“Trew”

Someone had written “Trew” into the sand. I saw the word and stopped, the old English teacher in me that I can’t purge yet.

An odd first name? A total illiterate? Hopped up? New slang for the Dope New World? Some stupid derivation of the stupid phrase, “True That!” ?

Who knew? I could have asked Amazon’s Alexa, curiously shaped as a cairn and resting atop a rock encrusted with barnacles, not far from where I stood, but I figured the salt wind had corroded her powers.

I would ask the ocean instead and take “trew” where it willed me and trill it along. I decided right there to list what I intuited to be true about me. I can’t speak for others. I wrote my list in the sand and spelled everything correctly. It was quite legible, too.

Trew this!

That I will find my way back to some lost friendships, and that I will have to take the lead.

That there are still books in me that have nothing to do with my current situation and reinvention.

That there is a shelter dog out there for me.

That I will get a job.

That I will find a way to help others.

That there are people who still know how to listen. Or better yet, want to listen.

That there are people who still believe that facts matter.

That people can admit error. That I can admit error.

That people can forgive and ask forgiveness and actually mean it. That I can ask forgiveness and people accept it. That people get the big joke.

That I am sorry I put so many people through the wringer.

That someone can start a new chapter in life living near the beach in a 40-year old RV with an 8-Track player. (It sort of worked out for James Rockford in The Rockford Files, although he lived in a trailer.)

That discovering a 1985 Shelia E CD in an Oregon Coast tavern lending library could have revolutionary consequences for me. Track 3, 12:18! “A Love Bizarre.” One line goes: A strawberry mind / a body that’s built for two. In that line and others, I’ve never heard a more perfectly obvious or oblique encapsulation of authentic primal desire. Naturally, the song was co-written by Prince and the record released on his Paisley Park label. His candor is sorely missed in this world. He got us.

That white agates could be the new keyhole limpets.

That my unique method of distributing my books via animal welfare thrift stores along the Oregon Coast will help me reach a very interesting new readership and help save my furry friends. Every time I revisit the shops, the books are gone.

That I will land a surf perch on my third cast.

That my great letter writer will keep writing me great unburdening letters from an abandoned church.

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