Sacred Spaces

On the first day of Spring, I cleaned out the old tub shack for an evening equinox soak. Portland hit its first 70-degree high of the year, and the air was still warm and fragrant. Earlier in the day, I rode out to majestic Crown Point in the Columbia Gorge.

Quite the invigorating start to a vernal season...well, except that this half century left me COMPLETELY EXHAUSTED. Weary and losing balance, I had to catch a passing City bus at the tail end of the ride just to get over the last hill!

Needless to note, the hot tub was a perfect remedy. Releasing into its healing waters, my mind drifted toward sacred spaces:

the Vista House overlooking the Gorge at Crown Point...

our home in Spring...

the "TUB HER" shack in our back yard...

With a Spring Break vacation to Reno just a couple of days away, I began envisioning a sacred spaces tour through my hometown.

When we planned this vacation a few months ago, the main destination was some quality time with our twin nieces before they transform into disengaged teenagers.

Having turned 14 the week before our arrival, I think we caught them just on the cusp. They're still so sweet to their cousin Lilly, enamored with little River, dance and sing with Bunny, and laugh at their Uncle's dumb jokes. We shared many, many fun memories cavorting through historic Virginia City and basking on the sunny shores of Lake Tahoe's Chimney Beach - two of the most mythical and enchanting places in Nevada.

It's been a decade since returning to Reno for a Biggest, Littlest adventure (more recent trips have been mostly spent with family at Lake Tahoe). Much has changed. Still, the places I revered as a child remain the same.

The morning after our arrival, I took the family out to Verdi - a few hundred paces across the California border west of Reno. On nice days, I'd skip high school class(es) and go skinny-dipping in this flume with friends.

We must have ignored the "EXTREME DANGER - NO SWIMMING" signs back then.

Somehow, the weather was always sunnier, warmer and calmer escaping to California, and this morning was no different as we toured the ghosts of Verdi-past.

In the afternoon, we parked on the California Street bluff next to a mini-playground and a series of historic mansions. As a teen, this was my SIT SPOT. Many nights would start and end here smoking Camel Lights - overlooking Reno and the expansive Great Basin beyond. On one occasion a dozen years ago, Bunny and I were enamored by hundreds of hot air balloons lifting into the sky from this vantage.

Dropping down from the bluff, I took the family on a walking tour starting with my Mom's strip-mall yogurt shop where I served

mountains of fro-yo and listened to non-stop-Top-40-Pop during the summers of '84 and '85.

After a satisfying visit to a new cupcakery next door, we stepped into 'ye old barber shop and SURPRISE! We found Bill, my barber who chopped up a decade of new wave hairdos AND is still cutting!

This nostalgic tour continued through Idlewild Park where I recalled childhood stories for Lilly.

And then along the Truckee, into downtown, through Wingfield Park, and back up California. I typically refer to Reno as "Vegas for Seniors" but these sweet neighborhoods all have long, rich histories that date back to the Silver Rushes of the 19th Century.

Later that evening, I brought my brother-in-law's classic Lotus road bike down to the Reno Bike Project to be revived after hanging on his garage hook for the past 25 years. At the Project, I reconnected with Greg, an old friend since 3rd Grade, who is now deeply immersed in their valiant efforts to reclaim the City streets with thousands of resurrected Burning Man bikes.

With help from Greg and Russ, another high school friend and fellow bike geek, the Lotus was back in commission for a crisp ride along the foothills of snowy Mt. Rose.

I'll look forward to sharing a bit of Portland's bike-wrenching culture with Greg this summer when he's planning a tour from Portland to Reno. In addition to becoming bike fanatics in the last few years, our dual lives include 6-year old daughters. On a sunny Saturday, our girls played together for hours at Rancho San Rafael, while Greg, Russ and I rode out to the California border in Verdi.

Despite a host of mechanical problems (good thing Greg & Russ are bike mechanics!), the ride was dreamy along the Truckee River recalling memories of riding in the 1980s with Greg LeMond whizzing by.

The bicycling theme in Reno was punctuated by a coincidental encounter with another old friend, Tyler, at a hip clothing exchange store in the revamped Mid-Town neighborhood. I never really noticed coincidences when I lived in Reno (or even on previous visits). But after seeing a lucky 777 sign on South Virginia Street, I had a distinct feeling that I was in for a blast from the past.

After a few fleeting moments, Tyler directed us to The Hub, a new bike-friendly coffeehouse serving Intelligentsia single-origin espresso and chai just a few steps around the corner.

Suddenly, it felt like we found a piece of Portland right in the middle of Reno.

The next night, I met up with a bunch of old friends at Streya, a friendly bungalow bar whose owners hail from Portland, too. Clarissa, Renee, Val, Xac and Sam are some of the funniest characters that you'll ever meet especially when this crew is all in the same room together. We all laughed HARD - just like the old days.

A few nights later, Bunny and I met up with two other old friends, Shelly and Kenny, to share a couple bottles of fine French wine downtown. With our judgement impaired, we capped the night off with an Awful Awful Burger and an Asskicker Margarita! Not so much fun for Bunny the next morning...

On our last day, we wrapped up this tour of sacred spaces four-wheelin' with Kenny on Cashill, passing through the "way-back" tunnel behind my Mom's old house, and visiting the elementary school playground where I learned to ride a two-wheeler for the first time.

Unforgettable to share these 6-year-old memories with my 6-year-old daughter!

Arriving at the airport, Lil' begged me to show her how to play the slots. Against my better judgement as a responsible parent ;~) ...she picked the machine, and I dropped the quarter.

Sure enough - Lucky 777 hit the Jackpot!

Ding! ding! DinG! Lilly always seems to have a funny coincidence on our family vacations, and this time it was on the return flight where she happened to find a seat next to her 1st grade classmate, Zachary, and brother Max.

I don't recall The Biggest Little City in the World as a friendly sort of place. So, it was refreshing to experience a genuinely sweet side of Reno with these wonderful friends from the past. Reminiscing old times revealed the sacred space shared between friends despite the many years dividing us. Namaste!

FuNnY Videos

The video side bar has been acting funny, so here's a link to Bunny's Youtube site with family vids and Bubby's fave music vids.

Psychos for Cycles

I'm cRAzY about cycles. Not just bicycles, but layers of chaotic, interconnected cycles in nature that weave together all the world's systems into a random order.

Yesterday, the City's green building team was riding the Streetcar on our way to an ice cream social across town (YUM!). As we passed Portland State University's meek Systems Science building, I was delighted to see a diagram of adaptive Panarchy cycles stuck to their window. My recent research at PSU focused on applying these adaptive cycles in nature to the design of sustainable climate protection policy. Combined with a couple of scoops of local Coffee Crackle and Kulfi Cardammom ice cream at Cool Moon, this connection to Panarchy at PSU was a sweet cap on a week of social and ecological coincidences.

The week's events all started at the Riverplace near downtown.

13 years ago, Bunny and I were engaged at the end of this dock. This place is SACRED to me. Every weekday on the my ride into the office, I have a morning ritual here: stopping for a moment, soaking up the sunrise over the Willamette River, giving thanks, praying, then taking a deep drink of Portland's ancient forest-filtered water from a Benson Bubbler and dedicating a day of service to the City. With the grey days of Winter phasing out and Spring cycling in, I've been thirsty for feeling more connected to community and this was my intention last week.

On Thursday, I was flipping through a Portland weekly in a waiting room and came across a recommendation for the annual Clowns Without Borders circus the following night. One year ago, I blogged about how this wonderful performance arrived on our radar with nary a day's notice despite recurring only a few blocks from our home. This year was no different.

Later that night, I delivered flowers to the Laurelhurst Theater and caught a second run of Terry Gilliam's Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. Being a big fan of Gilliam's prolific catalog of feature films (ever since Time Bandits), I stepped into the theater ready to be transported into a bizarro world. And that's essentially the plot of the film: a traveling circus troupe draws their audience individually into a magic mirror. On the other side, they enter an imaginary world filled with their own personal hallucinations and consequently experience a spiritual reckoning that returns them transformed and enlightened.

Friday was cold and rainy. More Old Man Winter. I'm OVER it! Fortunately, we had Clowns Without Borders to redeem the grey day. Lilly and her best friend, Ruby, were full of glee and River was captivated for over 2 hours. They wandered in and out of their own kindred imaginariums, and we followed endearingly.

On Saturday night, BunZ arranged a date to celebrate our friend Aisha's 40th birthday dessert party. We started with dinner at the new Spints Alehouse in the neighborhood. Within a half hour, my good friend Adrian unexpectedly walked in and joined us for impromptu Bavarian beers at the bar. This might not seem like much of a coincidence, EXCEPT that I've been trying to meet up with him for a couple of months AND he also turns 40 in a couple of weeks. I'm turning 40 this year, too, and find much therapy in watching friends turn that corner with nearly all faculties intact.

After multiple slices of cream pie and social networking conversations at Aisha's (RU Facebook-challenged, too?), Bunny and I headed out to the 'Couv to finally catch Avatar before it leaves 3D theaters.

Of course James Cameron deserves many accolades for ushering in a new age of digital animation technology, but I was more captured by the film's deep ecology ethic and ancient wisdom. Even if it replicates a story that's been told thousands of times from all corners of the Earth, I'm still thoroughly inspired EVERY time I hear that Mother Earth holds a divine plan for humanity as natural resources dwindle and our weather becomes auspiciously weirder.

Sunday was the Grand Finale...I hit the road for an epic bike ride through Forest Park and Sauvie's Island. At one point on this rural island at the confluence of the mighty Columbia and Willamette, I stopped to admire hundreds of Canadian Geese funneling into a field. Then continued on to my destination, Cistus Nursery, to meet Bunny, Lilly and River. Cistus stands out from any other plant nursery around Portland. It's dreamy like the jungle in Avatar: fractal layers of semi-tropical plants and their exotic fragrances fill the air. I found a spot to lounge in the sun and wait for my crew as spring petals floated down from the sky. Upon arrival, we toured the nursery and found a gigantic cala lily that emanates the sweet scent of hard candy.

From Cistus, we headed out to hike the beach at the end of the island. Rare warm, clear and calm days in Spring are the perfect time to walk this beach as the surrounding four volcanic, snow-capped peaks are reflected in the Columbia. Occasionally, massive cargo ships chug on by churning up waves onto the beach and leaving a stream of bunker smoke in the sky.

On our return, we ran into an old colleague from PNCA who remarked that he's never seen so many birds in Sauvie's fields as today. Sure enough on our drive back home, we spotted a flock of geese and pulled off the main road into a field filled with thousands of geese - mostly migrating species that we've never seen around here before. Their orchestrated honking was deafening as hundreds more continued to flock magnetically into this one field. Seriously MIND-BLOWING like the Serengeti. Again, it felt like entering a scene from Avatar's enchanting natural world where the definition of community extends far beyond human boundaries.

I know...I know. It's silly and a bit cuckoo to find coincidences between film and real life. But I did mention that I'm cRaZY about cycles, right? Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Annual...Glacial - I love them all. The first few months of 2010 have recalled many fond memories from Winter last year while reliving cyclical patterns (with a slightly different twist): lunar New Year at The Chinese Garden (on Valentine's), River's birthday celebration followed by a sweet stretch of warm sun (at the beach), and a dreamy early-Spring Columbia Gorge wildflower hike (to Tom McCall Point).