To the Clackamas and from the Clackamas: A bicycle ride at the beginning of fall

This is a short account I'll share with you as you read it:

This past weekend, Michael and I decided to celebrate the end-of-summer-beginning-of-fall days full of clean sunshine, brisk invigorating air and warm green moments, the nights of chilling wind that creates an ideal atmosphere for campfires. We both wanted the fall and the autumn and all that was happening outside while we watched leaves turning red and gold from our seats inside the cramped interiors of walls. We felt the rains coming soon, the deadlines, full schedules, the anticipation with anxiety of a hectic winter underway. The night was cold and the campfire was warm. I'm glad that we went to the Clackamas with enough sense and attention to let go of some of our indecent and obscuring expectations.

Two days makes for an inexcusably short trip from some angles, but it has been comforting to me, at least, because we can probably take 2-day trips like this pretty regularly this fall. I am infallibly ending up losing my wits at least a little bit, though, a kind of damage from overuse maybe. I am able-minded right up until that moment when a lost grip on space, time's hands on me too tightly, lost work and hard effort for things we call "dreams" piles up and buries me, weighs me down until I absolutely must come up for air, usually some month after December. But I am light now, bouncing up and down--like a moonwalk, even--and all because the Clackamas doesn't care.

I'm glad we've gone every place we have. And I'm happy that I'm not tied down to anything. But mostly right now I'm enjoying the sun stream down from the clear blue sky in a thin but satisfying way while I sit at the brewhouse a block from my house and drink beer. The beer is bitter, and I feel that I have grown more able to enjoy bitter tastes lately; it's a new kind of pleasure I feel happy to have learned to appreciate. Coffee just black, beer bitter, breaths labored but sustained heartily in rythm with my planted feet, planted hands.

The Clackamas river is beyond words. The Portland bike route through the east side of town on 74th then up Burnside to the I-205 bike route south took us down to meet with the Springwater trail in SE Portland. From there we rode still further south and east to Boring, eating lunch at a cute little cafe stand where there was no spinach because of some spinach outbreak I think. We ate plain lettuce but recovered by adding in some sourcraut. From Boring, we took a scenic route and alternatingly hwy 211 and 224 to Estacada, OR. We had been there a few times before, so luckily we were able to bike right to thriftway to snag some groceries and a bottle of wine and head up the ridge away from Estacada. After a 2-3 mile 8% climb, we topped out on a beautiful vista and headed directly down, south and east, into the river's gorge. Something like 15 miles later, we reached our campground, one of the many beautiful (if over-regulated, under cared-for) campspots in the Mt. Hood national forest.

As before mentioned, that particular evening lived up to the reputation of certain autumn nighttimes past, of magical and haunted spaces filled with the numerous amorous spirits of color and consciousness that transcend meaningless death. We were warm enough and happy enough to lay ourselves down contented after moonrise. I felt good.

The next day, we repeated our 53-mile trek backwards, re-living and seeing again for the first time in the sunshine the inviting riversides. We learned about red alder trees, and the amazing role that they play in this ecosystem, our river, healing, growing, providing color to and sheltering. There is so much that we have yet to learn about. I am excited and unregretfully sad.

Back through Estacada and Boring, Springwater Trail and then I-205. On a picnic at the river's edge, amongst the rocks and red alders, though, I felt like I knew something new and I liked it. I was filled so much with a wonderful longing.

I have jumped into a new beginning. and, in the fall, no less.
Hearing bells so made for dinning,
recognizing nothingness.