On the domestic front, such as it was

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Picked Kitty up after her job Friday and hit Keoki’s for cocktails and appetizers. How I wish she would like it here! Indian crafts show in Toppenish this morning, stopped at Wappenish Bead Shop/Trading Post, very nice vibes — mild ashramic throughout, a place to return. Both Rainier and Adams in the sky.

Ray’s Meat Store, hardback bacon and shoulder of lamb — free pound of ground sausage, free pound of ground beef — friendly old shaky fat fellow. Kitty, afterward, “Do you cook the shoulder the same as the leg?” and then phoned her mother, who said, “The shoulder’s better!”

We were getting to know salmon and crab and rainbow trout, too.

~*~

As my then-wife accused me, where the hell was I taking her? Much of the land was settled within the memory of some of the oldest living residents. The route we entered by, with heavy cloud cover, was highly honky-tonk cowboy. Here’s a historic photo reflecting the early settlement, 1880 to 1920, via Wikimedia Commons.

~*~

Touchy around Kitty, who’s speaking baby talk more and more, drawing me into pointless conversation or interruptions, “How do you spell …” for the umpteenth time, and desires to spend (I just noticed the clutch needs tightening). Now she wants a $139 necklace for Christmas.

Where am I going? What am I doing here?

To again be passive and receptive wouldn’t be bad.

She’s impossible to live with these days. She wants something, wants to buy everything, but that’s not it. Unhappy, clinging to me yet feeling trapped, not knowing which way to go.

A man can live on next to nothing but not a woman. Even in the war, when they were starving, they had cosmetics, they had perfume. (So says my father-in-law, with a sly grin.)

Her Christmas list:

  1. Baskets
  2. Photo supplies — new tank, shaker, orthographic paper, textured paper, drying rack, timer
  3. Blank paperbound sketchbooks
  4. Art supplies — easel, loom, ball winder
  5. Sachet
  6. Mittens, knee socks, sweater
  7. Another flannel shirt — 36 or size 12/large women’s or medium men’s
  8. Candles
  9. Place mats
  10. Ceramic cups etc.

Paul [a new sports writer?] was talking about the spirits in his parents’ house (behind you, the cold), thermostats clicking on within warm rooms. Well, it was a funeral parlor.

Where everyone has a fireplace
or wood stove
that works,
everyone burns.
Or could.

Watch the flames
while pondering life
facing death.

With or without smoke.

Or a snake.

Kitty got her four-harness loom on our dash to Seattle … and we stayed with [former Workshop colleague] Franny’s parents, Cortes Island … quite lovely on the waterfront with light snow.

Putting presents away: Avon bottle, English Leather aftershave, an electric can opener — things you get used to, the trappings of middle class.

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

On hits and misses as a writer

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Here are ten more confessions on being a published author.

  1. “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” – Mark Twain
  2. “Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.” ― Stephen King
  3. “Style means the right word. The rest matters little.” – Jules Renard
  4. “My aim in constructing sentences is to make the sentence utterly easy to understand, writing what I call transparent prose. I’ve failed dreadfully if you have to read a sentence twice to figure out what I meant.” – Ken Follett
  5. “I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent, he would be wise to develop a thick hide.” – Harper Lee
  6. “One of [the things you learn as you get older] is, you really need less … My model for this is late Beethoven. He moves so strangely and quite suddenly sometimes from place to place in his music, in the late quartets. He knows where he’s going and he just doesn’t want to waste all that time getting there … One is aware of this as one gets older. You can’t waste time.” – Ursula K. Le Guin
  7. “Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil – but there is no way around them.” – Isaac Asimov
  8. “Was I bitter? Absolutely. Hurt? You bet your sweet ass I was hurt. Who doesn’t feel a part of their heart break at rejection. You ask yourself every question you can think of, what, why, how come, and then your sadness turns to anger. That’s my favorite part. It drives me, feeds me, and makes one hell of a story.” – Jennifer Salaiz
  9. “I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.” – Sylvia Plath
  10. “I used to save all my rejection slips because I told myself, one day I’m going to autograph these and auction them. And then I lost the box.” – James Lee Burke

 

I must wonder now how others perceived my role

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In reviewing my journal scribblings, I’ve been surprised how little I recorded about my introductory months at the Herald-Republic. By the way, that had been “Republican” for much of the paper’s history. What I am seeing, though, is how much I was Gil’s right-hand man, rather than the newbie at the bottom of the pecking order. Still, I was a utility player who had to jump in wherever the need arose. Not exactly a floater but close.

For the first time in my career, I was working closely under a manager who was actively grooming me. It was definitely different from my internships at the Journal Herald, which had presented some solid coaching all the same.

I don’t know how much of this period was reacclimating myself to daily journalism after my year-and-a-half break in academia, but in addition to adapting to a new landscape quite different than any I had known, I was also observing the lay of the land inside the newsroom, where Kent and Gil hadn’t made any big changes yet.

Astrologically, my Aquarius was a complementary opposite to Gil’s Leo, and from the ashram, I had learned to let him shine. In return, he respected my need for independence. It worked well. He was an avid sports fan, contrary to me, and had even been executive sports editor at the Miami News in one of his stints.

One bit of interesting coincidence was that in the Air Force, he had almost been posted in Enewetak in the Air Weather Service, 1957-’58, when Sam [my father-on-law] was the meteorologist in charge during hydrogen bomb tests.

In trying to catch up now, I see that he was born in Omaha in 1936 and died in Newburgh, New York, in 2015. I always thought of him as a Californian and learn from his obituary that he moved there after his military service, attended college, and then worked at a series of California papers before joining Kent as the assistant managing editor in Yakima.

~*~

As for my floater situation? As I noted:

Tenth straight day of work. The Sunday night/Monday morning doing me in. But have built the GR boards (timeless backup stories ready to paste up if the system crashes) and removed deadwood. …

On day shift this week and told I’ll be editor of special sections — day shift, M-F, beginning early December … [four months away] .

~*~

Photo by Cacophony at Wikimedia Commons.

~*~

 Should you wonder why I go by Jnana:

Ours was a newsroom of Jims: both the current and future publishers, the city editor and his assistant, the sports editor, our local columnist, maybe a reporter or two … ultimately, a third of the males in the newsroom … as for the composing room, advertising, the pressmen? It was like being named “Boy.”

Even so, I was back to my pedestrian given name in this setting, unlike Bloomington. Here, Jnana became reserved for my friends, fellow Quakers, and literary endeavors. You’ve probably figured out by now that I have often functioned by relying on a compartmentalized life.

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

Drumming circle

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

My introduction to Native drum circles came at the annual Tinowit pow-wow on the Yakama reservation in Washington state. That event is much larger than the more relaxed annual Passamaquoddy Days gathering near my home in Maine today, but drum circles are still an important part of the culture and identity. By the way, the Passamaquoddy emphasize that their celebration is NOT a pow-wow. There are some formal distinctions.

Dance! Dance, then!  

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Some parts of my life today, here in the easternmost corner of the USA, echo my experiences in the interior Pacific Northwest. Dancing at the Passamaquoddy Days, which tribal members pointedly say is not a powwow, is one of those. At the Yakama reservation’s Tinowit, the event was much larger and more established. Here, it’s more a sense of rediscovery and reconnection, which has its own sense of excitement, especially as the younger members of the community gain familiarity with those roots.

 

 

 

My initial explorations in the Cascades

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The primary attraction had been the mountains. We were in the foothills on the eastern flank of the Cascade Range. I was getting out into the wild probably every week from summer to the start of winter. Here are a few excerpts.

Darling Mountain

One of my first exploration, maybe the first, was on a Tuesday I had off work, when I drove up the Middle Fork from Tampico and then logging roads to Darling Mountain crest. Sheep scats and tracks around the snow and awesome meadows. Old site of forest fire lookout, since torn down. Climbed a dead tree to enhance the view. Mount Hood, above clouds. Adams, thrusting into them, closer. Goat Rocks across the way, and St. Helens’ perfect cone beyond. Straight ahead, following the road, Rainier thicker into the clouds somehow superior to the others. Then, a golden eagle sailing straight toward me, turning off perhaps 30 yards away, soaring off, circling briefly, and disappearing. With my guest status, I gave gratitude.

Deep forests were extraordinary.

I had no idea that this was on the second-highest logging road in the state.

Cowlitz Chimneys (center) with the Goat Rocks (background) from Sunrise point on Mount Rainer, photo by Steve Redman at Wikimedia Commons. 

Rainier route

On another trip, on my way to Mount Rainier, saw my first petroglyphs (rock inscriptions) and petrographs (rock paintings) outside of Naches. The paintings looked a little faked — red and white, perhaps with a little blue or red.

They were found near where the Naches and Tieton rivers veered off westward toward the Cascade Range. Photo by William Borg.

 

Photographs by Robert Niles via Wikimedia Commons.

Our routes to Rainier were progressions through ecosystems that became familiar over repeated exposure as we drove from sagebrush desert into ponderosa pines and reservoirs of future irrigation waters on our way to the high country of the Cascade Crest and the rainforests beyond.

Rainier hikes inspired many poems as well as scenes in my novel Nearly Canaan.

Each day trip was intoxicating.

To the south

John Day Dam in Columbia River: fish ladder and 80-foot drop of locks: air in stomach, at man’s mass of cement: aluminum company by the RR tracks.

Steam locomotive at Maryhill State Park, reflecting Sam Hill’s source of wealth: Maryhill Museum of Fine Arts, his castle above the palisades, green lawn dropping off into clouds. The sculpture studies by Rodin the claim to fame. During the trip, pondering Mount Adams vs Rainier …

Sam Hill Memorial Bridge and Columbia River, seen from Maryhill Museum of Art, Maryhill, Washington. Oregon at top/right. Photo by Joe Mabel at Wikimedia Commons.

~*~

Along the way

Sweet vinegar smell of hay [up to 5 mowings a year in the interior Far West; the hay was grown in the sunny lands east of the Cascades, and much of it was trucked to dairy farms and other livestock operations on the rainy western side of the mountains].

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

Getting into a groove, a route, routine, even rootlets 

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

My 2nd tall, kraft-colored Citadel spiralbound opened with “May you be inscribed with a good year,” Rosh Hashanah 5737.

Apart from the office, I faced a host of new discoveries.

  • The mountains, especially.
  • The canyon from Selah to Ellensburg, with its river road as an alternative to the Interstate beside the U.S. Army’s vast firing range.
  • The Lower Valley, below the Union Gap, a vast expanse of orchards and more …
  • The Reservation, meaning the Yakama tribe, though much of it was laced with Japanese vegetable gardens …
  • The metropolis a four-hour or so drive over the mountains.
  • Learning to eat crab.
  • Maryhill, a quirky museum overlooking the Columbia River and Mount Hood off to our southwest …
  • Portland, further along the lower Columbia …
  • Gathering the Quaker Meeting …
  • My new colleague Zenny and his wife, Wisteria, living a dozen or so blocks away from us.
  • Gasperetti’s … gourmet Italian, when we stretched our budget.
  • Mount Adams,, which we viewed prominently, was not Rainier, which was easier to drive to and my primary focus of early high-country hiking …

Photo of Mount Adams by Josh Hild at Pexels, as seen from the high country at the fringe of our valley.

Looking back, I see that few in our circle of friends in Yakima were from the place … At the office, a few filled me in …

After my promotion, did my mountains explorations diminish?

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

What do you know about jellyfish?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

With their many different species, jellyfish are found in every ocean in the world, including very cold waters of the Arctic and Antarctic. Some are even found in freshwater. Some species live in shallow, sunlit waters near the surface, while others live in the deep, dark, cold or somewhere in-between. Here are a few other points.

  1. They predate dinosaurs, bobbing along in the currents for at least 500 million years and possibly 700 million years, roughly three times the age of the first dinosaurs.
  2. They aren’t fish. They don’t have a backbone or spine, nor do they have brains, hearts, eyes, scales, gills, or fins. Instead, they swim by opening and closing their “bells.” Many scientists simply group them as “gelatinous zooplankton.”
  3. A few species have surprisingly complex vision. For instance, the box jellyfish has 24 “eyes,” two of which can see in color. It’s also believed this animal’s complicated array of visual sensors makes it one of the few creatures to have a full 360-degree view of its environment.
  4. Its lifespan depends on the species in question. Some live for just a few days or weeks, while others can live for several decades or more. One species, called the immortal jellyfish (Turritopsis dohrnii), is capable of reversing its life cycle and returning to a younger stage of development after it reaches sexual maturity. This means that it can essentially live forever as long as it is not killed by predators or other external factors.
  5. This ability is a major subject of research, as it could help the medical field understand how to turn cancerous cells into noncancerous cells like muscles, nerves, or skin.
  6. Jellyfish use tentacles to catch their food. These long, thin appendages on the sides and bottom of the jellyfish’s body are covered in tiny stinging cells that contain a venom to stun and capture prey. When they encounter something edible, they use their tentacles to bring it closer to their mouth, located in the center of their body.
  7. They are carnivores, meaning they eat other animals. Since they’re unable to chew their food, they usually eat small marine animals they can swallow whole, such as
  8. plankton, small fish, and crustaceans like shrimp and lobsters. They’ll also eat smaller jellyfish.
  9. The power of their stings can vary widely depending on the species. The most venomous is probably the box jellyfish, capable of killing an adult human in just a few minutes with a single sting. Each box jellyfish reportedly carries enough venom to kill more than 60 humans. To make matters worse, their stings are excruciatingly painful — it’s said the pain could kill you before the venom does.
  10. Jellyfish are eaten by larger predators, such as tuna, sea turtles, and whales. They’re even a delicacy in some places, such as in Japan and Korea. The Japanese have transformed jellyfish into candy. More often, they find their way into salads, fried into crunchy noodles, or are eaten with soy sauce like sushi.