Pretty photos from a road trip to S Oregon.

(no, that's not my van)

February 14th is Oregon's birthday. It's a complicated anniversary.

Many of my followers are aware of this place's long white supremacist history. Language referencing "free Negroes and mulattoes" was finally removed from the state constitution in *2002*. It was against the law for Black people to move here until 1926. The land where I live was stolen from the Clackamas, Cowlitz, Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla Native peoples as well as ancestors of the modern day Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.

This place is also so beautiful. Beyond my capacity to convey.

A lot of forces are working right now to make it "uncool" to regard this history or acknowledge the blood on our country's hands. They have this agenda because they're fucking losers. They don't know the warmth of human connection or how to foster it. They're too immature to be accountable, or admit that our atrocities still reveraberate .. that we live with a responsibility to right these wrongs in our relationships large and small.

I have so much pity for that perspective because when they look across Oregon's landscapes they just see a playground. They are blind to the perserverence, persistence and defiance of its people. They can't imagine a kinder place because they haven’t experienced one. They look down on efforts to build an Oregon where everyone can thrive because in their scarcity, they don't know how to improve their own lives or feeling.

I am humbled by the experience of coming to love Oregon. I am grateful for the people I get to call neighbors.

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