Last month, our beloved neighborhood theater The Roxie (which, I am happy to report, just hit a huge milestone by taking ownership of its building!) screened two documentaries about two very cool humans:
- THE BRIGHTNESS OF LIGHT, on Georgia O'Keeffe
- I KNOW CATHERINE, THE LOG LADY, on Catherine E. Coulson
(This post is mostly about the latter, but I do want to acknowledge that the Georgia O'Keeffe doc made a quiet but lasting impact on me....I came away with a new appreciation for her art and a very strong need to go to Abiquiú, New Mexico.)
The film about the late Catherine E. Coulson was a lovely meditation on life, art, and (mostly) death. It was a Kickstarter project, and so obvious in its love for its subject that you can mostly overlook the hasty and confusing-at-times editing. I'd recommend it to Twin Peaks fans for sure, and also to anyone who has felt the loss of a loved one: Catherine approached death with such grace and light that I could easily see this film being a comfort while dealing with grief.
There's a lot to know about Catherine Coulson beyond her role as the Log Lady. She spent the last two decades of her life on stage with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, for instance. And was one of the first women to work as a camera assistant in the '80s (on The Wrath of Khan no less!). She went through three romantic relationships all plagued by some form of heartbreak, and her body suffered a lot of pain. But by all accounts, she remained a radiant, positive, and loving person to everyone around her.
The film was also a love letter to Twin Peaks. Catherine Coulson and David Lynch's creative partnership goes back all the way to ERASERHEAD, and they very much lived on the save wavelength. They even started practicing transcendental meditation together. No wonder their collaboration resulted in this character:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c1XJcs9x4k
Throughout the film, the various places Catherine called home were illustrated in kitschy imagery on a map of the western United States. This was probably to help the audience keep track of the somewhat herky jerky jumps in time and place, but had the side effect of making my heart swell with love for the entire west coast. I have my own memories of each place: Anaheim, LA, San Francisco, Ashland, the suburbs of Seattle. As much as I sometimes regret not venturing too far outside of California, I think there's a reason why....my soul is tied to this coast. Apparently Catherine's was, too.
The last, gosh, 45 minutes at least centered around her final scenes in Twin Peaks, filmed at her home in Ashland just days before her death. She was so set on being part of the revival season that she was willing to fly up to Washington state where the crew was filming, but her fiercely protective friends and family at home knew she was too weak to travel. It was heartwarming/heartbreaking to hear from everyone who rallied together at her Ashland home on the night of the filming: friends and former colleagues who dropped what they were doing to make the Log Lady's last appearance a reality, with David Lynch directing via Skype.
Those scenes are so much more meaningful now, knowing that she was in her own house, surrounded by friends who were giving her oxygen in between takes and holding up her body because she was too frail to sit up by herself. She passed away four days after filming.
Before watching the documentary, I hadn't known about Catherine's connection to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. But it was a happy coincidence, as we had unrelatedly planned a family trip to this year's Festival as part of a 10-day Oregon road trip (from which I have just returned).
So, once again, a PNW trip turned into a Twin Peaks pilgrimage (the last one, you might recall, was in 2018). In between stays in Medford and Ashland, we took a detour to spend two nights in Jacksonville, where Catherine was laid to rest.
(Jacksonville is a beautiful old town, where residential roads turn into hiking trails snaking all over the surrounding woodlands. On a warm Wednesday evening, after filling ourselves with local wine, we climbed up the road to the old Jacksonville Cemetery. Catherine's gravestone was newer than most, and the only one I saw with a death date in the 2000s.)
When we found her plot at the Jacksonville Cemetery, there were several logs of various sizes placed respectfully in front of the gravestone. The fact that the stone is decorated with an etching of the log doesn't feel like a tourist grab; it feels like the embodiment of Catherine's dedication to her craft. She embraced that character so fully, and loved the world of Twin Peaks so much, she made it her last contribution to the world (or was it?? more below...). I left my own tribute in the form of a found pinecone and then we headed back to our hotel.
The next day we drove to Ashland for our first night of the Shakespeare Festival, joining up with Alex's aunt Di and cousin Beth. Despite the name, we saw 0 Shakespeare plays (Alex: "They should call it the Oregon Hardly Strictly Shakespeare Festival.") but the shows we did see were amazing: INTO THE WOODS, QUIXOTE NUEVO, and JITNEY. Alex's family has been coming to the festival for years, and after my first OSF now I can see why!
Looking at the program as we took our seats at the Allen Elizabethan Theatre, I learned that the fairytale musical INTO THE WOODS had been performed at OSF in 2014, with Catherine Coulson playing four central characters. One of them was the Giant, portrayed via a huge video projection cast onto the walls of the theater. And in a brilliant surprise to us, the director of the 2025 production re-incorporated Catherine as the Giant, using that recording to such great effect that it truly seemed she was there, performing with her fellow actors, 10 years after her death.
It felt magical, having just visited the resting place of this person, and then finding ourselves watching her perform the very next day. It was one of many magical moments in Ashland, which maybe I'll write about in more detail later. I hope I don't forget that feeling though, of being in the open air theater, so fully engrossed in the program that I felt a part of another world for three and a half hours.
It's been really hard for me to be grounded lately, but I want to thank both the memory of Catherine (whose spirit was described by so many as "deeply present") and the state of Oregon for keeping me from spiraling into my usual regrets and stresses and fears. Now, back at home, I'm thinking of moments spent biking with family in Black Butte, breathing in the forest air, drinking chai and talking books, dining along the creek, walking through Lithia Park with the deer on warm summer evenings....and falling in love with the state to the north. No wonder Catherine chose this place to call home. Maybe someday we'll do the same?!
Some other things that have captured my attention lately:
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Steve Ramsey's latest newsletter - "I love online spaces and my communities, but we're not meant to exist solely inside screens."