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Thoughts of a Rural Woman
Archived Thoughts for 11/25/01
Country Squirrel visits Big City Cousins
by The Editor, Rebecca Brown
Quietly sitting in the busses on the way to Seattle for the Seventh Northwest Bookfest, I watch squadrons of birds swirl in fluid formations, shimmering on the fly.
A rainforest day of grey misty plumes climbing up hillsides with mountains shrouded in clouds. Snow they say is already up there. Down here clear cut piles burn like bonfires, smoldering their autumnal incense across the highway.
Bright holes in the cloud cover through which shafts of sunlight become watery rainbows arcing here & there, from lake beach to sea quay, hillside to valley.
In a grey dawn with the unnatural sounds of a city filling my ears, I sip my first cup of tea of the day & spy a grey squirrel in search of breakfast, coming ever closer to where I stand. The squirrel is one of my totem animals so it doesn't surprise me when they come talk with me, even in a big city. When I watch city cats & dogs going about their business, I realize how wild I have always been -- in what I wear, prefer to eat, often think & choose to live.
A day at the Northwest Bookfest, in the belly of a huge exhibition hall surrounded by cement, steel & glass with more people than I see in a year, milling around me, all agog with that weekend feeling as we all listen & share the thrill of writing, publishing & reading books. I must have walked miles around those boulevards of booths yet felt none of the satisfaction nor enjoyment as after a walk along our valley road.
That evening my son & I took a walk as day turned into night. As I leaned upon his arm, we sauntered beneath autumn trees -- oaks & maples, catalpas & sycamores & a host more for which I had no names. Halloween carpets stretched before us, & we scuffed up leaves from dry piles, stepped on nuts & stared at shadows & sunset, trunks & street lights.
The next morning in a windy, rainy search for coffee I found a tree from which were falling those huge inedible horse chestnuts, glossy brown & perfect. I gathered them wet, into my pockets remembering the “conkers” game my brothers used to play with string & deadly aim.
A block away from where my children have a roost a McDonald's is planted like an alien spaceship among an enclave of human culture. Clean plastic, glossy metal & big windows -- all squared, ageless & tidy. It will look like this a decade hence while the real buildings, people's homes will ripen & grow old around it.
Walking in the Emerald City on a dry grey autumn day with moisture in the mix, I happened upon a park. City child that I was, parks were where I got a glimpse of the nature of things. As an adult, I wended my way from London, further & further west until I reached the rainforests of the Olympic Mountains, to at last live among the things of nature.
As I sat at a park table beneath those broad & spreading trees I find myself remembering a sweet book I've recently reviewed My Mother Talks to Trees & wished I had it in my bag(yes, I do talk to trees.) Seattle's trees are in their glory, offering us memories of sunshine as we face the long greyness of winter. Like a seaside town in winter which no summer migrant ever sees, city parks & their stalwart sentinels give us sustenance for our cemented souls.
Home, home again in the teeth of a Pacific storm - high winds & horizontal rain funnel between the forest along the highway strewn with tree debris. On, on into the darkening night, changing busses until at last, into the arms of my beloved & still one more half hour drive along our little road to the bright, warmth of our cabin. &, after we're all talked out, a power outage that sends us to bed.
Rebecca
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