Orange Contrails

Elmer and I hit the ocean beach at Fort Stevens State Park. It was 34 degrees, dark, but light was coming up over the Coast Range.

No one else was there. I mean humans. Gulls glided here and there.

A freighter loomed offshore. The tide was meandering in. A slight wind blew around us.

Elmer sniffed the wrack line. I walked the wet sand. Writing ideas exploded into my mind; they always do when I walk Oregon’s socialist ocean beaches.

I began writing a footnote for my mother’s book about her missionary service in Brazil. I began writing a love letter I’ll never actually write. I began writing this piece.

Orange began to streak the sky. I started running and Elmer ran with me, then started attacking me. We roughhoused and I laughed. What joy to have a canine sidekick again!

My mind moved away from writing to an upcoming gig for the The Old Crow Book Club, my first such literary gig in almost a decade. Will I still know what to do in front of an audience?

A wave died at my feet. Elmer splashed through it.

For a moment, I lamented that I can’t interact daily with the ocean, as I had for 25 years before duty to my father called. I answered that duty and have been enriched by it.

Then I banished those thoughts. All in good time would mark my return to the Oregon Coast and began a new iteration of coastal life. This will be number five.

I looked upward and saw orange contrails tearing through a light blue sky. Some jet airliner was going somewhere I’ll never go.

More light illuminated the beach. I took a couple of pictures of Elmer running madcap toward me.

Another orange contrail appeared overhead.

Elmer and I kept moving.