A Perhaps Weekly Pandemic Periodical, #10

 

We've come to a new place: Hood River, Oregon, where the waters off of Mt. Hood, the tallest mountain in the state and a somewhat active volcano, drain into the Columbia. Every direction I turn, there is something photogenic. A cloud. A mountain. An ice-capped volcano. A line of evergreens. The Pacific Northwest is truly a magical place. 

But I don't know it. 

A Perhaps Weekly Pandemic Periodical, #9

These past weeks have been something of a long goodbye to the woods. I'm trying to soak up as much of them as I can. Each sight. Each sound. Each smell. Each tree. Each insect. Each morning when the sun peeks over the mountain and the baby dances his feet over the shifting shadows of the leaves on the floor. 

A Perhaps Weekly Pandemic Periodical, #8

Much ado on the mountain, lately. The pandemic, and our own little personal response to it, has panned out this last half a year, taking us on a long, steady, slow though not so smooth ride.

But now, for my wife, the baby and I, in our own little personal lives, the pandemic takes a sudden new course. Instead of staying at home, limiting social contact, thinking of our every interaction with a mechanic or grocery clerk, or wait-time inside a doctor's office, as racking up "exposure" points for that day, we are now shooting off into the sunset: we're moving. Across the whole damn country.

We're apparently not alone.

A Perhaps Weekly Pandemic Periodical, #7

There are few things which speak summer to my eyes and ears in these parts as much as lightning bugs, or fireflies, if you prefer, and cicadas.

Not a week ago, I stepped out one morning—because it is the only time to be outside—and I heard it: that telltale shiver through the treetops, and I knew that the cicadas had come out of their earthy hibernation and scaled the barks of how many different types of trees, and molted, and climbed further still to a nice, high perch, then proceeded to buzz the bejeezus out of their tymbals—a special organ that cicadas and other species of insect possess.