Last Thursday I found out that I will be facilitating a Write Around Portland group at the Bud Clark Commons, for chronically homeless men. I’m very excited.
And on Friday, Cheryl dropped me off to bike around Sauvie Island and back through NW Portland, in the sun, in the wind. On parts of the island I was biking sideways, the east wind gusting probably 35 miles an hour. A little crazy, but it was the first longish ride of the season, a long season. It was good to be out, to hear that crackly throat of the Sandhilll Cranes, to see a dozen Snow Geese, white and tall in a field.
And weaving through the streets of NW, I was tired from fighting the wind. There were many people in the shadows, doorways, walking on the dried mud of the sidewalks, where last week there were rivers. And about the woman who raised her head as I rode by, her face flat without her teeth, I wondered if I’d be writing with her. And to the man walking in the bike lane toward me, his wool hat low on his face, his Carhart jacket doing little against the wind, I nodded. Will we write together?
Now we all have pens. Before, we were so different.