Last weekend my husband, our dog and I spent some time at Belknap Hot Springs in the part of the McKenzie River corridor that was thankfully spared by the horrific wildfire that swept through last September. (This article in Catch Magazine really sums up both the magic and the devastation of the affected area.)
The Upper McKenzie is special to me for another reason. My daughter was married here five years ago, and her perfect September day under the towering firs and bubbling river was also my sister’s last visit to Oregon before her death. All of humanity exists for me in that corridor.
Our trip to Belknap followed two days camping in the higher elevation of the Three Sisters Wilderness, where we hiked through the charred remnants of trees blazed during the massive Pole Creek burn nine years ago.
The contrast between the 26,000 acres of skeletal ghost trees and the lush, verdant mountain retreat reminded me of the difference between summer 2020 and this current summer. Like the random lightning strike that started the 2012 Pole Creek Fire, COVID-19 appeared suddenly, feasting upon the people in its path—particularly the vulnerable. Though the psychological toll wrought by the pandemic will be felt for years, I’m grateful for the speed at which effective vaccines were developed and deployed. At least in this country. Traveling without fear of contracting a deadly disease is something I’ll never again take for granted.
For me, this summer has felt like an interstices filled with grace. Space in which to regroup and reassess. Now that I’m between Faultland’s launch and my next writing project, I keep reminding myself that I don’t need to be in a hurry to churn something out.
But reader, I fight this impulse to just be. Oh, do I.
I’m a meditation dropout. My monkey mind too undisciplined for regular interludes of contemplation. Like a hungry fire, my mind seizes on potential fuel. It longs to produce, to create, to pursue and to dominate. So many unfinished novels. And what about the memoir I keep tweaking? Or that half-heartedly cobbled together collection of stories I’ve relegated to the far reaches of my Dropbox?
Luckily, I have several editing projects lined up, and I’m neck-deep in one that’s particularly intriguing. The hours spent on other people’s work feels like the only true respite from the COVID free-floating anxiety that still hovers around me like the mosquitoes we encountered on our recent camping adventure.
That said, at Belknap I did manage to have nearly 24 hours of true respite. Something about the ornate “secret garden” and the wall of green visible from the soaking pool spoke to the center of me. The place that holds my earliest memories. It jarred the awakening of quotidian life as a toddler in Vienna, where we lived in a gothic apartment complex adorned with a Roman-style pool and statuary. It reminded me that writing comes from that same deep well. The tension between aesthetic longing and the dissonant clash of reality. There is light there. Enough light to find one’s way, all in good time.
Sounds like you had a beautiful camping trip. Memories. Also writing and taking breaks. Solace.