by Timberry on September 24, 2009
I’m a bit off my normal thought patterns today, waking up in a generic freeway-exit hotel in the California Central Valley, headed for Yosemite National Park with my youngest daughter. 
Yosemite means a lot to me. My dad took my brothers and me there many times when we were growing up in the San Francisco area. As a teenager I went backpacking into the Yosemite high country every summer. Later on, my wife and I took our kids up into the high country every summer. That first picture is me with our three oldest in 1980, on the shoulder below Half Dome.
I’m very much looking forward to the Ken Burns series on National Parks starting this month on PBS. He calls it “America’s Best Idea.” I second that. I’ve lived in Mexico and Austria as well as the U.S., and I’ve traveled to dozens of countries, but I’ve never seen anything like our own national park system. It’s a great privilege to be able to hold the polluting effects of civilization at bay in some of these great parks. Poor Mexico, my country-in-law, has tried hard but is just economically unable to hold back the tide, even though it has some natural beauties that truly deserve it. Too bad. Let’s be grateful for what we have. The website for the Ken Burns series says tell your story; and this is mine.
The second picture here is our family plus pack burro on the far side of the river campsite at Little Yosemite Valley. That was in 1988. They used to rent pack burros in Yosemite for use by families and groups going out into the high country. We’d rent a burro for $15 per day and relieve ourselves of actually packing the stuff on our backs, which made it possible for a family to make a 4-5 day trip up into the mountains. My wife made those high-country trips into great family vacations. And we were always broke, so the $15 a day lodging cost was attractive. They don’t do that at Yosemite any more, because of problems like insurance, and people not respecting the implied privilege. And that’s too bad.
I’m particularly excited today because I’ve missed Yosemite since we moved to Oregon 17 years ago. I do get into the Oregon Cascades a lot, but I’ve missed Yosemite and I’m anxious to visit again.
This last photo, taken above Nevada Falls in 1980, is of our three oldest children, now 37, 35, and 33 years old. I can’t say that I would be looking forward to backpacking tonight (we have a hotel room reserved) but I am very glad we were able to do it when we did. And very happy to visit again, later today.
Photo credits: first one by my wife Evangelina Berry, second by some teenage boy who was talking up our teenage daughters at the time, third one by me.
by Timberry on August 16, 2009
Somewhere in my distant past there was a sermon about the wasted humanity of being right. The priest who was talking had just done a funeral. The dead guy’s sister regretted not having talked to him for the last five years of his life. He’d offended her. She cut him off. She was right.
She was right and she showed it by cutting him out of her life. Brother and sister, cut off. Who won? Who was right? Who lost?
“So much loss,” the priest said, “over nothing more than who’s right.”
I got an email over the weekend from a neighbor whose brother had helped her buy her house (or something like that) and is now kicking her out of that house (or something like that). She wrote that email to a group of people, including us. She doesn’t know us very well. She’s calling him names. He’s kicking her out of her house. Her daughter wants to divorce the rest of the family. Her mother is siding with her brother.
Family fight. Nobody wins. Time goes by, people lose each other, and for what?
by Timberry on June 27, 2009
Contrasts. Friday, a day with fellow bloggers, Pamela Slim, Matthew Scott, Chris Guillebeau, Mark something-or-other. A vegetarian dinner at the apartment of a young brilliant writer world traveler, young. No children young. Dedicated to writing and nonconformity young.
The new car, the condo, the midsummer late light, talking to Vange about everything — and I mean everything — gone wrong. Temperatures, arguments, misunderstandings, worries, and more temperatures. Little children with 103 and more.
A long very quiet and peaceful drive home, the new car humming. A long very busy summer afternoon, a strange moment of peace in the garden at dinner time, a very pleasant drive for errands with Timmy waving his curly hair at the open window, laughing in the carwash, and nodding off to sleep while I drove up and around the curves in the mountains.
And a good talk with Paul. Disasters probably averted, at least for now.
Clouds on the horizon.
The heart of summer.
by Timberry on September 22, 2008
Monday morning, Sept. 21, 2008. Time passing, milestone events, sort of. This last Thursday we flew to San Francisco, drove to S, and set up M for her last year as S undergrad; maybe not her last year at S.
I announced, on Wednesday, mostly being facetious, but still: “Today is my last day of parenting.” Meaning that M will be a senior, graduating next June, never again (sort of) back home with her mom and dad for a summer vacation as a kid rather than an adult.
Yes, of course she’ll be back, they are all five back often enough, but this is a milestone, like graduation, to be remembered.
The event was marked by a bit of soreness from moving all the boxes, a very nice email from M:
hey dad,
so just wanted to say that im showered and heading to bed. had a lovely
evening. dinner was great. My friends love you guys. also BB thinks
you look like anthony hopkins. anyway my room looks great, thanks for
helping me move in.
good night,
m
And was it perhaps also marked by an abrupt change of weather? Summer became fall, highs in the 80s and sunny became rainy and 60s.
There was certainly the impression of a milestone ceremony, as we flew home Saturday morning to take care of TBP and L Saturday night and Sunday. The new generation. Different strokes. M does with ideas what TBP does with your hair, as he settles in and cuddles.
by author on June 24, 2008
June 24, 2008. It’s about 8 in the morning.
I listened to a podcast about Grace Paley, walked up University Avenue. It was comfortable in my slight jacket. One of those days that started up right, chilly but going to be hot, and clear and sunny.
Oregon summer days, clear blue sky, dark green trees, fresh, clean.
Chilly in the morning. There’s a line in a Willy Nelson song, refers to “clear mountain mornings,” and I think of the past, clear mountain mornings that brightened my soul (whoa, pretty pretentious phrasing there, but then …
There was that valley under the peaks in the Trinity Alps, clear mountain mornings, the green meadow floor, the little lake, those peaks up above. Especially cold, but you know the heat of the day is coming … sunlight crawling down from the peaks, over the meadow, reaching the lake … granite peaks
And then whomp it’s 42 years later and here I am walking through the campus with that memory of the pleasant chill anticipating the later heat.
Listening to poetry, but in a podcast on an ipod. Forty fricken two years later.
Not that I care.
It’s a really nice morning. I stopped off at the bookstore for coffee and sweat pants.
by author on February 18, 2008
This post should have a picture of the view from Amazon towards College Hill on a very bright, very cold, very early morning in February, with a slight cloud running horizontally in front of the hill, maybe one house’s worth of height, and the length of the hill, halfway up. Wispy. I caught that view as I pulled up at Allan Bros on Hilyard to get coffee. I wish I had taken the picture.
It’s about an hour later now, I’m alone in the office on President’s Day Monday, my music is way too loud for normal office consumption. I have a headache. I’m just loving my coffee.
I woke up at 3-something a.m., too alert to sleep, so I went downstairs to break the sludge and sleep on the couch. But the Mac was awake (recording something) and I checked things. M had an email. P sent pictures. I posted three different posts on the blog. Then it was 6 a.m. Still dark. I went upstairs, tried to sleep, did something like sleeping until 7:15. Got up, dressed, scraped the ice off of the car (28 degrees) and off to the office.
It’s great that I’m writing the book. Makes me happy. I meant to sleep, but couldn’t.
Meditation. I’m doing it less. What’s up with that?
by admin on November 10, 2007
So many different mornings, special, special light, crisp, chill, fog or not, music, quiet, alone, peace, coffee, reflections.
So many mornings.
by admin on November 10, 2007
Looking at the ocean from 100 yards away,
and up,
shades of Monterrey and Carmel and weekend with 20-year-old M before her operation, pensive, magnetic, magical.
I meant to write about life time V the view the ocean, crashing waves sometimes, blue dawn white spray, power, beauty, changing, constant motion, the sound of the waves came too close together, life, time, V.
There’s a picture of her looking at waves crashing into rocks, spraying up, she was young, far from home, married to me, wondering.
The landscape view is forever changing
mystery
