Squeezing Through the Neck - Poem

Two blocks below
The bay pushes gently over stony shores
Marking cycles of time
As the fleet of fishing boats crawls in and out of their berths in a similar, constant rhythm

Five blocks above
The range of mountains rises sharply,
Standing still against time
Clouds hang there
Snatched upon the pines and pulled over the ridge,
Closing the roof around this little town

We are scattered along 12 or so odd blocks between
People pass through, squeezing through this bottleneck of a town
Pushed between the bay and the mountains
They must feel constrained with the long narrow passage
It must feel like choking on the palpable lack of motion
It must be why they never
Stop

We chose to stop here
To stay here
Settling into the midst of the neck
Between bay and mountain
Where the lack of
The less of
Doesn't choke us
Here, we swallow
And every morsel of this life
Tastes so sweet

~nicolas hall 2012

Second Skin

"You mean you don't want any of them?" my mother asks, at least semi annually.
She has taken out the shoebox of old photos and cards again.
A semi annual ritual though not one in accord with any changing of seasons or certain anniversaries.

"No, none. . . thank you." I respond
Semi annually

I have never been one for the taking of or keeping of photographs.
As long as I can remember, I never found myself wanting to look into polaroid frames of the past.
At least not ot when the image I would be looking at was myself

This is not a preference derived from avoiding shadows
I had a most wonderful childhood
The images my mother keeps are, I know, happy and light
A family history unstained
She keeps them, I have supposed, to quell her age-old fears that she was the reason I moved far away
That she was somehow a faulty mother

It's much simpler than that though
I do not want to look into those eyes staring from the box.
My eyes
At ten
At thirteen
At fifteen

I am afraid of what I might see there
I am afraid of the sign of a secret separation

While others often keep photographs as markers of their youth and pull them out, or up, to remind themselves of what once was, or what could have been, I tend to walk side by side with my past
Always keeping close to that boy
Of ten
Of thirteen
Of fifteen
He is with me in every way
As much a part of me now as then.

So close that
Sometimes I think of him as a second skin
And I know it can be so easy
To dissolve that part of ourselves into a living, time-line memory
Instead of doing away with the apparitions of adulthood
The ones which keep us stacked in the cardboard shoe boxes
Filed under "Yesterday"
While we struggle daily
Just to breathe and
To find a way home
Again

nicolas hall - 2012

Death Knell For Another Coastal Community

I read this in a small coastal business paper today.

"The creative class of people is one of the signs of an emerging area. Then rich people are attracted to that gritty feel."

I felt immediately ill. . .

As I reflect on it, my gut feeling is that this story, played out in community after community, is killing this country faster than anything else I see on the near horizon.

It is also in great part why I removed myself from the hipster haven of Portland to the small, blue collar fishing village I now call home. One with no room for pretentiousness or attitude. It is the antithesis of a town like the one described in that quote. One that will never likely turn itself out for the quick fix of the  "revitalization" and "progress" that others have sold the soul of their own towns for.

Goodbye Astoria. . . I'll remember you as you were while the wave of hipster attitude quickly erodes your unique landscape and charm and tramples your historic soul, I wish you peace.

Summer Shadows - Poem

To be given the task at 11 or 12
Of filling the gas tank of the old lawnmower
As the warm July sun dropped its late shadows across the oil field

Or to pull the wet leaves from a gutter catch 10 feet off the ground
Or to clean the paint brushes in an old Folgers can filled with turpentine
All under watchful, trusting and loving eyes

It's these little things I miss

The devil is in the details they say
But so then are the angels
And I hope I am as surrounded by them on my last days
As I am today

The memories we've stashed away
Between those long, heroic summer shadows
Often reach back for us
A beacon for the seasons ahead


~nicolas hall 2012 

Crossroads

A few months ago I left the city to return to the Oregon Coast. Leaving the spiraling, urban sprawl of 600,000 for a quiet fishing village of 900.  The return to a simpler place and a less frantic pace has allowed me to breathe for what seems like the first time in years.

I return to the city twice a month, for now, to help out at the coffeehouse I used to own. I work two shifts in a little more than 24 hours and I get to see many people who were part of my daily routine over the previous 10 years.

I am asked time and again "Do you miss it?" and the answer, without hesitation is "No."

Now, I left the urban sprawl and static once before, years ago. And, after five years in a similar small town, I felt I had to get back to where things were "happening".

So what is different this time? Most people would tend to put it down to little more than the fact that  I am 10 years older?

In retrospect, I think it is simply that I realize the site of the crossroads when I am at them now.

In any lifetime, I believe we come to those crossroads again and again.
Many times over actually.
Some large and some small
Some almost daily.

But all of them are marked by choices we make or have to make and then, by the directions we turn. Often we do not turn. We just plow ahead with no acknowledgment that we are even passing through one or slowing to think about where the other road might lead.

We think that the slick, well paved highway we are on must lead to a better place than that little dusty road that transects it.  But that well paved road was once just dirt and gravel too.

When I return to the city, I walk about  25 minutes from the train station to the coffeehouse. Crossing through downtown and then across the river into the old industrial SE area of the city. I pass by hundreds of people going about their day. Some walking firmly with each step a foot-fallen vow to "make it" and some stumbling along just barely making it.

And I fee l this hanging, smoldering presence pressing down on so many of those I pass.

They've all reached the crossroads in life too.
Many did not think to slow down at all.
Most did not turn.
They just kept on going.
They made choices at each crossing whether they know it or not
And they are living out the result and destination of their choices.

Yes, it gets harder to go back each time

I am grateful to have seen the signs
To have known when the time was right
And to have turned down this little dusty road where few would think to turn
Off of the fast track
Leading to a place where I belong
Where I can slow down
And now
Thrive

-nicolas hall

Land - A Creative Path

Land

If you had told me, just two years ago, that I would be making part of my living creating scale model miniatures. . . I would have laughed and shooed you away. . . but inside, I would have been wishing it could somehow, possibly,  be true.

I have been making art for 30 years. . . but the twists and turns of time, circumstance and fate that led me back to this childhood love are too many to mention. And I do not want to bore you with them all as it is.

What I do want to say is this:

We spend our lives so immersed in our own world, in our own situations, that we rarely get the chance to glimpse a life outside of our own. The world becomes more frantic, moving to an ever-quickening pace all the time. We are swept up in the currents of our own days, of our own battle for survival and, as if often the case in the deep waters of life, we lose sight of land.

Our childhoods are filled with these "other" worlds. Sci fi, monsters, dolls,  model railroads, imaginary places and creations fill our days. As i grow older I am more convinced every day that there is a reason for that which is supposed to serve us well as adults too. That is VITAL to our survival and our future happiness.  And that is all too often left behind in the rush to "grow up." Those early experiences and imagining. . . that is our landscape.  That is the ground under our feet throughout our lives.

When I first began making these HO scale buildings. . . just under two years ago. . . it was as if I had my first true glimpse, and feel, of that land in years.

They were a familiar sight as they appeared before me.
That childhood love and fascination with model railroads.
With small, imagined worlds.
With other places.
It brought back something I hardly had taken the time to realize was missing.

I cannot tell you what it is, only that it is pure and a part of the thread I never can let go of again.

There are many who also share this love of "other worlds"

We are drawn to them because they offer us those glimpses. Peeks into a place and time outside of our own. One of our own creation and choosing when, sometimes, we lose sight of that possibility in our own. They are unspoiled and clean. Simple and remarkable at the same time. 

For me, as the maker of them, they are something of a pole star. They are a magnetic draw towards the life I wish to lead every day. One of creation that opens doors for others. Brings a sense of joy and calm. Offering these glimpses into other worlds. A little hint of the magic that can be. . .

And maybe, just maybe, a reminder to not allow life to become so big.
So overwhelming.
So torrid a current

I invite you to find these places in YOU
Whatever they look like or how they manifest
They are like the distant shore in deep water
They are familiar
They are the constant
They are
Land

nicolas hall

Who's There? - Poem

The doorbell rings by itself again as it has done dozens of times since we moved in
We've taken to going down, opening the door, and welcoming our ghostly visitors in

I return just in time to look out the window and see the old man
Almost every morning at this time
He is walking slowly down the sidewalk
With his old dog
Their gaits, quite similar
Belying the time each of them has spent on this Earth

I notice him, as I do so many things here
Because there is so little else to distract me
Here, I seem to slow down
I actually breathe
And I feel I can see

I try to recall, in the cities, if I ever really "saw" people.
People in that environment are always on the way somewhere.
They are hard to see and we are too busy hustling ourselves to be able to see
Everyone seems to be moving a step ahead or, as is more often the case,
Falling a step behind

It seems many people in a small town such as this have arrived
They've caught up with themselves
They have nowhere to go
Their steps are measured
They aren't chasing anything
And I wonder
If the phantom who keeps ringing the doorbell
Is just me catching up
With me

nicolas hall - 2012