The Narrative Image

  Mt. St. Helens from Clearwater Viewpoint. The original question was, did I know of any good hikes that would showcase fall foliage… …which makes it hard to understand how I arrived at the Norway Pass trailhead, a landscape that intermittently looks as if it has been decorated by nuclear explosions. The first part of the trail ascended the shadowed side of a ridge that provided just enough cover to keep huckleberries cool to the taste.  Boundary Trail #1 dances on the ridges surrounding Mt. St. Helens ’ northern blast perimeter. Some patches of scrubby vegetation are sensitive to the season and erupt in fire-like reds and yellows. Unexpected landscapes evoke the sensual: Lush grass meadows of the Alps , fresh goat’s milk, and Heidi’s sweet-smelling bed in her grandfather’s hayloft. Warm fingers of light dry my sweaty brow, and confronted with such beauty, I dare to search the heavens for some promise that the god of deluges will ...

4. And the Lord said unto Moses, “This is the land I promised you, but you shall not enter. Psych.” 5. And Moses died. DEUTERONOMY  (as paraphrased by Shalom Auslander in The Foreskin’s Lament) I wanted to talk to God the other day. I thought it should be possible because on any given Sunday, if I go to my church, the respectable people of my community are gathered there addressing God as ‘father’ and there’s a kind of script they hand out that even gives you appropriate words to pray. Sometimes there is even a collective petition – they all kind of do this choral speaking thing - usually to ask for health related things. So it isn’t just some isolated crazies carrying on one-sided conversations on the sidewalks of downtown Portland who talk to God…it’s all those adults who watched you grow up and who made you go to Sunday school and who otherwise seem completely rational. What I wanted to talk about was the way people you love eventually get old, and t...

Water has been falling out of the sky continuously now for …I don’t know…maybe a hundred forty two thousand days (or maybe it just seems like it). Hiking at the base of mountains at this time of year means any significant storm front can drop a foot of snow on you in almost no time at all. The consequent scarcity of intelligent/cautious hikers makes for uncrowded trails - with little hope for rescue. Spiteful winds and rain try to strip the trees of their golden leaves. Failing to denude the deciduous victims, the jealous clouds hang low and hide the brilliant colors in a dull gray blanket. Here and there, autumn’s fire bursts through the gloom. I know Mt. St. Helens is ahead, because I saw it at the end of September (above) when I broke my bicycle on this very same trail. …but today… I walk in eerie limbo, consorting with the souls of unbaptized children and all the rightous who died before the arrival of Jesus (Roman Catholic theology is endle...