Conception
My husband Dan affectionately laughs at the notion that everything in life happens for a reason. Having been cradled in the arms of sadness while watching my railroaded dreams disappear, I have come to understand that my life has kept to its own mysterious schedule. At twenty-nine I remember sorrowing about a loveless existence, and a decade later I rode my bike, sobbing, down the streets of Eugene because I thought I would never have a child. But all the time, I was, often unwittingly, unfolding my own Oregon story.
In the spring of 1977, I was teaching at a private school in Ojai, California. The students were difficult, and I was at odds with another teacher. Then one day, a six foot three, strawberry blond, bearded fellow came striding down the hallway wearing a red plaid flannel shirt, jeans and work style boots. After one look at his kind blue eyes, I was smitten. We introduced ourselves and shook hands. The next thing I knew Dan and I were in a small room with a piano and he was playing his song about the meaningful people he had met on his life's crooked mile.
For a week we taught together and celebrated at the end with a dinner up in the Ojai hills. Our common love of literature, nature and earth based spirituality ignited a romance. Like a ready cake mix, we found our missing ingredients and became a couple. Biweekly, we ran side by side through the neighborhood California orange groves, sucking the succulent oranges while watching the sun set behind the paper thin hills. By June, it was love.
Dan had made plans for a summer job with a friend who lived in Chiloquin, Oregon. We packed simply and rode up North in his orange Chevy van. As we crossed the border into Ashland, the magic of previous visits there returned. We wandered through Lithia Park and watched Shakespeare's Tempest in the outdoor theater on a thunderous summer night. Then we made our way to Chiloquin and up a seven mile dirt road to Randy and Susan's hand-built house which bordered a national forest and an aspen grove.
Susan was pregnant with her first child and maintained the chickens, goats and garden. Randy was working in the building trades. Their homestead had an outhouse, a well, and no electricity. To take a bath, hot water was heated on the wood stove and poured into the bathtub sitting in the living room. Guitar strumming became our entertainment. We also had horseshoe playing, story and musical potlucks. That first Oregon summer in 1977, I felt like I had been reborn in the 1800s.
Chiloquin was a cowboy and Indian town. I would walk down one side-street to the co-op grocery store and then walk down the main boulevard which had a bar, a hardware store and a cafe. What enthralled me, however, was the Klamath Indian Reservation. Susan and Randy were both part Lakota, reclaiming their Native spiritual rituals. They took us for a visit to the small reservation and introduced us to Chief Edison Chiloquin and his wife Leatha.
I was honored to have Chief Chiloquin shaking my hand against a backdrop of rawhide teepees, a wooden trellised outdoor dining room bordered by a rushing creek. We feasted on salmon and fry bread. Sitting around the fire, we listened to tribal history. When the federal government came to buy up the Klamath land, Edison refused to sell. He wanted a traditional village site as a legacy for the youngsters of the tribe. Camping on this piece of land we now sat upon, Chief Chiloquin lit a daily fire. He refused to move. Finally through years of prayer, an act of Congress gave Edison and the tribe these 200 acres. Hearing the evening echo of the steady drum beat amongst the trees, we entered their sweat lodge full of admiration and reverence for this tribe who was trying so desperately and deliberately to maintain their forgotten way of life.
Known as the “teachers,” Dan and I spent the majority of our summer in and around Chiloquin. Though I loved the herb and mushroom searches and the first stirrings of wanting my own child while meditating under a grove of aspen trees, my heart wasn't sure if back-to-the-land living was what I wanted. Dan had a friend in Eugene, so we made a journey north.
Eugene's collegiate, cultural atmosphere breathed energy into my literature-loving brain. We walked the quaint neighborhoods finding wood-shingled houses built in the 40s and lush vegetable/flower gardens. The wide bike paths along the Willamette River and the abundance of juicy blackberries overwhelmed me. I felt a community connection I hadn't found down in southern Oregon. On our return to Chiloquin, we detoured to the coast highway and drove towards Port Orford. I had grown up loving the warmth and spaciousness of California beaches, but the Oregon coast's natural ruggedness spoke to my soul, seeping into my home seeking consciousness.
Dan drove us by the farmhouse he had spent a winter in. With his German Shepard Louise, he had taken up an offer to rent it for that season. He fondly remembered his days of meditation, yoga, pure vegetarian cooking and the Faulknerian characters he met in that stretch of country. Parking on the ocean's edge with a view of these giant towered rock formations in the ocean, I felt the sunlight kiss my face and watched the birds fly quietly overhead. I was in paradise. As we walked up the sandy cliff to the van, a strange visionary scene appeared. I opened the driver's side van door and before I could scoot inside, a slender, girl with reddish blond hair and a mid-calf length dress, got into the van ahead of me. My heart told me this was my future daughter and her name would be Aspen. Little did I know then that Aspen Louise would indeed be born, but it would take fourteen more years.
Our Chiloquin summer ended with a clogged well, too little work, frazzled nerves and strained relations. Surprisingly, our friendship endured with Randy and Susan. Susan would later remarry, to a man named Mark, and they would become our daughter's Godparents. But this Oregon story is slowly rolling along.
To Be Continued...
(c)2011
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