The State of My Heart is Burning
/I first visited Oregon in 1997, when I was seventeen years old, and dating a young man from Corbett. In the days before the internet and texting, I would run out to the old metal mailbox in front of our farm house every afternoon to see if the mailman had left a letter from Jesse. It was our only form of communication besides a long-distance phone call once every week or two. A year after we started dating, I got on a plane for the first time in my life, and flew to visit him. Our relationship ended, but my love for Oregon began that day, and still continues with a passion.
Jesse and me in the beautiful yard of his parents’ home on the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Highway.
Jesse lived on the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Highway (it was literally part of his address), which meant that just ten minutes down the road from his house were dozens of waterfalls, each with their own names and completely different personalities. And when I would visit him, we would wake up each morning and drive to those waterfalls, spending hours and hours sitting by them with nothing but our journals, books, and thoughts. We were both “heavy deep thinkers” and poetic souls, and would sit there for hours immersed in nature just watching (massive!) slugs slide by on the trail, hiding among lush ferns and beds of mosses, and filling our senses with the capital-G Green of Oregon nature and the sound of rushing water.
After Jesse and I broke up, we remained close friends, and I went out to visit him several more times after that, the last trip being in August of 2005. And then for a long time, I never went back. Life just moved on, I focused on other things, but in my heart, I always dreamed of moving to Oregon. In fact, twice in my life I almost did: in 2000, when I moved away from home for the first time, I went as far as to research moving companies and start looking for apartments to rent, but the idea of moving so far away at only twenty years old was too daunting for me. Then in 2005, after separating from my husband and visiting Jesse again, I once more almost moved there, but then I fell in love with a man from Youngstown, Ohio and got distracted again. (I don’t regret it. Reader, I married him, and we’re still happy to this day.)
Time moved on, as it always tends to, and in late summer 2018, I was recovering from what was the darkest, hardest, most tragedy-filled year of my life (from fall 2017 into early 2018). My heart needed to heal. My soul needed clarity and understanding. And I knew just where I needed to go to find those things. I returned to Oregon for the first time in thirteen years.
I went to Oregon because that was where I had first started to understand my own heart, my own identity. It was where, as a teenager, I started to question everything that I had been taught growing up, and to figure out what my personal spirituality consisted of. It is where I fell in love with nature and first felt the heartbeat in the sap that rises through the veins of trees, the pulse that echoes in the threads of water that pour down the mountain. It was where my heart understood itself the most thoroughly. It was where I learned what magic really was.
I also went to Oregon because I was so curious. It had been thirteen years since I had been there, and the last time I had been visiting someone who I cared for immensely (someone whom, before my now-husband, I never thought any man would replace in my heart as most ever loved). What would it be like, I wondered, to experience Oregon now? Would it be as magical as I remembered? Would every fiber of my being respond to it with the passion and love that I remembered?
In a word, yes. Yes I would.
I arrived late at night to my AirBnB in Portland, collapsed on the bed, and headed out the next morning as dawn light speared through the dense fog on the winding roads to the forests of the Oregon coast. And then I was back in the woods, among the trees I loved. And it felt like coming home.
The forests of Oregon are some of the most magical places I’ve ever been to in my life. Each tree drips with personality and spirit just as thoroughly as with moss and lichens.
The forests of Oregon, where a hag dryad can lean out over the river, her long green hair trailing into the waters as they rush past.
The forests of Oregon, where the roots of old tree giants can cocoon you as the nearby river or ocean sings a lullaby.
The forests of Oregon, where rock trolls covered in thick moss lean out overhead, guarding the trail and those who pass by upon it.
The forests of Oregon, where my heart resides.
These forests are now burning.
Their lungs fill with ash, the green of moss and leaf and fern turns to black and crumbles. The animals run for safety, and there is none to be found. And my heart breaks, as I watch it all helplessly.
My dear, kindred spirit friends report stories of orange skies, of struggling to breathe. Of wearing masks in their homes, of wondering where to go if the fires get too close. Friends of friends have lost their homes, lost everything. And the forests continue to burn.
I pray for wind, pray for rain. And I remember…
The next year after that first trip back to Oregon, I went back again, this time with my close friend Shveta to visit our dear mutual friend Bryonie. We walked on a trail I remember walking many years ago with Jesse, past a waterfall that had special significance to us. When I stood in front of the waterfall, I started crying openly, brokenly, overwhelmed with the memories and the importance of the place. The Gorge forests had sustained their own fires a couple of years ago, and I had been afraid to go back. Afraid that to see the damage and the hurt would break my heart. And yes, in the water right in front of the bridge, between it and the waterfall, there was the blackened trunk of a tree that had burned in the fire, jutting toward the sky like the prow of a sunken ship. But the water continued to flow. The rocks to either side dripped with moss and life. The heart of the forest had not died.
Continuing up the trail, we saw trees that were half rugged bark, and half crumbling blackened ash. But we also saw ferns, and water rolling over rocks in the river below. We saw small shrubs and many more green growing things. And I knew that the forests of Oregon were too strong to never return, to never heal.
I know the forests of Oregon will return, whether the devastation means it will take years or decades. But my heart still breaks, and my friends and the animals and forests still need your help.
If you or anyone you know need assistance, please click this link:
Burners Without Borders Portland
Here is is a list of resources and also places who need support:
Oregon Wildfire Donations and Mutual Aid
A list of GoFundMe’s from some of the individuals who have lost everything in the fire can be found here.
More GoFundMe’s from people who really need aid are here and here.
A few animal organizations who could use support right now.
Native Animal Rescue in California, which is also, heartbreakingly, burning.
Travel Oregon also has a list of organizations working in the fires who need aid.
Oregonians, here’s a list of local places who are accepting donations for those in need.
And here’s a link with information on how to help your animals who might struggle in the smoke exposure.
GoFundMe also has a central hub to donate to individual GoFundMe’s for Oregon victims. This hub collects all verified individual GoFundMe’s and distributes donations among those listed.
Note: not all of the above links have been thoroughly researched. Please click at your discretion.
Dear Oregon, I love you with all my heart. Fires, please stop raging. Forests, please be safe. I still believe that someday I will move there, and I know I will see your green canopy spread above me again.
