Hermenautic Circle blog

All day and all night, the sounds of trains—steel wheels along steel tracks, whistles loud and warning—fill the soundscape of the Columbia River Gorge, a little section of the Pacific Northwest at the border of Oregon and Washington. With its big skies and evergreen trees, framed by two enormous volcanos – Mt Hood and Mt. Adams, and a virile River—the Columbia—it’s one of those almost mythic Western locales that look almost too postcard-like to be real.

Hood River, the area’s epicenter, boasts some of the best wind surfing in the country and Mount Hood has snow all year long (read four season skiing and snowboarding), making it a sports-enthusiast’s mecca. But if you’re like me, taken more with reading and eating then careening across a river or down a mounatin, there is still plenty to enjoy. Like a brew pub/movie theater, a knitting shop, multiple cafes, wineries, and more than a few kid-friendly activities.

Things to do:

Drink Copious Amounts of Coffee
God, I love the Northwest. Even the gas stations sell espresso and cappucino and the tiniest towns sport drive-through latte shacks.

Dog River Coffee
Fantastic coffee, big couches, free WiFi and a big basket of toys for the wee ones.
411 Oak Street Hood River OR

Grounds Espresso
Great breakfast sandwiches for under $4, decent coffee, free wifi, it's the working cafe of choice for Steve and I during our stays.
166 East Jewett, White Salmon, WA

There is something about the Northwest––words that might seem empty anywhere else, like frontier, manifest destiny, new beginnings and ruggedness actually make sense here. Its very Westerness is so present, it’s almost shocking to my New York City self. It’s like when you go to Paris for the first time and you realize the songs and stories are right––it is romantic and sophisticated and lovely. Before you experience it firsthand, you would never believe the myth could be so accurate. That is how I feel about the Pacific Northwest. And although I don’t feel like a part of it, I find it intoxicating none-the-less.

For the past four years, Steve and I have come out to stay with his dad in an area an hour outside of Portland known as the Columbia River Gorge, a wonderful piece of America which lies between Mount Adams and Mount Hood, two enormous snow covered mountains. The Columbia River is the center of it all, with its wind surfers and kite boarders, creating a boundary between Washington State and Oregoon. It is, in a word, spectacular. Add to this about 30 small wineries and a burgeoning foodie scene, and you have something close to paradise.

Produce from Hood River Farmer's Market...

chelseyhotel has added a photo to the pool:

Photo for an upcoming exhibit at U of Iowa of writers' desks

The opening chapter of The Red Men is now online on 3AM magazine.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/excerpt-the-red-men/

Floods permitting, I am joining The Idler magazine for performances at The Secret …

The opening chapter of The Red Men is now online on 3AM magazine.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/excerpt-the-red-men/

Floods permitting, I am joining The Idler magazine for performances at The Secret …

The opening chapter of The Red Men is now online on 3AM magazine.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/excerpt-the-red-men/

Floods permitting, I am joining The Idler magazine for performances at The Secret …

The opening chapter of The Red Men is now online on 3AM magazine.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/excerpt-the-red-men/

Floods permitting, I am joining The Idler magazine for performances at The Secret …

The opening chapter of The Red Men is now online on 3AM magazine.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/excerpt-the-red-men/

Floods permitting, I am joining The Idler magazine for performances at The Secret …

This is a cemetery, according to my three year olds, who have spent a good part of each day talking about death ever since my dad died suddenly three weeks ago.

I had a babysitter for several hours today -- thank god -- and she set them up to do car painting, their favorite art activity of the moment. Diecast cars take the place of brushes, and the little wheels make lovely tracks after being pushed through a puddle of paint, ideally with the accompaniment of vrooming noises. It's a great form of painting for small people who enjoy making big gestures.

I wasn't paying much attention, until I realized what they were saying about what they were doing. "We're going to the cemetery!" Nini was exclaiming. "This is the cemetery!"

It was just yesterday that I had finally explained to her what had happened to her grandfather's body after he died. Some instinct made me hold off from telling the kids about bodies or burial right away; right or wrong, it seemed like too much information for them to absorb, when they were just grappling with the initial shock of his unexpected death.

But Nini has been pondering it all a great deal, and two days ago, she asked me, "How come when a bug dies, you see it lying there, but when Grandpa Butch died, he was just gone?" I started to answer, but she gave me a worried look and ran off to do something else before I could.

So yesterday, during a moment of closeness, I told her about what happened to Grandpa Butch's body after death, how it was placed in a beautiful wooden box with soft cushions and buried beneath a tall oak tree. A little later, I told Desmond.

They had seen the spot; on our way leaving town to head back home, I wanted to visit the grave. The kids drove around the cemetery with my husband while I had some time alone. They asked lots of questions, he said, but at that point they still hadn't asked anything about what happened to their grandpa after death. So he talked about the cemetery as a special place where people go to remember those who have died, and wasn't any more specific than that.

Obviously, what I said made a big impression. It was pretty disconcerting to hear Nini today, calling out as Desmond painted, "This is the cemetery! Grandpa Butch is going to the cemetery!"

But I know this is part of their way of making peace with disturbing news.

And the painting, fittingly enough, turned out to be quite beautiful, full of color and feeling and grace.

Jen Collins has added a photo to the pool:

Just logging some summer reading. Photo by Patrick Cates.

My father died suddenly two weeks ago. To my twins, he was Grandpa Butch, a beloved fixture in their lives. They shared a birthday with him, snuggled eagerly on his lap, learned the alphabet with him, and squealed with delight when he pushed them on a swing or pulled them in their little red wagon.

And so now, even as I am dealing with the shock and sorrow of unexpectedly losing my dad, I'm having to help my three-year-old kids understand something I can barely comprehend.

I'll be honest: Right now, I mainly want to be away from my kids. I pretty much want to curl up in a corner and cry; I'd love to be able to take long walks and long naps, sort through old photos, sniffle at will. Friends and family have helped give me some modest stretches of time to myself since my dad died, and I'm working on lining up a new babysitter. But they're clearly feeling needier than usual, and the job falls substantially on me to help them work through their own bafflement and grief.

My husband and I decided, from the start, to be direct. I sat the two of them down the morning after that awful middle-of-the-night news and told them that something very sad had happened, Grandpa Butch had died and we wouldn't ever be able to see him again.

They asked why, of course. They're too young to understand something like "massive heart attack," and I didn't really want to tell them that he died because had been sick, out of concern that they'd be afraid that every ordinary little illness would lead to death. So I said that he was old, and that when people were very old, they sometimes died. This has been my only evasive half-truth of the whole affair, and I don't feel great about it --but I was, after all, in shock.

The kids didn't talk about it much that awful first day, when we spent about 12 hours on the road, scrambling to get to my mother's house as quickly as we could. But with each passing day, they've wanted to talk about it more and more. My daughter asks questions, many times throughout the day: "Did Grandpa Butch die?" "Why did he die?" "Mommy, are you crying because Grandpa Butch died?" "Why won't we see him again?" I try to answer as plainly and honestly as I can, and talk a lot about how our sorrow grows out of love, and how Grandpa Butch lives on in our hearts and memories.

My son is a little more laconic; he'll interject, say, when my daughter is rattling off the names of all the people we ate a meal with, "But not Grandpa Butch -- he died." He's clearly been listening carefully, though, both to Nini's questions and my answers.

They both have been doing a lot of play-acting, like making imaginary phone calls to my father, which my instinct tells me is a healthy thing for them to be doing. They've long since liked to pretend that they're Grandpa Butch and Grandma Jean; it was uniquely wrenching to watch them do so last week in front of my grieving mother. At one point, they were sitting side-by-side in a chair, and Desmond declared, "Grandpa Butch is going to kiss Grandma Jean," and then leaned over and kissed his sister. My mom and I, of course, burst into tears.

When the health of their other grandfather took a turn for the worse this week, a wise friend suggested that I encourage them to make a drawing and dictate a get-well message for him. They did, and no sooner had we sealed the envelope to send to Grandpa Mel than Desmond announced he wanted to do another drawing and mail it to Grandpa Butch.

I waited until they'd finished their creation, and asked them if they had any message they wanted me to write down for Grandpa Butch. "I love you, Grandpa Butch," said Desmond. I sealed the envelope, and then I got down to their eye level, and explained that we couldn't really put it in the mail. They looked confused and sad. Thinking quickly, I suggested that we make a special box for any messages they might want to send to Grandpa Butch. They loved the idea, and eagerly decorated an empty shoebox I found in the closet, carefully putting their letter inside.

Today, Nini looked at the box quizzically and asked me, "But how are we going to get the box to Grandpa Butch?" I can tell we're going to be talking about it all for a very long time.

bradleyloos has added a photo to the pool:

patrick_cates has added a photo to the pool:

A new issue! Several, in fact, but here’s the Table of Contents for the first of the new issues:

Qat in Yemen Gregory Johnson
Three Limericks Max Gutmann
Cuckoo for Crack Mark Peters
My Genetic Code Louis Phillips
User-Friendly Turkish Martin Gani
Linguistic Larceny: It’s Ausgezeichnet Michael J. Corey
Species David Galef
Speaking Plain Yorkshire Anne Moore
Phlegmatic Scholarship Jonathan Caws-Elwitt
The First Use of a Word: How Can You Find It? Dr. Bob Turvey
ENIAC, HAL, and Deep Thought Jessy Randall
Peaks One and Two John Nixon, Jr.
Pluralia Tantum or E Pluribus Unum Anatoly Liberman
Modern Language Gary Buslik
Classical Blather: On the -go Nick Humez

I think you’ll agree that the issue was worth the wait.

earinc has added a photo to the pool:

Lt. to Rt.: Gary Groth, Eric Reynolds & Kim Thompson in front of Eric's desk. Taken for the Seattle Weekly. - Uploaded with a demo version of FlickrExport 2.

earinc has added a photo to the pool:

Home office drawing table

earinc has added a photo to the pool:

Home office desk

Winterhouse has added a photo to the pool:

Bill at his desk in Winterhouse Studio.

Winterhouse has added a photo to the pool:

Profile of Winterhouse in Dwell Magazine.