Watching a new year roll around

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Were we getting into a rhythm for now?

On the home front, here’s how 1997 played out.

~*~

Hate to see Kitty go back to school (she graduated last term) …

My next novel will probably be in Washington state, first person. Only a few characters? Newsroom?

[First mention of a novel now published as Hometown News … much earlier than I remember … what was the premise / plot at that point?]

No water since Saturday night: pipes frozen, despite drip from both faucets.

Monday morning dream: sound of thawing in the pipes, running water, “Hey! Let’s shower!” — all in dreams while cold continues driving deeper into the ground.

15 Jan /

More snow, earth’s frozen two feet deep, most in memory, from two weeks of sub-zero cold … 11 inches of snow in 24 hours last week, third heaviest on record … in meantime, haul water from the washhouse: 60 gallons over the weekend

8 Feb /

Extremely tired. At 34 John Nichols had three novels in print. Me, almost 31, still no books in type. Opportunities further and further away. And spiritual light growing dimmer.

So happy Kitty came home tonight for my 31st birthday. Was going to take her out but came home to find her cooking her first prime rib. Excellent, beautiful meal. Candlelight, good wine. [With a rich Zinfandel, if I recall right A new variety for both of us.] White linen. African violet blooming.

Beautiful clouds tonight. Still no running water in the house.

No TV tonight. Is that why the magic?

31, still no book — what’s happening to the longpoem? And the novel, so difficult, all the odds against its publication.

The Real Work, in Snyder’s view, is not what I’m doing.

11:III /

5 a.m. Friday, gurgling under the house: running water!

JACKRABBIT

HOO-EEE!

So warm today I can sit in my yard while wearing shorts

Ivar’s about on his tractor with dormant spraying

Kitty’s creating a plastic hot-house in the garden: beets, peas, spinach, lettuce.

19:III /

While going to work this morning, [irrigation] water arriving in Sunnyside Canal, half-full.

On my return, full, placid. Like a new river.

Little Netherlands.

24 March / Saturday /

First asparagus shoots by the irrigation canal — enough for dinner for two.

Thursday, first apricot blossoms. Most of Belzer’s grove like kernels of half-cooked popcorn. Today, fully opened.

By early afternoon, we’re sunbathing in our tiny yard.

[Add to my list of “Not Here in New England, Not by Any Means!}

Portland, 3 March ’79 /

Overheard in next booth in restaurant:

Masturbation. “The left hand’s always best.”

[Not in my experience.]

“You know you’re not bored if you’re alone and tell yourself, ‘No, not tonight, I have a headache.’”

Tomatoes and cucumbers with sour cream beside half a cold wild game hen with a Henry Weintraub beer …

Pasta maker, all-metal, $39, sale price, no sales tax.

Too much unbaked happiness around here.

19 April ’79 /

Dreamt the telephone was ringing. I jumped out of bed, waking in time for work. (Dreams that lead to real action.) [Not the first time! As earlier journal entries reveal.]

Earlier, after our cat woke me, wind machines were already making a ruckus. Then looked at the barn, the door was open, meaning Ivar was about. A bit later, the smudge pots in our orchard were blazing. Saw neighbors lighting theirs. Belzer, on an ATV, zipped through his apricots followed by booming hollow explosions each time one cannister lit.

Andy, walking with flames dripping from his flame thrower, leaving steps of fire behind him …

Each cannister burping flames and smoke until settling down into a steady glow of heat …

By sunrise a blue film hangs like a gray tent over the valley’s basin …

Kitty, frustrated: “You don’t talk to me!”

This silence is restless, not solid.

26-27 April /

The apples don’t really blossom until the leaves have opened, so the fullest blooming is hidden by green …

Went to Seattle Saturday a.m.

Visited galleries, Linda Ryan’s show, especially. I photocopied the finished third of the novel [now published as Subway Visions]. Scary, taking IT [the manuscript] so far … I even hate leaving it for the day when I go to work. [Ryan? Not Kitty’s fellow student Johnson?]

[How times have changed! Digital manuscripts are easily backed up to the Cloud or even a thumb drive.]

Ate out, City Loan Pavillion. Drunks arguing, breaking bottles. Crowds leaving for the Kingdome. [Kingdom come.]

Later, seeing Celeste and baby “Cedar Davidita” [middle name after her late father] … everybody sleepy.

How I hate driving around Seattle. Easty to get lost, one-way streets, even knowing where I want to go. Barriers in my way. (Over the bridge, turn around, can’t get back: the draw’s up.)

~*~

Today with Kitty, the third annual Art Folks vs Music Folks Hoyt Axton Slow-Pitch Game, her college circle picnic beside the Yakima River, where I’m off alone, listening to the beautiful flowing. Just finished Joan Didion’s A Book of Common Prayer, a masterpiece. [Forty-five years later, I remember nothing.]

Kitty ran over a snake just before we got to the picnic amid a few scattered long-needle pines. Shrieks from the game.

Two days she’s been a bitch: that time of the month again.

She wonders how I can stand her.

A lovely morning abed possible only because Meeting’s tonight, at the Truebloods.

Summer, and I should be hiking.

Waiting in the Burlington Northern depot (surprise, it was open) 4:14 a.m. with train scheduled for 4 a.m. arrival now expected around 5:30. Empire Builder. Half-wondering, why’s Nancy Scott coming? [Who?]

Maybe this jolt will get me back on the early-morning track but the evenings have been so nice.

3 rattlesnakes killed on the hill ranch. “Don’t tell anybody or we can’t get anyone to work there.”

“Thought rattlesnakes didn’t like the wet orchards.”

“It’s so dry, they’re coming down for water.”

Bismarck Peak from Mount Aix by Ron Clausen via Wikimedia Commons.

Did I climb either of them? Perhaps. My journals didn’t include everything.

~*~

3:VIII:79 — Friday /

Fifth anniversary — that long?

“Do you love me?”

Slept “late” last two days, meaning I didn’t rise early enough to meditate before dashing off to the office.

Zenny over Wednesday night, and then both Zennys and Dolphs up for dinner last night.

Me, to dentist for cleaning. What’s that — a sharp metal probe! An unexpected jolt: pain! The water rinse stings. Blue eyes, the dental technician. What am I supposed to be doing in this chair? Swami! What do you think about?

Two upper wisdom teeth must come out. Sometime. Meaning soon?

Yesterday, my allergies so bad I left work early. Tonight, I left early to pick up Kitty after the VW’s clutch cable gave out: she drove to town in second gear.

14:VIII:79 / Tuesday morn /

Roza [water district] went “cloud seeding” yesterday, folks with junior rights canals out-back. With the first clouds in two months and some strangely hazy air. At 10 we felt a slight drop here or there. By midnight, rain — a slow, steady rain till dawn.

1 September /

Breakfast at Adeline’s, E’burg, open 5:30 a.m. for the rodeo crowd.

“Is the parade today or tomorrow?”

“Today, 10 a.m.”

“Sounds like a good time to sleep in.”

In Seattle, the NW Photocopy Center

COLOR CONTROL

“the Jewish question”

while fussing with his master copy

“Hey, man! There’s a place for guys like you. It’s called the Soviet Union.”

WHITE PICKER

“I’m just an old tramp”

Look the other way, there’s always a garden. Say Daikotoji, Tokyo Zendo.

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

Professional struggles in the greater scheme of life

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The year 1979 opened with more unsettlement than I’ve recalled.

11 Jan

All-day session yesterday in the downstairs conference room. I’m feeling depressed as a result. The day news editor situation hasn’t been working out as well as I had hoped. JMack’s feeling overworked, night rim’s complaining about all the copy, everybody’s p.o.’d about my “planning time. In addition, Wallace is upset about “lines of authority,” i.e. I don’t speak to Spuler and my use of the artist to do TV mag covers. If we took an attitude survey right now, we’d be in trouble on the news desk.

So much of what we — not just me? — do these days is divorced from any larger context: meaningless work for corporations or other exploiters: no character or expression of the divine: no wholeness.

Are articles unnecessary baggage? Belcher’s “the weather” reduced to “wear,” after taking all the “the” out.

Whiz, over beers after work:

“You think you and Kitty would be happier in Seattle?”

And then: “You shouldn’t be in the slot or working on the daily. You should be doing long-range projects. Your best job is just thinking.”

Almost as pointedly, with a laugh, after hearing of my bumping into GS: “You ever been able to talk to your hero?” Followed by his own attempts in real life.

Last week and this, all office — 50-55 hours … Gayman off, I’m so damn exhausted … [apparently, was in charge at night and still had my other responsibilities to fulfill] …

Asked about the Real Work: “Can you Quake in Newspaper?”

Ace reporter Nick Provenza noting how the editorial page would take stans on his series exactly the opposite of the way he feels about the encounter.

Isn’t there an honest way to get rich fast?

Or what later shows up as smuggling? What New Englanders call opportunity …

20:VI:79 (Wednesday)

As I said to Whiz over brunch, “The trouble is, this isn’t isn’t fun anymore — not for you, for Roger, or for me.” The news biz, that was.

A long day of employment: rush off to work, come home, have dinner, go to bed. Get up again and repeat.

Had a super applicant we wanted to hire as Purdy’s replacement — strong graphics, good headlines, Louisville Courier-Journal experience. Tried calling Friday and Saturday, no answer. Monday he phoned us, saying Friday was his last day, he took a job in Spokane.

31:VII:79

At the office, a session with Kent and JET on “what I want to be when I grown up.” JET asked about the ashram, surprised about Quakers. Some things cannot be discussed fully.

Essential concepts so common, like brand names, you don’t even notice them: stars in daylight at full eclipse: they’ve been there all along.

 

Cloud-caps like this one on Mount Adams were common on the stratocone mountains. Photo at Pexels by Blue Ox Studio. Glacier-clad Adams dominated the western horizon of the valley, peering over 6,000-foot-ridges of the Cascades, though it was more than 50 miles away. I saw it nearly every day as I drove to or from the office. The summit was, however, much harder to approach than Mount Rainier, which was some 2,000 or so feet taller.

Monday, 10 sept 79

Weekend, UPI meetings at Yakima Holiday Inn — sallow-faced, burned-out looking editors, lower-middle-class seedy … [where stood I among them?] … do I want to be there in 30 years? And these are the folks who make this a how many billion-dollar a year industry and the reason we’re in trouble?

Mrs. Stone’s “overtime” despite two-hour lunches and hair appointments. Per instructions, I took time off her timecard. “Today’s an unfavorable day,” according to my Astro Calendar.

19 sept 79, Wednesday, personal day off work — had to get it in by Oct 1 or lose it. Thought my parents would be here. Shot, though, something about the office — ANXIETY. Yesterday, was 6:30 before I could spring free, a special Energy Section: the photos didn’t even come up till after 5, quitting time. Next week, an AgMag and a supervisors’ meeting.

[Much of my “time off” was ultimately “comp time.”]

Business-side changes: Jay White, Pat Carey, Jean Downs promoted (advertising, marketing, circulation) under Craig Moon. Strange, cut-throat vibes. John Lamphiere, offered a position cut, quit. Steve Macke, nearly the same. Surprises, until you detect the brown-nosing. Moon aping Jack Williams, becoming his “best friend.” Jeane sticks close to HR chief. What happens when Tonkin steps down? Neither Whiz nor I like what we’re seeing. I pray we be wrong: wait for proof.

GRAND PLAN REDESIGN

The Big Decision came down Thursday and I found myself left in a lurch. No more italic headlines, for starters. Me, already hog-tied in layout, it’s no fukkin’ fun anymore, just two basic layouts as it is. The 3-column picture versus the 4. Italic was my trademark after high school because we didn’t have the option. (I won’t enter the Harte-Hanks contest next year; no individuality, no mo’ pride, son.) — and stuck with the damn AP “stylebook” on names of plays, opera, etc. — AP has no style, doesn’t follow its own rulebook anyway. Another contradiction, like Postal Service. … Now one-point rule goes on boxes but two-point on photos. I don’t even know what column logos I’ll have by Wednesday a.m.

21:XII:79

Saturday night dinner at the Kents’ after a day of company activity at the Holiday Inn, one that began with breakfast there before a Media Law seminar, where Kent showed up and then began trying to pick out our guest, Dan Rivera, the P-I’s attorney, among the strangers. A good presentation, candid and entertaining Including a luncheon, on the company. As we left, new snow falling, a slick drive home. Over b’fast,Kent filling me in on Jim Tonkin’s decision to retire April 1 or so.

Back to town that night, slickest roads, cars in ditches, we show up late but alive. Leave at midnight, the roads already improving.

[Frank] Gayman surprisingly informative about sheep and firewood, his working the latter with Lou Witkin (we’d bought our first firewood from him) …

~*~

So, in a nutshell, that’s how my professional career year would go.

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

Digging in at the shack  

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

 Never met an ex-farmer who left the land by choice.

I think it’s the taxes, ultimately, that swayed their decision. Or more likely, offers too good to turn down from developers.

 So many places sell expensive recordings or stereo gear but no needles or other support items …

Ear of Oats, from Book of Signs. Which I now read as Earl of Oats.

Saturday, starting to install plastic around doors and windows on the back porch — our new winter room, with plastic under the rug, too …

Calling for a blessing

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

If you enter the woods reverentially

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

 Even a small grove or a well-maintained city park can deliver, but the full experience occurs once you get far enough away from the road that you’re beyond the litter.

Here are ten voices that reflect the wonder.

  1. “And into the forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul.” … “In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.” — John Muir
  2. “Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.” — Hal Borland
  3. “If you walk into a forest, you hear all kinds of subtle sounds, but underneath there is an all-pervasive silence.” — Eckhart Tolle
  4. “It is said that the forest has a certain limit if you look straight ahead, but the sides are boundless.” — Riccardo Bozzi
  5. “All forests have their own personality.” — Charles de Lint
  6. “I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.” — Henry David Thoreau
  7. “Anywhere which is in a forest, that’s my Zen place.” — Raveena Tandon
  8. “For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
  9. “It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.” — Robert Louis Stevenson
  10. “The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Something more like what others would see as a real vacation

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Early Sept … Came over today, my first vacation travel with Kitty and me only. We were off for British Columbia, meaning Canada.

Lunch at the Tumwater Café, German reminding me of good Ohio farm cooking — Grandma Hodson’s yet, as Kitty asserted, “But not Mom Moran!”

Yakima Fruit Stand, “Your canning headquarters,” on U.S. 2, Snohomish, on way to Everett

And our luck today, arriving at Keystone ferry as the boat’s in dock, nearly loaded. Expecting to see it pull out, instead the ticket seller said, “Congratulations, you made it — with a minute and a half to spare.”

[That was the state ferry across Puget Sound, getting us to Port Townsend.]

Spent $40 at Imprint bookstore, on poetry, mostly, and the owner called Sam Hamill and told me how to get out to the Copper Canyon Press to be there at 9 the next morning. (Good luck, again.0

That, after (good luck) we had taken the next-to-last room at the Tides Inn, with a room overlooking Puget Sound …

Saw my first seal on my trip, a dog-head in the water until a real dog started barking.

~*~

12 Sept, met Sam at the press, Fort Warden State Park for the arts, beautiful old wooden structures pleasantly restored (wood heat in the print shop) as he set type by hand while I watched. Word of a fine-sounding symposium coming up April 9-13 — Snyder, perhaps.

Sez send him the mss in Oct or Nov … he, too, has had a busy summer. Has an earring, hard wrinkles, tattoos MOM …

luck again … boarded MV Cobo from waiting line, Port Angeles-Victoria. Any later, we would have missed it and had to wait five hours. As it was, a 45-minute wait. Ferry rocking, side to side, hard to walk, even read.

Couples playing cards.

Native next to us: no ear, just a nub of scar tissue. Enough to hold his glasses up.

Outside, sky clears. Coastal clouds low on the mountains.

Seagulls, how can I miss them?

Porpoises.
Whitecap followed
by black shining streak.

Brentwood Inn on Brentwood Bay — $26 for a suite w/ kitchenette

Something so purely out of the early ’50s or even ‘30s.

[In my memories, it’s an inland pond.]

In our room: TV ads remade for Canadian audiences: new accents and no Blacks. On radio, hearing familiar CBC nighttime programs plus daytime classical.

Butchart Gardens, in former limestone quarries ($4/person)

Almost too beautiful, though overwhelmed by blue-haired women and equally stout and frail dim-witted men.

BEGONIAS, ESP. THOUGH ROSES MUST BE SOMETHING IN PRIME.

The English/Scottish traditions so obvious here: everything relatively safe: motels windows unlocked, acceptance of cashiers’ cheques and credit cards with no hassle. But when Kitty dashes ahead through oldsters at the gardens, we hear a mumbled “rudeness” behind us and I thought of the veiled violence of Britain (the righteous or self-righteous stiffness coming down on nonconformists).

“PLEASE LEAVE UMBRELLAS OUTSIDE”

 

 

Though most visitors seem to be most impressed by the formal gardens or fully blooming flower beds. which could be located just about anywhere, what I found most stunning was the reclaimed quarry.  Photos by Bill Wilson via Wikimedia Commons.

~*~

Missed HIGH TEA SERVICE at the gardens by five minutes ($4/person: “JUST ENOUGH TO SPOIL YOUR DINNER” tea/sandwiches/crumpets) and debated about $8/per buffet later, deciding even with cold turkey, salmon, beef it’s still cafeteria, so rather than wait another 3 hours for the famed lights splaying the quarry and fountains, off we went off to downtown, nosed around (including opening restaurant doors, taking a sniff or two, and returning to the sidewalk. After narrowing our choices to two, we settled on a tiny [modest, dimly lighted, dark red interior] French restaurant — I stayed in English, to not embarrass myself, my tongue tightening up too much even on the menu. [Forget grammar and tenses.] We even ordered a bottle of wine but were served another but excellent label — Ackerman? — food unbelievably fine: salmon for me, lamb for her [what I remember most, though, was her stewed tomato — something I never, ever would have thought could be heavenly] — then mousse au chocolat and good black coffee. Over the meal, her quizzing me about what if she’d have an affair — one of those impossible conversations. [Looking back over these entries, I realize it wasn’t about if but rather resolving the recent past.]

[I suppose this could be rendered as an intense short story or even a chapter, but the development no longer appeals to me. Too much work? Let me file it away under Missed Opportunities.]

Afterward, strolling the street again, I see a tall ridge in the Cascades behind downtown Victoria — not Baker’s profile but high the same way. Back in the orchard again, looking at maps, I’ll see it must be the elusive Mount Glacier. It conforms to configuration. Everything so amazing.

Had wondered earlier in the year about spending time in British Columbia [with my mountaineering focus, meaning the Canadian Rockies] but now, by accident, I’ve done it, except on the coastal side.

Later, viewing a James Crockett Victory Garden visit in the gardens — “nearly perfect” — so enjoyable to see where we’ve been.

13 Sept. — Wednesday, noon

Toured the Provincial Museum on the waterfront today — magnificent presentation, 3 floors: totem poles 4 stories high outside, or cur in half inside — some viewed best from the escalators.

Lodge houses inside with interior totem poles.

So many redheads and blue eyes, the Scottish factor, methinks. Within the museum, bump into a Japanese woman, “Excuse me.”

“You are very welcome.”

(Berlitz embarrassment.)

Mining display has detailing so realistic: cold air blowing in, a dim-lighted air shaft, a rocky passage like a prospector’s worked vein …

Ubiquitous Japanese visitors with cameras, waiting for the ferry. This time, a small one that without a full load, sails tilted on the cabin side.

COASTAL SCENE

A scone, with her tea.
Salmon sandwich, cookie, tea for me.
Clouds. Wet haze. Evergreens. Light gray.

With a yellow Volkswagen
microbus down the ramp
a ferry floats out, away.

And then a Canadian ferry trip from Victoria to Vancouver.

Buffet chattering dishes.

Yet too much to eat, $4.50.

God won’t let you in to Heaven
if you pile up treasures
a single charred mask
in a glass case
stands as an offering

At the beach house tonight, Tulalip Reservation, Turtle Island declaration, so many thick memories for Kitty

Another ten years will Californians be as detested as New Yorkers overrunning so many other states? Loud, obnoxious, insensitive?

LA center of the universe projection:

The world as backlots
even before TV’s
Walton’s Mountain
back before Walmart

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.