Dear Rain,

It’s not that I don’t like spending so much time with you, the way you make the green so green we turn into hobbits, the way geese and sandhill cranes flood the sky, the way you make the Willamette River a shiny split in the city. You, my sweet, are a charmer I wouldn’t live without.

It’s just that the fourth rainiest year in Oregon history means shoes not drying between walks with my dogs, means not walking the dogs as often, means my bike shoes stiffen in the basement, not getting their air, their due. Call me lazy. Call me ungrateful.

Maybe we should slow things down a bit, visit with some other weather. I’ve heard the Midwest ask about you. Texas is a lovely place; they really appreciate a juicy drop or two. I’m not talking forever. I can share. How about a week or month?

Don’t get me wrong. You make my heart puddle.
-Kate

Yesterday the honor was all mine. I was lucky enough to read with Stevan Allred, Scott Sparling, Jackie Shannon Hollis, and Liz Scott at Backspace in Old Town, Portland. We were celebrating the publication of Brave on the Page, which is the brainchild of Laura Stanfill (she with tireless energy around writing and promoting all things writing).

What makes this group of writers and this anthology stand out is the intimacy of the writing. The issues taken up are raw, tender, and kind. There is a lot of love among us and between writer and reader. It’s such a privilege to spend an afternoon with others dedicated to telling stories, to crafting sentences, to putting on the page what is difficult to face so that others may have an easier time facing them.

Thank you, Laura. Thank you, dangerous writers.
xxox-
-Kate

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

This morning when I went out into the sticky, thick light from the east on our front porch, I found a bag of fresh plums. They were left by a really sweet guy, whom I met through Craigslist. Who knew that selling my very first recumbent would become such a lovely experience? 

For years I resisted selling my blue R40 Vision recumbent with underseat steering. The bike I called, “Joni Mitchell Blue,” had taken me from my despair at never being able to row again to the joy of a whole new world of cycling. In the fall of 2005, I think, I walked into Coventry Cycle where younger and older men with aprons wielding tire irons and metric wrenches, looked up from bike stands and greasy chains, and escorted me through recumbents and trikes and collapsible bikes. They talked technical, which I loved, even if I didn’t have a clue what they were saying.  And I tried out a long-wheel base (wobbly) and a short-wheel base (too cool), and eventually bought Joni. 

All fall and winter she took me through traffic and sleet and sloppy sidewalks. At lights I toppled over, not quite managing to get my foot up to the pedal in time or slipping off. At Hagg Lake in the dead of winter, I made figure-eights at the pullouts on tops of rollers as prizes for making it up the hills, and as practice for turning, which seemed like sure ways to buck myself off the little sportscar of a recumbent. With the handlebars under the seat, I wanted a seat belt to keep me on the bike. For the first four months of riding, I fell almost every time I rode. But I learned. And Joni got me where I needed to go (and back). 

After riding Seattle-to-Portland the next summer and many events afterwards, I needed a bigger front wheel, needed to ride higher on the road. I moved to a Bacchetta with regular sized wheels. Her name is “Iris,” big and yellow. Her picture is on this blog. But Joni has been my backup, my winter indoor trainer, and I haven’t been able to let her go.

Until last weekend. One day on Craigslist, and a very sweet man responded whose third recumbent had been stolen, and he commuted every day on his recumbent, the exact same kind, even though the manufacturer has long gone out of business. He arrived, and we found our names were chosen for similar reasons: Gray, what is between black and white. That’s his first name and my last name, both chosen. 

When he took Joni for a spin, she looked like an extension of his body. She fit. They are a good pair. And I found her old pedals and left them on my porch last night for him. He exchanged plums for them, so sweet and so cold.

One of the best things about my life is the immersion in Story. Most of the year I’m immersed in students’ stories, the honor of reading, the pain of witnessing all they survive. In the summer (with apologies to my colleagues who are working year-round), Story enters me like air, breathes me. Fiction. The books, the movies, the TV shows fill me with characters and actions and insights that have fancy and impossibility and terror and one tick away from reality, which is a comfort. Fiction feeds me, whether it is poetry or playwriting or the elusive art of short story, or a fine lie. I haven’t read enough this summer, yet, but Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses swept through me with its sparse, elegant prose. As a trainer for leaner business practices once said, “Apple has won the market share because they offer a few, elegant choices.” I’ve thought about that a lot since I heard the phrase. My writing is more like a PC, lots of too much. Maybe that’s why fixies (fixed-gear) bikes are so popular. Simplify… Let the operator or reader have room. Support her with elegance, sound structure, gorgeous choice. And of course, I had to read the second Hunger Games book, Girl on Fire. Had to. That book is scary and plot-based, and as my friend, Sharon Hashimoto, put it, teaches about conflict. Every moment is driven by conflict. My writing tends to be driven by folly, the delicious sound of words, the whim of associative logic. Conflict, hm…. Story is a powerful and sustaining force. I am very lucky to ride it.

https://kategraywrites.com/294-2/

Today was one of those magical rides, where what you plan and why you planned it work out. The forecast was for heat and wind, and so, I thought early and north-south, not east-west. Around 7am I had everything loaded (and dogs fed, walked, watered, and bribed in the cabin) in the car, and drove down 7-Mile Hill and on to 84 and off at Hood River, and began the climb up Rt. 35 toward Mt. Hood. The day was already hazy with the temperature already about 70 degrees, so unusual for Oregon. Through the repaving project, past the sign for Odell, I parked at a bakery, which I knew would be a welcome sight after the ride. From there I started uphill, and up and up, with views of Mt. Hood as rewards, I rode. At first the self-doubts were getting to me, but earbuds and peppy music helped me spin the wheels. The rough pavement lasted a few miles, but soon I was alongside the East Fork of Hood River, its glacier water sending waves of freezing air over me. I shivered. Then, the warm, dry shafts of the canyon swept over me. I sweat. No wind, mercifully. In 16 miles I was at the trailhead where Cheryl and Rafi and I had just hiked last week, a gorgeous short hike along the river to stunning falls.

The downhill was glorious. There is a speed around 33 mph where I find I can’t keep up, and I have to coast. I was above 30mph much of the way, with views of the entire fruit valley and Mt. Adams, and suddenly, the downhill was over. There was a good slog of an uphill, and I found my very favorite sign in biking:

Few things are more rewarding.

Well, there was the chocolate-chip-peanut-butter cookie at the bakery, the rhubarb jam, and the marionberry empanada for later…

Do this ride.
-Kate

Yesterday, we discovered the real cause of my sister’s brain bleed. It wasn’t a stroke. It wasn’t an aneurism. It was AVM or cerebral arteriovenous malformation. (That’s what the main character, Nate, on Six Feet Under had in case you saw that HBO show.) Now we know. Less than 1% of the population has this condition, and it may be the root cause of what we call “the family aneurism.” It’s congenital. 

Why? That’s what most people would ask: 50 miles, 3,000 feet total elevation. I set new records for slow… Three weeks ago when I did a similar ride I was amazed that my bike could move that slowly and NOT tip over. Yesterday I rode even more slowly.

At the start of the ride, the vista was eastern Oregon, looking out over the desert, The Dalles, the Columbia River in the distance. It was probably 35 degrees, and going down the hairpin turns, no guardrails, was a little like skiing on the edge of the world, ice in the eyes, trusting your weight will take you around the turn. There’s a lot of trust in biking.

I’ve found the best route I can, I think, through The Dalles, and then, the route takes me into wheat. Emerson Loop is a good uphill, through the country, along creeks, muddy and full right now. The trees are budding, yellow against the new wheat.

Always a reward: Mt. Hood in the distance over the old wheat, the lines of hard work, the tractors. Throughout this ride I got to see Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams, all mystery and fiction. Just beautiful.

At this point both the day and I were warming up a bit.

The Dalles is really an amazing little city, with the Dalles dam, and the river, and the two presiding mountains. What a gift this day was.

I almost tanked with no calories left to burn. Stopped at a roadside taco stand, that was fabulous and had lunch. Then, up the hill, 1700 feet in 2.5 miles, oh my! Mt. Hood greeted me around turns.

Triumph!

On March 23, 2012, my sister suffered a massive and devastating stroke. She is slowly waking up from a coma in Massachusetts General Hospital under the watchful care of incredibly dedicated medical folks and my good and loving brother-in-law, John, and nephew, Ben. I spent a week there, 4 nights of which I  stayed in her room in ICU. I wish I could do so much more.

I may start writing letters to my sister in this blog. Here’s the first.