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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one else was there. I mean humans. Gulls glided here and there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A freighter loomed offshore. The tide was meandering in. A slight wind blew around us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My mind moved away from writing to an upcoming gig for the The Old Crow Book Club<\/em>, my first such literary gig in almost a decade. Will I still know what to do in front of an audience?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A wave died at my feet. Elmer splashed through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I looked upward and saw orange contrails tearing through a light blue sky. Some jet airliner was going somewhere I’ll never go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More light illuminated the beach. I took a couple of pictures of Elmer running madcap toward me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another orange contrail appeared overhead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elmer and I kept moving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","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\/9231","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=9231"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9234,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9231\/revisions\/9234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}