February 24, 2026

Reclaiming a culvert; Mom turns 92; Ali Smith and Elizabeth McCracken; a four year old navigates my phone.

From The Woods

A whimsical reclamation project:

As I kid I loved dropping sticks, leaves, moss into streams that passed through culverts or under bridges, then running to the other end to see them come out. We have a forested wetland that flows only in the winter and part of it flows through culvert that worked fine except that brush covered the outflow end—so I couldn’t see dropped items float out. So, Tom and I hacked away blackberry vines salmon berry bushes, and grass to uncover the metal opening.

Two Ends of Our Culvert and Punctured Ribbon Lichen

I was reminded of Reclaimers by Ana Maria Spagna, in which she explores the reasons for reclaiming land or rivers. And I thought about an ongoing conversation I’ve been having with friend and author Jennifer Ruth Keller about the idea of repairing. Both repairing and reclaiming presuppose a state of being that is better than the current way of being. How do we decide which state is best? Who/what informs our ideas? Whose ideas are right? Jennifer and I talked about this last week—here is a link to our conversation—it’s about 45 minutes. Let me know what you think.

People Older Than Trees

Mom turned 92 on Thursday. Her brother Bob and sister Lois came to visit— hat’s almost 300 years of life lived between the three of them. The photo of them on the horse was taken at their paternal grandfather’s farm near Clayton, New Mexico. In the other photo, Mom is holding their baby sister Ann, who was often sickly and died at age 8 after getting measles and chicken pox.

Our cousins Mary (Bob’s daughter) and Jerry (Lois’s son) and his wife Joan also were able to come visit for a couple hours. We’ve always lived far from our cousins and it is wonderful to see them.

For her birthday, Mom requested deviled eggs, carmel corn, and music by Joe Batt, a musician and ceramic artist Mom loves. We had big plans for a party, but Mom started feeling poorly (weak, weary, and worn out) so we had to cancel. But Lois came with deviled eggs (did you know they’re called deviled because they’re made with spices like paprika—and that in the Bible Belt, one should say “salad eggs” or “stuffed eggs.” )And I made cracker jack—a version of carmel corn made with molasses and peanuts. I even found a stash of small magnets I wrapped in wax paper and used for prizes. And I found the WWI era ad for Cracker Jack about—I love that it was considered a “well-balanced and easily digested food.”

What I’m Reading/I Want to Know More

Elizabeth McCracken’s The Hero of This Book was recommended to me by Kathy Fagan Grandinetti, a poet I met because she is married to a longtime scientist friend of Tom’s. Her poetry is fabulous—check it out.

The Hero of This Book is a novel/memoir (the author plays with this a lot in the book) about a woman whose mother passed two years prior. The setting moves from London where the woman is now and the U.S. (Iowa and Massachusetts) where the mother lived and worked. McCracken is clear-eyed, snarky, and very funny. I like her so much, I just started another book by her, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination.

Ali Smith’s How to Be Both is the Bishop and Wilde Book Group selection for February. But lucky for me, the discussion has been postponed until March—I still had 100 pages AND many things to look up before the meeting. I love Ali Smith so much, I may listen to the book in addition to reading it. Smith’s Artful was one of my touchstone texts when I was writing The Ground At My Feet.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marzo,_francesco_del_cossa,_08.jpg

In How to Be Both, an Italian fresco by Francesco del Cossa, plays a central role. In the first half of the book, Smith imagines the painters creating the fresco and in the second half, a modern-day mother and her two children travel from England to Italy to see it. In both sections one character is both alive and dead as the story is told. It took me awhile to get my bearings in this book, but it has been worth it. And I want to go see the painting.

Stumptown

My dear friend Yoko was feeling unwell last week, so I took Abby on an outing. I trepidatiously suggested we go to one of the many trampoline places (so noisy), but she rejected that offer, saying “hand me your phone.” She scrolled around and found a place called Happy Baby Play in Beaverton—she had never been there, cannot read yet—and we went. It was great. Quiet, and hours of creative activity.

Being in Beaverton, with neighborhood names like Cedar Mill and Cedar Hills, make me more aware that almost all neighborhoods in the Pacific Northwest are built where forests once stood.