The Narrative Image: bench

Showing posts with label bench. Show all posts

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Mother's Day

My mom lives in Portland.

She's lived there for close to half a century.

But she's never been to the Portland Japanese Garden.

During Portland's Spring, it is often ill-considered to depend upon non-rainy weather for outdoor events, but as the weather reports grew more and more optimistic for the weekend, I began planting the idea of a garden visit. I expected the 'ole trick knee excuse, but Mom surprised me by accepting my offer.

My mom's trick knee excuse is not without corroborating anecdotal evidence. She often (and by often I mean really often) tells the story about how, when I was an innocent baby cradled in her protective arms, her trick knee suddenly went out on her causing her to fall and somehow jettison me high into the air. Later, she reports, they managed to find me under a bed where I had evidently bounced. This story may explain some of my trust issues. It also may explain why she walks carefully, eyeing the ground as if it has betrayed her in the past.

We brought a folding stool with us, in case she needed to sit down along the trail, but were pleased to find ample quantities of comfortable benches.

There are so many benches that I was initially going to make this blog post be exclusively about The Benches at the Japanese Gardens. I thought it would be pretty funny to ignore all the beautiful parts of the garden and just show my mom's favorite benches...but there were many beautiful parts of the garden.

While not actually a bench, countless butts sit on this bridge rail, helping their owners pose for stealth portraits - stealth portraits because the rules forbid portrait photography which mostly means the garden society doesn't want visitors to have to put up with portable-studio wielding professionals.

This bench, at the east end of the bridge, really fits well into its environment, though mom thinks it's a little bit short.

This bench provides a marvelous view of what I like to call the Portrait Bridge, and the infinite line of portrait takers.

There's a bench off to the right, but it didn't fit in with my efforts to capture a maze-like picture of the zigzag bridge.

I think there were 3 benches at this location.

I think my mom enjoyed the time she spent on this bench. She has a deep appreciation for the beauty in creation. However, she is not likely to be pleased to find out she was included in some of the pictures I was taking.

This bench graces the intersection that leads to the Natural Garden. The path through the Natural Garden is narrow and uneven and supposedly one-way. I was concerned that maybe this path would be too challenging, but by this time on our visit, I found Mom sitting on this bench, filling out an application to become a Sherpa.

Here Mom is reading the map saying, "I think this is the Three Arch Rocks national wildlife area, but I can't see the ocean."

From the Stone Garden, a significant staircase climbs to the Pavilion, but this bench is strategically placed about half way up.

This bench sits at the top of the stairs.

My mother gives this particular bench very high marks.

A bench on the pavilion veranda.

This picture reveals the Flat Garden, but what I seem to remember most is the curves.

The bench next to the Gift Shop.

My parents brought me into the world, and with all the experience gained from a twenty year head start, they began blazing a path through life, teaching me to walk, showing me directions to go, giving me examples to follow...and my Mom is still up ahead on that path, encountering new challenges...forever dispensing grace and love.

Thanks Mom.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Revelation @ Laurelhurst Park

Traffic on I-205

Coast
Stop
Coast – roll – roll
STOP FAST
Sit
Wait…

(crap!)

Bumper Cars at Oaks Park

Why don’t they make real cars more like bumper cars? The daily commute would become the highlight of the day and auto insurance companies would quickly go out of business.

I tell the Monkey-cam, “It’s a universal intuition. There must be something more to life than driving to and from work.”

Old tree at Laurelhurst Park

“That’s why on weekends, we go hiking to discover the tell-tale brushstrokes of some transcendent artist.” I added.

Trees at Laurelhurst Park

Monkey-cam agreed that there were many times when the world seems like a beautiful masterpiece.

Bench at East end of duck pond - Laurelhurst Park

“Still,” he pantomimed, “isn’t it enough that we’re alive and we can eat bananas and meet girls?”

“Well,” I replied, “the culture I was born into thinks it’s important how you do those things. For instance, we’re supposed to meet girls, not so much for fun, but (within the confines of holy matrimony) to reproduce and create more consumers to keep the economy growing.”

Monkey-cam looked incredulous.

“No, really,” I tried to explain, “a majority of Americans actually claim to have a personal relationship with Jesus (who turns out to have equal ranking with God) and they say they try to live their lives according to his will.”

“How do they talk to him?” Monkey-cam asked. “How do they know what his will is?”

“Well, most of them say they speak to him in prayer. But they also say that he speaks to them through his ‘word’, which turns out to be a collection of loose histories, poems, songs, stories, gospels and letters that Jewish people and, later, Christians collected over thousands of years.

“So he doesn’t really talk to them in any sense of the word ‘talk’?”

Scene from Lewis and Clark State Park

“Honestly, no.” I admitted. “It’s more convoluted than that. They have to interpret ‘the word’ and apply it to their lives. For instance, there’s a story that explains how rainbows are a promise from God that he won’t kill everybody again in another worldwide flood.”

T-Rex stalking old man in off-leash area of Laurelhurst Park

Monkey-cam was obviously uncomfortable. “That’s not much of a promise,” Monkey-cam signaled, “since someone/something as inventive and creative as God can undoubtedly find plenty of novel solutions to the task of worldwide genocide.”

“Would you like a piece of apple? Monkey-cam asked.

“Sure!” I said. “Let me stop at the store and I’ll get a sack full.”

Monkey-cam stretched out his hand with a wedge of apple in it. “No.” he gestured, “Just take this piece in my hand.”

We looked at each other for a moment, me with a somber look of sadness, Monkey-cam with the sudden realization that he was imaginary.

We sat in silence. It seemed like a long time.

“Look,” I said, trying to cheer Monkey-cam up, “you may not be as real as Real Jesus, but you’re every bit as real as Imaginary Jesus.”

I saw a little tear collect in the corner of Monkey-cam’s eye. He motioned that he wanted to go talk to his friend, Naked Picasso. “Naked Picasso understands me,” he signed.

Later, I saw Monkey-cam and Naked Picasso on a park bench at Laurelhurst Park, contemplating their situation.

I approached them quietly and was about to say hi, but they disappeared as if they had never been there.

Path through Laurelhurst Park

It left me alone to ponder my path. I wondered what I would do the next time I found myself in a dangerous photography situation without my longtime hiking companions. I had always felt certain, that when it came down to it, Monkey-cam would give his life for me.

Ember paths - traced from Jason and Julie's 'firepit'

Like sparks from a fire pit, we travel routes that, at least on the surface, seem like they ought to be easy to pre-determine within a natural framework, but because our understanding and capacity for observation are limited, the routes turn out to be unusual, unique and highly improbable. Evidently, given enough matter, rules, time and variables, properties emerge and dirt talks.

Overlooking Portland from the top of Mt. Tabor

We do the work of communication with a symbolic language that lends itself to metaphor. We speak from the ‘heart’ though we understand its primary function is as a pump.

From a bridge in Leavenworth Washington

Without any evidence, we postulate a soul – some essential essence of ourselves distinct from our physical bodies – that might bridge the chasm of physical death.

We write that words – ideas - are mightier than swords.

Bench at the top of the unleashed area - Laurelhurst Park

We populate the world with ghosts - from the depths of our inspired imaginations springs the Holy Spirit.

Imaginary Jesus and Monkey-cam at Laurelhurst duck pond

If only we could get the story right - maybe we could change the world.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

MT. TABOR - A TIME-TRAVEL HIKE

My apartment sits at the base of an extinct volcano…at least I hope so. With luck, the tectonic plate that Oregon rides upon has migrated far enough to carry Portland past the molten magma furnace that fueled Mt. Tabor in the distant past. If you weren’t looking for it, you might not recognize that a small amphitheatre and basketball court are built in the throat of a cinder cone.

The following images are arranged in geographical order. The images begin at the public stairwell at the north entrance to Mt. Tabor Park. The route will follow the stairs up to the top of Mt. Tabor, then over the top towards the south. From there, the path will meander down and to the west, stopping to visit each of Mt. Tabor’s reservoirs in order of altitude. While the route through space will be orderly and sequential, the path through time will be random and perhaps jarring.