After The Storm — 12.0 — -Mermaid Ranch, Slightly north of Yachats, Oregon Coast, Pacific Northwest, USA
“Poncho needs your prayers it’s true
But save a few for Lefty too
He only did what he had to do
And now he’s growing old….”
Possibilities abound.
This is what I am telling myself these days. The storms have passed. More storms are on the way but for now the weather is clear. Things are getting back to normal. Whatever THAT is. Things are getting back to the way they were. The good days of the past. Remember those good days? Vaguely.
Well, not really. I do not remember it being like this, because it literally has never been like THIS.
On the second or third day of record breaking heat in the Willamette Valley (111 degrees in Eugene, 115 in Portland, 117 in Salem) I load the Taco Truck and head for the beach. I’ve been mostly submerged in the Willamette River (at least in the afternoons) for the last week or so. With just my head out of water, a big floppy sun hat, still the hot wind made it feel like the world was on fire. Riding my bike from the riverside to my cottage (a four minute ride) I was sure that my tires were going to melt into the pavement. Water went into my mouth and out through my pores in one continuous flow, never stopping to cool me off. Time it was to get out of town.
I had never actually heard of a “heat dome” until this year. In my 43 years in the Pacific Northwest there were certainly heat waves, mostly in late July or August. Usually it rained in May and June. No summer weather until the Fourth of July. Tomatoes ripe by mid summer at the earliest. Now we have domes of high pressure and a sun that fries the ground and pushes the heat up through your shoes all the way into your baking brain. I thought I had left this particular phase of the sun in Death Valley where is was a mild 115 degrees one time. I thought I had left it in Darwin where the hot wind desiccates your skin and carves wrinkles into your finger tips and face. Everyone there looks old after a few years. In the northwest we have water. We have rain. But now we have “Heat domes”.
Luckily there is the Pacific Ocean. About sixty miles west of my Eugene cottage the weather is foggy, overcast and a nice gently cool 67 degrees. Clouds shield the sun. Evergreens covered with moss crowd the forest. Water flows clear and cold in the streams. You can have guilt-free campfires (small, well managed) at night. Freeze your toes in the salt water wave-lets that run back and forth over the broad even beaches. The hotter it gets in the interior the more quickly the cool fog coats the edge of the land. The marine layer pulled in toward the frying pan of the valley. Relief beckons.
I am always honored and somewhat surprised when my friends are glad to see me. Near a town called Yachats (the name comes from the native American Siletz language meaning “dark water at the foot of the mountain”) at a place called “The Mermaid Ranch” I meet an amazing woman that I have known for 30 odd years but only get to see rarely. We have an interesting reunion, she is as vibrant and brilliant as ever, and after various conversations she takes me to a place in the woods that she owns.
It is a lovely small glen, caressed on the parameter by cedars and hemlocks, a tiny view of the ocean, the ground covered in a lush green coating of costal sorrel (oxalis oregana)… .Small enough to be hidden, large enough to incorporate a miniature dwelling.
“Maybe you should build a tiny house or a writer’s cabin here” she says.
There is hardly anything that immediately engages me or pulls my mind into the future better than the idea of building the perfect place to be a writer. It is far far far easier to build then it is to actually sit there in the lovely cabin and force yourself to actually write. But I can fantasize as well as anyone.. Soon we are negotiating a contract.
See, possibilities abound.
A few days later I return to the heat of Eugene and meet a brand new friend who is also glad to see me. We go paddle boarding in a hideaway canal in the middle of the city and we have a brilliant afternoon all to ourselves. My friend’s name is Win and she is also a brilliant bright light in the world, a school teacher, avid reader, outdoors woman, fit, beautiful and far too young to be romantically involved with a scraggily old carpenter like me. But so much fun to hang with.
Near a waterfall at the end of the canal, with a foot bridge spanning the water she indulges her environmentalist side and fishes a crumpled red rag out of the water. It turns out to be a hooded sweatshirt, size large, nice blood red color which she says will look good on me.
Later, after I wash the hoodie and hang it on the clothes line, I finally notice the words stenciled in black across the chest.
“Just Do It” it says.
And I’m thinking: Is the Universe trying to tell me something?