I live on a floating home on the Columbia River in North Portland, OR in the Columbia River Gorge. I get to be part of, and feel, the water on still days and experience the wind when it rocks my house during storms that blow through the Gorge. I actually live in nature. So different from living on a street!
On Sunday mornings in summer I sit on my deck with my coffee, a few feet from the river, watching the sun come up and listening to the dozens of different birds singing. Glorious.
This week I was given a special treat: after a flurry of splashy activity, I watched a family of five river otters emerge from under my house and jump onto my nextdoor neighbor’s deck. What fun they had playing, fighting, squealing and rolling around each other! In my 10 summers here, I’ve never actually seen them, although I’ve seen their footprints around my deck. Apparently there’s been a family of them under my house for years!
Minutes later a mother duck swam by with her 11 half-grown ducklings! Eleven! That means there were probably 13 in the original brood! And an hour later, I noticed a heron on the neighbor’s roof cleaning its wings.
Living here is always filled with surprises; I live in the middle of a ‘river walk’ of things that fly and swim: the fat beaver, sitting calmly munching a tree bark on the levee, fattening itself up for the winter. (I’ve wondered if it’s the same beaver that’s been munching the logs that hold up the dock near my deck!) Regular readers may remember Gwendolyn, the duck that came annually for 8 years to lay her eggs in one of my planters. Once I came home (I have a bad habit of leaving all my doors open in the summer) to find two geese enthroned comfortably on my two couches on the goose-down cushions (irony??). It took two neighbors to help me get them outside again as we chased them around the house. And for those of you who think geese are cute, think again: they hiss and spew and try to bite. But that was easier than getting out the swallows that made filthy nests in my eaves and threw their sick nestlings onto my deck for me to throw into the river to die. Or shutting up the goose that arrives at my neighbor’s door daily at 1:00 PM honking for a treat (so loud!). And I can fish for dinner (crawfish, perch, salmon, and sturgeon we must throw back) from my deck. I can tell when they’re running when I see the cormorants diving. Sea lions swim by in the spring, sometimes in pairs playing.
My fun isn’t only in the summer. This past winter I had weekly visits from Henry, a white/brown spotted mouse who I thought was cute until I realized Henrietta and the kids undoubtedly lived nearby. I then caught him in a living trap and brought it to a different part of the river so he could delight others. I must admit feeling guilty for leaving his family behind.
AUSTIN TEXAS AND TAOS N.M.
I’ve lived with nature in other cities as well. In Austin I had an off-grid weekend retreat about 20 miles from my downtown loft, relaxing except for the nasty armadillo whose sole job seemed to be to dig up my lawn. I wasn’t afraid of it, but I never knew what to do when I was confronted by the thick brown snake near my back door. With its raise head ready to pounce, we had many standoffs. He always won: not knowing if it was poisonous, I had to wait until he slithered away to get into the house. He was so much bigger than the water snake in my pond. And talk about my pond! I tried keeping it stocked with goldfish – but they were obviously providing dinner for somebody (The heron? The snake?). Thankfully, the adorable cottontail rabbit who lived under the gazebo didn’t dig up anything!
My biggest and scariest surprise was when I lived on a small ranch in Taos, N.M. (I even had a coy dog – half coyote! And was she smart!!!). One winter morning I opened my door and there, on my porch and six inches from my face, was a fully adult – HUGE!!! – bull!!! We looked at each other for a moment, and I quickly slammed the door and called my neighbor. ‘I think I have something that belongs to you’. “Oh dear,” he said. “I wondered where he went!”
I’ve lived in cities – London, New York, Austin, Boulder – and of course they were exciting and fun. But living with animals and trees, flowers and water, kayaking before work and hiking after work gives me the calm heart to do my writing and thinking. I’ve provided homes for otters, mice, snakes, ducks, swallows, river rats (!) and woodpeckers. They’ve enriched my life – and it’s all been a blessing.
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Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.