This May marks my first year living in the Empire neighborhood of Coos Bay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I want to take stock of this year:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The house has turned out far better than I imagined. I completely restored the back fence and resurrected the back yard. I built two garden beds and the garden is doing well. I also planted two apple trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The propane stove in the living room has been a fine addition. Same with the burn barrel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m lucky to have some good neighbors. The saga of a a distressed American family across the street continues to unfold, and I do watch from my front window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elmer and I have walked to local bay beach every morning of our residence. It’s truly an inspiring way to begin my day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’ve written approximately 200,000 words about Coos Bay since moving here. I have no idea what to do with them as far as a book goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have not availed myself of Coos Bay’s cultural offerings. I remain mostly in solitude with Elmer and we do our beach thing. The exception to this are my irregular visits to my local Oregon Tavern Age joint. I’ve written up a few good stories originating there, but my enthusiasm for the joint has faded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I continue to interact with the homeless but nothing proactive like I did in Portland. It seems impossible to that in Coos Bay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Coos Bay Library has been an excellent friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’ve found a few places I like to patronize and the local seafood shop is sensational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’ve considered attending a Church of Christ service, the religion of my youth, for the sheer hell of it. What’s transpired in the half century since I was a preacher’s kid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I haven’t made any real friends here, but I haven’t made any substantive effort, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I should play more golf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’ve built about 50 driftwood forts on the local beaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I met one woman who intrigued me and then she was gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I may enter the Prefontaine Memorial Run again. I found last year’s event exhilarating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m still making sense of my dad’s death and the horror that was the probate process precipitated by two of the beneficiaries. At times, I wanted to exact some kind of cosmic revenge, but then I always remembered an immortal line from Confucius: \u201cOn a journey of revenge, dig two graves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So what do I expect or envision for year two in Empire? I don’t know. I will publish a volume of my poems written over the last 25 years. I do hope to reconnect with a few people from my past who reached out to me. It’s all about follow through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This May marks my first year living in the Empire neighborhood of Coos Bay. I want to take stock of this year: The house has turned out far better than I imagined. I completely restored the back fence and resurrected the back yard. I built two garden beds and the garden is doing well. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9794,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1264,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coos-bay","category-meditations","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\/9793","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=9793"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9796,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9793\/revisions\/9796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}