Some things that caught my eye on a rainy January walk on a trail that skirts the Coast Fork Willamette River at the Mount Pisgah Arboretum: Catkins on an unknown kind of tree. I know alders have them. Also hazelnuts. It’s hard to recognize trees without their leaves. Then, shrubby snowberry in front of a pine tree of some kind. I’ve heard that birds (thrushes, grosbeaks) eat the berries, but I’ve never seen this myself. Also, the bright red leaves of a snaking berry vine.
I love the things that stand out on a dreary day. Outings fuel the imagination, which is a fine thing for reality to do. This old quonset hut, which I’ve passed many times, suggested itself on this walk as a setting in a story I’m mulling. The quonset hut itself made me think about things a character might do there, which then prompted an interaction among characters, which then tugged on the plot. Maybe all that will be something. Maybe it won’t. But it sends a great exciting creative tingle up the spine.
Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now 