fort messages

Fort Espresso

Driftwood Forts, NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches , , , ,

Fueled by a Bialetti-brewed espresso from Earl’s coffee shop, I went to the beach intending to build a great driftwood fort and commence another fort message project.

I found a perfect, semi-secluded spot. Wood was bountiful. Not a single person was around. The tide was rushing in but I built well, higher up, near the dunes, and felt certain the fort would last long enough to attract some visitors who might find the tin, open it, and leave a message. I think these messages might be my favorite reading material these days. They never cease to delight me with their originality of thought or crushing banality. The most recent memorable message: “We just had sex here.”

I built and built and built. Off came the Pendleton snowflake sweater. I worked an hour or so and sweated through two shirts.

I decided to stop (forts are never finished). I stepped back to admire the work. It was one of the taller forts I’d ever constructed. It could hold exactly one person, perhaps two if someone wanted to sit on someone’s lap.

There was no flotsam or jetsam to decorate the fort. It didn’t really need any adornment. I crawled inside and scraped out some sand. I placed the tin.

I left and continued down the beach harvesting beaverwood.

I’ll return soon. I am confident I’ll discover literature of a genre entirely of my own devising. It’s always there.

Return of the Fort Stoners

Driftwood Forts, NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches , , , , ,

The fort stoners had returned. I opened the message container and found a tiny sealed envelope with “Weed Inside” written in black marker on it. I felt the envelope. Then I smelled it. Sure enough, there was a nug inside. I laughed and left the envelope alone.

Another new message wasn’t really a message at all. Someone had written a 75-word blast of fiction about a fantasy world where a 247-year-old woman lived in a driftwood fort and practiced ocean magic. There was only one typo.

Someone else left behind an exquisite ink illustration of a hand writing with a pen.

What a conversation—if conversation is the word—these fort containers inspire! Who are these wonderful people who wander inside a fort, open the container, and write or draw or give away drugs?

Weed. Art. Fantasy driftwood fort fiction. Life is good at the fort.

Musings from the Jetty

NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches , , , , ,

I sit atop the South Jetty, on a massive black rock. The rock is angled in such a way that it affords a perfect view of Saddle Mountain, Tillamook Head and one of my forts, the one where a couple of days ago, I read a fort message written by a 28-year-old man who was battling testicular cancer. Part of his battle strategy was to visit the ocean as much as possible and take in its unique curing powers. His message seemed that he was winning and it had nothing to do with chemotherapy.

Below me, a woman lets her dog run wild down the beach. Also, below me, a man builds a driftwood fort, a corral model, and it occurs to me that this is the first time I’ve ever seen a person build a fort who I hadn’t brought along. I watch him work and he constructs with intensity. He brought a shovel, too; he’s burying posts deep. Not my style but all styles are welcome.

It’s 63 degrees and 95 in Portland.

I wonder if I am the only man in the world at this moment wearing corduroys atop a jetty.

The tide is coming in. I watch the mathematics of the waves. I wish I’d had a math teacher who taught math through the ocean’s waves. The experience might have changed my life. I have written a short story about a young woman who discovers the beauty and order of the mathematics of waves and it unleashes something primal in her, as the ocean often does to people, in so many different ways. I wonder if I’ll ever see this story published. If it is, I will use a pseudonym and I’m working on that now. I think it may even be a female name. So far Amity (something) is in the lead.

Fort 4th of July

Driftwood Forts, NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches , , , ,

I am sitting on a log in front of a driftwood fort on the Fourth of July. I am eating a modest breakfast.

It is morning. I just built the fort. It took two hours, a good workout of the body and creative mind.

I am surrounded by dozens of bumblebees feeding on the purple flowers of a beach plant. Perhaps I should know the name of this plant, but I don’t.

There is something incredibly comforting in knowing that one is surrounded by bumblebees at the beach.

Trucks blow by on the wet sand at 50-60 miles an hour. Their drivers will never notice bumblebees at the beach and that makes me sad. Everyone should see the drunken dance of the bumblebee at the beach, with a driftwood fort behind and the ocean in front. (Oh yes, throw in 20 pelicans, too.)

My mind returns to another fort, one I visited yesterday at dawn. Inside one of the containers, I discovered a message that was written to me, but not addressed to me. It was an appreciative message and I was fairly awestruck to receive it. Thank you. You signed your name and I think I know who you are, but perhaps not. I hope one of the fortune cookies I left behind brought you good fortune.

There is no around me for miles. The drivers in the trucks don’t count. They aren’t really here.

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Fort Stoners

Driftwood Forts, NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches , , , , , ,

The latest messages from the fort writing project intrigued me. There were tiny bursts of personal philosophy, inspirational quotes, lettering from children learning to write, and more exhortations on the wonders and importance of cannabis, such as as, “Dank memes are fuckin life.”

Oh the dankness of it all. I laughed heartily when I read this message. Hell yes to the heavens of dank memes in the Age of Trump.

And I don’t even partake.

It has occurred to me that the liveliest messages in the ongoing driftwood fort writing project probably emanate from stoners. Doesn’t that seem like a contradiction? Perhaps not. The beer and Fireball drinkers aren’t venturing into the forts and opening the containers. The stoners are. The stoners are curious, settling inside my constructions, and obviously blazing away while the ocean rolls in the background. They’ve even left behind some nugs as a thank you. No one’s left behind a pint of Crown Royal.

Some general observations on the hundreds of fort messages I’ve read the last decade or so:

There hasn’t been a single reference to God or Christianity.

More women than men leave a message.

Half are signed.

About 10 percent contain grammatical errors.

About 10 percent contain profanity (in an exuberant positive style, not negative)

About 10 percent are poems or haikus.

About 20 percent include some kind of overt or cryptic reference to cannabis.

None have ever mentioned politics.

The ones at For Stevens often complain about vehicles on the beach.

None has ever been written in a foreign language.

No one has left a business card behind.

One message left behind was from a prominent newspaper columnist from Seattle.

About half thank the fort builder.

A few have demonstrated the writer is suffering great personal distress.

People like to punctuate their messages with hand drawn emoticons..

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)