Category: noticing

  • The Long Run

    Today was my long run of the week and, being a big fan of efficiency, I thought I’d write a thoughtful little essay about the meaning or effects of the 12-mile run, or the insights arrived at thereby. But running 12 miles makes me feel accomplished and pleased with myself (yay), tired (predictable), and also…

  • Rebuilt wetlands: noise and surprises

    The Delta Ponds are former gravel pits, strung between a freeway and a shopping mall, a band of apartments and retirement homes, a batch of car dealerships. It’s a made place, and also a natural one. Reclaimed, reconstructed. It’s an attempt to re-complicate just slightly the once braided, now restricted course of the Willamette River. …

  • Your Vacation Starts Here

    It’s raining today–sure sign of fall–but this was one of my favorite signs this summer: Read the sign’s two parts together, you might think the job’s so great, it’s practically a vacation. Or squint your eyes and read only one or the other. After all, a great vacation doesn’t exactly start with an understaffed hotel.…