“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
There’s been such a flurry of news since I got back from Portland I never really wrote about the beaver event I traveled all those miles for. I guess like any thing you prepare for months in advance, you’re so focused on your preparation the event itself kind of feels unreal or like it happened to someone else. (Much like a beaver festival for instance). Your mind is busy doing a million things and attending to details so doesn’t really have time to experience the event fully.
I was surprised to see how much like a big city and how much like a little neighborhood Portland was. It reminded me of the way you are startled in San Francisco to come out of these busy streets where everything is shaddowed by towering offices to suddenly be in Noe Valley where mothers push strollers and ride bicycles on wide sidewalks.
Portland had flavors of Berkeley and San Francisco layered together like fused glass. There are endless one way streets with stoplights or dead ends so you can’t fix mistakes easily, but sudden restful places of four way stops, were you have all the time you need to look at a map. There are brightly beautiful homes where children leave toys in the yard and dogwoods are bursting in bloom.
The Village Ballroom where I spoke was in this adorable young neighborhood were parents stopped for a pint with their toddlers 
on outside benches, and the toddlers were pulled in bicycle trailers sporting polka dotted helmets fringed with curls. The only scary thing about that neighborhood was finding a place to park. The ballroom itself had burnished wood floors and hallways scattered with pews. It felt like the place where many weddings had been before you. It was already set up with wooden chairs and we embarked on arranging the equipment as people filled in. The sound equipment was at the other end of the room from me so Jon needed to hold the mic into my computer to get audio, which actually worked well but meant that he couldn’t snap as many photos as I hoped during the talk!
I already felt like I knew Kaegen Scully-Englemeyer who had invited me in the first place and had worked with me on the urban beaver chapter. But it was nice to put a friendly face with a voice. He introduced me to his boss the Esther Lev executive director of the wetlands conservancy who was really excited to have me there. The lead author on our chapter Greg Lewallen was also there and introduced himself. There were others I met in that performance anxiety haze where you instantly forget what you are told. But they all seemed nice and eager to remind me that in Portland it was the officials who wanted beavers, and the people who needed convincing.
When the room was mostly full, there was a short welcome and I launched into the talk. Since I was the only speaker I took time for all the parts, including the drama of the beavers, the festival, the paper on historic prevalence, the discovery that Enos Mills had come to Martinez, the mysterious deaths, the mural, and the joyful new arrivals. I ended with my top ten list of advice for advocates, which made for a little more than an hour. Folks laughed almost everywhere I expected and oohed at the children and gasped at the footage of mom walking on her hind feet to work on the lodge.
When it was over there was warm applause and questions from the audience. About the beavers, about the deaths, and one about mussels (?) that confused me a little. Then some folks came up to
talk in person, including Alexandria Costello the Geology grad student who had included the Martinez story in her beaver poster session at the conference in SF, th
en visited Napa and met Robin and Rusty. She brought her friends who were fellow students interested in water and beavers. One was Erin Poor, on the Watershed Council for Tualatin basin the source of that wonderful beaver newt photo. They gave me a gift of a set of coasters made from a beaver chewed tree, which was still sticky with varnish since they made it themselves! They were off immediately for a ropes course and training in some beautiful oregon backcountry.
Afterwards Greg came up to congratulate me (he couldn’t believe the images) and was accompanied by his cheerful girlfriend who burst with the news that we had actually met before! She had visited her grandmother in Walnut Creek a few years back and talked her into visiting the John Muir House on what just happened to be earthday! She was so happy to see Worth A Dam there working with the kids on bag puppets! I actually remembered her very clearly because she had told me her boyfriend worked on a beaver project in Portland and was studying their role in streams! I thought it especially funny when she blushed, smiled at Greg, and said embarrassedly, oh that was a different boyfriend.
Obviously a girl with a particular taste in men!
There were a few more appreciations, one especially memorable from Esther who offered what I’m sure must have been intended as a compliment but came out rather oddly when she said “Oh, its so wonderful to have that talk not delivered by a biologist!”
Um, thanks?
And then we packed up our equipment and headed back into the neighborhood night where there were still late families and sleepy children sitting at the outside tables. Jon said he thought it was the best talk I had ever given, and repeated again how surprised he was at how much it changed every time. I was happy my voice held up and I didn’t forget anything. We treked back to our little room and drank wine on the porch knowing that we had an early morning the next day with Clean Water Services in Beaverton.
They call Portland the city of bridges, and it occurs to me now that the beavers themselves have functioned as bridges in many stages of my life. Bringing me places I had never been and talking to people I would never have known without their influence. In almost every relationship or room in my house there is something that wouldn’t have been there without these ‘bridges’. I have lived in Martinez all my life, but the beavers introduced me to this community in ways I never would have known without them: the politics, and the homeless, and the social structure of a city I had always ignored while focusing on my work.
The experience of Portland is still unfolding in my mind, but at least now I’m paying attention.
