Oregon Grape Revelation
One morning, a man planted Sitka Spruce somewhere on the Secret Coast. Scattered showers fell. The terrain was steep and littered with all manner of slash left behind from an ill-advised clearcut that murdered this slope five years ago. It goes without saying that all clearcuts are ill-advised. They should have been banned decades ago. They are an obscenity against nature. They look exactly like what they are. Stand in one after this uniquely American form of industrialized massacre and you will cry if you have any heart or soul whatsoever. Many Americans don’t. These are the people that see watersheds as something only to destroy for profit.
But here the man was, laboring with the seedlings in his tree bag, in corduroys and a dress shirt underneath a fraying Pendleton sweater, black rubber boots, Fort George Brewery stocking cap, a canteen of water. Several years ago, the man would have never imagined doing this kind of grueling work, in a place like the Secret Coast, but an opportunity to work arose, and he needed the work, and a lot more. He needed to get back to the ground. Once he was rooted there, but then one day, he wasn’t.
As he planted, he was mindful of the many people in his country who could not work and were at risk of losing homes, apartments, spaces in RV parks, and their sanity. They were sheltered in place. He was lucky to be working and having the slope kick his ass. It is always a good ass kicking when it comes trying to heal a watershed.
The man’s boss told him he had to carry his phone with him while planting. If the man tripped and rolled down the slope and injured himself, possibly breaking a leg, they had to find him.
A phone! While planting! Absurd! Our boys at Valley Forge didn’t have phones, or toilet paper for that matter.
Nevertheless the man complied and took his phone along, encased it in an soiled cotton glove for protection and shoved it in a pocket. Pretty hick. Pretty anti-chic.
After a time, rain subsided. Some hummingbirds darted here and there. All around the man were the ancient burned stumps of cedar giants. A fire had raged through this land centuries ago and left behind these beautiful black sculptures of ecology and history. They deserved admiration and the man gave them exactly that.
Two hours into the planting, the man was winded, and rested on the ground. He looked around, swigged some water, and noticed a clump of Oregon grape, the state flower. He moved in closer to inspect and beheld the most astonishing Oregon grape he had ever seen, and he had seen thousands upon thousands of them. This one was all purple, a deep purple. Not a streak of red or green. It was taller than the others in the clump. It had rain drops glistening on its jagged leaves. Its buds were poised to unfurl and flower into yellow.
The man considered digging out his phone and taking a photograph of the purple Oregon grape. No one would believe him unless he provided documentation. And perhaps he had a duty to capture this rare beauty and send it out via the various digital conveyances because seeing this beauty might help, if only for a second, someone suffering isolation and depression.
No, the man had his tree bag wrapped around his waist and couldn’t retrieve the phone. His hands were also wet and muddy. He had to forego the photograph and keep planting. More and more trees. As the man planted, the image of the purple Oregon grape expanded in his mind. It grew an idea—a literary journal called Oregon Grape that would contain writing and art of all things Oregon. He would recruit writers and artists to collaborate on this new editorial venture. Now was the perfect time to launch!
The man smiled. What a fringe benefit from he had received. He finished planting and trudged up the slope and out into a meadow. Rain began to fall again. What other ideas would spring forth from more planting.