The Legare Series: Serenity, Part 2

In this episode, Serenity Legare talks about their favorite place in Lane County. Serenity was interviewed by their partner, Misa, who you can hear in the following episode!

You can read more about the project, about Wordcrafters in Eugene, about our sponsors and community partners, and send in your own Lane County, Oregon stories at StoryHelix.Wordcrafters.Org.

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

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 You're listening to StoryHelix,
 intertwining stories past, present and not yet
 
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 imagined, in Lane County Oregon.
 What's up, earthlings? I'm Leah Velez
 
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 and I'll be your host. The
 story we're about to hear was recorded at
 
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 Oakshire Brewing Company in the Whittaker neighborhood
 of Eugene, Oregon in early 2022. Let's open
 
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 up our ear nuggets and give it
 a listen. Hi, I'm Serenity.
 
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 My pronouns are she/her and they/them. I'm thirty-two years old.
 
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 I am a white queer adult.
 I was born in Salem, Oregon and
 
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 I've lived in Springfield, Oregon for
 the past five years with my husband Misa,
 
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 who is here with me. Eugene
 in Springfield does a really, really
 
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 good job at park maintenance. I
 know that we have one of the best
 
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 parks, parks and rec system like
 in the nation. My favorite place is
 
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 the Mill Creek Race Path, which
 also connects to the Middle Fork Path and
 
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 connects to Doris Ranch and it's a
 whole system of pathways and bike paths that
 
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 connect to each other and it leads
 into Eugene like in Alton Baker Park.
 
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 I just love going there. I
 walk almost every day there with my dog.
 
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 It's such a beautifully maintained path and
 the city and the people who work
 
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 for Willamalane do a really
 good job keeping it clean and they also
 
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 do a really good job at keeping
 the natural environment and the natural habitat they're
 
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 protected. It's just very peaceful and
 I love walking in I love walking along
 
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 the Willamette River. It feels peaceful
 and tranquil and I just feel even though
 
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 I'm not from here originally, that's
 like the one place where I feel at
 
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 home, like it feels like home
 to me when I'm walking on that path.
 
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 There's a bench where you can sit
 and you can just look at the
 
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 Willamette river and it's just feels really
 meditative. It just feels right. I
 
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 try to go almost every day,
 but that doesn't always happen, of course,
 
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 but I've been walking that path for
 about five years since I moved here,
 
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 especially since I got my dog about
 four years ago, 
 
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 so I go there frequently. I
 feel really connected to that area, that
 
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 whole path system, and I really
 love trying to identify like the plant life
 
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 around there and the animals. You
 see a lot of birds and a lot
 
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 of wildlife and stuff like that.
 So it's a great place for being in
 
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 nature. One of my strongest memories
 in all of Lane County is cougar hot
 
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 springs. Technically in Lane County,
 I'm pretty sure. So Cougar hot springs
 
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 some people know it as Terwilliger 
 hot springs. It is about an hour
 
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 away from here, but that place
 will always just be really special to me.
 
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 I often call it my church.
 It's just where I feel the most
 
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 spiritual connected to nature. I love
 going there. One of my strongest memories
 
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 of going to the hot springs particularly
 was I went there with a friend and
 
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 we were sitting in the second pool
 and we both just kind of started to
 
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 meditate. There's like a waterfall and
 it falls on your back and on your
 
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 head and when you put your head
 in this little waterfall you can't hear anything.
 
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 You just hear the water and you
 can't hear of the other people that
 
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 are there. You're just really present
 in that moment and that's just a memory
 
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 that I'll always have where I just
 felt so peaceful. I remember hearing the
 
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 water and kind of like when you're
 when you dive underwater and everything just goes
 
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 quiet and it's like the whole world
 just kind of goes still for a moment.
 
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 That's how it felt. So it's
 just this really great white noise of
 
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 water rushing over my head, feeling
 the hot water on my back. I'm
 
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 pretty sure it was raining that day, so you had the sensation of the
 
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 cold water from the rain and the
 hot water from the hot springs. You
 
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 smell sulfur from the hot water mixed
 with the trees. It was fall so
 
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 leaves that are falling, just really
 clean air, just kind of this really
 
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 pure smell of just like pure nature. I think that memory is special to
 
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 me because the hot springs are a
 place that I know will not exist forever.
 
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 They are natural and although they have
 been cultivated by humans over the years,
 
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 it's on the side of a mountain
 and I think one day the mountain
 
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 will reclaim that area and I kind
 of see it as a a snapshot into
 
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 the bigger picture of climate change and
 that makes it more real to me and
 
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 so to know that I've had these
 really peaceful moments and some of the best
 
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 moments of my life have been in
 nature like Cougar hot springs. But I
 
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 see it as also being really transitory
 and something that I know isn't going to
 
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 be around forever. So it just
 feels it just feels really special. But
 
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 it also makes me want to be
 more active and pay a little bit more
 
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 attention to the environment around me,
 especially by immediate environment here in Eugene and
 
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 Springfield and Lane County. Yeah,
 thanks for listening. You can find us
 
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 wherever you listen to your podcasts.
 If you've got your own Lane County story
 
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 to tell, we'd love to hear
 it at StoryHelix Dot Wordcrafters Dot Org.