The Pandemic struck, many died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some learned how to live better,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
then promptly forgot everything<\/p>\n\n\n\n
once liberation arrived,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
like how politicians praised<\/p>\n\n\n\n
hero service from the front line<\/p>\n\n\n\n
but wouldn’t raise their minimum wage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She drove from the High Desert,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
over the Cascades, over the Coast Range,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
to ride out five summer days of the plague<\/p>\n\n\n\n
in my 42-year old Winnebago with an 8-track player<\/p>\n\n\n\n
marooned in a disheveled RV park<\/p>\n\n\n\n
where most of the residents<\/p>\n\n\n\n
believed everything a hoax, conspiracy<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and survived on socialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hadn’t seen her in a decade,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the last time,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
a sunset inside an obelisk<\/p>\n\n\n\n
on the Yaquina Bay Bridge<\/p>\n\n\n\n
for sensual sunset shenanigans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ex watched their four kids,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
third daughter probably mine,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
likely conceived inside<\/p>\n\n\n\n
a bizarre, glass, cedar house<\/p>\n\n\n\n
crooked on stilts<\/p>\n\n\n\n
overlooking the Pacific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We met at the Nesika Market,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
bought two bottles of red wine,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
walked to a beach<\/p>\n\n\n\n
where gold bugs prospected a creek,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
meth miscreants scaled cliffs<\/p>\n\n\n\n
to carve nonsense in the clay,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and a homeless man lived in a cave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We drank wine,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
built a driftwood fort,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
toasted to LOVE,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
which happened to be both<\/p>\n\n\n\n
our real last names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We hiked Humbug Mountain and performed acrobatics on a bench.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We stepped across Pistol River where it meets the ocean. River otters watched us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I spray painted a stencil of a beaver on her baseball shirt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We barbecued salmon caught earlier that morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We drove the curvy road to Agness and stayed in a cabin above the Rogue River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I broke out the guitar around a fire and played my song Organic Oregonian<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Got hippie blood in my veins<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I key cars with California plates<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n love Ken Kesey and Steve Prefontaine<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n never see the sun and never complain<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We explored the Elk River way up in the watershed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She slipped off shoes, rolled up pants,<\/p>\n\n\n\n waded in slack current<\/p>\n\n\n\n as beaverwood floated downstream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I watched her from a drift log on the opposite bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She forded the river,<\/p>\n\n\n\n approached me,<\/p>\n\n\n\n grabbed my belt,<\/p>\n\n\n\n wrenched freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wrote a country song about it,<\/p>\n\n\n\n a classic only we ever heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We watched a Jane Russell movie marathon on TCM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was just the five of us: me, her, Jane Russell, Jane Russell’s tits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We read stories aloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She pissed in the woods during a drizzle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She showed me how to apply for Pandemic unemployment benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We roped down to a secret beach in Samuel Boardman State Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We meandered up a trail alongside the Illinois River holding hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cKeep on comin’ covid!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n she would redneck hoot and holler<\/p>\n\n\n\n when the moment called for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She didn’t want to return to the desert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her eyes watching the Rogue River run said that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She had to leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A wildfire on the McKenzie River destroyed her family’s business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her oldest daughter attempted suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We didn’t survive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nothing Oregon Coast gold can stay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Pandemic struck, many died. Some learned how to live better, then promptly forgot everything once liberation arrived, like how politicians praised hero service from the front line but wouldn’t raise their minimum wage. She drove from the High Desert, over the Cascades, over the Coast Range, to ride out five summer days of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9973,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-poetry","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\/9972","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=9972"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9975,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9972\/revisions\/9975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}