An Unmarried Woman

Think about the drive to work today, or the drive home.  With or without a mobile phone in use, how often were your thoughts somewhere else?

We often cruise familiar turf preoccupied with thoughts outside the present moment and space.   Could it be we are similarly programmed to look elsewhere for things that perhaps are right under our nose?

Take hiking and coffee. The airplanes are full this time of year with travelers headed to Oregon to enjoy the state’s trails and java shops.  Since moving to Portland I’ve even taken up hiking. It bares a strong resemblance to what I once called walking, but the scenery is different and I do it regularly with friends – something I never did in Tulsa.  “In Tulsa,” I have explained, “the harsh weather keeps us inside socializing over food and wine.” In Portland I feel like a kid again, playing outside with chums.

I Goggled hiking Tulsa and got 322,000 results.  I Goggled coffee houses Tulsa and got 45,800 (substituting Portland for Tulsa yields 2,140,000 and 290,000 results respectively.)

Clearly I could have hiked in Tulsa everyday of the over 30 years I lived there. And despite 107 degree weather this month, I did – twice! Not with the same companion both times but that’s beside the point.  Come October, I am confident both will consider joining me again.  Both my August outings acquainted me with Turkey Mountain on the west side of the Arkansas River.  I’d only been there once before though I still own a house just three miles west on 71st Street.  With a heat index of 115 degrees, you may wish clothing was optional but the tree canopies protect you from the sun; bottled water combats the heat.  And (thanks Julie!) I learned a simple way to navigate this unfamiliar urban wilderness: consistently climbing up hill not only provides a better workout but makes later finding the parking lot and your car as simple as walking (excuse me, hiking) downhill. In Portland’s Washington Park, my strategy is simply to follow whoever is ahead of me and keep tabs on my off-leash Whippets.

When it comes to coffee, my approach is equally simple.  I usually get my daily dose brewed at home in one of those noisy “by the cup” machines that will wake the dead in the morning but yet go relatively unnoticed by chatty dinner guests many hours later in the day. Though I live in Portland, where Starbucks coffee beans are roasted, I buy Topeca Coffee in Tulsa and cart it home in my suitcase.  (Each and every time I open my suitcase to find an airport security inspection notice. I can only figure I am suspected of using coffee beans to throw off the hounds sniffing for other substances.)

I buy Topeca coffee as much for the story, as the taste.  Topeka was founded by John Gaberino and his wife Maria, a woman from El Salvador whose family has owned and operated a coffee plantation for six generations.  I remember years ago when John used to serve up samples of the coffee for Petty’s shoppers.  When the coffee market hit one of its lowest points, the Gaberinos and Maria’s relatives had determined the best way to continue the business for another six generations was to take the product from the field to the consumer, a process they dubbed “seed to cup.” This last trip to Tulsa I finally met Maria. It’s an easy task to find her in their relatively new cafe downtown.

When the Mayo Hotel in downtown Tulsa reopened after 30 years -sporting a $50 million plus renovation, Topeca Coffee opened a cafe on the ground floor.  It’s an inviting spot with glass table tops resting on trays of coffee beans, comfy leather sofas and over-sized photo portraits of plantation employees, like Miguel, who works on the patios. As the portrait label reads, “Topeca uses a traditional method of sun-drying fresh beans on large patios.  Beans must be raked and turned often to ensure all moisture is gone.” In Tulsa, beans from El Salvador are roasted on site daily and freshly brewed coffee is served with an assortment of pastries and sandwiches. I’ve read the Starbucks story; I don’t get the same feeling from it as I do talking to Maria or John.

The next time you are yearning to explore or wishing for a change of scenery, try looking at home with fresh eyes.

Always, Trix

My finds:

http://www.topecacoffee.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_Mountain_(Oklahoma)

www.washingtonparkpdx.org/map.htm

I awoke today to find cards slid under the front door of my flat.  Each addressed to Leo or to Leo and Tracey.

Leo is my five-year old Whippet. He was viciously attacked by a Pit mix in the Fields, an off-leash dog park two blocks from our home in Portland’s Pearl District.

Dogs, like children, jump start the process of getting to know your neighbors.  In my experience, dogs  even more so than children.  Children, after all, are heavily booked with after-school activities – keeping parents on the run to places outside the neighborhood whereas dogs provide occasions to walk the neighborhood, conversing with those you meet on the street.  At least in an urban environment it works this way.  Without a fenced backyard, one walks with one’s dog(s) and a proper supply of doggie do bags. If you are at all social, you easily have two or three exchanges per walk, of which there are 4 to 5 a day.  Do the math…walking a dog can be your entire social life and an enviable one at that!

Sunday night while Leo was in surgery at Dove Lewis, I felt alone in my adopted city and longed for the yard around our former house in Oklahoma – a safe haven where Leo could chase birds and squirrels and his only brushes were with broken tree limbs.  But Leo is a city dog now and he has made his mark in his urban setting…perhaps more than me, The Whippet Lady, companion of Leo and his sister Bliss.

Leo will literally stop dead on the sidewalk if a passerby fails to acknowledge him.  There’s not an ounce of ego involved.  In every instance Leo has made eye contact, lifted his nose, raised his ears…he expects (and, I think, deserves) a return greeting.   I tug at his leash when the offender, a snob, has passed.  He quickly returns to his mission of greeting those ahead on the path.  I love this dog.  He has taught me so much.

It has long been observed that dogs and owners resemble each other.  I used to joke that I got Whippets in the hope I’d become lean, sleek and graceful – like Leo and Bliss.  Now I hope they will keep me sensitive, forgiving, accepting and trusting despite what comes on a Sunday in the park.

Always, Trix

Thursday he would have been 88 years old.

“I’ll return to Tulsa early enough in July so we can celebrate mums’ 89th and your 88th together (as we often did).  And I tell you what, I’ll figure out how to make homemade Sangria for you,” I said to my dad during our last time together.

“I’d like that,” he said.  His voice was soft but his eyes clear and focused, as anticipation  gently swept over his gaunt face.  My dad and I:  We like our wine, perhaps a bit too much.  We like a party.

Why had I waited 10 years to make the offer?  During a visit to Sydney in late 2000 my cousin Michael’s charming wife Dora surprised my father with homemade Sangria on Christmas day.  The feast was at the home of my Uncle Ron and Auntie Dawn’s.  After stuffing ourselves we posed for photos by the pool wearing shorts, Christmas cracker paper holiday crowns topping our heads.  The trip was a gift from my parents to my sister and me and our families. I hadn’t been to Australia since 1985. The gift was more than generous, it was life changing.

Tonight in Portland I arrived at R. damore, a new art gallery in the Pearl owned by photographer & portrait artist Robin Damore.  Author Wendy Burden was talking about her book, Dead End Gene Pool.  Serving refreshments was a beautiful, engaging, Latin woman, just the type woman my Pop would have flirted with – shamelessly!  She put ice in a stemmed glass and poured a Sangria Roja for me.   When he drank red wine, much to the horror of all around him, Bob (JR, Pops…my dad) always asked for ice, unless he could help himself to some.  “About 3 cubes,” he’d tell me.  Around the table eyes would roll.  Winos can be such snobs!   Hosts, proud of their wine selections, sometimes seemed insulted.  Bob’s pleasure was never diminished by their attitudes.   He asked for and got what he wanted; there is a lesson in that, I think.

The sangria I enjoyed will soon appear in Portland gourmet grocery stories such as Zupan and City Market.  It’s maker, Maria Corbinos  is a woman who came to Portland to earn an MBA.  In no time her friends quickly encouraged her to bottle the sangria she made to share at gatherings. Her personality and business accumen earned her an Angel Award and is bringing her product to launch shortly. (Visit http://www.mividasangria.com/index.htm) As I listened to her story, I shared mine.

At the end of the evening I walked home with a bottle of Mi Vida Sangria Roja – a gift from Maria.  I also had three new business cards in my pocket belonging to new friends I planned to call later this month, after returning from Tulsa.  As I walked home, my father’s spirit filled my heart and lightened my step.  True, we won’t dine at Andina’s, the Peruvian restaurant I told Poppy was a must when he came to see my new home. The trip is one he didn’t make.  But my dad is here, he’s wherever there is goodness and a sense of adventure…  An absence of expectations but a hope for something special. That is his legacy. That is what I will play forward.

Always, Jabberwalkie (my dad’s nickname for me)

Medaris, Jesse Robert (Bob) of Tulsa passed away June 14^th, 2010.  He was born July 22^nd, 1922 in Denver, Colorado to Jesse Roy and Loretta Mae (Wolfe) Medaris.  He attended Hawthorne Grade School in Englewood, Colorado and graduated from Englewood High School in 1940.  In September 1941 he enrolled in Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado.  World War II interrupted his engineering undergraduate work.  He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps for three years, reaching the rank of First Lieutenant as a navigator with the 13^th Air Force in the South Pacific.  He was proud to have seen many of the islands in that theatre: New Caledonia, Guadalcanal, New Britain, New Guinea, the Halmahera and most of the Philippines.  After the war he completed his studies at Mines, graduating as a petroleum engineer in 1949. While at Mines, he was a member of Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Gamma Epsilon and Blue Key.

In May 1947 he married Dorothy Patricia (Pat) Shelley, whom he met in February 1945 on Bondi Beach while on military leave in Sydney, Australia. Marriage followed a nine-day, whirlwind romance and two years of long-distance correspondence by mail. The couple had two daughters, Shelley Anne Ricks and Tracey Elizabeth Norvell. Three grandchildren survive Mr. Medaris: Michael Andrew Ricks, Corrine Elizabeth Mueller and Clay Alexander Norvell. Also, great-grandson Andrew Paul Mueller and brother Francis Medaris.  His brother Charles Medaris and sister Ruth Medaris predeceased him.

Immediately following graduation from Mines, Phillips Petroleum Company in Eureka, Kansas and then Venezuela employed Mr. Medaris.  In 1954 he began a 15-year career with affiliates of Standard Oil of New Jersey (Exxon) in Venezuela, Libya and Indonesia. Outside professional assignments, the Medaris family also lived in Palo Alto, CA, Sydney, Australia and Houston, TX.  Mr. Medaris’ second career as Manager of the Studies Department for Crest Engineering led the family to Tulsa, OK.  His work with Crest took him to Nigeria, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Siberia, China, Pakistan, Indonesia, the North Sea, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Canada and other oil and gas-producing areas. When Crest Engineering relocated to Houston in 1985, Mr. Medaris remained in Tulsa, serving as Vice President of Crown Tech, Inc.  In 1987 he joined Fluor Daniels Williams Brothers as a consultant until his retirement in late 1993.

Mr. Medaris learned many languages during his travels. He was a quiet man with a quick, contagious laugh.  Somewhat a rebel and never a follower, he was well respected and tremendously admired by colleagues.  His gentle spirit made him an instant favorite with children and pets, and his love of life and travel gave him countless friends worldwide. He enjoyed golf, ice skating and worked tirelessly in the garden. During the past seven years he kept the residents at Inverness Village well supplied with the jokes and stories he collected from magazines and newspapers. His blue eyes always sparkled with life and mischief. His favorite song was “ Begin the Beguine,” but the ones his children and grandchildren will most remember are those he sang at bedtime: “You Are My Sunshine,” “Oh! Suzanna,” and “Red River Valley.”  While some might mourn the loss of this most lovely, gentle, caring, kind soul, who was also extremely bright, funny and handsome, his response would be this poem he especially liked:

I AM NOT THERE

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft star that shines at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry.

I am not there; I did not die.

Author Unknown

May 2nd, 2010

What is a neighborhood?  A collection of houses with lawns? Blocks with children playing and dogs barking?

There was a time when a neighborhood had very clear physical boundaries and emotionally encompassed community, friends and family.   I think for many of us that has changed.

How well do you know who is living either side of your front door? While your facebook “friend” count hovers near 2000, who close by would you call when you’ve made too much beef stew and would welcome dinner guests or locked yourself out or just need a cup of sugar? (not being a baker I never stock sugar nor have I gone knocking on doors for it but you get the idea).

For the most part I grew up overseas. Never have I returned to a childhood home but when I visit Tulsa each month I experience the closest thing to it.  For the past seven months I have stayed in MapleRidge-Sunset Terrace, a midtown neighborhood with a woman who has become one of my dearest friends.  It feels a bit like “going home” – actually a lot like it.  In the early 90’s I lived just a few blocks away in a house Joel, Clay and I  had for ten years, a time span still roughly twice my stay in any single residence. It was the house Clay remembers best; his experience leaving it was more profound than departures I experienced. To his one, I experienced nine places called “home.”

Lying in bed one recent Sunday morning I listened to songbirds, barking dogs, passing cars and bouncing basketballs. Wrapped up in my roommate’s Super Bowl XXII terry robe, I sprinted across the lawn for the morning paper as patrons of All Souls Unitarian Church began to park along Woodward Avenue.  I took a second to feel encouraged by this sight; cheered to see a wave of moderate church goers practicing tolerance and compassion. In this part of the country politicians are more often members of  the extreme Christian Right and they are voted into office.  Inside I brewed Chicory coffee, feed my roommates cats Raffles and Violet and efficiently polished off other household tasks.  I wanted to fit in a brisk walk before brunch with my parents and son.  Such a Sunday routine hardly differed from what Joel and I did in the 90’s.

Was it different experiencing it solo?  Certainly. If anything, I was more attuned to the experience as I blended memories with the present.  I am now only a visitor, a historian of a past decade.

A block to the north I tossed newspapers in the collection bin at Channing School, where Clay attended kindergarten plus a year of preschool dedicated to twice-weekly field trips with six classmates “double-buckled” in Ann Barry’s Volvo wagon.  I looked at the low brick wall tracing the outline of the entry walkway, remembering fondly how Clay navigated it each afternoon before leaping into my arms, safely out of sight of the director who insisted he was too old to be carried.

Then as I did a week before when orienting a friend in real estate less familiar with midtown, along my brief walk I identified the past or current occupants of most houses – the red-brick bungalow that once belonged to our Sophian remodel general contractor and then the dental hygienist I’ve seen for 20 years (who also spent some time living in Indonesia as a child). The multiple car garage of a Mediterranean Villa owned by a Porsche collector and the IT consultant for Norvell-Marcum, the multi-level landscaped garden begun by a well-known landscape artist and later cultivated by Blue Dog Market owner, Paige Martin.  Around the curve at 28^th and Cincinnati where we lived was the traditional style home with detached garage occupied by the principal of Clay’s Catholic middle school (which made putting wine bottles at the curb for recycling a questionable practice), the charming brown brick one-story called home by the prematurely gray supplier of plantation shutters for our first home by Holland Hall, the east-facing house of the manager of KoKo & Ellis, a Brookside children’s store that sold our Harvard Bound jams and shoebags.  Other houses I passed belonged to Dana Gilpin, the artist chosen for one of the early Festival of Trees commemorative pins, concert pianist Peter Simon, MAPCO colleague Mike Ward, the late Saks’ general manager Debbie Palazzo, granite and marble counter top supplier Carl McMahon, TV reporter Michelle Lowry, fabulous watercolor artist Laura Shafer and her husband John, the current president of the Porsche Club, Phillips freelance team member Myna Burk, chef Phillipe Garmy…

And our former house in the neighborhood?  A maintenance free place we under appreciated!  An infill project we outfitted inside to look like our condo at the Sophian Plaza, where we had lighted for only 18 months.  Not really emotionally ready to leave our two-bedroom at the Soph, we listed it for sale because a gaggle of siblings for Clay seemed possible and mortgage rates dipped to single digits for the first time in our experience.  Instead of a larger family, our house on Cincinnati gave birth to Joel’s teaching career, first in ballet, then yoga and to my company, Arts Society.  It was a place we entertained foreign visitors, family, Clay’s first girlfriends, WAFALs and many dear friends.  We launched fundraisers, held meetings, conducted school science experiments…

It was what a house should be.  It was a place where dreams where hatched, disappointments endured, accomplishments celebrated, Lego villages built, Easter eggs hidden, Christmas trees decorated, a rose bush (A Lucille Ball Rose!) planted.

A somewhat nomadic childhood made it easy to adopt the expression, “home is where you hang your hat.”  What I really believed was home was where Joel and Clay were. But did some of what made us a couple and a family get left behind when we left our house on Cincinnati?  In general, do we need to seek old-fashioned neighborhoods for families to thrive?  And what setting is best for empty nesters?  What makes a house a home, a neighborhood a community? How much of what we call home is it tied to a physical location? I don’t have the answers.  I live in two cities.  In some ways I feel connected to both, at other times I feel completely detached because I am an unmarried woman negotiating life solo.