Forced Meditations

In accordance with Christian's "the weather forecast in Portland"


The rain dripped onto the concrete outside the small cafe, where gentle harp music complimented the fragrant beans, ground and extracted with precision. The forecast in Portland: rain. It was a grey Saturday morning in mid-November, and I began to ponder the wetlands of Oregon, and my place within this grey-green landscape. The preceding day, we took a field trip to the wine country to have a seasonal lunch at an artisinal diner. Afterwards, we explored the bead store, where an aging proprietor constructed another colorful necklace, and then to an all-weather outfitters where my travel companions attempted to persuade me into purchasing a sort of boot that has hitherto not suited my typical aesthetic. But, given the paced & tortoiselike nature of the afternoon, I gave it some brief consideration. To wear a boot with a swaying, chiseled sole wrapped with a matte brown water repellent material would have certain benefits in the perennially wet Pacific Northwest. To drape my body in gortex and mesh would ease certain anxieties and likely add warmth to a day, but what then of elegance, independence, and personal identity? Northward, toward Dundee, a marketplace was recommended to us, and we, though satiated with various stews and crusty breads, felt obliged to view the local salumis of the town. And upon arrival, we were greeted with three olive oil samples, the sight and warmth of a wood burning pizza oven, and a bounty of niche-market cured meats and cheeses. One of my companions graciously bought me a small cocoa in exchange for my driving duties, and I purchased a calabrese from a pleasantly plain attendant. I made a note in my mind, we must return one day and try the pizzas. Back towards the city, amidst conversation of an industrial flavoring process utilizing the rectal fluids of beavers for raspberry and vanilla, we used our navigational equipment to direct us toward a suburban donut hamlet whereupon I made the foolhardy blunder to purchase a dessert filled with the selfsame sort of filling which my companion vilely asserted was created from castorium, which was wasted after my realization and jovial self-deprecation. Whoa is me, and this world which performs many acts bizarre to create desire, revelry, satiation, and comfort.

-Gregory C