We are sliding into spring around here. Flowers are blooming, with a few warm days between the rainy stretches. We were vaccinated at just about the one year anniversary of the pandemic, and I am grateful! I feel the hope of spring, yet I know we still have so far to go until everyone can say that. And then my daughter reminds me of our privilege in the world. I know. I can only live where I am, but I do know.

Knitting, reading, hiking, on we go, fuzzy days mushing into each other. Planning the weekly grocery list. Creating with my hands, my brain, I take notes. I try to find the distinguishing features of each day, and celebrate the positivity and the beauty. That is most of what I do, and will do, and am lucky to do. So….

Hiking

1) We snowshoed up White River on Mt Hood on March 2nd – clouds swathing the peak much of the day, but in a most artistic way.

2) On March 11th we hiked Tom McCall Point and around Rowena Crest, east of Hood River in Oregon, to see the fields of  grass widows.

Then we walked around Rowena Crest, closer to the river:

3) The next week, on March 16th, we went out across the river to Lyle Cherry Orchard again. No squalls this time – a perfect hiking day, and the first of the bright yellow balsam root blooms were opening as we hiked.

Lots of flowers showing for the first time this spring:

Stunning views from the cherry orchard:

4) We also walked a fast loop through Tryon Creek Park, on March 17th, where the very first of the trillium were opening, a little later than last year.

Around Portland

My neighborhood is also blooming.

Knitting

I finished knitting a pair of socks for me and another hat and a cowl for the guild charity project, and cast on new socks and a cardigan.

And…

I hold the more difficult challenges to the outside world in my heart. This week it is yet another uniquely American gun violence episode in Georgia, another hate crime, anti-woman, anti-Asian. I know in my heart it is all true, and part of the work we all have to do – bring out all the biases into the light of day and see how they harm so many. I am listening and learning more each day, and it all rings true, and saddens me. I pledge to myself to be as much of an ally as I can recognize. Listen and learn. Validate. Search for the commonalities and not the otherness. From my place on the privilege spectrum.  That is most of what I do, and will do, and am lucky to do. And before I can publish this – yet another mass shooting at a grocery store in Colorado.

As a youngster with all the idealism of youth, I envisioned a giant magnet circling the world sucking away all the implements of violence, all the guns and weapons of war. On days like today with a heavy heart and a less idealistic world view, still I sigh and wish it could be true.