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The Captain’s Porch
Stay Wild
A place to reconsider time as movement
Words by Justin “Scrappers” Morrison // @scrappers
Photos by Sera Lindsey // @portablesera
Is time just movement?
The mechanical numbers of the clock.
The fluid embrace of the tide.
The slow burn of the sunrise.
The timeless crawl of the starfish.
They’re all movements happening at different speeds.
If time is movement then the speed of movements can vary and I get to choose which movement to give my attention to.
The ETA of life can be optimistic openness to whatever happens whenever it happens.
When I am still and distant from pressing city obligation I can choose what movements to give my attention to. I am never late, never early, never wasting time, or stressed out.
The Captain Whidbey is a place to reconsider time as movement.
The skipping stone fireplace crackles in the log cabin Lodge. A pebble tossed off the footbridge into the water sends ripples toward the Lagoon Rooms. A seal pops it’s head up for air and to snarl at a smoker on the deck of a waterfront Cabin. All these movements causing different times to believe in.
The Captain Whidbey has witnessed the old up and down of every tide and cosmic movement since it’s 1907 construction. It’s log walls have given people like myself a place to relax and reconsider life from the perspective of a Pacific Northwestern island. Driftwood, rocks, shells, and other natural treasures pile up and await their discovery on the beach below. Cattle and organic produce farms down the road and seafood harvesters in boats outside bring what you’ll find on the Captain’s menu. Psychedelic swirls of orange and red bark peel at their own speed from the evergreen trunks of madrone trees hanging off the cove cliff as if they are getting ready to jump in for a swim.
You can see movement and time in any way you like from the Captain’s porch.
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Haunted Castle Music
Stay Wild
The story behind the castle walls of Kramies adventure-inspired EP.
On Nov. 17 2004, I started my life over. The day prior I had taken my addiction to lowest point that one could go. So starting the following day, I told myself that I would do whatever made sense to me and had a positive influence in my life.
I realized that I needed to veer off my path, to create a new one. A better one. One where I am expanding, evolving, and traveling.
Fast forward to 2017/18, and after years of writing and releasing music, I found myself wandering the landscapes of Ireland, surrounded by the beautiful walls of Shankill Castle.
All my past EPs have been stories that I would process and think out entirely, start to end, but this time the story came to me in a moment.
My new story started when I set out to find a new sound that would be inspired by living in the castle and landscapes. I was looking for something that would transport me into a different time. Every morning, early at dusk, I would walk the grounds alongside the hundreds of crows - that would fill the early morning with a haunting sounds. I would sit in an old farmhouse within the castle walls during the day, and write. Then at night I would walk again, gathering wood for the stove. I would sit there and watch the outside world be still. I would try to lose myself in this environment. I felt comfort, scared, happy, loved, and I felt relieved to be in such a place. I felt one with everything that was naturally happening. From the cool Irish breeze to the eerie dust and through the silence of giant trees I found a oneness, an important purpose of belonging.
The story for the EP I found is of an elderly man who lived in an old European town and in his early age lost someone he truly loved. Instead of moving on, everyday for the rest of his life, the old man kept a routine and walked the cobblestone streets to town, gather his food, and walk back to his cottage. Along that path he would pass a beautiful rolled forest and bits of the sea. Until one day, after waiting years for that someone to return, he saw a light coming from the forest. For that split second, he decided to veer off the path, off his routine, and head into the woods. He walked and followed that light for days. Finally he came upon a fairytale of distractions that made him feel very alive again. While tucked in these woods, he tried to remember that person’s face. His mind was forgetting the person he loved. He was overwhelmed with guilt because he wasn’t waiting anymore. Yet, he never returned back. Finding himself happily distracted by what he came across, he let go of his longing and of his past story.
Out of this entire experience and story, “Of All The Place Been & Everything the End”, has become my personal diary of letting go of my previous story. I’ve always had a love affair with Ireland and this experience is what life is about. Between travel and being able to do what I love, I have found myself in places that I never thought possible. Writing this EP in the castle seems to have brought it all together into a personal ending and onto a new story.
Hear more by Kramies // kramies.com
Portland Exploration Society
Stay Wild
CREATIVE EXPLORERS
Story by
Cheeraz Gorman // @aturah
Photos by
Evan Schell // @theslipperysaltwaterchronicals
Adam Vicarel // @adamvicarel
Brooke Weeber // @brooke_weeber
An invitation to return,
to experience something different.
I flew into Portland, Oregon on a night where the full moon was in Scorpio. As I was out walking, stalking the sky to get a glimpse of the moon, following meeting my fellow explorers for dinner, I felt like a person who had no history here. This feeling came over me when my flight landed. But to be on a street I’d taken on my way home many an evening and to feel my eyes new and the lack of memory-strapped weight failing to resonate in my body, what I was feeling was now not only true for me — it was real. There was no pull to visit spaces that once held great meaning to me. As I walked a couple blocks down SW Stark Street toward 13th, not one ounce of nostalgia washed over me. While I was not attempting to conjure the feeling, I did find it surprising, like in a, “Wow … I am healed,” kind of way. Many moons ago, I use to call this city home. It all feels like another lifetime ago. And, in truth, it is. Now, it’s time for new adventures. A fast-forward to create new memories and to feel what new Earth will be underneath my feet as an explorer.
Remembering Light
It turns waterfalls and rushing creeks into a scene of cascading diamonds. It gently overcomes shadows, then welcomes them back when it has served its purpose, or when clouds shift. It reveals the spectrum of color waiting to be unveiled in the darkest of green things. It invites finger to rub against moss and tree bark to explore their textures. The imagination dances when we see it cut through mist: What’s being beamed down or taken up, or is there somewhere in between, dancing — putting a spell on us?
There’s a certain magic the light of the sun turns on. Forest, already full of wonder in its own right, becomes even more alive.
For the most part, the day was the kind of typical Portland day I’d remembered. Rainy. The sky — a fitted sheet of gray, not so securely tucked, so occasionally the sun would slip through the clouds. Its warmth landing on my face just long enough for me to think, “You will leave and return like all faithful lovers do when they know they are needed, wanted, and desired.”
Atop Beacon Rock, a squirrel that seemed to know its way around humans met me. Raised up on its hind legs and motioned as if it were fresh out of some well-crafted children’s cartoon, one with a moral or parable to keep in the subconscious. I thought I was ready, but every bit of the city dweller in me jolted my body off the rock I popped a squat on. I laughed loudly and shook my head at the fact that I let something so small shake me. I turned my head to see the sun in the distance, turning the horizon line of the sky into various shades of rainbow sherbet. I inhaled deeply, laughed once more, and nodded my head in silent reverence for what illumination can do for the spirit.
Remembrances — and,
is this the point
The air is different here than where I’m from
So, I’m taking as many deep breaths
For my lungs to remember
That concert is not a living thing
That mountain fresh
Is indeed that and not simply
A manufactured fragrance for dryer sheets
My eyes drinking in the scene
Because wonder is being returned back to me tenfold
And, is this the point:
To reconnect
To feel mouth-gaped open
As feet step in an improvisational rhythm
With the terrain
And deep breaths are taken
To remind us that we are living things
And that there’s something clearly unnatural
About our automated lives and its many technologies
Distracting us from the beauty found in
Simply being with what is
In all its grandeur
Lettering by Adam Vicarel // @adamvicarel
