Portland in spring – Dear Liza

Oscar Howe, Salmon Springs, and the Willamette

Dear Liza,

Last Friday was Member Appreciation Day at our Portland Art Museum, called PAM. Since we are members, we went and got appreciated! Besides getting free, we got tote bags, buttons, and an extra 10% discount at the shop.

Quite a few galleries were closed, as PAM is getting ready for a huge construction project that will join their Main Building to the lovely old Masonic Temple Building, which was acquired in 1992.

Still, we were delighted with the Oscar Howe exhibit, Dakota Modern. Oscar Howe was a Yanktonai Dakota artist, born on the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation in South Dakota in 1915. The main works shown at PAM were painted in the 1950s and 1960s, but felt very contemporary.

With great talent and study, he proved that Native American art was not just pictures of buffalo hunts. We spent a long time enjoying the swirls of blues and oranges and powerful lines of his work.

But snack time called! We left the air-conditioned comfort of PAM and walked the block to Umbria for coffee and pastries, and then decided to wander a bit.

Heading toward the river, we were rewarded with this view:

Traffic lights, chatting people, the enormous and engaging Salmon Springs Fountain, and Mount Hood looming over everything.

Portland, for sure.

And just past the fountain was our Willamette, turned into a playground by the sunny weather. Motorboats, jet skies, and kayaks zipped along on the first of many play days.

We walked a few blocks and caught the Magic Number 15 bus back home, grateful for Spring, sunshine, and living in Portland.

alive,

Grandma Judy

Return to Crystal Springs

Dear Liza,

Spring is really getting into gear here in Portland, even though it has been chilly and rainy. Friday was predicted to be our one sunny day between ten solid days of rain, so we headed out to see some pretty things.

Grandpa Nelson and I have walked the three miles to this lovely garden several times, but this time we needed to do grocery shopping on the way home, so Auntie Bridgett came along and we took the car.

The hellebores are still blooming all over the place, even though it is late spring and nicely warm in the sunshine. Their muted colors, which are so welcome in February, seem almost out of place in the bright sunshine.

The tulip magnolias are knocking themselves out, looking gorgeous against the bright blue sky.

Some spectacular late blooming daffodils were still around, bobbing in the breeze.

Grandpa Nelson is still recovering from jet lag and really enjoyed the peace and quiet of the garden.

Grape hyacinths and daffodils shone in the sunshine.

This was Bridgett’s first time at the garden, and she fell in love with it. Whenever we found a bench to relax on, she brought out her sketchbook and art bits and made adorable little sketches.

We loved the garden so much that we became members, so we can go for free anytime we want. It is just a short bike ride, and bit longer bus ride, or an hour walk from our house, the perfect distance for a picnic.

And the next time you are in town, we’ll go there.

Love,

Grandma Judy

An Almost-Summer Walkabout

Dear Liza,

Before the rain this past weekend, we had four wonderful days of sun. Grandpa Nelson and I were able to get out for a long walk. After lunch at Zach’s we headed south through the Richmond neighborhood.

The peonies in Southeast Portland this year are absolutely stunning, and this group in a planter along Lincoln are pure sunny pink and and as big as a dinner plate.

As we were noticing all the blooms, I was stopped in my tracks by this piece of chalk art on a driveway. No one was around to ask about the artist, so we just enjoyed it, photographed it, and moved along.

The next piece of art was less colorful but charming, even so. Someone with less art experience had tried to paint a cat hiding in the high grass, failed, and expressed their disappointment.

Further along, these tall lupines graced the parkway, framed perfectly by a 1920s bungalow and willow tree.

As we were walking, Grandpa Nelson asked, “when you run out of things to write about, will we have to move?” I told him that in five years of writing blogs, Portland hasn’t let me down yet. I think we’re safe.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Pink…. It’s Complicated

Dear Liza,

When I was growing up, I never liked the color pink. As the only girl in a male-oriented household, pink was “for girls”, which was always said in a way that implied it was weak, sissified, and not up-to-snuff. I saw it as a mark of different-ness and steered clear of it.

This disappointed my mother, I am sure. Your Great grandma Billie had waited all of her thirty-six years for a girl, putting up with Great Grandpa’s brothers hanging around and raising two boys of her own. Then she got me.

From the get-go, I favored dungarees and shirts to dresses. I climbed trees and got skinned knees. I had more boy friends than girls because I didn’t much care for Barbies or make up.

I tried to wear my hair long and wear dresses in High School, as a way of looking less freakish than I felt. Even as a young Mom, I wore skirts and even those wooden kindergarten-teacher necklaces, as a way of saying, “See? Nothing weird here!”

I was 40 when I finally stopped waiting to “grow out of” my boyish phase and embraced it. I cut my hair super short, bought my clothes at the men’s department at Sears, and started to make myself in my own image. I felt stronger and more confident, and less like I was failing at playing dress up.

Now that I am older and retired and I can wear what I want every day, it is still shirts and jeans, except when the weather gets really hot.

Last summer I bought a few long dresses because they are just looser and more comfortable. They make me look so elegant that I want to stop people and say, “This isn’t me, really, I’m just wearing it,” to make sure people don’t get the wrong impression.

I still steer clear of pink. Old prejudices die hard.

And Portland, my new hometown, is up to its Spring eyeballs in pink. Cherry blossoms, hyacinths, and Bergenias pop up all over town. Portland looks better in pink than I do, and I enjoy it every day.

Love,

Grandma Judy