In 20 years of residing at the Oregon Coast, I’ve observed and met a lot people living out of backpacks, bindles, totes, cars, trucks, ancient RVs, buckets strapped to bicycles, even a briefcase once. Most of the people were men and they came in all ages. Most were alone. Some had dogs and one had a pot bellied pig. One carried a ferret in his pocket. A few carried cheap guitars or ornate walking sticks.
They were all on the move at different speeds. Often the movement was in circles or meanders. I’ve met these people in state parks, parking lots, beaches, clearcuts, street intersections, dive bars, coffee shops. I’ve met them during all seasons but the encounters in the winter rain particularly stand out. Many of them remind me of lyrics from Bob Dylan songs. I saw a multitude of them in the aftermath of 2008’s Great Recession.
We talk about their rigs, some of them quite astonishing to behold in their jury rigging with wire and duct tape. The displays in the dashboards of their vehicles were often quite remarkable. We talk about their dogs, destinations, driftwood and whatever else drifts through at the moment. Frequently, our talks don’t contain any linearity to them. I’ve asked these men a million questions and they have always responded with complete candor. It’s like Bob Dylan said: You’re invisible now / you’ve got no secrets to conceal.
A guitar is always a good conversation starter and I often pay for a gig right there. (Big tip for any Rolling Stones tune.) When we part, I typically give them one of my books or a can of dog food if they have a dog. I’ve written about these men for years in my essays and books but recently reconsidered their fluid situations with new questions after listening to mix tape of Bob Dylan songs I made 30 years ago. I hadn’t heard it in two decades.
Are these men lost in life? Are they attempting to find something? Have they, in fact, found it by living the way they live? Might I be one of these men one day?
In another era, these men might have been called, “drifters.” It was a semi-pejorative term, but there are countless examples where the drifter character exerted a powerful, nearly mystical anti-hero presence in books, movies and songs. To quote Bob Dylan from his most famous song: How does it feel / how does it feel? To be on your own / with no direction home / a complete unknown, like a rolling stone. Bob Dylan has drifted for over half a century and chronicled insights from his remarkable personal journey into a Nobel Prize for Literature. Drifting got him somewhere.
I often caution myself from overly romanticizing these men. Several were outright miscreants. Some appear wracked by addictions and mental illness while others suffered from obvious poverty. A few seemed on the run, perhaps from bad divorces, bad raps, bad luck, bad decisions, bad debts, capitalism, trauma of one sort or another, maybe even a sex offender status.
Does this constitute being lost? Being lost to a productive role in the economy? Do these men need help finding themselves a new, healthier path? I have no idea.
In my experience, though, this type of wandering men is not the majority. I have met many who demonstrated ingenious creative skill in a variety of fields: art, crafts, poetry, mushroom sales, music, healing, spirituality, conserving nature. Many of these men can, if prompted, instantly articulate a philosophy of life in considerable detail. How many of us can do that standing in the parking lot of a grocery store? In the rain?
Have they found the unique ability to live absolutely in the moment? Have they found the utter simplicity and non-materialism that so many of us crave? I have no idea.
I don’t know where I’m really going with this discursion. Sometimes writing on a subject without a direction is the best place to get somewhere interesting. I do know I want to learn more about this curious rambling version of the Lost and Found story on the Oregon Coast. There are many layers to it, some concrete, some opaque, just like a great Bob Dylan song.
During the recent upheaval in my life, I reread many books from 20-30 years ago that made a big difference in my life back then, wondering if they still had something to offer as I was going about trying to repurpose myself.
War and Peace—no. The Scarlet Letter—hell yes. Anything by Hemingway—no. Everything by Jim Harrison—yes, revolutionary yes.
Jim Harrison died a little over year ago, and at the time I wrote a tribute to him that was published in a local magazine. What follows is an updating of that piece with further reflection because the writings of Jim Harrison, particularly his 1988 novel Dalva, my favorite American novel of all time, have showed me the way I want to proceed anew, just like they did 20 years ago. Somewhere along the way, I lost something critical and transforming that his writing had given me.
Almost every published writer I know can recall the moment when the desire to become a writer transcended mere fantasy and crystallized into hard reality—meaning, I’ve got to do this!
My moment occurred on March 10, 1997 in a NW Portland bookstore. That was the day I met Jim Harrison, celebrated author, poet and Western literary icon, who died March 26, 2016 from heart failure at the age of 78.
My encounter with Harrison landed on my 33rd birthday and lasted about a minute. It occurred at a signing for the release of his new collection of Zen-inspired poetry, After Ikkyu. My then girlfriend, soon-to-be wife, Cindy, had bought the book earlier that day for my birthday. She surprised me with it in the Pearl District loft I owned and where we lived, and then shocked me with the information that Harrison was appearing—right now!—at the bookstore ten blocks away. She told me to get going.
I ran to see Jim Harrison with his book in hand. I see now I was running to change my life. Sometimes we run and we don’t even know the reason we’re running. Jim Harrison’s writing made me run that afternoon. To that point in my life, I had read every published work by Harrison except his debut novel Wolf, starting with his collection of novellas, Legends of the Fall. His writing mesmerized me. When I read his work, it inspired me to live stronger, heartier, bolder, lustier, imbued by history, better informed by nature, with more meaningful original purpose, with more edge. His stories made me consider moving to the country because that’s where all of his fiction was set and these were much more interesting places than cities, particularly Portland. Harrison also made me want to own a dog, because he created characters who cooked for their dogs, and I loved that image. He wrote: “There is something about doing a favor for a dog that calms you down.” I later discovered that was about the truest line ever written in modern American fiction.
The line outside the bookstore was long, going well outside the door, spilling out into the sidewalk. I waited in silence and heard others talk about their passion for Harrison’s writing. I had never seen an author in person before and really didn’t know what to expect or how to act.
There he was sitting at a table. A large man. He had one eye missing from a childhood accident and was sipping red wine from the biggest goblet I have ever seen. It must have held the contents of an entire bottle. Behind Harrison, stood a gorgeous Native American woman, who handed him this or that item or book, depending on the fan’s needs.
I wish I could remember exactly all I said to him, but I don’t. It wasn’t memorable and probably a cliché. I did introduce myself and mention it was my birthday. Harrison said, “Happy birthday Matt” and then signed those words in my book.
He shook my hand and I drifted away from the table and out of the store. I walked back to the loft looking at Portland thinking something had to change. It had to be big.
In July of that year, I quit Portland and moved with Cindy to the upper left edge of Oregon, near the ocean, in the attempt to become a writer. I hadn’t written a word for publication and knew my time was running out. Seven or eight years later, it all started coming together, albeit unconventionally, and I realize now that Jim Harrison’s writing provided much of the instigation I needed. He got me into the country and he got me into dogs and he got me into finding the hearty stories of rural places that weren’t being told. He wrote: “What do stories do when they are not being told?”
Good question. I considered it daily as I go through life in the largely untold story of being a member of The Registry of Sexual Offense.
In his lifetime, Harrison published 21 novels, three collections of novellas, 14 books of poetry, two volumes of essays, a memoir, and a children’s book. My hands down favorite is the novel, Dalva.
A short time ago, I reread that novel, not the same copy from 25 years ago, because I had long since given that one away, and every other copy I found in thrift stores. The book came over me like a spontaneous revolution. I knew I had to find a way back to the land, the hard work on the land, like the ten years I served as caretaker of national wildlife refuge when I learned to live the life Harrison extolled. He kept extolling that life in his fiction and poetry until the day he died.
Harrison got away from me. I didn’t even know it was happening. I’m not sure how to return to him, his ideals, but I have a goal. That’s the frequent power of fiction; it can induce a better path for the reader’s future in a way that therapy can’t. Therapy can help in other ways. Then of course, there is the ocean for inducement, too. Harrison spoke to me about that as well.
Many lines of Harrison’s writing stand out to me, but the following passage is way up on the list. I don’t recall what book it came from.
I sat on numerous beaches and stared at the ocean until it was an ocean inside my head. The experience was a world away from the American idea of God as someone who drove around in a dump truck full of figurative candy to toss to deserving people if you beckoned him properly. The ocean was a god unknown, galactic…
This passage comes to mind almost every time I stand on the edge of the ocean. I’m going on 20 years at the Oregon Coast and have written 19 books since moving here. I’m the writing the book of my life right now. Rereading Harrison in moments of crisis has helped restore a sense of purpose for my creative and personal endeavors.
I never tried to write like Harrison. I just wanted to emulate his passion for everything. His writing helped unlock my passions, some of which I didn’t even know existed. One such passion was hanging out in dive Oregon Coast bars and observing local characters. I got that idea from Harrison’s fiction and recently published an e-book collection of my coastal dive bar stories, Oregon Tavern Age. It was he who wrote, “How can you experience the rich fabric of life in a locale without visiting the bars? The answer is, you can’t.”
Not too long ago, I read for the first time Harrison’s debut novel, Wolf: A False Memoir, published in 1971. A great friend of mine who knew of my love for Harrison gave me a hardback first edition. Look at that truly remarkable cover and author photograph on back! Look at Harrison at 33! Preposterous and lovely!
Wolf is a curious stream-of-consciousness novel that intercuts between the narrator’s hitchhike, lust and literary adventure around America and solitary camping experience in hope of seeing a wolf. It undoubtedly baffled critics and readers alike, but to me holds up incredibly well and presaged some of the ideas Harrison would later weave into his novels and novellas.
There is also one declarative sentence in Wolf worth repeating here. “There is no romance in being alone.”
One last thought about Harrison. A couple of years ago I was in the Warrenton Library and going through their boxes of giveaway books, VHS tapes and books on tape. I nearly fell over when I saw three cassette tapes titled Dalva by Jim Harrison, in a neat cursive script. I picked one up and realized someone had recorded themselves reading the entire novel, either for their own benefit or for someone else, a task that would take hours and hours of reading aloud, alone, into a tape recorder.
There was no name on the tapes, only a year, 1994.
Who was this person? What was their intense connection to this book that compelled such a labor of love or necessity? I wanted to know this person. Most likely, he or she was dead and a relative had donated the tapes to the library. They weren’t even for sale.
I took the tapes home, but inexplicably never listened to them. I lost them some time during my ordeal when I wasn’t thinking straight and giving things away. But thinking about those tapes in recent days made me realize—I am not alone with my belief in Jim Harrison and the power of Dalva. I have no doubt it will work its magic on me again.
In my meandering life, I have been taught by many masterful teachers whose face-to-face teaching changed me, counseled me, inspired me, nurtured me, sharpened me, enlightened me. Sometimes these people (including a dog) didn’t even know they were teaching me. They just did what they did in the natural course of their lives and I was taught something special.
My latest masterful teacher is named Joe, who trained me for a custodial job that I recently worked. He is easily one of the best teachers I have ever encountered, one of those pure educators who run on instinct and exude effortlessness with their instruction because what and how they teach have become central to their beings. They flow when they educate, but there is no flamboyance to it.
Working alongside Joe got me thinking about all the masterful teachers in my life. I started making a list in my mind and would like to share them in no particular order. It’s a good exercise in examining your past that perhaps everyone should try.
Parents and step parents
Sister
The late Father Andy Duffner (former head of the Nestucca Sanctuary)
Cindy Popp (ex-wife and lifelong friend)
Mr. Jim Ritacco Sr. (little league baseball coach in Oregon City)
Doug Winn (pictured in the accompanying graphic, my creative writing teacher in high school)
Nancy Icenogle (English teacher who compelled me to memorize Shakespeare)
Doug Bansch, Katy Sauber, Nancy Bechtold (elementary teachers at Mt. Pleasant Elementary in Oregon City)
Amira Shagaga (my collaborator on many creative endeavors)
Ed (a solo Canadian traveler I met in Cairo)
Janet Donkle (friend)
Ray (stray dog found on Highway 101 that became my first pet in almost 20 years)
Professor David Horowitz at Portland State University
In 1971, Oregon Governor Tom McCall (pictured here on the left in a classic photo by Gerry Lewin) signed a piece of legislation into law known as the Bottle Bill. It required a cash deposit of five cents on returnable cans and bottles and was the first law of its kind in the nation. The Bottle Bill became a cornerstone of McCall’s visionary tenure as Governor and a part of every Oregonian who grew up with it and integrated the recycling into their lives.
Like me. Collecting cans and bottles alongside roadways as a kid in Oregon City during the loose 1970s was my first real job outside of yard work. I used the proceeds to buy books, toys, snacks and later, in junior high, movie dates! That ready cash went a long way in that first 10-15 years of the Bottle Bill and in my early 20s it was a rite of Oregon passage to redeem all your empty beer cans and bottles at the grocery store and buy more beer.
Today, April 1, 2017, 46 years later, the rate of deposit goes up to ten cents. That it took almost half a century for an increase says a lot about Oregon politics the last two decades but I don’t feel like saying it here.
That five cents will go a long way for some people. I’ve recently met men who are living off returning cans and bottles.
In celebration of this rate increase, I would like to present one of my favorite Oregon poems, “Oregon’s Revolutionary Bottle Law,” written by Robert A. Davies. I’m not positive, but I believe Davies published the poem as part of a collection not long after passage of the bill. This is a truly remarkable poem to me because of what the poet observes happening after the bottles and cans became valuable. It was a “revolution” as he states, and it enabled others to see others for the first time. Perhaps even interact with them. Sometimes this kind of seeing and interaction unnerves people, but I think it’s healthy for a democracy.
“Oregon’s Revolutionary Bottle Law,” is the only poem I have ever read that was inspired by an act of a state legislature. It might be the only one ever written anywhere. But then again, that was Stone Oregon in the McCall era.
Overnight
the returnable bottle
turned to revolution,
crews deployed to pick heads up
on roadsides. On streets
of aristocrats
motorized units
of shopping carts squeaked
like rats all day long.
Some of us started saying
hello to them: the man in checkered suit, with red hair —
I am frequently asked why I named my publishing company Nestucca Spit Press. Here’s the story.
Nestucca Spit is a pristine stretch of beach located in Bob Straub State Park in Pacific City. (Nestucca is the name of the long-vanished Native American tribe that once inhabited the area.) I discovered it back in 1997 when I first moved to South Tillamook County after relocating from Portland to launch a new coastal life. The following year, I became the caretaker of the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge and that’s when the special relationship with this beach began in earnest. Pretty soon, a radically new life was initiated by going there when magical things started happening to me on the beach.
It wasn’t long after discovering the Spit, that I learned the incredible story of how it was saved from utter destruction in the mid-to-late 1960s from an insane ODOT plan to relocate Highway 101 right down the beach and over the bar. Had that plan gone through, the area would have resembled Rockaway and it would have led to other highway relocations down sand spits. The Oregon Coast would be totally unrecognizable today if that disaster had occurred.
Nestucca Spit’s savior was then-Oregon State Treasurer Bob Straub, who had a vacation home in Pacific City and loved the Spit and loved taking his dog there.
Over the years, I dug up the previously undocumented story of how Straub used exceptional political guile and harnessed the power of Oregon beachcombers to crush the plan. He saved Nestucca Spit for all time, and my discovery of it 30 years later revolutionized my soul. I consider saving Nestucca Spit one the greatest environmental victories in the state’s history, although visitors to Bob Straub State Park would never know that because there isn’t a single word about it at the park. I’ve tried my best to make up for this inexcusable oversight over the years by sharing the story in as many ways as possible as I can invent.
During the decade of my tenure of service as caretaker, I rambled Nestucca Spit with my dogs over a thousand times and came alive as a human being and writer because of that rambling. That’s why I named my publishing company the name I did—I wanted to honor a magnificent natural space and the heroism of Bob Straub from protecting the Spit from desecration. It was the only name I ever considered. It just popped into my mind when I was starting the business in 2002. Naturally, I was on the beach at the time. I think all my great notions manifest there.
The Nestucca Spit Press logo is a block print of a scene on the Spit. It was made by the artist Cindy Popp, who knows the place well.
I sorely miss those Nestucca Spit days with the dogs. I’ve lost so much of who I was in those early formative days on the Oregon Coast. The goal is to find a way back to that person.
I once had a husky that brought me sticks and logs to help build driftwood forts. After she died, I spread my husky’s ashes inside a fort I built for her. Fort Sonny, I called it. It washed away with the next high tide, sort of what happened to my life recently. Life is like that, though.
When I am gone, and if my body is found, I want my ashes spread inside a driftwood fort. But who will do it? Can I train a dog?
I had a first date building a driftwood fort. I made a five-star barbecued salmon dinner inside a fort. I once sat in a fort with meth addict and watched her drink a beer and scratch scars on her face. I once built a fort with the most beguiling woman I’ve ever met. We were drinking wine and taking photos and I thought she was the one who would merge with me on the Oregon Coast and make a valiant stand against conformity. She wasn’t the one, that was my fault, but she was a damn good builder, with those great arms of hers. I once thought I would get married inside a huge fort constructed beforehand by the wedding party. Then we’d burn it down.
With several friends, I built the biggest driftwood fort in Oregon history not far from Lost Creek on the Central Oregon Coast. It lasted two days before authorities tore it down. They simply couldn’t grasp its audacity and magnificence and I think it struck fear in them. A rich beachfront property owner once destroyed a favorite fort of mine with his accursed placement of riprap to safeguard his mansion. He spent one week a year in that mansion. I met his wife near the ruins a few days after the destruction and she’ll never forget that meeting, I assure you.
About building: relish the labor. Collaborate. Support one another. Talk. Invent. Try out ideas. Invite ideas. Amend them. Discard what doesn’t fit. Embrace what does. Seize the metaphor you are fashioning with your own two hands. Erect spars and stanchions. Hoist, maneuver and interlock crooked wood into shelter, art, studios, secret passages; make pure whimsy or precise architecture that enchants fellow beachcombers. Watch from afar as they crawl inside the structures and return to childhood. Watch them take naps, too. It always happens. Turn detritus into delight, flotsam into fun. Add a little cairn here and there for extra measure. Let everything go with the old sound of the ocean roaring in the background. Relaxation will infiltrate every atom of your existence. Forage for wood! Fetch branches and finagle logs. Fortify your life and find the fort within. Forswear the fiendish foes that finagle frantic fatigue from your soul. Fight the fastidious factory mentality with the fulminations of facetiousness that enable you to forget the furor. Find the best F word in the fort lexicon and free it to fly like a falcon and float on forever. Fort fairies will dance and fort minstrels will sing. Frolic with fort scout dogs. Realize the driftwood fort you will build is unique and belongs to no one except all of us and the eternal cycle of nature. It will not last—that is its simple beauty and profundity.
Several years ago, I built 17 driftwood forts on Ona Beach with 60 sixth graders. They were an astonishing collection to say the least. The most intriguing one was constructed by a group of three girls. It had no walls, just a framed entrance with two poles that balanced upright against one another. When I asked them about this curious design, they didn’t have an answer. Perhaps their fort was built on a purely subconscious adolescent desire to create or find a portal to a different dimension. I walked through the entrance and instantly felt a good vibration. I told the girls and they merely nodded. They already knew.
I once built a super fort at Fort Stevens State Park and left behind a little waterproof notebook and pen encased inside a freezer bag. I called this notebook the Fort Registry. The first page contained these directions: “Please leave your name and your story in building or enjoying this fort.”
Over the next few weeks, I checked the registry for comments. Here’s what was written:
• We came and found shelter in this driftwood forts. The view spectacular, provisions lacking.
• First day on the Oregon Coast Trail. Started today at south jetty. Headed to Florence or beyond. Saw this fort and had to stop. Love it! A great place to take a rest and smoke break.
• Me and my nine-year-old girl found good shelter in this finely built fort. It proved to be a great resting stop on our journey. Wish we could have stayed longer but nightfall is coming and we need supplies from town.
• Help me! I’m on the worst date of my life!
• Cool spot. Me and my girl sat here before it rained and drunk (sic) a beer here.
• Beautiful fort. The ocean air warms my face and the breeze forces salt air into my throat—pushing away fear and worry. In this sum and shade I trust myself and enjoy the moment. Hi! We were following animal tracks and stumbled upon this fort. It’s very nice.
Building driftwood forts during my ordeal perhaps kept me from committing suicide. It certainly kept the writing alive in my mind and positive energy flowing through my body.
Consider this: virtually all driftwood forts are initiated by adults. Why?
I led 27 field trips with Oregon Coast students to build driftwood forts. That’s got to be some kind of record. I’ll never forget teaching a new student from Mexico how to build a fort. He came alive. He was trying to drag logs twice his size. He fell down. He laughed. He was born into Oregon that very moment. We went inside his fort and I ordered pizza for his classmates with my phone. The pizza delivery dude brought them right to the fort!
I’ve built forts in snow, sleet, rain, wind, fog, sunshine, at morning, noon, midnight, sober, drunk, alone, with people. I’ve built forts in the presence of eagles, ospreys, falcons, murres, coyotes, raccoons, gulls, sanderlings, pelicans, sandpipers, ravens, crows, bumblebees, hummingbirds, seals, sea lions, whales and dolphins. I build in collaboration with my bucktoothed friends, the beavers, Oregon’s official state animal, who feast upon willows, alders and cedars in the upper watersheds and let the wood loose into creeks and rivers, where it floats and floats out to the ocean and then comes to rest, gnarled, chewed and stripped, on a beach. Clearcuts help furnish the construction materials, too, the absolutely only beautiful benefit to clearcuts.
I once built seven forts in seven days and it was good. I once built a fort at the same time the incoming tide was simultaneously destroying it. I loved that juxtaposition. Heavy. By the way, that is the only time I have ever seen a fort collapse. They all collapse eventually, but one seems to witness it. Interesting. There is a lesson in that.
I would estimate I’ve built 92-percent of forts by myself (here, I’m not counting the dogs). I have never seen another person building a fort with the exception of people I’ve brought along to build them. I’ve built forts from Hammond to Brookings. It typically takes me a half hour to get a fort going. I never have plan when I begin building one. Something takes over. I would say I complete one out every two forts I start in a single time period but often return to a fort for days or weeks and keep adding to it. A fort is never completed. I will say that corral forts are probably my favorite design because you can easily nap, make out, eat or write inside them and take refuge from the wind.
I published a book about driftwood forts by an inspiring Oregon artist and author. The book sold out in less than a year. It’s a cult tome now. We started an organization called The Driftwood Forts Association. It’s easy to join. Go build. I helped oversee the publication of what surely must have been the only publication ever produced by high school students on the practicalities and metaphysics of building driftwood forts. I wonder if any of them remember that rainy afternoon or have built a fort since then.
What is it about these driftwood forts? Why do I evangelize them so? Why I am writing 2100 words on the subject this morning when I should be trying to write something that will help save my house? I have my various theories: the perfect blend of spirituality, silence, getting off your ass, making art, making mystery, building shelter, exercising, meditating, entertaining and enlightening one’s self and others, building something anonymous and evanescent. They will always go away and in that they last forever. People have scoffed at my passion for fort building. That doesn’t bother me at all because I know how the activity instills goodness in my heart and puts smiles on faces of people I will never meet. What’s wrong with leaving something fun and enchanting behind for others to encounter at the beach? That seems to me a fine metaphor for how to live. It is a completely tactile metaphor as well.
It never costs a cent in Oregon to build a driftwood fort on an ocean beach and never will.
There really are no rules to building forts. I just like using only what it is found on the beach and not bringing tools. Tools clutter the mind. The idea is to use your hands. I also never steal wood from another fort to create my own. I like decorating forts with kelp, shotgun shells, clam shells, skeletons, beer cans, bottles, rope, cigarette lighters, children’s toys, whatever washes ashore and strikes my fancy. I once wrapped a fort with the brown film of a cassette tape. I vaguely recall it was Bob Seger or Paula Abdul.
I was never able to interest a national magazine about driftwood forts and I tried a dozen times, including Architectural Digest. The editors probably thought my queries childish and photographs strange. Imagine them reading those queries in glass towers overlooking cars and concrete inhabited by creatures utterly disconnected from the natural world. If I could lead the Oregon legislature in a fort building session it would change the fortune of this state. I always wanted one of my principals to hold a faculty meeting at the beach where we would build forts instead of looking at screens and papers. My requests were never taken seriously.
And finally, a remembrance of my last moment as a high school teacher: It didn’t happen in a classroom. It was on a beach, Clatsop Spit it used to be called, near the South Jetty. Forty two students and I were building eight or nine forts on the first day of June. Almost a year later, one of them is miraculously still standing, high up in the dunes, an outpost with a tremendous field of fire.
We christened ourselves the Oregon Driftwood Brigade. I recall not teaching particularly well that afternoon, stewing needlessly over a few recalcitrant students, but nevertheless, I felt that I had inculcated the tradition. Perhaps they will continue to build and teach their children to build. It’s been that way in Oregon for a long time. My work in this field is done. It was a good run and I got to run with some incredible young people. The last thing I ever did as a teacher was build driftwood forts. Is there a word for that kind of ending? I can’t think of one, but it might come to me when I build my next fort.
There I was running around, commanding the brigade with shouts and driftwood riding crop, and offshore, an invisible tsunami of opaque law and order was about to rise up from the gray depths, move inland with the speed of social media, and drown me. It did. I never saw it coming. I had my back to the ocean building forts, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway had I been facing my dearest friend.
I did drown that day, but began breathing later, when I started building driftwood forts again, this time as a physical and mystical act of repurposing and a sweaty reminder that nothing last forever.
Forts have moved to another realm for me now. I gladly went.
We talk about their rigs, some of them quite astonishing to behold in their jury rigging with wire and duct tape. The displays in the dashboards of their vehicles were often quite remarkable. We talk about their dogs, destinations, driftwood and whatever else drifts through at the moment. Frequently, our talks don’t contain any linearity to them. I’ve asked these men a million questions and they have always responded with complete candor. It’s like Bob Dylan said: You’re invisible now / you’ve got no secrets to conceal.
Are these men lost in life? Are they attempting to find something? Have they, in fact, found it by living the way they live? Might I be one of these men one day?
