Because she only had a short time to see what made up our days out here, we had a pretty packed "program" from the get-go. After a squeely, kumbaya reunion in the parking lot, we drove to a target pharmacy to get my prescription and came out with new kitchen essentials when she insisted I upgrade after I told her what I was making due with.
Despite being known for its rad eats, the airport area had not been infected with all things Portlandia and it was counter-productive for us to drive back towards the heart for lunch so we found a place in Vancouver on our way back home.
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| Highly recommended Eastern-inspired cuisine. |
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| Very scrumptious tempeh avocado dish with beet-goat cheese salad |
Lunch and the drive allowed for some heart-to-heart and more relaxed conversation than we would find opportunity for over the next couple of days. The activities began as soon as we made it back to Morton. Mother had agreed to offer some wisdom as a guest "speaker" for Alice's girls night at the Teen Center and we had no time to get her moved in at Packwood and drive back out before the evening. The night's turn out was small - perhaps effected by the White Pass dance happening the same time - but we had fun nonetheless. There were five girls in attendance and they were all open and receptive to trying out the Qi Gong exercises that my mom presented. One girl even caught on that maybe it would be an aid to deal with stress in the home life and I found little ways to tie in my own experiences with the practice. After I did a small Thanksgiving poem exercise with the girls, they rushed off to Alice who was preparing pedicure essentials and my mom and I headed out.
I was eager for her to meet Mary and show her the environment of the Spruce. Despite the time difference, she was happy to keep the night going a bit longer and we met Mary at the school after the dance and drove over to the Spruce for a couple rounds of pool.
Since the house had been abandoned all day, we got home late to move her stuff into a cold, cold space. I insisted on letting me start a fire before she messed with the heater and while the stove worked up some coals, I roasted a mysterious Kabocha squash for a hummus recipe to bring to our Friday Potluck meeting. I say mysterious because I had only every seen the pimply rough outsides of this massive variety. When it came out of the oven fifteen minutes later, we were both sold. It definitely rose near the top of my squash list.
Mother kept in good spirits despite the long day and the inconveniences of my rustic living situation. She tried out two or three different sleeping arrangements before finally settling on rolling her mat out in front of the wood stove for sufficient toastiness.
The next day, the shingles started getting rough.
Our potluck meeting was delicious (and very dessert-heavy) and the squash hummus was a huge hit. We had entered the weeks of teamed Civic Engagement Unit presentations in preparation for a three-day program we offer kids in the spring. Jordan and Lou presented their unit and we broke for lunch by noon. Thinking all we had was a debrief afterwards, I gradually grew distraught as the meeting began to wear on past two o'clock. My whole body was on fire and I couldn't sit comfortably in any way. Three times, I had to remove myself to go sob. I knew the team could tell I was grumpy and I did not care. Mother kept offering sympathetic looks of helplessness. By the time we were done, I had to rush Mary and her to the car to get back in time for closing at the Butter Butte.
My grumptitude diluted a little with the change of pace but I was beginning to feel resentful towards my condition and self-conscious of my childish state of whiny discomfort. True to the never-failing syndrome of our dynamic, Mother's disposition was suffering adverse effects from my discomfort and even as I saw the dreaded tension building, I couldn't stop its course. She took time to herself in the cafe while I was working and witnessed my lively facade and again afterwards among the crowded Bingo hall (I had imagined my first win to be when she was here and it was, but only $20.)
These shingles had me hating sleep. Once I was lying still, there was no way to escape my skin. When I couldn't convince her to follow Mary to the spruce for a bit after Bingo, we began to drive home in silence, which was only broken by a concern that I did not take very happily.
Like anything with us, suddenly a small case of shingles ran deep - past either of our nerves or spinal columns, straight into heart and essence. That night ended in a dramatic bout of immaturity and when she walked away into a separate room for the night, I fell asleep sobbing for my own aggressive, venomous selfishness and simultaneously for feeling like a silenced victim, forever misunderstood and underestimated.
In the morning, we apologized and attempted to start fresh. I had tried out Melatonin and was starting off the day much better after an uninterupted sleep. My mom had spent sometime the night before looking up natural healing for shingles and we drove to the store to get some supplies for an apple cider vinegar "poultice" which was said to help the pain and weed out toxins. Saturday was our only day for a hike and although most trails were reported to be pretty snowy, I had my heart set on taking her to the view atop Tounge Mountain.
The snow wasn't bad. Down in the trees, the only white was found in the trail dips from the Dirtbike traffic where water had frozen over in artistic pools resembling tectonic plates and tree rings. It wasn't until the last leg of the trail where we rose onto the moutainside switchbacks that the snow started to get her heart racing. I stayed close and paused after every precarious slope and this way, we were able to continue along. Mary and I had introduced her to the notorious Fox Song (I will need to get a video of us "doing" this song at the bar to put up here) and at one point she confessed "So, this seems to be my calming song for this, as it keeps going off in the back of my head!" Armed with her calming song and me at the head warning of slick patches, we were almost to the top and there seemed to be no reason we wouldn't make it when suddenly, I realized I was not the lone trail blazer anymore. Venturing ahead for as far as we could tell were the tracks of something very large. I recalled a mention that Mary made of Billy Goats on our last hike here and at first I justified the two most prominent pads as hooves. But looking ahead, my mom starkly pointed "Nope. Those are claw marks" and sure enough, you could see where sharp extensions had tunneled into the snow. Surprisingly, I was able to access the internets and the first site I came across on Mountain Lions offered that little children had been known to scare them off with rocks and attempted to reassure readers that most encounters result in the cat promptly plodding into the woods away from the presence of people. After much deliberation, we decided we did not want to test our luck. |
| oh hey, kitty kitty. |
A nice hike nonetheless but on the way down, I was reaching my daily tollerance threshold with my body. We ventured back to the house for a Poultice and concocted some dinner with fresh veggies we'd picked up from Gretchen's final veggie sale that morning. Afterwards, we took some time to look over the Karaoke songbook for mother's first debut that night. We thought about learning some new ones but in the end, opted for "if I had a million dollars" and "good day sunshine". The night was good. I've gotten much more used to letting my voice out on stage and mother was thrilled, pulling out her phone to get pictures and video of the performances. At the end of the night, she said final good byes to all of my packwood friends because next up would be the big city of portland.
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