It could just be my imagination but when I taste the honey from Germany it puts me right back in my mom’s house chewing toast and drinking coffee. It’s from our friend Christoph, who tends bees in his back yard. Memories of him walking me and our girls around giving us a tour of his garden, the happy bees.

The lupine was my favorite, its perfect purple, conical blooms. But the lupine was destined to fall, to reseed itself. And the bees danced around the blooms and I crouched by them, watching. Memories of a happy hanging mobile with fuzzy bumble bees my aunt Sue had in her bedroom when I’d stay there as a little kid.

It’s weird, I started enjoying going to sleep when it was light and waking in the dark. It reminded me of camping, falling asleep so knackered I couldn’t make it to nightfall. Following that slow dusk fade-out, feeling the day and earth settle around me. Then to wake in the wild drama of the pre-dawn, that distant streaking of pale in one corner of the sky. The last of the bats and first of the birds.

The days were warm and summerlike but the mornings had the chill of fall. Too cool to open the windows overnight, like it was in the mountains when we’d rent a big place with Dawn’s family in Montana or Colorado.

Tomorrow I’d drive down to Portland to see Loren, leave around 4 to beat the traffic and catch the sunrise headed south by Mt Rainier, Mount St Helens. The last of the volcanoes was Mt Hood, outside of Portland. Crossing the river into Oregon on that big steel bridge, immersed soon in the oddities of Portland, pulling onto Loren’s street and heading out for a walk.

There’s nothing better than a Friday in late May when you’ve got plans, a fresh pot of coffee and a full tank of gas. When the memory-making time is here.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, journal writing, pacific northwest