Backpacking in the Wallowas Again

    I have just returned from backpacking for four days in the Eagle Cap Wilderness Area in the Wallowa Mountains of northeastern Oregon. Stupendous country and a great trip with four women friends: Cheryl, Janet, Sandy, and Cheryl's sister Karen.

L-R: Sandy, Karen, Cheryl, me                     Photo by Janet

L-R: Me, Sandy, Cheryl, Janet.                Photo by Karen

    Setting aside simply the experience of being with these friends, under these conditions, in this kind of country, what was best?

    Was it Sandy's birthday, when we were camped on beautiful Lee Lake and Cheryl presented Sandy with a cupcake-paper of rich chocolate pudding, topped with a square of white chocolate and three tiny birthday candles?

L-R: Cheryl and Karen, singing "Happy Birthday" to Sandy

Cheryl had made the pudding at home, then freeze-dried it. At camp, she reconstituted it with water, then whipped it and whipped it to silky smoothness. After our dinners of various backpacking foods, we all had the marvelous treat of such a good dessert.

    Or was it the view from the top of Ivan Carper Pass, after the long climb up—Eagle Cap looming above the valley with its blue spots of Upper Lake, Mirror Lake, and Moccasin Lake far below? 

    Or was it my long swim in Moccasin Lake, when, swimming back to shore, I was swimming to the plinking tunes of a ukulele from another campsite along the lake?

    I don't think it was the campsite on Minam Lake because my swim was hampered by a long, ankle-deep, mud-sucking wade to get far enough into the lake to swim, but it could have been the campsite on the rocks above Lee Lake or the next night's camp along the East Lostine River, beside a plunging series of waterfalls.

    Some people put on the list of best moments the lightning and thunder at the first night's campsite. I don't. 

    But it could have been the spectacular view of Eagle Cap from the valley as we were hiking out—a quintessential view of a mountain peak framed perfectly by ridgelines of trees descending to a vee in the valley, with a creek in the foreground. I stared and stared, it was so unreal.

    For me, though, I know what the best moment was: the early-morning swim in Lee Lake, when the water was glass-smooth and a round moon, ghostly in the morning light, was looking down on the dark blue lake from the pale blue sky. 

Lee Lake

And then, after all those wonderful moments, we came to the end of the East Lostine Trail and were back at the junction where, four days earlier, we had started out on the West Lostine River trail. Maybe the best part, after all, was just doing it together.

From lower left, clockwise: Janet, Cheryl, Karen, Sandy, me

Poisoned Secrets, Part 2

     The second of my two stories for The Hearth's storytelling event, on the theme of family secrets, was about another secret from my childhood. (See last week's post for the first story.) In this story I am a junior at Sandy Springs High School, in Sandy Springs, Georgia, and am taking a political science class from a teacher named Mrs. Douglas—Julie Douglas, as I came to call her.

    One day Mrs. Douglas asked to see me after class. We stood in the hall next to the closed classroom door, and she said, "Do you ever dream?"

    It was a strange question, but as it happened, I had had a particularly vivid dream the night before, a dream with a snake in it. When I told the dream to Mrs. Douglas, she became very excited.

    "You have had an initiation dream," she said. "The snake is a symbol of initiation." She didn't specify exactly an initiation into what, and I don't remember what she said after that, but the upshot was that I felt I was a part of something special and important and that Julie Douglas would be my guide.

    From that day on, I often dropped by her classroom after school for esoteric conversations about symbols and myths and the unconscious mind. And if I had had a strong dream, I would ask her to interpret it for me.

    It was all more psychic than cultic, mostly just Julie Douglas expanding the boundaries of my intellect, a kind of Jungian exploration of the unconscious. She recommended books for me to read: The Glass Bead Game, Siddhartha, Jung and Hawthorne and Joseph Campbell. I was both fascinated by the intellectual expansion and flattered by the special attention.

    But also some vague fear that no one would understand made me keep the whole thing a secret.

    Except for my diary. 

    I was writing about it in my diary, which was all right because diaries are secret, right? What goes in a diary belongs only to the writer, so in my diary, I was freely exploring the ideas Julie Douglas stimulated and recording our, if not secret at least private, meetings.

    One day I came home from school to face my mother's fury. She had read my diary, and she was furious with Julie Douglas.

    I still don't know what made my mother betray trust and read my diary. I don't know if she just picked it up idly and stumbled across the pages abut Julie Douglas or if some suspicion caused her to seek out the diary for confirmation.

    And I didn't understand why she was so angry. She wasn't normally an angry person. I think maybe what she read scared her. Maybe it sounded like I was joining a cult. Maybe she just didn't understand Jungian thought. Maybe it sounded psychically dangerous or religiously threatening. Whatever the reason she was angry enough to say she was going to go straight to the school principal and tell him what Julie Douglas was doing.

    I was terrified. Julie was my friend, my mentor, my teacher—and a very good political science teacher, too. I was terrified of being the cause of her being fired. I sobbed in front of my mother. I begged her not to reveal any of this. As startling as it is to remember, I got down on my knees to beg my mother not to do what she threatened.

    My mother didn't promise me anything, and I went to my room in tears and fear. In the end, she didn't do anything, either, or, if she did, nothing came of it. Julie wasn't fired, and neither my mother nor I mentioned the incident again. But I no longer met Julie after class for those wonderful discussions. And I had to interpret my dreams myself from then on. 

    Camp Highland (which I wrote about last week) and Julie Douglas were episodes in my life more than half a century ago. Now, at the remove of so many years, I can understand my mother's fear at discovering her teenage daughter's secret involvement in strange conversations with her teacher, and I can forgive her for her reaction. And perhaps I can also forgive the little girl at Camp Highland for her shameful secret of self-harm, too, because I understand now the psychology behind her actions.

Poisoned Secrets, Part 1

     This past week I was one of six storytellers at The Hearth, a periodic storytelling event in Grants Pass, Oregon. The theme was family secrets. My story was titled "Poisoned Secrets" and contained two tales from my childhood about secrets born of shame and fear.

Part 1: Camp Highland

    When I was eight years old, I spent two weeks at Camp Highland, a YWCA camp for girls in north Georgia. It was my first time away from home.

    Everything should have been fine. I was a happy, well-adjusted child; the camp wasn't far from my home in Sandy Springs, Georgia, and my older sister was also at the camp, although she lived in another cabin and had her own set of friends and camp activities.

    But I liked the crafts classes, swimming in the lake, the campfire sing-alongs. I liked learning how to canoe, how to climb back into the canoe if I fell out, and especially how to stand on the gunwales in the stern and, by bending my knees and swinging my arms, propel myself across the water. It was called gunwaling, and it was a lot of fun.

    But I was so unhappy! I know now that I was just homesick. I missed my parents, of course, but mostly, I think, I just missed home, the familiarity of home—my dolls, my cat, the woods I played in, the room I shared with my sister. I missed reading a book in the Red Chair, swinging in the Big Swing over the tops of the dogwood trees, climbing the mimosa tree, riding my bicycle on the circular driveway around the well. I missed all these things with a deep, acute longing, an ache that couldn't be eased by new friends and fun activities. And because I was afraid of being called a baby by the other girls or of being sent home as a failure by the camp counselors, I didn't tell anyone how unhappy I was. Loneliness compounded homesickness.

    I was taking tennis lessons, too. I liked tennis. I had never played before, and neither had the other girls in the class, so, of course, our balls frequently went out of bounds, often landing in the poison ivy that grew lushly around the edges of the court. I was highly allergic to poison ivy, so, of course, I was always very careful when I had to retrieve a stray ball, reaching for it with my tennis racket to urge it back into the clear.

    Usually I was careful.

    One day I wasn't.

    It was a day of particularly bad homesickness, of loneliness and ache and misery, and—here's the secret I've never told anyone before tonight—I waded deliberately into the poison ivy to retrieve a tennis ball, making sure the poisonous leaves made good contact with my skin.

    Well—I came down with the worst case of poison ivy you can imagine. I had good reason to be miserable now! 

    There was talk of sending me home or even to the hospital, but in the end the camp nurse did a good enough job of keeping the reaction at bay, with calamine lotion and gloves on my hands at night, that I could finish my two weeks at camp.

    When camp was over and my parents came to pick me up, I was badly affected by the poison ivy. My arms, legs, and ankles were covered with oozing blisters, an angry red rash, and spots of pink calamine lotion. I was a mess! My parents were shocked. 

    When I saw my parents, I started crying. I cried for how unhappy I had been, for the shame of my disfigured body, and, especially, for the shame of knowing, deep down where I couldn't admit it, that I had brought this on myself.

    I know now that it was a way of evoking sympathy for my unhappiness, of saying, "I am so unhappy! I miss my home so much!" Not that I expected to be sent home or even that that's what I wanted, but that I desperately needed to make visible my misery. I was too ashamed to admit this to my parents, and I have kept it a secret all these years.

A Day at Crater Lake

     The Cleetwood Cove trail at Crater Lake National Park, the only access to the lake itself, will be closed after this summer for construction of a new trail, so it's imperative that I get in a swim before I can't. So last week I drove to the park for a hike up Garfield Peak, followed by that cherished swim in the bluest water on the planet.

   I arrived at the park entrance before 10:00 and drove in light traffic to the Rim Village, parked close to the trailhead, and started up Garfield Peak. It was a good hike, uphill but not too strenuous, with stunning views of the lake.

I had one difficulty when I missed the path for avoiding a big snowfield over the trail and tried to walk on the steep hillside below the snow. But this was surely wrong! I did slip, but just onto my knee, not down the mountain. At the top I marveled at the view of the gorgeous royal-blue lake with snow still packed into each gully lakeside. Swimming would be fantastic!

    I was back at my car by noon. I pulled out of my parking place and headed around the lake.

    Big mistake. 

    By now the park was crawling with cars. At Cleetwood Cove the parking lot was full, cars were parked half a mile down the road, east and west of the trailhead, on both sides of the road. Hordes of people were walking towards the trail. It was a zoo. I didn't want to join it.

    The best thing, I thought, would be to go back to the Rim Village and take the trolley around the lake. I could disembark at Cleetwood Cove, walk down the trail to the lake, ignore the masses, take my swim, and catch the next trolley back to my car. (I have learned since that this can't be done.)

    It was a bad plan, anyway. The Rim Village was even more of a circus that Cleetwood Cove. I joined a long line of drivers driving around and around, hoping someone would vacate a parking place just as they were going by. It was madness. I gave up on my swim and headed out of the park.

    Things were slightly calmer at the Visitor's Center, where I was lucky enough to find a parking place. Then I took the Castle Crest Wildflower Trail,

an easy one-mile loop through meadows of large red Lewis's monkeyflowers, purple lupine, and yellow groundsel. Water flowed over flat stones on the path. It was a beautiful little hike, with few other hikers. 

    Then I left the park.

    It was earlier than planned, so I stopped at Mill Creek Falls and took the trail to the falls, which I had never done. The water fell in thunderous long plunges and were very beautiful, as reputed.

A photographer kept me from getting to the cliff's edge.

Then I walked further down the trail to the river's edge, where I found a small eddy in the roiling river. I  took off my shoes and soaked my feet and my face in the cold water. 

    At last and at least.

   I still owe myself a swim in Crater Lake. 

Swimming in Crater Lake in 2022.         Photo by Barbara Holiday
Do you see why I have to get back?

           

Women Friends

     I spent the three days of my birthday weekend in Gasquet, at the northern California/southern Oregon coast, with four women friends: Cheryl, Janet, Sandy, and Peter. These are women I hike with weekly. We have backpacked down the Wild and Scenic Rogue together, on the Upper Rogue, and in the Red Buttes Wilderness. Our bonds are tight.

L-R: Cheryl, Peter, Sandy, me, Janet

The weather was beautiful. We walked on the beach in appropriately foggy weather

hiked through the mystical light of the redwoods

and swam in some of the most beautiful swimming holes on the Smith River, which, in my opinion, rival any swimming holes in the Pacific Northwest.

    We stayed at Peter's beautiful, 100-year-old house above the Smith River, watching out the window at the water rippling by, ducklings playing tag in the riffle, a blue heron flying downriver, hummingbirds darting in and out, and often just the oak leaves twirling in the breeze. We ate magnificently. Sandy, who, to our good fortune, is a professional cook, made mole one night and curry the next. Everyone brought something to share—garden vegetables, freshly picked blueberries, home-made chocolates and chocolate cookies. I brought four kinds of tartlets: chocolate brownie, strawberry fool, orange custard, and nectarine-plum. The morning of my birthday everyone worked in the kitchen to make a magnificent breakfast. 

    They made me the center of attention that day, letting me choose the day's activity (a long hike ending in a swimming hole), taking me out to dinner at a seafood restaurant in Brookings, and then returning to the house for the birthday cake (New York cheesecake) Sandy had made.

They gave me a flood of presents—a quart of blueberries, a delicate necklace, pomegranate syrup, lavender cheese from Rogue Creamery, and many other gifts, all of which were supplemental to the love they had showered on me all weekend and, indeed, on each other as well. They're that kind of women.

One of my birthday gifts

How Old Is 81?

     In a few days I will turn 81. How old is that? Consider:

    The family car, a '49 Plymouth, had running boards. My sister Linda and I would run down the front walk when we heard Dad coming home after work and jump on the running boards to ride the rest of the way down the driveway.

    Flour came in cloth sacks. My mother made dresses for Linda and me out of flour sacks. 

    Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy were the dolls of the day. Pre-Barbie, pre-Cabbage Patch.

L to R: Linda, our sister Sharon, and me
at Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy's wedding

   The milkman left milk in glass bottles on our doorstep. In rural Kentucky, where my grandparents lived, the bread van pulled into the driveway once a week.

    Our telephone was on a party line. There was still an operator you could talk to. 

    We wore white gloves to church.

With my sister Linda, 16 months older, in matching
dresses. (Linda ia also wearing a sweater.)

    We wore crinolines under our skirts, as in this picture taken before the 7th-grade graduation prom. (There was no middle school. We went from 7th grade at Liberty Guinn Elementary School to 8th grade at Sandy Springs High School, where we were called subfreshmen.)

My date was Gary McClosky, as noted in the margin.

   At dance lessons we learned the waltz and the fox trot. Later we learned the jitterbug.

    When I worked for my father during my teen years, his secretary advised me to learn shorthand so I could take dictation from my boss when I became a career secretary. I learned Gregg shorthand, the system invented by John Gregg in 1888. I did not become a career secretary.

    When travel by air became available, while I was in college, women dressed up to fly, just as they did a century earlier to take the train.

    In my childhood, oranges were special treats, avocados and artichokes unknown. I had my first artichoke when I lived in England in my early twenties. I had my first avocado two years later, when I moved to California with the hippy movement.

    I learned to type on a manual typewriter, aa Royal, while I was in high school. Later I used an electric Olivetti, then reverted to the Royal during those many years I didn't have electricity at my house.

Royal typewriter at left, sitting on top of my treadle
sewing machine in the house I built in the early '70s

    It all seems like such a long time ago.

    

    

July 4, 2025

     It's July 4, but I'm not celebrating our country these days. Trump's crowing over his Big Beautiful Bill just about drowned out the chorus of birdsong this morning. And what did all those birds have to sing about, anyway, given the cuts in support of alternative energy and other mitigations to global warming in the BBB? 

    And that was only one of many abominations in the bill. Good for the Democratic senators who yelled "Shame!" to the Republican colleagues voting "aye."

    Thank goodness the Senate took the sell-off of public lands out of the bill. That was a close one.

    Most abominations remained, though. I worry about the cuts in Medicare. I worry about people who identify as trans and other sexualities outside the straight-and-increasingly-narrower heterosexual-marriage one. And I especially worry about immigrants. I worry about separating children and parents; I worry about depositing people in detention centers, and isn't that just another name for concentration camps and haven't "immigrants" become today's Jews? We said, "Never again," but I'm very much afraid it is happening again.

    I have a friend from Europe who has lived in this country for decades. She isn't a citizen but has permanent status. She is worried, but I don't think she needs to be, not because of her "permanent" status but because I don't think it is European immigrants Trump wants to deport. (Look for instance, at his welcome to white South Africans to immigrate here.)

    In her July 3 column, Heather Cox Richardson, who is good at giving historical context to contemporary issues, reminded us that the Declaration of Independence formed a nation based on the idea of human equality and that the Civil War was a test whether that concept could hold. Then she says, "It did, of course. …But…we are once again facing a rebellion against our founding principle as a few people seek to reshape America into a nation in which certain people are better than others."

    It's July 4. The birds are singing as beautifully as they did yesterday. I hope they can continue to sing, day after day. I hope we can continue to honor, or learn to honor, the birds and all living beings in our country. It's not too late.