Our first winter Out West was accompanied by domestic tensions. As I noted:

Sucking, swirling blaze
fire in here, snow on the roof
faintly false smell of burning tea

candy on the table
bulbs in the box
tears on my wife’s cheeks

Also:

inner silence in contrast to the newsmen made of gossip,

bitching, down the drain to sorrow

Kitty’s down: “I don’t belong anywhere!”

Also unhappy with my Chinook “paraphrases” (her term): “write your own stuff.”

When I go back over the Chinook pieces, add my own smart-aleck comments: the evil thing at the door “must be the cops” or Indian agents … BIA … or go free-wheelin’ into myths and texts … go back over the economy thing I’ve been trying to develop, “we’ll all be tent makers.”

Beer as cheap as Pepsi.

 RITUALS, especially on a day free of the office:

• Rising early, when silence is strong. Or, more lazily, sleeping in, hopefully late.
• Making coffee, to sip all day using a special mug
• Reading sacred texts. Followed with the morning paper
• Cooking. Breakfast. A dinner wine. Candles.
• Shower.
• Planting, Weeding. Harvesting. Canning in old glass jars.
• Washing dishes, cleaning tools.
• Watering the houseplants.
• Cleaning the toilet.
• Returning to a favorite book.
• Split and stack firewood. Or bring it indoors.
• Making love, especially when the moon is full.
• Letting the cat in. And out.

At odds with self: static, knot in lower back.

How dead this living room is without a wood fire.

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

Vol. 47, starting 29 November 76, was the third tall, tan Citadel … had many poetry drafts and other bits that were eventually published. Now, for a few things that weren’t …

First, an erotic dream a few nights earlier, resigned myself to a wedding feast, mine to a wealthy, rural, landed girl — Quaker family — and, oh, how happy the whole circle was, as if trying to wake me from a heavy sorrow … she had long hair. This dream would haunt me later.

I woke myself, insisting, “But I’m already happily married!”

The farmhouse, set in a grove of solid trees, was a three-story federal style I would encounter six to eight years later in Maryland or Delaware and then, later, in New England.

Also, an erotic dream of Celeste followed the next day, in fact, with a tender letter from her in the mail …

“Got Yule cards out Thurs, only marginals remain.” Guess that means the ones that needed more personal notations.

~*~

Mount Adams, the distant presence to our west, continued to fascinate, perhaps as an emotional anchor for me.

~*~

In revisiting my journals from this stretch of my life, I’m struck by ways my memories diverged from the timeline recorded in the pages.

I would have insisted, for instance, that the wedding dream took place about two years after leaving Yakima.

On the other hand, the Quaker circle gathered earlier than I sensed.

The office situation was more tangled than I remembered, too.

I’m also more conscious of not having close local connections or friendships in Fostoria, apart from Kitty and her family, and wonder how a local church might have altered that, had I not been such a yogi. Jump ahead, and it becomes apparent that my Yakima contacts, apart from the office, were mostly among transplants, especially our new Quaker circle.

I do wonder, too, if it weren’t Friends, how might I have connected. Unitarian?

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

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.

 

We settled into a new three-bedroom duplex with an attached garage, situated at the base of the ridge.

Living in town: the newest and most modern dwelling of my life, even now 50 years later … (of my first decade after college, I’m seeing on aerial photos that the majority have been demolished) … It was about a 30-block walk to the office, something that could be done if needed but still long.

We even had a fireplace, come fall and winter.

Summertime, though, had us learning the intensity of the desert sun, including the need to close both the blinds and the curtains in windows being struck by direct sunlight. The radiant heat was brutal. That was especially true of our living room in the late afternoon. Many houses had extra blinds on the outside, too.

As I set up my meditation room slash studio, I noted: European/American Eastern poetry reflects a resignation, where Asian/American Western has an acceptance of life / one is essentially sad, the other full of discovery and delight / the curious juxtaposition of East and West here!

While I was reading the Hindu classic Patanjali, the doorbell rang. Thought it might be the mailman, answered it to find an old man carrying Bible tracts denouncing crime, asking if I had watched the presidential debates, handing me his Bible to read two verses — an answer, he said — talking all the while of meekness — but this was no dialogue, no conversation — it didn’t matter if I were here or not, only that there be an audience.

In his demeanor, no meekness, yet my feelings were mixed. Admiration in his determination going door-to-door, but sadness in his lack of holy radiance. His book for a quarter? “Can you speak to the dead?” and “Is Hell really hot?” And then his magazine, the Watchtower.

He kept speaking of the Kingdom. “Kingdom, isn’t that what it’s all about?” Guess he’s never heard of love.

Well, you can speak to the dead but don’t expect an answer.

Rosh Hassahna began that night — a new year of thanksgiving.

We were certainly on the verge of a new year, personally.

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

My journal entries from the Yakima years weave together — or more accurately jump among — a half-dozen major fronts in my life. In revisiting these in the upcoming postings, we’ll focus on one front at a time, hoping to gain a little more context of what was happening at the office, at home and my marriage, in the great outdoors, in my literary efforts, in my spiritual life especially as a Quaker, and with a grab bag of extras. The result will mean overlapping the chronology in advancing the timeline, but it’s the best I’m coming up with.

I should introduce Yakima, however briefly, by noting it’s the name of the River and Valley, the County, the City, the Avenue. Sometime after we left, the tribe and its large reservation altered its spelling to set itself apart from all of these other usages. They use Yakama, rather than Yakima. Fair ‘nuff.

Hardly anything grows without irrigation, so water becomes a significant consideration. The economy is principally agricultural — a fifth of the apples sold in the U.S. are raised there, with another fifth in Wenatchee County to the north. Peaches, pears, apricots, cherries, and plums are also prominent, as well as hops for beer brewing, barley, hay, and, after we left, wine vineyards. Cattle, sheep, and horses were the primary livestock, and logging was also a major industry.

Getting used to the arid landscape was a challenge … “like living on the inside of an ashtray,” as I read somewhere, describing another interior Far West scene.

The big snowy mountain to the west, which we could view almost everywhere, was Mount Adams, which we initially confused with Mount Rainier, which was visible from a few points.

Politically and socially, it was conservative, yet participated in a high level of collective action. Perhaps it was pragmatic more than ideological at the core.

~*~

Produce, produce
clear dry air
and everyone a gardener

 I just hope this elation lasts.

~*~

Here goes!

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

It’s amazing how much piles up in a short time. As they say about moving every five years to get clear of unneeded possessions? Here’s what went out in this relocation.

• Newspapers pages from places I almost worked.
• Notes to myself.
• Narrow neckties, worn-out belts.
• Love letters and photos.
• A wooden finger. Yes, that one.
• Rough drafts and manilla folders.
• Torn-up mat board.
• Crayons.
• Cardboard boxes, wrapping, and stuffing paper.
• A half ream of employment rejection letters.
• Topographic maps of Monroe and Lawrence counties, Indiana.
• Also, Catskills trails maps, Upstate New York.
• Day campers’ cartoons of “Fat Steve.”
• Duplicate copies of my college journalism or the embarrassing mistakes.

~*~

As I also noted:

After three months of unemployment, dejection, and waiting, we’ve made it … to Yakima, WA.

No Friends Meeting, but perhaps someday … Lord will make a way

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.