Oregon Coast

Golden Falls

NSP Meditations, Oregon Coast_History ,

I stood at the base of Golden Falls and wasn’t really listening to the sound of this majestic wonder of Oregon nature. Instead, I was writing furiously in my mind a novel where Golden Falls would play a transforming role in the life of a homeless veteran of the Iraq War. Actually, I wasn’t only writing it in my mind, but was also taking notes and writing dialogue on a scratch pad. Everything was coming so fast I could barely keep up. I previously had the idea of a Christmas tale about this character and vaguely this setting, but then I took the long and narrow drive up the mysterious Millicoma River east of Coos Bay and saw the Silver and Golden Falls and knew I would expand the idea well beyond a mere tale.

I can’t recall a story exploding into my consciousness like this before.

Now to write it up and see where it goes.

Random October Thoughts

NSP Meditations ,

I miss my construction job and the learning that accrued with the labor.

Dad and I discussed the term “jack shit” and wondered where it originated. I like the phrase a lot and need to restore it to my regular use.

Dad told me a story about a snowstorm in Iowa he experienced as a kid where the drifts were so high he could touch the tops of telephone poles. He said school was out for six weeks and he and his brother did nothing but play Monopoly. They repeatedly argued over the game to such an annoying degree that their stepmother threw the board into the fire. Dad and his brother fashioned a new one from memory and kept on playing in the barn.

I rescued two books from the recycling bin of the local bookstore, a Lillian Hellman memoir of her experiences during the McCarthy era, and a collection of short stories by Carson McCullers. There is nothing like rescuing old books from annihilation. They still might have interesting work to do. I hope one day someone rescues my books from annihilation.

I continue to publish books that virtually no one will read.

The more I read about local government in the city the more it seems like it is riddled with a unique incompetence. Unlike Republicans who don’t believe in governing or know how to govern, Portland officials believe in good governing but seem unable to govern.

I tried buying an Oregon atlas from a local retailer the other day. No luck. Even the hunting/fishing store didn’t carry one. Somehow this made me depressed.

I reread Cannery Row. It’s probably been 35 years since I last read it. What a classic! It so moved me that I started working on an essay of its obvious relevance to my current writing about the homeless. Which you can check out here: https://mattlove.substack.com/

I firmly believe that the ability to follow up with someone is the most important quality in a relationship and often the hardest thing for someone to do.

No one seems to surprise me anymore. Maybe surprising people becomes harder as people get older. It takes effort and perhaps the tank is empty.

Secret Coast Radio 8

NSP Meditations, secret coast radio , , ,

Welcome to the Secret Coast Radio podcast broadcasting somewhere on the Secret Coast

Let us begin by saying:

We prefer the first person plural over the singular.

We prefer mystery over journalism.

We prefer crooked roads over interstate highways. That’s where all the better stories reside.

We prefer fey over fanatics, super duper over supercilious, anything over anger.

We prefer bouquets of flowers handpicked from ditches and roadsides over bouquets imported across oceans from lands chiefly harvested by children breathing herbicides.

We prefer newspapers owned by people who live in the communities served by the newspapers.

We prefer a management style that invites, encourages, teaches and inspires over hectoring and debasement.

We prefer people who take calls instead of letting them always go to voice mail and then never responding to voice mail because their voice mail box is full.

We prefer for those people in crisis and despair to ask for help, over disappearing and silence, but we realize how hard it is for many to ask for help, so reach out anyway.

We prefer raking leaves over leaf blowing.

We prefer the equal distribution of wealth over extreme concentrations of wealth, like what’s going on in America today and getting worse.

We really like love and charity toward everyone and malice toward none.

We love drinking coffee in coffee shops where someone has chalked a big giant message…”You will be asked to leave if you’re not nice. Kindness matters.”

Oh yes it does. It’s really the only thing that does.

What is this podcast about? Who are we?

Like we said, mystery over journalism.

Let show number eight begin.

The link to the show is:

http://www.buzzsprout.com/385945

101 Coffee Shop (Another Morning)

NSP Meditations , ,

An elderly man exits the shop in an old fashioned wheelchair. I interrupt my writing of a kink modern Western to watch him wheel down 101. Another patron says the old man just moved from Portland and is gold mining in the area. Mining gold from a wheelchair? Got to work that in the Western.

On my way to the shop, at approximately 6:45 in the morning, near the turnout off 101 where all the surfers park, in the shoulder of the road, stood a figure with long straight brown hair past the shoulders, wearing a fur coat of some kind, and tight yellow terrycloth shorts with white piping. I didn’t see any baggage around the figure. As I drove past, I saw the face of the figure—it was a man in his 60s or 70s, clean shaven, looking a little spent.

What in the world could he (she?) be doing there at that hour on the Oregon Coast. I could only surmise he was waiting to get picked up by a trucker. I’ve got to work this character in the Western.

After the wheelchair man left, an older man enters the shop with his ukulele. He often bikes in from a nearby campground and plays for his breakfast.

He is just settling in when an older woman wearing pink yoga pants, black leg warmers, some kind of Flashdance cut sweatshirt bolts into the shop. Her hair is white and spiked in Mohawk fashion.

She strikes up a conversation with ukulele man and I learn she is driving her trailer up and down the Oregon and California coasts and serving as a mobile minister to women suffering from sexual abuse. I take a gander at her trailer parked outside and it’s stickered and painted with all manner of healing statements, affirmations and scriptures. Apparently, she pulls over in turnout with a grand view of the ocean or sets up shop in a campground, and, well, starts preaching.

She sees the man’s ukulele and said she has one her in trailer. She rushes out to get it, and a few minutes later after coffee, saying grace, and a breakfast burrito, the two are playing and singing Amazing Grace six feet away from me.

This scene will somehow make it into the Western, but it could go either way—dark or redemptive. I’m thinking the former is better for kink.

5:42 AM Fort

Driftwood Forts, NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches ,

They destroy at night. I create in the morning, 5:42 in the morning to be precise. My earliest fort of all time…

A beautiful sunrise over the mountains, purple, orange and white clouds in a dull blue sky, met me. I drank cheap coffee and marveled at my energy and spirit.

I pulled over into the wayside on my way to work, my construction gig, and started walking down the beach. A fort would form itself or not; it depended on what was there or not there; it depended on the fullness of my creative mind or the emptiness of my mind. I saw a massive root wad tilted at an unusual angle. Someone has built tiny cairns on it, and left behind offerings of shells and feathers. A long, thin, round piece of driftwood caught my eye. I retrieved it and leaned it against the root wad. I found two other spars and whipped up the beginnings of a fort or sculpture or whatever it would become today at the hands of others. Doubtless the creation would be destroyed tonight. This was Fort Destroyer territory. But while it stood it will have delighted hundreds of others, and inspired them to create, add, change, strengthen, adorn, collaborate. The Destroyer knows nothing of that.

The Fort Destroyer Continued…

Driftwood Forts, NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches ,

I responded with two forts. Fort fairies built two others. I saw them all standing on Saturday morning. When I checked Sunday morning, they had all been destroyed. I noticed a fat motorcycle track leading up to each fort. Mad Max tire tracks. It’s illegal to drive on this beach. No way anyone would have done it during daytime. You’d easily be seen and busted.

The Fort Destroyer had ridden his motorcycle on the beach in darkness and annihilated the forts. He might have even rigged up kelp to help tear them down.

I create, he destroys. Others create, he destroys. A friend suggested I was helping him work through issues. I liked that notion! Destroying a fort as a therapy! Why not? Building them helped me work through issues. I really loathe the word issues in this context. It’s a zero word, like entitlement or appropriation or resonate or dappled or socialism.

The Fort Destroyer really did a number on one of my person favorites. He even took off with the cut log round I had positioned for a stool!

But he did me a favor. This fort had become too big, the entryway too small, the meditative space too tiny. I pulled the wreckage apart this morning and, at 6:30 am, built a new fort that could sleep a homeless family, and probably will tonight. They will be shielded from wind and possibly rain. They can make a fire inside and hear the ocean while the flames hiss and crackle.

I’m not going to stop creating forts, here or anywhere along the Oregon Coast. He can do what he wants. I’ll do what I want. Will creation triumph over destruction? Isn’t that the eternal question we all have to answer every day of our lives. Create!!!!

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