After breakfast I walk to
Natasha's parents’ house. Natasha has an
online class in the morning and so Betty and I walk the few blocks to the
downtown farmers market. It's so popular that it occurs on Tuesdays, Thursdays,
and Saturdays during the summer. There
are at least a dozen companies selling mostly organic vegetables and
fruits. Betty buys three bags of produce. As we are leaving the Farmer's Market I have
a neat moment of synchronicity. A friend
of mine, Elena, is also leaving the market area and sees us. I had called her
last night and we said we would get together while I was in Eugene but we
didn't make plans. She asks if tomorrow
around 11:00 would work for me, which it does, and so we set a date at the tea
shop in downtown Eugene, similar to a coffee shop but selling only tea. I like tea and drink it often so I was hoping
to go into the this tea shop it see what a tea shop offered.
Betty and I bring the produce
back to her house and then set out on foot again for a show and tell walk. There's the store devoted to only olive oil,
the donuts shop with unique combinations like maple syrup and bacon, the coffee
shop after coffee shop, numerous Japanese restaurants, and the street people:
young adults with no shoes and long hair and raggedy clothing and usually
smelling like their own body odor asking for money or sitting a circle with
like minded friends talking, middle aged and older people dressed and smelling
similar, perhaps homeless, perhaps unemployed, perhaps with a mental disability
that prevents them from functioning in society, many of them, like the younger
adults, carrying a plstic bag full of aluminum cans which they'll cash in for
money and a back pack with their belongings.
Most people in Eugene call these people hippies. They are one variety of hippies: the down and
out, the drop out, the poor hippies. It's
a rough life in my opinion. A wonder if
it's a life they choose or if numerous circumstances have left them no other
choice. There's another version of
hippie in Eugene: the employed and tuned in to issues of environmentalism,
organic farming, justice, sustainability, and alternative forms of medication,
education, transportation, to name a few.
My friends might be considered this latter variety of hippies. Once long haired and living collectively in a
large house although always working, most of them for the same company,
Organically Grown Company, now they all seem middle class and career-oriented
albeit still passionately concerned about the issues I mentioned above. They have changed and yet their core values
have remained the same. If you believe
that the way to achieve the best for your self is a solid value system and
constant self growth then positive change is the necessary vehicle for that
improvement.
Betty and I walk back to her
house for lunch. Leroy, her husband, has
brewed coffee. As Waylon said the coffee
is always flowing at his parent's house.
After lunch, I walk back to the bed and breakfast where I meet Elena's
dad for tea and conversation. Elena met
Mary Jean when the two of them lived in Minneapolis and then became a part of
the migration to Eugene. Mary Jean grew
up in the same small town as Natasha's family and Elena grew up in Indiana. Her dad was a professor at a college and
published several articles and books about the influence of Zen in English
literature. Two years ago when Elena and
her partner had their daughter, Elena's dad and mom became another part of the
migration to Eugene. My connection with
John is through our understanding of Zen and literature and this is mostly what
we discussed for our two hours together; however at one point we had an
interesting discussion about the choices we make for our lives. John states he doesn't think he makes
decisions for himself; rather his life has been a series of events that just
happen because they must and this is not a choice, this is in his words, “life
unfolding itself.” I challenge this
notion by saying that surely moving from Kokomo, Indiana where he had lived for
virtually all of his adult life as a professor to Eugene, Oregon after he
retired so that he could be closer to his daughter and granddaughter was a
choice. He tell me this: Several months after his granddaughter was
born, he and his wife, Maria, visited Elena, her partner, and their daughter in
Eugene. He was holding Scarlet in his
arms. She was crying loudly, very upset,
and as he lowered Scarlet into a warm bath, she stopped crying, and in that
moment, he knew he had to move here.
Life had unfolded itself. Later
that morning he and his wife were looking for a home and found one they liked
and put an offer on it and the deal was done.
Had Maria and he talked about moving to Oregon to be closer to their daughter
and her partner and their granddaughter before this? Yes, and yet hadn't decided. In Jack's words, “the moment decided for me,
something greater than myself.”
When Jack left, I took a walk
alone to think about everything Jack and I discussed and then went to dinner at
Natasha's parent's house. After dinner
Natasha, Betty, and I took a long walk along the Willamette River The sun was setting when we turned around
and walked home. The sparkling
reflection of the sun in the water created an unusual color, difficult to
categorize, the combination of the pinkish orange sun mixed in with the
swirling blue current of the river.
I walked back to the B and B
in the dark. The moon was full. I took a mindful moment, stopped, and
acknowledged and appreciated the moon, and that I was seeing it in Eugene, and
that I was in this particular moment, the eternal here and now. I called it another good day, opened the
window in my bedroom, and feel asleep to the sweet sound of silence sans
airplanes and interstate traffic.
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