Celebrating Eugene

At the Saturday Market a few weeks ago, I overheard an older gentleman say to his companion (while shaking his head in bewilderment), “Oh, there must be something in the water here in Eugene.” Translation? Eugene has a reputation for being a little quirky, a bit different.

Why, whatever do you mean??

Yes, it’s true. Eugene embraces diversity, and by diversity we mostly mean fashion. Not style, nor culture, but counter-culture and its accompanying costumes. Eugene is home to many tribes and we can easily identify one another by what we wear.

But first, I must tell something on myself. Do you see the photo of me, one hand defiantly on my hip and coffee in the other? Look at the expression on my face. I am watching the parade during the Eugene Celebration last Saturday morning. That, apparently is my parade-watching face! Don’t you think it should be registering something like joy or delight?

Or what about this next photo I love so much? I have no idea what’s going on here but I’m standing with friends in Boise at the Capitol; le sigh, Christine La Bean, rest her soul, appears to be transforming into a robot while I look as though something smells verra verra bad. I laugh a deep belly laugh every time I gaze at it. But my point is this: I was spending time with friends I love dearly and my face does not show it.

Walking down the street, I’ll catch a glimpse of my face in a store window and it actually scares me! I often have such a stern expression that my own face startles me.

A few weeks ago, while in Sunriver, Groom and I decided to have lunch out. We chose a lovely looking bistro and ordered our food, and of course, a cup of coffee. Most of you know, I looooove coffee. I do most things with a cuppa including photography, designing jewelry and watching a parade.

In fact, Groom just snapped this next shot of me while I was propped up in bed reading this week. Whoa, did you catch a load of my schnoz? Rarely have I seen my face in profile, is that really what I look like?

But I digress. Back to the bistro in Sunriver. We paid for our food and coffee and sat outside at our tall table, waiting. And waiting. After an awfully long time, we checked on the status of our order. The proprietress acted shocked that we wanted the coffee that we paid for. She really didn’t feel like making a pot of coffee as the restaurant would be closing soon. I looked at my watch. It was 1:30pm. “What time do you close?” I asked.

“3 o’clock.”

What? An hour and a half before closing and she didn’t really feel like brewing a fresh pot as the old one was empty? Now it became our turn to express incredulity. She “explained” that we’d probably be the only ones to drink it and she really couldn’t afford to waste the rest, like times are tough, you know? Well, using her argument, we really didn’t feel like giving her money as a donation for coffee we weren’t going to receive. Is that even legal, charging for an item on the menu and then balking at having to serve it?

I admit it, I was ticked and Proprietress was in a dilemma. She didn’t want to refund our money nor did she want to brew beans. In a snit, she finally decided that money in her till was better than giving it back, so it was with a martyred sigh and a huff that she made us coffee. Well, by this point, I didn’t want it, so I did my own version of sulking. Then, a man walked up to his car parked in front of our table. He unlocked it with his key chain remote, making that horribly obnoxious beep.

That’s all it took. A fearful owner, too tight-fisted to make a pot of coffee, and a man unlocking his car without benefit of a key. My mood blossomed into a minor tropical storm. Now, I didn’t do anything except complain to Groom.

And then the scary part happened. For the very first time, I felt the particles of my spirit hardening and I felt alarmed. I knew in that moment, I could get stuck like that. In an instant, I had sudden compassion for the nasty next-door neighbor where I lived when I was little, or the wicked step-mother of my dear friend; two women, whose faces had frozen into eternal expressions of bitterness.

I called God’s Minion in a panic. I told her I was very afraid of hardening into a freeze-dried shrew, the life and joy leaking out of me until I was a shriveled husk. To my amazement, she laughed her deep, throaty southern laugh.

What? Here I was in the midst of a true mid-life panic and my dear friend was laughing at me. In the condensed version, she said she knew me too well and that I’d never get stuck that way. The fact that I could recognize it and was repulsed by the notion was all the proof she needed.

She compared my panic of angst to downhill skiing. Describing me all dressed up like a snow bunny (okay, I added that part) on a slope with a sign pointing downhill toward Getting Stuck in Bitterness. “You looked over the edge, saw the invitation, got a little spooked and skied on,” she told me, and then added, “You had an insight of compassion for those who do get stuck there. You now see how easy it is to simply point your skis down that hill and keep going.”

If your heads are still in the upright position, then please follow the lighted pathway to my next example. Right after Sunriver, we shared dinner with friends and they told of a similar experience. They had been invited to a restaurant with a guest Italian chef. He was in town for only one night, so the place was packed. They had to wait almost two hours for their food.

The man-half of the couple, whom I’ll call Victor, decided it was “unacceptable,” while the woman present, who shall be named Victoria, pronounced it “entirely acceptable.” They debated and Victoria said, “It’s a beautiful summer evening, we’re out with friends listening to music, anticipating the chef’s creation, of course it’s acceptable.”

I am now referring to this as the “Victor/Victoria” syndrome. Two people in attendance at the same dinner having completely different experiences. One went with the flow, charmed by the company, music, and warm summer weather, while the other found fault. I recognized myself as Victor.

My life is beautiful. So why then, do I tend to focus on the ridiculous instead of the sublime?

Right after the Eugene Celebration parade last Saturday, a friend stopped by the booth with her new great-grandson. I’d met him soon after he was born, but he’d been asleep in his buggy. This time, however, he was wide-awake and a few months older.

Let me just say right now, I had an attunement by a baby. You know how a piano tuner is able to get the instrument back in alignment, back in tune? Well, this magic baby did the same for me. As I squatted down to say hello, he grabbed my fingers with both of his little hands and smiled. Okay, that’s pretty normal so far.

But wait. He held onto them tightly, looked straight into my eyes and started singing to me. Well, no, he’s too little for lyrics, but there was definitely a tune. I’ve heard babies make gurgling sounds, tummy rumbles, or high-pitched squeals, but this was otherworldly.

The music this baby was creating was truly lovely and here’s what’s so cool, I felt my heart quicken. And then it happened. All the little crusty bits and scabs surrounding my heart melted. I felt like the Grinch when his heart grew two sizes that day. Yes, there was an actual physical sensation as the hardened shell around my heart gave way in the face of this tiny angel singing me his message. Bitterness is powerless in the presence of love.

Thank you Holden, for that amazing experience. Forget all those energetic healing sessions, a few moments in your beam of light and all’s right with the world.

As for the rest of this week’s photos, they are of the Eugene Celebration including our newest S.LU.G. Queen, Slugasana. Congratulations!

So I’ll close for now, leaving you to decide what is ridiculous and what is sublime.

Summer: Good To The Last Drop

A seasonal shift is taking place, little signs popping up all over to reveal the impending change of the weather guards. Yep, it’s still hot, forecast in the 90’s, but Summer is packing her bags preparing for her notoriously quick getaway. She’s antsy, that one, always on the move ready to get the party started. Apparently she’s got things to do and people to see on the other side of the world, for she never stays very long in our neck of the woods.

Autumn, however, is a generous fellow, always showing up early and staying for a long time. Not as long as Winter, for he’s just plain greedy, feeding on the waning light of Oregonians, getting a few souls stuck in his teeth now and then.

A friend recently sent an email and I’m including a brief excerpt from his lament. “We’ve had a pretty low key summer. I wish summer would last for six months ... I love the heat and the water. I dread the thought of another long foggy winter ....”

Dread the thought.

But before the light scatters, the fog settles, the rain falls and mildew lines our bones like green, fuzzy insulation, there’s plenty of summer activities to enjoy. On Saturday, Kimmmm and I attended a Hawaii Five-0 party, hence the floral print dresses. Her red muumuu, authentically “made in Hawaii,” was the hit of the party, while my blue sundress purchased at the Oregon Shakespearean Festival’s costume sale a few weeks ago makes a good story. I think Ophelia might have worn it in a tropical version of Hamlet.

At the Cuthbert Amphitheater on Thursday, Celtic Woman is playing while music lovers (i.e. we) are invited to sit on the grass and picnic at the outdoor venue. In addition to concerts, there’s still time to attend a movie in the park, catch a baseball game, go swimming, look at art, walk on the beach, garden, dance, run through the sprinkler and eat fresh organic berries.

This week, our newly crowned S.L.U.G. Queen (an acronym: Society for the Legitimization of the Ubiquitous Gastropod), will be presented on Saturday at the parade during the annual Eugene Celebration, a three-day block party filled with music, a classic car show, a Health & Well Being fair, the Mayor’s Art Show and the Salon des Refuses (this year called “Salon du Peuple”).

There’s also time to peruse the Farmer’s Market for fresh produce as the clock rotates from the high noon of summer and its corresponding fire element to the harvest of the earth. Corn is growing, acorns are falling, and sunflowers are stretching their solar powered necks toward the brightest star.

As Groom and I investigated our neighborhood on Sunday with our cameras, I was struck by how two things could be true at the same time, which reminds me of a very lively and helpful conversation a few days ago with God’s Minion. She told me it’s quite natural to hold simultaneous contradictory beliefs as does our current season.

Our photos for this entry reflect the height of summer and the early signs of fall taken on the same day in the same neighborhood. To do your own investigating of details, simply click on any photo to enlarge and then hit the back button to return to the blog.

I noticed a double-seated lawn chair, its orange cushions bleached by the sun while Groom captured a very autumn moment with the lone Adirondack chair sitting in the shade, shedding its apple red paint.

It was a veritable flower fashion show, this season’s colors ranging from bold pinks and purples with sassy attitudes to the more subdued tones of silver dollars and prickly whites. The bees were busy collecting last minute pollen while mosquitoes were getting drunk, turning skin into polka-dotted tents of flesh.

Hpnotiq? Well, I think the last photo reminds us to girder ourselves, to grab every last bite of sunshine and soak up those rays, inhale the warmth and relish it all, because sigh… leaves are being tagged by Autumn, his graffiti style signature undeniable.

The 45th Parallel

Salem. The name alone packs a powerful punch. Immediately my mind conjures up the Salem witch trials of Puritan Massachusetts. Ironic, as the birth of the word Salem comes from its Hebrew mother, Shalom, meaning peace. Salem in the late 1600’s was anything but peaceful. Suspicion, hysteria, betrayal and fear gripped the day.

But the name has an even earlier history than the 17th century. On a hill in the heart of Zion stands a city. jeruSALEM. As the “new Jerusalem” symbolizes any idealized city, Utopia, it means heaven to many. It is a sacred place to more than a few Jewish people, Muslims and Christians, and even though the pulse of the word means peace, this holy city in the Middle East is again, anything but.

The sister to Shalom is Shalem, meaning perfect, whole, full. I wonder if the Kalapuyans, the Native Americans who inhabited Oregon before the invention of the white man, knew that definition because they named the area Chemeketa, meaning “meeting or resting place.”

I had none of this in mind when Groom and I traveled an hour north to Oregon’s capital on Saturday. Neither did I feel anything unusual as we crossed the 45th parallel that runs through the city limits, that legendary halfway point between the North Pole and the Equator. But that’s really what this week’s entry is about, the location between my equator (umm, let’s call it my belt buckle) and my North Pole (my head) which is…my heart.

The 45th parallel, the 4th chakra, the heart.

I’ve just experienced an amazing realization and then manifestation, which has left me speechless. Well, not that you can tell, since one sentence follows another. But as I sit here clacking away at the computer keys, there is a whole lot of silence. Much space in between. I’m trying to find the words. Oh, here they come.

I ran across a great definition of progress in a jewelry magazine. The gist is that progress is a moving target, it cannot be measured standing still. It involves travel. In order to make progress, there has to be movement from one point to another. For example, a person cannot be judged by only one piece of jewelry (oh, but wait, they will be…stay tuned!), but by the progress made from one piece to the next and then the one after that.

Progress is dynamic, in other words, it is not static. Too many of us judge ourselves by only one coordinate, a lone word, a single action.

But Saturday, after a mere 13 months of planning, Groom and I finally made it to Salem right on the appointed dot of 10am. We met up with the In-laws for a day of Thrifting. The weather cooperated brilliantly, offering a sky of antique blue, and we did exactly what the tourism signs told us to do, “Explore downtown, eat & shop downtown.”

If you’ll be patient, this quilt of paragraphs will all come together by the end. Many of you are familiar with the Z0L0 vignette. Briefly, a lovely man, a 64-year old friend and pen pal of mine misread my handwriting and thought the date of 2010 said “Z0l0.” He quizzed and questioned me, wondering what on earth Z0L0 was. I had no idea. He said I had to know because I was the one who had written it. Story short, we’ve all been laughing ever since he realized the mistake and I’ve nicknamed him Z0L0 and he’s been calling me the Z0L0 Queen.

My New Year’s resolution for 2010, Z0l0, is to step out of my comfort zone and try new things. I was wearing this frame of mind when I received a lovely invitation from the Salem Art Association to create a piece of jewelry for the silent auction during their annual benefit, Clay Ball.

Creating something to donate is not the new part, for many organizations make that request. It was accepting their invitation to attend the event that rattled my cage of comfort. You would think dressing up and attending a fancy shmancy ball would be right up my alley, but er, um, hobbing and nobbing with the moneyed crowd, well?

It was a benefit, after all, and who do they want as guests in their well appointed ballroom but people who can afford the “per plate fee” and bid thousands of dollars against each other in the name of fun and philanthropy?

I knew it would be a stretch, but I decided I wanted to do it anyway. The theme for this year’s Clay Ball was Traveling by Starlight. Always one for a theme, I selected a stamp with, can you guess, a globe shaped like a heart and proceeded to embellish it with appropriate beads and charms.

The date finally arrived. Having to traverse the 66.2 miles of asphalt anyway, we made plans to thrift with the in-laws and then transform like Cinderella to attend the Ball. As we stepped into the Salem Conference center that evening, the atmosphere was at once charming and lively. The “fun and festive cocktail attire” made for great people watching, and by the time we climbed the stairs and perused the items up for bid, we were in a great mood.

And then we saw our piece. The little itty bitty “Traveling by Starlight” postage stamp pin. Yes, we were invited to donate what we do, but we had a bit of a shock seeing one of our jewelry pieces out of context instead of in a full booth like we’re used to. It was very sobering.

Why? Because while we were included in the realm of the donating, participating artists, we became aware of just how small our energy is. Our pin was the littlest object up for bid as well as the lowest opening bid.

Debbie Leahy, the Director of the Salem Art Fair & Festival, has been an amazing influence upon us, encouraging us to return to school and learn metalsmithing skills to expand what we do. Heeding her sage advice, we rearranged our whole lives, including our home, to make room for the classes and a different kind of studio.

At that moment, standing in the middle of the swirl of Saturday night, I set an intention. An intention to create a piece of jewelry (with the new skill set) that I can donate to next year’s Clay Ball that will knock my own socks off.

It was a good idea to have a smaller, less expensive piece available for people to bid on, to create something for those without access to huge funds, but I also realized I was at the very shallow end of the pool and I want to go deeper.

If the micro mirrors the macro, I looked into that mirror and saw how tiny my impact and energy was. While it kinda bummed me out, it was also a terrific marker, another coordinate in measuring my progress. Gosh darn nit, I am progressing, moving, growing and evolving. Instead of feeling like the smallest amoeba, the lowest on the totem pole, I decided to interpret the experience as inspiring.

That was the amazing realization. And now comes the manifestation. Deciding I did not need to feel puny, tempting as it was, I chose to plant a seed. Like Jack and the Beanstalk, I had no idea how quickly it could grow. Within 24 hours of planting the intention of allowing my energy to expand, I received a mysterious phone call. I was instructed to drive down to the corner of 6th Avenue and Fillmore Street where the Tire Factory is located.

Oh what a delightful surprise! On the marquee was the message, “Z0L0 Queen exists in Eugene.” My friend had gone to the effort of persuading the owner to display his message. I am so touched. Who goes to that kind of trouble? Who thinks like that?

It slowly occurred to me, that while I was thinking my energy was so small and ineffective it might need life support, somebody was going to the effort to announce my presence to the entire town. He also wrote a poem:

PRESS RELEASE by Ken Lee

You are all aware of the Eugene Slug Queen

At most openings and events she can be seen
Real Royalty has arrived in Eugene
She has emerged this year as the Z0L0 Queen!

When did the Royal Woman really appear?
Queen Z0L0 accepted her crown just this year
She’s no rookie to royalty though
In her veins, Queenly blood doth flow.

No princesses are needed, she goes solo
Remember the name dear folks –She’s Queen Z0L0
The Slug Queen is jealous of her, you see
Because by the next parade, she’ll be in the lead.

Queen Z0L0 is honored to lead the parade
The Slime Queen was invented, Queen Z0L0 was made.
When the REAL Queen goes by, just tip your beer
This is 2010 and its Z0L0 year!


Wow, as I said, this has rendered me speechless. Sort of. I am more gobsmacked, humbled, honored, delighted, and I realized, by him presenting me with a crown (my North Pole, my head, my 7th chakra) I encountered the halfway point, my own 45th parallel, intersecting at the city limits of my heart, and I report to you, at this moment, it is filled with peace.

Shalom.