Baby Stroller Driftwood

NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches , ,

In my 22 years of living at the Oregon Coast, I have seen many people doing strange things on or near the beach. Sometimes I figure out what’s going on, (I think) and other times, no possible explanation exists, and I simply marvel in the mystery and applaud the eccentricities of my fellow human beings. I also applaud there being there, at the ocean’s edge.

A week ago, I saw what surely ranks in my top five of Strange Human Sights at the Beach. Hell, it might be number one. Only the man pretending crucifixion on a driftwood cross might top it.

I could explain that one.

But this new one…

I pulled into a parking lot where a trail led to a secret beach. I was there hunting for choice cuts of beaverwood because this place, along a secret river, is the best place in Oregon I’ve found so far, and I am an expert in these matters. Perhaps the only one

A green sedan from the mid 90s was the only vehicle parked in the lot. It was sagging, beat-up, rusted, and lacked license plates. It had the unmistakable aura of a meth rig.

No one was around that I could see. The driver was hiking? I encounter a lot of these kind of vehicles on the Oregon Coast and they never cease to intrigue me. I seek to learn more about them but not by asking question of their owners. Observation only.

I made my way along the river and scored a few mediocre pieces of beaverwood. I headed back to the parking lot and saw a young reedy man exuding unmistakable traces of meth loading a piece of driftwood about the size of a large end table into the back seat of the car. A white and brown pit bull had its mug stuck out the rear passenger window and stared straight at me. A woman with long black hair and a full head taller than the man stood outside the car. There was tinge of meth about her. She saw me, smiled, and waved. I waved back with my right hand clutching beaverwood.

I saw the man folding up a rectangular baby stroller with fat tires and sec ruing it in the trunk of the car.

A baby stroller? And no baby?

It didn’t make any sense and then it did. They had transported the piece of driftwood from the beach in the stroller!

They would drive the piece somewhere and make some kind of use for it that I imagined was ???????

I felt tempted to go over and ask, but the current editorial mantra requires: mystery over journalism.

But dammit, on occasion I weaken on this stance, especially when a jagged story is ten feet away. I’m a journalist at heart, not a maker-upper.

Beautiful Incongruities

NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches ,

Just past dawn. Super low tide. I’m moving down the beach in meandering fashion, picking up limpets of all kinds, and hairy tritons, too. I love the heart-shaped look of the latter, the two chambers, both ready for love.

An osprey flies overhead. It’s carrying a crab in its talons. I’ve never seen that before. That makes osprey sightings in two straight days.

I reach the end of the beach and face a cliff of rock 200 feet high. I look up and see two Canadian geese standing atop the cliff. They start honking. I’ve never seen geese on a cliff before.

I look down and to my left and see a single orange sea star stuck to a rock.

Geese above. Sea star below. Geese. Sea star. I’ve never seen that combination before.

What beautiful incongruity!

Worthy of a poem.

Worthy of a painting.

Worthy of a song.

Worthy of a ten minute film.

Or an essay about the beautiful incongruities in my life,

and I certainly have them.

I take a photograph. It utterly fails to convey the beauty although if you look hard, you will see the geese in the upper right and the sea star in the lower left.

I’ll leave it at that.

Morning Finds

NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches

I hit the beach at 6:30 a.m. The sun was rising over the Coast Range. Forty degrees felt invigorating. Gulls and terns sat in a rivulet. The spring’s lowest tide revealed tide pools and rocks teeming with life. I walked along the ocean’s edge and hunted for treasures.

In short order, they appeared: a keyhole limpet, then another, the latter the tiniest one I’d ever seen. Next was a hairy triton, Oregon’s official sea shell. I then scooped up a china hat limpet and a white sliver of sea glass.

I passed an ancient and titanic root wad buried in the sand. It might remain on this beach for the next 1000 years. Hopefully by then America will have moved well beyond America.

Tracks caught me eye. Not bird tracks. Critter tracks. I recognized coyote, raccoon, possibly otter. They all led from the creases in the crumbling cliffs to the ocean and I surmised the critters were feasting on mussels. The critters knew their tides.

I kept walking south. I saw an art installation dangling from the roots of a massive red tree stripped of its bark. The art consisted of crabbing gear washed ashore that some artist saw fit to make art with.

Something green in the sand ahead of me captured my attention. I pulled it free. It was more crabbing gear detritus and I added it to the installation.

A steep wall of mud, sand, and rock stopped me. I noticed a small log, the perfect size, and I picked it up and did my driftwood exercises for fitness of body and mind.

I finished my exercises and heaved the log into the surf. It made a pleasing splashing sound. I walked and walked until I came to the fort I started building a week ago. I worked on the fort for half an hour. As I left, I found an exquisite piece of bleached beaverwood the size of a cane. I walked home with the cane, twirling it like the beach dandy I am.

Recent Sights

NSP Meditations

I saw a flying osprey with an eel clutched in its talons.

I see more signs of the new American diaspora.

I see our Constitution failing because certain members of Congress will not uphold their oath to protect it.

I saw an overrated television show.

I saw a robin fly into the front end of my car and die.

I saw a superb fort near a Jetty.

I see myself getting back into tennis again.

I see a way to engage the Fort Destroyer—issue an invitation to think and challenge assumptions.

I see a future as a ghostwriter.

I see I’ve missed a lot not listening to Miles Davis the past decade.

I saw an old friend almost reengage with me.

I see myself having a dog again.

I see people around me that need my help.

I see birds making a difference in my life.

I see something in elk and beavers that I don’t think others are seeing.

I see a way for me to start a podcast.

I see choice cuts of beaverwood everywhere.

Reunion with Bonnie

Bonnie and Clyde Files, NSP Meditations

Not too long ago, I reunited with Bonnie at the senior dog sanctuary. Clyde passed away almost year ago and my visits to Bonnie have become infrequent as her ability to walk declined.

We met in the back yard and the river ran with some haste because of recent rain.

I have missed this river and I have sorely missed my interactions with Bonnie and Clyde. My book about my adventures with them is now out and I wish I could read passages from it to the dogs, at our favorite spot on the river where the elk forded and the beavers gnawed.

Bonnie had grown grayer muzzle since our last meeting (so have I) and her hind legs barely worked anymore. Still, we managed a short walk in the field. At one point, she flopped down on the grass and didn’t want to get up when I called for her to follow me into the yard. I had to help her up and then somewhat usher her through the gate. It was certainly our last walk together. She doesn’t have much time left.

Bonnie and Clyde saved my life and soon they’ll both be gone. I only hope that the book conveys how much they meant to me in the aftermath of my extinction of self, and how much of my reanimation as a human being I can attribute to them. I had help from some incredible human beings as well, but these two senior dogs were a special magical force.

Book Number 22: The Bonnie and Clyde Files

Bonnie and Clyde Files, NSP Meditations , , , ,

My latest book, The Bonnie and Clyde Files: How Two Senior Dogs Saved a Middle Aged Man is out.

I invite you to support me and an independent Oregon publisher by purchasing direct from my web site, nestuccaspitpress.com

Below are some thoughts about it:

The other day, I picked up the print run for the Bonnie and Clyde book from the printer in McMinnville. It’s my 22nd published book since the first one came out in 2003 and my fourth with Oregon Litho Print, a family owned business with deep Oregon roots. They were again incredible to work with and I may have hit on something unique with the printing format of this book.

The Bonnie and Clyde Files is far and away my most important book and I hope many of you reading this will support me and my publishing company, Nestucca Spit Press, by purchasing a copy. I printed only 300 copies with the idea of selling those directly to readers and then trying to find a national publisher to bring out an edition that can reach a larger audience. I believe this book deserves one, but I’ll need some help to make that happen. I will have to ask for it from writers, some prominent ones.

I have absolutely no expectations I will land a national publisher, or even a larger regional one. I simply wrote the book as an act of survival when men and women were dying around me, an act of reinvention, and act of bearing witness to the shocking and debasing things I witnessed first hand, an act of love inspired by two senior dogs, Bonnie and Clyde. They rescued me from stasis and oblivion.

The book comes with a bonus tale and a special bookmark that channels the magical spirit of my dearly departed husky, Sonny.

Thank you for supporting Nestucca Spit Press and our ethos of sustainable literature. We liken ourselves to a farmer’s market. The product might cost a bit more, but it is made locally, from the writing, to the production, to the distribution. And it tastes different, richer, unique.

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