By Laura Foster, McNamee Rd.

I’ve lived these last 18 years on the Hill and remain periodically unsettled about how far I find myself from many things I love, especially walking in cities, the urban anonymity tempered by the small, warm connections with clerks, fellow walkers, homeowners, homeless folk. An urban walk is my church: where I find inspiration, joy, kindnesses, connections, peace and renewal.

My husband lived here when I met him, and I cannot picture him anywhere but at his McNamee Road heaven. He loved this place at first sight, back when it was a logged off nob. I have come to love it….hanging laundry out at 5 a.m. on a summer morning, skinny-dipping in the pond, lying on the grass and watching clouds in the spring and fall—so unlike Northeast Portland where I’d have to come out of my deep-eaved Craftsman and peer upward to find a patch of sky.
I’ve loved walking in the woods or along the roads, eating things I find, and knowing our kids have learned which wild foods they can eat. And the annual return of the redwing blackbirds, turkey vultures and swallows brings the same joy I feel when running into a friend in the city.

Though I still miss living in a place where I can walk out my door into the energy of a city, I do love walking our trails in winter when trees are dripping, the ground giving, and the ferns fat and plumy. I love leaving my home office on spring afternoons, putting on canvas pants, and plunging down the hill, pulling down deadfall, clearing out ivy, limbing up trees to enhance the park-like effect. I’m proud to be a steward, helping the land thrive after a few generations of logging. While we own the land, days in our woods will remain quiet and if not primeval at least heading that direction.

Out of the billions of humans on the planet, living here puts me in the tiniest group of the most fortunate. I often wonder who will love it, and how, after we are gone.

By Miles Merwin

SRN invites everyone living in our Skyline area neighborhood, or folks who have connections here, to share your story on Skyline Voices. It’s an ongoing blog, exclusive to the SRN website, with multiple contributors. Think of it as an outlet for creative writing on all subjects great and small, or a long Facebook post going out to lots of friends.

​Many different roads have led folks to settle in our neighborhood, and some of you were born here. Although we all share some common experience of living in the country, we each have our own perspective based on diverse backgrounds. Everyone has unique stories to tell, which may delight, inform, stir, or engage their fellow inhabitants of rural Skyline.

What is special to you about Skyline? What did your farm animals or pets do that was unusual today? If your ancestors were among the early settlers here, how did they make a living? What was a particularly funny or meaningful or sad thing that happened in your household recently? If you could do one thing to make life better here, what would it be? 

I could go on, but as you see, the potential topics for Skyline Voices are limited only by your imagination. We welcome poetry, photo essays, jokes without profanity, short fiction, gardening tips, stories of real events that are just the facts or stranger than fiction, etc., etc. If you have a high school student at home, this would be easy extra credit for their English class.

Get the idea? Have something in mind now that you want to write for Skyline Voices? 

Here’s how. Tell your story in approx. 200-500 words. Add a photo if you want. Tell us your real name and where you live. (You can use a pseudonym for your post, if you wish, but we do need to know that you live here.) Email it to us at [email protected]. We’ll put it in the queue, and you’ll get a happy, satisfied feeling when it’s published on our website.

​So please come and occupy this space!