{"id":6888,"date":"2021-04-01T07:02:48","date_gmt":"2021-04-01T14:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=6888"},"modified":"2021-04-01T07:02:50","modified_gmt":"2021-04-01T14:02:50","slug":"a-last-pistol-river-fort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/a-last-pistol-river-fort\/","title":{"rendered":"A Last Pistol River Fort"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Early Sunday morning. A drizzle fell over the landscape. The ocean was silent and gray. I walked a beach strewn with rocks to see the mouth of the Pistol River one last time before I packed up my old life and began a new one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I arrived at the mouth and the mouth wasn’t there: blocked by sand. A river that couldn’t flow, couldn’t reach the ocean and begin the water cycle all over again. Oh well, soon enough a rainstorm would hit the watersheds and send the liquid down and eventually smash through the dam. I’d like to see that exact moment, but alas, I wouldn’t be around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So instead of seeing the mouth, I decided to build a final driftwood fort on this magical estuary. Maybe the otters would join me. They had before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Driftwood abounded. I could have made a hundred forts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started building. A minute in, the structure collapsed. I laughed. I was rusty from city slicker life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started again because that is the very nature of building driftwood forts. You always start again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fort began to rise and I labored as drivers on Highway 101 watched me or didn’t watch me. If they did, they might wonder why someone was down on the beach building a fort. Maybe they thought I was insane. Or on meth. Or some eccentric artist. Or maybe they didn’t wonder at all. There’s a lot of that going on these days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found an old sandal stuffed into some kelp and sticks. Always a left foot. There’s a reason for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was time to go. The fort was of course unfinished because no driftwood fort is ever finished. Only a fool or a novice would believe that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The afternoon winds of this beach renowned for para-sailing would undoubtedly collapse the fort. But maybe not and the fort might last a few days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I walked away, wondering if I’d ever walk this beach again.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Early Sunday morning. A drizzle fell over the landscape. The ocean was silent and gray. I walked a beach strewn with rocks to see the mouth of the Pistol River one last time before I packed up my old life and began a new one. I arrived at the mouth and the mouth wasn’t there: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6889,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,5,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-driftwood-forts","category-meditations","category-oregon-beaches","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6888"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6891,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6888\/revisions\/6891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}