Bridal Veil

We went to Bridal Veil last weekend. The Falls the old and lame people go to: close to Portland, a half mile walk, easy trail.

A mother dipper (or water ouzel) was there, and three young birds, just babies, I think, although they were nearly the size of the mother. She industriously flew back and forth from the steep sides of the fall, to bring the babies treats. They got very shrill and excited, as baby birds will at feeding time, opening their beaks very wide and peeping over the roar of the water.

Dippers bob, rather than standing still. We wondered whether it might actually be a form of camouflage: if you can't be motionless, maybe the next best thing is to move like a bit of flotsam by the waterside. I had always thought the name "dipper" came from their habit of dropping under the water and swimming there, but after watching these I wondered it actually came from the bobbing: it's quite arresting. Every two seconds, that bob.

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Here follows a long post, which I'm not posting, about food: about my bitterness about being misled by authorities about it, about how beleaguered and unsupported I feel at home. At one point I said: "Everything I do about food wounds somebody. I mean that. Everything I do about food wounds somebody."

Which is true. Every single thing I do about food wounds somebody. Additionally, everything I say about food wounds somebody. I'm not sure how it came to this pass; or -- since really I suppose everything we do and say wounds somebody, if we only brought sufficient awareness to see it -- why food is the nexus where so much pain and guilt comes to rest. But it is.

I won't post it, the bitterness and the easy vituperation: there's enough of all that on the web. Enough already.

The next thing is not to try to eat what I presently conceive of as good food: the next thing is getting the kitchen clean, its work spaces clear, and a cubic foot or two of space in the fridge to hold my food. No point in expending precious oomph until that's done. I don't have so much oomph that I can afford to squander any.