It’s spring in South Beach, Oregon

It’s spring in South Beach, Oregon, when everything is even greener than usual. This year, we’ve had intense rain, followed by weeks of sun, and now our days alternate between sun and showers, so everything is in bloom. The Scotch Broom, bane to many allergy sufferers, turns our paths bright yellow. Salmonberries, thimbleberries and blackberries are beginning to fruit, and the robins, present year-round, are getting drunk on the juice. On our daily walks, Annie and I are enjoying mostly dry days when we can take our time to enjoy all that mother nature has to offer without getting our feet wet. For me, it’s flowers. March’s white trilliums are purple now, the rhododendrons are blooming in all shades of pink, purple, and red, and wild daisies dot the paths with white. For Annie, it’s a buffet of sweet green leaves, sword ferns, and deer droppings to smell and roll in. It’s getting harder to stay inside at the computer. Time to get outside and take a walk. 

Annie will stop at nothing to get a close look at something that smells interesting on our walks. This was a good one.
The salmonberries, cousin to the blackberry, are fruiting.
Across a ravine filled with blackberries, Scotch Broom, spruce, pines and alders, we can see the Newport Airport.

Annie goes to the Farmer’s Market

I have nothing to report on this Monday holiday, so I’ll let Annie do the talking. Enjoy.

Oh boy, oh boy, she’s taking me,
we’re going for a ride. I thought—
makeup, good pants, purse—I’d be
getting a cookie, a door in my face.
But no, I’m going. No need
to ask me twice. Open the door.
Yeah, yeah, I’ll get in the car.
She’s got my leash in her hand,
slides in beside me, hollers,
“Get over!” I do, but I want
to kiss her, to sniff her face,
to understand what’s she’s saying.
Okay, post office, quick stop.
I’ll wait for you out here.
I wish she’d let me taste her mail.
Dog park? Nope, passed it. Beach?
Passed it, too. Oh no, not the vet.
I’m okay, I’m okay, hey lady—
all right, I’ll sit. I keep yawning.
She keeps staring into my mouth.
What? Teeth, tongue, the usual stuff.
Wait, we’re turning. Not the vet.
Oh, I think I remember this place,
all the cars, these sidewalks, the plants.
Wow, what smells, don’t rush me.
I never smelled so many smells in my life.
Excuse me. It just came out.
You don’t have to clean that up,
carry it in a plastic bag, swinging it
from your hand. Just leave it.
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh,
dogs, big people, little people,
food, food, more food. No. She’s
pulling me toward the music, wrong
priorities. You go toward the food.
Pastries, strawberries, fish and chips,
carrots and rutabagas, pizza!
Dog treats! Why aren’t you stopping?
Now that’s an ugly dog. Pit bull
in a sweater, come on. A pug,
two yapping terriers. Please.
Up ahead, tall, brindled and handsome.
Let me sniff him, loosen the leash.
Come on, lady, I’m in love.
She’s no fun. Now she’s sitting
on a little grassy hill, pulling me
down beside her. I let her hug me.
But then, there’s this smell, so good.
Food! I pull away, casual, sneaky,
almost there, but she yanks me back.
I hate it when she does that.
She struggles to her feet; she’s old.
“Ready to go? she asks.
Are you freakin’ kidding me?
I look up, can’t see her eyes
hidden by dark glasses. “Come on.”
No! So much to smell, to see,
to pee on. I’ve barely begun,
but here we go. Down the street,
into the car. “Wasn’t that fun?” she says.
Take me home. I need a drink.

Newport, OR is-a changing

Newport, Oregon is under construction. Drive into town on Highway 20 (itself under perpetual construction), and you’ll see to the left a massive patch of dirt and rock where a car dealership used to be. The empty space goes on for blocks. Suddenly the buildings on the next street, including Oceana Natural Foods and the Newport Recreation Center, are exposed. Last month, workers demolished the parking lot and the old buildings, leaving the big glass showroom windows for last, then started smoothing the ground for new construction. We’re getting a Walgreen’s drugstore there sometime in 2013. People who live in suburbia, like I used to, have no idea how amazing it will be to have a place to buy drugs and sundries relatively close to home. If only they’d put a gas station on my side of the bridge.

Meanwhile, both of our “big box stores” are undergoing renovations. We don’t have a mall, so everyone shops at Wally’s and Freddy’s. Walmart got a year’s head start in its effort to turn from a plain old Walmart into a Walmart “superstore.” When it’s done, we’ll be able to buy groceries as well as everything else. Meanwhile, big sections of the parking lot are blocked off for construction equipment, and the inside of the store has changed so much I don’t know where anything is. I never was much of a Wally’s shopper and it’s at the wrong end of town, but I might go there more often while Freddy’s/aka Fred Meyer, suffers through a transformation of its own.

The Newport Fred Meyer store is expanding its mezzanine area, which used to just cover a part of the ladies’ clothing area with men’s and children’s clothing. Now the mezzanine is going to be over 15,000 square feet bigger. Every week, as the locals buy their groceries and try to figure out where things are now, the area overhead expands, sort of like yesterday’s eclipse over the sun. On Friday, when I went to refill a prescription, the darkness had spread to the pharmacy. Things were shuffled around, making the waiting area a more intimate space, dim and smelling of plywood. Amid the sounds of hammers and drills, one had to yell. “Sue Lick!” “3-9-52!” “I called it in!” “You don’t have it?” “I’ll come back later!”

I needed groceries as well as drugs. Most of the food sections are the same as always, but when you get to non-edibles, such as soap and dental floss, it becomes an adventure. You never know what’s around the corner. Oh look, makeup!

Groceries purchased and stowed in the car, I returned to the pharmacy. “Sue Lick!” “3-9-52!” I held my breath as the pharmacy clerk tapped on her computer, then turned to the bins of filled prescriptions, now so close I could almost read the writing on the bottles. “Oh, thank God,” I whispered as she returned with the familiar pink pills. 

People wander around Freddy’s, wondering where the garden section went–electronics is there now–and what happened to women’s clothing–gone till August. Workers wearing green tee shirts with “Can I help you find it?” printed on the back held a staff meeting near the towels. Meanwhile, a white-haired man sat near the entrance handing out advertising circulars. He said hello to me three times, with no clue that he had just greeted me 15 minutes earlier. Amid the insanity, who could blame him?

I ought to include a photograph here, but it would look different tomorrow anyway. Right now, my beloved town is like the image on an Etch-a-Sketch. Every day it gets shaken up so we can start fresh. But some things never change. The ocean is still here, the rhodies are in bloom, the tourists have arrived in their silly shorts, and yes, it’s raining again.

Sunshine and cheese on the Oregon Coast

“Enjoy the sunshine,” our waitress at the Pelican Pub in Pacific City told us as we finished our delicious lunch. My brother Mike and his wife Sharon cracked up. “Why does everybody talk about the weather around here?” Mike asked.
The waitress, a friendly but disorganized coastie, explained that we haven’t seen much sun this year. We’ve had rain, snow and wind so intense the parking lot is still covered over with sand that blew in off the beach. As she spoke, the sun was muted by clouds, but she still deemed it a good day because it wasn’t raining and the temperature was up to almost 60.
Mike shook his head. Where he lives in California, it’s in the 90s now and the sun shines every day.
While Mike and Sharon visited, we were blessed with mostly sunny days and only a few spritzes of rain. On our first day together, we headed north to Tillamook. Mike wanted to taste some cheese. But I think he really wanted to taste the ice cream. This is a good time to visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory. Tourist season has not quite started, so it isn’t crowded. Just inside the front door, Sharon inhaled the pungent mix of cheese, sugar and caramel corn. “It smells so good in here!”

We headed up the stairs to the viewing area where we could watch men and women in white clothes and hairnets turning 40-pound blocks of cheese into one- and two-pound loafs. What would it be like to do that all day with people watching, we wondered. As a computer kiosk babbled about sending “cheesemail” to one’s friends, we checked out the displays that described how they make their cheese and ice cream.
The Tillamook Cheese Factory is all about marketing. The short factory tour leads past a tasting area into a room full of cheese to buy, plus a gift shop, cafe and ice cream counter. People were lined up about 12 deep when Mike got in line for his marionberry cone.
“We can get this stuff at the grocery store,” I kept telling my loved ones. Nah, not the same, they said.
From the cheese factory, we drove north a ways, stopping at a Jerky factory outlet, TCS Jerky.com. There’s also a sausage factory, Debbie D’s, in town. Apparently, people are eager to get on the “factory” bandwagon.

Mike had a yen to see the bay north of town, so we took a turn at Garibaldi, where the wind whipped our hair and clothes so hard we paused only long enough to take pictures before turning back toward home.

Our next traveling day, we stayed local, stopping at the cemetery, Pick of the Litter Thrift Store and the shops on the Bayfront before a big enchilada dinner at home.

My visitors are gone now, and I miss them. Annie does, too. Auntie Sharon bought her peanut butter treats and gave her terrific head massages with her long nails.
Today the clouds have rolled back in. Feels like home.

Poets gather at the beach

I spent a big chunk of last weekend surrounded by poets at the fourth annual Northwest Poets’ Concord in Newport, Oregon. Approximately 140 of us met at the Hallmark Inn & Resort overlooking the Pacific. Sunshine and a sparkling blue ocean provided the backdrop for our explorations of poetic verbiage.

Not everybody likes poetry. One workshop leader, the poet Henry Hughes, compared it to ballet. Only a small percentage of the population ever see ballet or like it. But those who do REALLY like it.

Ditto for poetry. Who else would spend a gorgeous beach day in a hotel meeting room talking about things like line breaks, themes, and inspiration and listening to dozens of poets read their poems in that slow every-word-means-something manner that is standard for poetry?

Everyone seemed to have a sheaf of fresh poems in their purse or backpack. It’s like a secret passion we all share. Reminds me of the dart-throwing convention with which I shared my hotel last week in Portland. Dart-throwing? They have conventions? I wonder about the wisdom of mixing cocktails with darts, but they seemed to be having fun.

Our darts are words. Keynote speaker David Biespiel, poet and columnist for the Oregonian showed us how to take a poem apart and read it in a way that makes it mean so much more than a quick zoom through the words. Poems are different from novels or newspaper articles. You can’t skim or speed-read poetry and get anything out of it. They’re little pieces of art, photographs, tiny stories that call to be studied, like looking at a painting. You could glance at it and walk by, but you get so much more if you stand there for a few minutes and really look.

Last year, I wrote a lot of poetry during the Concord. This year, it was more a weekend of listening and absorbing. However, I did write a poem a day in April for one of the National Poetry Month challenges. Here’s one that I read at the Concord.

The Dog has a Question

Warm from the tub the woman sat on the floor,
naked except for her woolly robe,
and applied an orange plastic razor
to the stubble on her legs.
The dog, lonely, lay her heavy head
on the woman’s lap and watched,
scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape,
until the woman sighed, running her hand
along her smooth, hairless skin.
The dog looked up, bewilderment
wrinkling the fur between her ears,
wordlessly asking, “Why did you do that?”

Thank you to Sandra Ellston, poet and recently retired Eastern Oregon University prof, who organized the Concord. Sandra is also president of Writers on the Edge, of which I’m on the board. WOE produces the monthly Nye Beach Writers Series, third Saturday of the month, 7 p.m., at the Newport Visual Arts Center. Impressive guest artists and an open mic. Visit the WOE web page, as well as the Northwest Poets’Concord page. Try a poem or two. Think of it as mind candy.

Dad’s 90th: A Party to Remember

When my brother and his wife drove Dad to lunch in San Jose on Sunday, he suspected a few people were gathering to celebrate his upcoming birthday, but he had no idea so many people would be there, or that I’d be walking out of the restaurant to greet him. After all, I live in Oregon and I was just there a few weeks ago. He’s a hard man to surprise, but we did it.

It was a hot sunny day as we gathered at Antonella’s Italian restaurant kitty corner from the Rosicrucian Museum. They had opened the restaurant just for us. We partied in a beautiful room decorated with murals of the Italian countryside. The tables were set with white cloths and stemmed cobalt blue glasses. Pictures of Dad from boyhood to now decorated the walls and tables. A chocolate cake decorated with tractors and a frosting orchard sat next to a little red barn with replicas of the horses Bud and Daisy that Dad grew up with.
People piled in from all over to honor Clarence “Ed” Fagalde. Nearly everyone was a cousin in some way, descended from the Fagalde or the Souza side of the family. So many people who had not seen each other for years. Our voices roared above the sound of the fans striving vainly to push out the heat. Everyone is older now. The kids are grown. “You look like your mother,” one of my cousins shouted when he saw me. I know. I do. That’s okay. She was a beautiful person.
How do you capture the feeling of that afternoon in words? So many hugs, so many laughs, so many smiles. Too much food. So much happiness. In a world where nothing is ever perfect, Sunday afternoon came as close as life ever does. It was the kind of party that will be remembered in the list of big parties–my parents’ 50th anniversary party, Grandpa’s 90th birthday party, the memorial for Uncle Don and Aunt Gen, my 50th birthday party in the cafeteria at my old elementary school… It was the kind of day that just filled me up, and I believe it did the same for my father.
He didn’t know he was going to have a house guest Sunday night, but he welcomed me back into my old room. In the evening, we sat in the kitchen eating leftover lasagna and pie, and we talked for hours. In the morning over coffee and tea, we talked some more. I am so blessed to have a father who is so strong, smart, handsome and interesting, even at 90.Our family history goes back to the pioneers of Santa Clara County, and Dad is a fountain of stories about the old days.
My brother Mike, his wife Sharon and I started tossing around ideas for Dad’s birthday when I was in California in early March. Sharon and my niece Susie did the invitations, posters and pictures, and baked cookie keepsakes for the guests to take home while I supplied a guest list and old photos—and myself. But a lot of the credit goes to my Aunt Suzanne, the only one who lived close enough to organize the setting and the food. I am grateful to everyone who helped or just showed up from all over California. I got the prize for greatest distance traveled. My cousin Jenny and her crew came in second, flying in from San Diego for the day.
I drove to Portland on Saturday afternoon, got up at 3 a.m. to fly south Sunday morning and was back in Portland by 5:00 Monday evening. It was raining. Last night, Dad and I were back to talking on the phone, both amazed that it all actually happened.
Today, May 1, is my father’s actual birthday. He was planning to go to the grocery store, do some laundry and maybe take himself out to dinner. That makes me sad, but I’m so glad he’s able to do those things, and I think we should keep celebrating life every day. We are so blessed. 
The photo, taken by Aunt Suzanne, shows Dad, my cousin Tom Sandkhule and me. 

Letting Fred Go

My husband Fred died a year ago today. In 2002, after my mother and mother-in-law both died of cancer within months of each other, I started a ritual for the dead which may sound crazy to some people, but it works for me. Fred and I went to a cliff overlooking Nye Beach and we blew bubbles, watching them float out over the sand toward the ocean. Some popped on the fence or the grass nearby, but others soared until they disappeared into the sky. With these bubbles, we said goodbye. We set our mothers’ spirits free.

When Fred passed away, I couldn’t do that. It was just too hard. But now, maybe I could. As the anniversary approached, I thought about places I could go to blow bubbles. Yaquina Bridge? Yaquina Head, where Fred loved to watch the sea birds? The aquarium? The cemetery?

I didn’t choose any of those.

Yesterday afternoon, a gorgeous sunny day with a light breeze, I felt drawn to our own backyard. Our deck feels like a stage looking out over the vast lawn. Fred was my biggest fan, always out there in the audience clapping harder than anyone. I used to end each performance with “Wind Beneath My Wings,” dedicated to Fred. So I got out my guitar and sang and played some of his favorite songs, including “Wind Beneath My Wings.” I followed it with “Shoes Full of Sand,” a song I wrote for him when we first fell in love. And then, I got out the 99 cent bottle of Mr. Bubble. Those bubbles caught on the breeze, flew up over the house and into the sky as I thanked God for giving me Fred and thanked Fred for everything he had given me. I didn’t say goodbye. I wished him well on his journey and told him I hoped to see him again someday.

In that moment, I realized we were only meant to be together for a while. We walked the same path, but eventually we had to separate, to take our own paths. Before he left, Fred gave me everything I would need to continue on my own. He gave me money, our house, my car, and so many other material things that I would never be able to afford without him. He took me on trips to wonderful places that I might never have seen. But he also gave me the kind of love most people never know. He made me feel special, worthy, and strong. Fred loved life and he didn’t wear himself out worrying about the small stuff. He taught me that.
Fred did not give me children of my own. By the time we met, he had finished that stage of life, but he shared the ones he had with me, just as he shared everything, for as long as he could.

In making me Fred’s caregiver through his long illness, God gave me new wisdom, a kinder heart and an understanding that our time here is temporary.

Let’s drink a glass of red wine—it has to be red, preferably dry—to Fred tonight. Next time we see a rainbow-tinted bubble floating in the air, let’s think of Fred and smile.

Stepping off the familar road

Sometimes I wish I could be more like my dog Annie. On our walk yesterday, I decided to go off the road on a faint trail leading south through the trees and brush. I quickly lost sight of most landmarks. Annie pulled hard at the leash, unafraid, wanting only to keep moving forward. I lagged behind, worried about spraining an ankle on the uneven ground, about getting lost, about tearing my clothes, or encountering a wild animal. Deer and elk prints dotted the mud all around, but I had also heard reports of bears and cougars. What would I do if something suddenly emerged out of the bushes?

Scotch broom just starting to sprout yellow flowers and blackberry vines still dry and fruitless grabbed at my stretchy pants and dirty raincoat as we passed through a graveyard of fallen trees. Beyond them, old spruce stood in a line like sentinels. East. The ocean was west. Logically, I knew I couldn’t go more than a mile in any direction without coming to a road, but I still hesitated to go far.

We emerged on a plateau. I took two shots with my cell phone before a message came up that the memory was full. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to move these pictures to my computer. Why do I never bring my camera? “Come on, Annie,” I said, pulling her toward home. She ignored me.

The sky was gray, the clouds darker gray. It could rain any minute, but Annie didn’t care. She plunged her face into a bush, inhaling wild scents, not worrying about her eyes or ears. Every inch was an adventure for her. She did not worry about “what ifs.” She just breathed it all in until I tore her away to seek the safety of the gravel road.

I recently finished reading Cheryl Strayed’s book Wild. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. Strayed hiked the Pacific Crest Trail through California and Oregon alone with a backpack so heavy she could barely lift it. She walked hundreds of miles at high altitude through intense heat and cold. She encountered bears, cows, snakes and other creatures, along with some dangerous humans. She went without food or water for long stretches and walked on blistered bloody feet. Reading this book made me long to go on an adventure of my own. And yet here I was, hesitant to leave the familiar road a mile from home. I wasn’t trespassing on private property or hiking where no one had ever been. The discarded Dutch Brothers coffee cup proved that. Maybe next time, I’ll go farther.

Let’s all try to take a step or two beyond our comfort zones this week. What do you say?

Copyright Sue Fagalde Lick 2012

To each his own Easter

Yesterday was Easter. That means different things to different people. For me, it meant the conclusion of Lent and five days in a row at church, singing with the choir, praying, meditating and experiencing the whole story of Jesus’s death and resurrection. Finally we can say “Alleluia” again. Jesus died and rose from the dead. What we believe about that is up to each of us.

For Christians, the resurrection is the point of Easter, but most of our society seems to be more focused on parties, candy, colored eggs, and Easter bunnies. Even without the church part of it, Easter is a grand celebration of spring, where the world, like Jesus, comes to life after a long winter.

Some people just ignore the day, going about their usual activities. The streets of Newport were clogged with tourists and locals visiting the beach, the bayfront, the aquarium, the local shops and restaurants on a day that wasn’t sunny, but at least it wasn’t raining or windy. In fact, it was almost warm.

In my neighborhood, it was a day for outside chores. My neighbor’s tree-trimming chainsaw harmonized with lawnmowers, boat motors, children and dogs playing, and the hum of my washer and dryer. As the clothes washed, I tackled the spa. Uncovered for nearly a month until I could get help putting the cover torn off by wind back on, the water was full of dirt and pine needles. The filters were clogged. After several false starts,  I got the submersible pump working and pumped the water out of the tub. Then I climbed in and started scrubbing. Soon my clothes were soaked as I lay in the puddles at the bottom, mopping with a big yellow sponge. The plastic surface is hard and slippery, but I managed to get it clean without  hurting myself. It took over an hour to refill the spa with clean water from the garden hose and replenish the bromine and other chemicals. Then, triumphant, I turned the tub back on and the heater roared to life. This morning, the water is 100 degrees, just right.

I had invitations to Easter celebrations, but I chose to spend the afternoon on my own, doing whatever I wanted. My husband Fred died on Easter weekend last year, but that wasn’t the reason. I just wanted to do it my way. So I cleaned the hot tub, washed my clothes, walked the dog, wrote a silly poem, ate spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and watched TV until I fell asleep on the couch, comfortable in the knowledge that God is alive and my spa is clean.

I hope your Easter was as good as mine.

But I didn’t miss the next storm

Mother Nature is obviously pissed off at Oregon. Otherwise, why would we have so many storms in a row? Yes, I missed the big snowstorm of March 12, but I sure didn’t miss the storms that have followed. We haven’t gotten any snow lately, but the rain and wind keep hammering us. There’s no time to recover. During the last two days, we actually saw the sun for a few minutes, just long enough to leash up the dog, head out for a walk and get soaked by the next deluge. It’s a good thing we didn’t get all of our fallen trees and broken branches cleaned up because we keep getting more. We got almost 20 inches of rain just in the month of March. The rivers are overflowing, landslides are blocking the roads, and another wind storm is predicted for 2 p.m. today. Enough. April Fools Day is over.

None of this bothers my dog Annie too much. Occasionally she takes a chew off the ragged end of one of the fallen branches near the fence or laps up water from the uncovered spa (blown-off cover still lying on the lawn). Now full of rain water, it’s the world’s biggest water bowl. Yesterday we had a short break from the rain. After some running around and chasing a bumblebee, she sat on the deck for the longest time, staring at the robins pulling worms out of the lawn. Now she’s curled up in front of the pellet stove again.

I feel for last week’s spring break visitors who found the weather here a little problematic. It was whale-watching week, when volunteers staff whale-watching stations along the coast and visitors are encouraged to watch the gray whales migrating by. At this rate, you’d think even the whales would say, forget it, we’re staying in San Diego. But the robins, whales and tourists come every year, no matter what. The trillium are blooming and the salmonberry vines are turning green, a sure sign of spring. Beyond the clouds, the sky is blue. Come visit the beach. Just wear your raincoat.