Jan03
Posted on Jan 3 by Ruth Davis
We are here in the Big City, staying at my Dad’s house in central Phoenix for the winter. It took a few weeks for me to shift from the fear that we’d never get back in the RV, to enjoying and appreciating living in a real house, with great water pressure, three bathrooms, a big kitchen with a real stove, two ovens, a microwave and, my favorite, a toaster oven, a washer and dryer, recycling, and lots of space to spread out. And even though my Dad hadn’t lived in the house for the last year, there is an ample supply of plastic wrap, toilet paper, and scent free laundry detergent to last for the duration of our time here. When we moved into the house at the beginning of December, it was familiar, odd, uncomfortable, and homey, all at the same time. This is the house I lived in from ages fourteen to eighteen, until I left for college. Except for a few overnights, and the time last year when we moved in for a week while...
Nov27
Posted on Nov 27 by Ruth Davis
We left the Oregon coast mid-October, just as the evenings were getting colder, with days of rain in the forecast. We took our time, mostly sticking to our 2-2-2 rule: drive no more than 2 hours each, arrive by 2 in the afternoon, and stay 2 nights. This way, we don’t get tired and cranky on the road, and it gives us time to move our bodies, and explore the area if we want to. We stayed the first two nights in Medford, where we ran Big City errands, visited an art coop, and ate Thai food in a park. On the third day, we had reservations two hundred miles south for three nights at a casino RV Park so that Marika could bird at the nearby Sacramento Wildlife Refuge. After a summer of few bird sightings, she was delighted to see shorebirds and pelicans, a variety of ducks and hundreds of white geese. But on the second day, the weather reports warned of big winds, which could heighten the fires that were burning on both sides of I-5 that we would be...
Oct03
Posted on Oct 3 by Ruth Davis
A story about my father, from 2001 Parallel lines are lines that never intersect. For infinity. Or maybe they intersect in infinity, I can’t remember. So I ask my father. “The definition of parallel lines must consider whether you are in a plane or in three dimensional space,” he says. My father’s answers are never simple. My father is a mathematician. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Carnegie Mellon, earned the prize in Solid Geometry when he was in high school for proving an answer incorrect on the New York State Regents exam. He can perform long division in his head, calculate the square root of any number and convert decimals to fractions and back again without hesitation. My father is the only person I know who actually knows how to use a slide rule. I, on the other hand, have always struggled with math. Not the memorization of simple arithmetic, but the intangible concepts of numbers and exponents in space. In high school my father helped me with my algebra and geometry and every time, I was reduced...
Sep14
Posted on Sep 14 by Ruth Davis
It’s that time again, when we are leaving one place and heading to another. We’ve been here in the safe, quiet, perfect temperatures of the central Oregon Coast since mid May, before the official summer season began. Besides losing Cody, it’s been a bit of a dream come true time for me. There’s no sales tax, I get fresh, wild, smoked salmon at the fish market across the street, we buy bread and produce at the weekly farmers market, and there’s a dispensary on every corner. And there are three quiet walking beaches, all within five miles of home. I’m riding my bike every day around the marina, sometimes singing as I pedal, sometimes talking out loud as I prepare for the week’s Heart Sparks coaching circle. Yes, three women said YES to the circle, and it’s been expansive and inspiring for all of us. I’ve sold all of the remaining Make Your Own Prayer Flags, and the last of the first edition copies of my Heart Sparks book. And I’ve sold even more decks of Heart Sparks cards though my Etsy shop. I’m writing...
Aug13
Posted on Aug 13 by Ruth Davis
Can you believe it’s already August? We’ve been here on the central Oregon coast since mid-May, our longest time in one place without volunteering. When I see the summer temperatures around the country, I can’t imagine being anywhere but here, where it averages 60° every day. Sometimes it’s sunny, sometimes foggy, sometimes gray and overcast. They are all my favorites. We are adjusting to life without Cody. It’s the first time in our thirty one years together that we don’t have a dog. And now it’s just us. I realize how much time and energy and attention went to his care, and how I relied on him for my own regular moving and walking. Sure, now we can go away all day, with no time restraints, but we haven’t done that yet. But it was a blessing that he did not have to endure the week we spent living in an RV repair shop parking lot last month. We drove 140 miles inland to Grants Pass to a highly recommended company for help with our suspension. Because we were parked...
Jul03
Posted on Jul 3 by Ruth Davis
Before we even got to the coast, I was thinking about getting a bicycle so that I could ride around the area right from our spot. Marika and I used to be avid cyclers, sometimes riding fifty miles in a weekend. But my twenty year old bike had seen its best days, so I left it with the rangers at Fort Pulaksi two years ago. The only bicycle store in town sells mostly high end bikes, and, because of the virus, Walmart had limited stock. I looked on Craigslist with no luck, but kept envisioning an inexpensive fun bike to ride. And then I found a community bike shop in town listed on Facebook, where folks could share tools and work on their bikes. They also sold refurbished bikes, and they had a yellow Spalding mountain bike that fit my five foot, three inch frame. It’s not a fancy bike, but it’s got fifteen indexed gears, a kickstand, and water bottle cage, and it fit me like a glove. I paid seventy dollars, put it in the back...
