yet, I was alive and for some of the years in a neighboring state not far away. I would have liked to have met them. The others were lucky, and we did meet while they were still alive and well, and we enjoyed the time we had together before they both passed away.
As I look at this old photos, both taken near the same time in the 1940s, I squint and a see some of myself in their faces, in their hair, and in their lean, hard-working bodies. They are Midwestern. They lived complicated, rich lives. They are my kin. And we are forever connected through the ties that binds us, and I carry a quarter of each of their genetic material. I am theirs the they are mine. No state-created system will ever change that, even when it tried for decades, and continues that system today. In the end, blood is truly thicker than water. I know this to be true in my bones.
I have made a few batches of porters the past couple years. I just finished my latest. I used a Black Butte style porter recipe from the Deschutes Brewery in Bend (their porter is among my favorite beers). I prepared the wort and bottled the fermented final keg, all at Portland U-Brew in January and February 2016. I enjoyed getting to work with the team there and meeting fellow brewers. The U-Brew crew did a nice job educating new brewers like me on the chemistry and techniques to ensure a tasty, properly fermented beer. Overall, it is pretty durn good, though I think they could have upped the carbonation. Skol!
I really like pow-wows. They are lively, loud, physical, colorful, cultural, competitive, creative, and welcoming. One of my favorite activities in Seattle, when I lived there, was to visit Discovery Park for the annual Seafair Seattle Pow-Wow. The event fell on hard times recently, and has been cancelled, but it looks like funding was secured once more and it was held again, most recently in 2015. These shots all date from July 2013. All but one are of the male elders. What I noticed was a lot of intensity among the younger male dancers, and more energy conserving movements of the older, more veteran contestants. The most athletic did not win; it was the one who was in a space of personal expression, feeling the drum, and how that moved him.
Contestants who participated came from across the Northwest region and Canada, and tribes from the Spokane, to the Colvilles, to the Warm Springs, to the Umatilla, and more, were represented. Everyone I saw appeared to love it. The place was packed and everyone was taking pictures.
(Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
I made a very quick stop in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, during a recent trip to Spokane. It is still a beautiful place, as I last remembered it from my last visit, now many years ago. (Click on the photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
During a recent trip to one of my favorite cities in the United States, Spokane, I toured lots of neighborhoods. I was struck by the degree of poverty I did not recall seeing before. There are pockets of despair in any city in the United States, but Spokane surprised me because of how close some of these neighborhoods with high numbers of foreclosures were to downtown. The number of foreclosed properties is reportedly higher in Spokane than either Washington State or the United States, according the company Realtytrac.com. January 2016 alone saw 200 foreclosed properties in the city of 484,000 residents. As of 2014, the U.S. Census reports that more than 15 percent of all residents in the city alone lived below the poverty line.
Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.
I have published these photos before on either my blog or web site, or both. Some times, everything comes together nicely when you get family members to pose. You cannot fake a warm smile.
Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.
“I have seen the morning burnin’ gold on the mountain in the sky … .”
— Kris Kristofferson, Loving Her Was Easier
On most weekends, I can be found running or walking the Wildwood Trail of Forest Park, the best public park in a major city on the West Coast, if you ask me. On Sunday, it was freakishly warm, which brought out everyone and their dogs. You could hear the sound of spring in the bird calls echoing in the forest. You cannot have a bad day in this park, even in the rain. But it can be totally awesome when the sun comes out.
Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.
What Beautiful Light 