Castaway by the sea
I stayed another day in this cove in Otter Rock, Oregon (just south of Depoe Bay) ... up on a hillside facing the ocean. I’ve been here three days now and the more you stare at the ocean, the more you feel like you’re a part of it, a part of everything around here. It’s like a miniature Big Sur.
Here is the present view from my balcony.
This is BEYOND beautiful. It is Magic and Glory of many dimensions. Never saw anything like this. How far it is from Portland?
Two hours. At one point I saw the spouts of two whales shoot up out of the sea. I was going to take a time-lapse of the sun falling into the ocean but unfortunately the clouds smothered the sun before it reached the water. Still nice, though. The Oregon coast is just so lovely. Places like these take your breath away. And I haven’t even shown you the “Devil’s Punch Bowl...”
Saw all the photos, these rocks....this place is so utterly spiritual. I am so blown away.
The photos show something impossible to describe. To be there would be something OUT of this world.
My God.....
Walking distance from my hotel/time share (each unit is individually owned and they rent them out) there is a beach at the bottom of the cliff... a 5-10 minute walk gets you to “The Devil’s Punch Bowl,” which is a hollowed out piece of earth (lava apparently cut through long ago) that fills up with ocean water along the beach. However, late in the day, there is like a two-hour window at low tide where you can walk up to and into the punch bowl, which I’ve done here. Look at the layers of earth visible in the rock.
I have to study about this place. see where it is, etc. Have to tell Michal about it. Maybe he can fly there....he flies everywhere recently. Thank you Jas, as I said — I will study, and it will be on my bucket list. In a summer it must be crowded? I imagine you saw the most magic now, in a spring. I always wanted to see Arches Park in Utah, but I'd rather see this. Crazy.
I feel such a connection with Native American Indians. They look at places like these as Sacred, and I do too. Maybe there are Indian reservations somewhere near ..... must be quite a few in Oregon.
I am visiting Manuela tomorrow. Her German husband wants to retire in Oregon.
~
Four years ago. Four years, like yesterday. Now I’m on the same trip, in the same place, Otter Rock. Only moving in the other direction — north to Seattle, instead of down to LA, towards her.
I walked to the Punch Bowl today. The tide was in, and the waves fierce — “Sneaker Waves”, a morning warning read, from some distant storm. And these waves came and they crashed. They thundered against rock and water sprayed, and people nearby oohed, they aahed. They pointed their phones to record what they saw, probably to show others later, as I once did. I eyed these people, and saw her among them. I saw this because I always imagined it. Wanted it. Planned for it. So I watched her for a moment, then left. Walked the forest trail back to the hotel, to the same place I used to write her from. Just a different room, a slightly different view.
Today I would have sent her this.
And I may have written this: Mom, this whole thing is now a punch bowl. Swirling waters and waves. Tides in, tides out. Forwards, backwards, round and round. Can you see any of it?
I would have sent her the time lapse of the sun dipping into the sea, like I’d wanted.
And probably then, we’d have talked about the tree. The tree which obscures partially the great wide rock out there that she’d marveled at before, but here and now there will be no complaints from Room 267. I marvel at the tree now, and probably she would have also. The elegance of it, the loneliness of it, the quiet strength it must have — how much battering must it take? A look to the north, after all, and one sees a place named “Cape Foulweather.”
Yes, this tree has delighted and it has calmed. Just by being there. In the wind, in spray, in fog, in every light, it’s just there, just stands, asking no questions. If she were here, or if she were getting the photos still, I just know this tree would have sent us into the night talking, trading thoughts and wondering, until stars emerged around it, changing the image further.
~
Greetings from the Castaway Inn in Port Orford, my happy place. Huge wind and rainstorm happening now outside, which makes things very fun and cozy. I'm staying here tonight and tomorrow night.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, you will be getting a delivery of wild salmon, smoked and ready to eat, from a shop called Robba Gump in Depoe Bay. I discovered it by accident while I was there (they had samples, so I was drawn in) and ended up going there each morning for a fresh piece of salmon to take with me back to my hotel. They catch it in the mornings and then smoke it and it is just unbelievably delicious, melts in your mouth.
In your case, rather than eating it right out of the bag, you'll receive it vacuum sealed within a refrigerated box. They told me the best way to eat it would be to unseal it and let it sit out for 5-15 minutes, since it tastes best at room temperature. Of course if you then want to save some for later, I would refrigerate it and then eat it cold later.
What a fine life......! thank you, Harbor man !!!!
Huge storm in Oregon. High winds. I’m not getting on the highway in this. Staying in my favorite motel on the bluff and upgraded rooms for a better view of the storm. I have my own rocking chair in an enclosed deck off my room. The view is remarkable. Massive waves crashing into the rocks at the shoreline and coming up over the pier way down below.
I just met the new owner of this hotel. Around 60. From Lake Tahoe. Worked as a chiropractor for many years and kept coming up to Oregon with his wife on vacation. Fell in love with this view and decided to buy the hotel from the old man and move up here.
“There’s nothing here. We like it.”
And what did you eat for breakfast, sailor? I am waiting for my fish. I wish there was something exciting like a storm down here. It must be fantastic to watch that storm, so fantastic.
Breakfast burrito that I bought at a store yesterday and kept refrigerated. I’m also traveling with my own ketchup bottle.
Some people are prepared! (I am thinking - ketchup of course).
I just got fish and chips from a place called The Crazy Norwegians, walking distance and run by two nice ladies. They asked if I needed vinegar and ketchup. I said, “vinegar and silverware, yes. I have ketchup.”
The Crazy Norwegians meeting Super Ketchup Man? Is this some special kind of ketchup?
Mother every kind of ketchup is special.
GOT MY FISH! Can I eat it tomorrow or ASAP?
I was waiting for it so I'd rather eat it tomorrow, more relaxed. It has to be a Special Moment.
Jas, the pieces are so big it will make me 4 dinners or two and two amazing sandwiches. I like fish on good bread as well. Easter feast!!!!!
Another fish feast. Made fish sandwich with soup, but during 3 min. of heating up the soup I already hogged down the sandwich. How is the Rick Steves of the West Coast?
Weather still bad, and I find myself not wanting to leave anyway, so I remain in Port Orford for one more gray day. Doing some work on my book and now on a lunch break down at Griff’s on the Dock, awaiting a crab sandwich and looking through their binoculars, scanning the rough sea for whales. No whales, no Moby Dick so far. Just the old man and the sea.
Stay two more grey days! It sounds so wonderful. Here it is 77 F , but winds. 77 is already hot for me, when you are there nice and fresh with some healthy foods, away from this world that is going crazy. Good choice. Working a little? that's even better.
Jas, you are so funny.
Except for Snowy, I don’t believe there is a cat who has it better.
Hope they are giving this kitty some fish sometimes.
~
Port Orford, and the bluff overlooking, and the little motel on that bluff, called Castaway by the Sea: this is another of the emeralds I’ve found in Oregon, an emerald I always wished to give her. How many hours have I now spent on the wooden bench there, alone? I can no longer count them. Once as I sat there, on a clear blue day, it happened: I heard a kind of whoosh, then spotted the evaporating mist of a gray whale, then followed that whale in as it meandered curiously towards the harbor before circling back to the deeper depths. On two other nights there, after stirring in my sleep, I looked out to see a herd of deer quietly grazing outside the window. I didn’t move.
In Port Orford, and on the Oregon coast, life feels closer. The textures are rougher, the waves angrier. There is mist and wind and fog, whales going by, and the sound of sea is a forever hymn, and on clearer nights in places like Port Orford the moon and stars reflect off the shimmering waters. I tried to capture and send her one of these nights, but the moon and stars are rarely done justice by camera, the magic untranslated, the feeling best arrived at by being there.
When I was in Port Orford a few days ago, the afternoon was so crisp, so blue, yet I realized there was little point in taking new pictures. My recipient was gone. And I had a phone full of these photos already from the previous stops, showing the favorite places in the different lights. I peered through them. Came to one, from back in 2016, when I was down on the beach walking and arrived at some words written in the sand. It was just the kind of thing she may have thought or said or written there, so I snapped and sent her this, along with a less elegant note from me.
This is just the COOLEST postcard ever sent to me. I will save it to my desktop.!!!!!
The biggest thing I love about the Pacific Northwest. It’s the clouds, which are always moving, so the light is constantly changing and shifting. These pictures were taken in the span of two cups of coffee. Tonight, in Portland, when I sat at a bar for happy hour and in the span of one hour saw rain, clouds, a sunshower, then total clear again, it dawned on me that’s what I love so much. These sliding clouds and this dancing light. It makes the earth around you feel more alive.
Gorgeous, amazing, thank you!
~
I saw her on the bench in Port Orford. Saw her in the redwoods near Crescent City. Saw her even across the table from me in Steinbeck’s childhood home in Salinas, where lunches are now served up by the loveliest of elderly volunteers, so I stop there always. (And perhaps it should be noted that in the gift shop there, Debussy suddenly played.)
I saw her in each of the places I’d told her about and hoped to place her. But never did I succeed, and this is a regret. It’s strange. She would say she dreamed of seeing these places, but always with those two words attached — one day. Often she would tell me she needed to feel just a bit more up to it, more healthy. Or say her house was just such a mess and she wanted to focus on cleaning, on chores, on some upcoming appointment maybe, and then she would have a clear mind for such adventure. Sometimes she worried aloud that too much driving in my little Mini Cooper would get claustrophobic, saying her legs and body needed “circulation.” I tried negotiating. Offered to fly her to Portland, and we’d go to just some of the spots, and I could drop her back off at the airport after a few days or a week. Or that she could do just half of the trip with me, meeting me somewhere like San Francisco.
Yes yes, we’ll do it — but not just now. For now I was to go, to breathe it in, and just keep letting her know I was OK. This was the usual message.
Only once did I manage to get her up to Seattle, by plane, to join me for a week in the gorgeous home of my best friend’s family, when I looked after that house while they were abroad — often, this was my excuse to make the long drive. She loved that week. We went on a whale watching cruise. Had fish and chips down by the Mukilteo lighthouse, ate obscene amounts of shrimp, admired the evergreens and firs, and the sailboats sliding by along the glassy Puget Sound.
She spoke of that week often, but the dream of joining me for the drive, this remained in the ether. In One Day.
Frankly, I think it was the cats. The cats kept her home, more than anything. She just couldn’t stand to be away from them for too long. But she wouldn’t say this. She would only get another email from me asking, offering some flight up to someplace, and then write a thing back like this:
Let me digest the proposition, I am such an old fart, you know.
Only now is she here with me. Yes her ashes, they’re traveling alongside. They ride in the passenger’s seat. Sometimes I take them out to a balcony, or to some view along the drive, which always feels a bit insane, but grief is also feeling just a bit insane.
Before she died I told her I may do this if time allowed, and she loved the idea. Mainly I think she loved it for me — she said I would need it, this drive, this trip again, after everything. And indeed I thought it would help. Hoped it would clear my head. Make me feel some way. The goal was the same as ever — sunsets and seagulls and Steinbeck. This always worked. This always made me just so happy.
But absence is a thing that follows. I realize it now. Absence follows along to whatever lovely place you may go or try to hide. If it’s there, it will find you.
~
The photo with trees reaching Infinity is so majestic is unreal, this is crazy.
The cats are not jealous of Snowy. He is not as easily satisfied, over ambitious, I found him today on another side of the street, in a parking lot.....working a crowd. People worry: “is your cat pregnant?” and I have to tell them not to worry.
He has midnight jitters, I close my bedroom now. No, he is more troubled with his over-thinking. I wish he worked in Walmart, or played tennis, or walked around Buckingham Palace all day.
I had a very nice day, treating myself, working on floors, watching “Book Club”, which I once planned to see at the movies but didn't. Talking forever to Juliana, Andrzej (a lot of talk about cities in Poland, Andrzej was guiding me through Kalisz - I loved it on photos, the Oldest town in Poland ) and of course with Babcia.
Watching photos from you is fantastic. Tomorrow laundry day, house will be more orderly when you come. Miss you and see you when this Big Sur is out of your system, if Ever? ...
Near Monterrey is Salimar, so interesting. Bells announce the dinner and people from hotels around come to eat. Miss my son, but will see him soon!
~
I do talk to her. Find myself talking to her still.
“The redwoods, Mom. We’re in the redwoods!”
I’ll talk to her out loud, and rather often. I’ll open the windows to let her in on more of the sea or sand or forest. I’ll say a thing like, “Back in an hour, Mom. Lunch at Steinbeck’s. You remember.”
Or, “Love you, Mom.” I say this out loud now, more than I ever did.
Once I pulled the car over to the perfect little clearing atop a high cliff overlooking the Big Sur coast and its swaying blue-green waters. I paused to eat a sandwich there on some rock, and placed her ashes next to me.
Along the famous 17-Mile Drive around the Monterey Peninsula, a stretch of beauty she actually introduced me to some twenty years ago now, or also like yesterday, I stopped and exited sometimes with the urn, as if to show her some of those sights again, like the Lone Cypress.
I don’t really know why I do it, some of these things. Because I can’t say I feel her presence there in that rosewood box. It feels just like a box. An object, albeit a heavy one. And taking it around, almost like an Olympic torch en route to its final destination (in our case, Poland), feels a bit silly, a bit insane truly. But this is what it is now. This is where we are.
Her presence, I feel it not in the rosewood box but in moments, in flashes. I feel it within the stillness of those redwoods, or in a passing bird. In this single tree in Otter Rock. I feel it, or I try to. Sometimes there is only the absence.
But sometimes I catch myself thinking, hoping, that she really could be there. I think of this one story a friend once told me. She told of her father’s near-death experience — in fact he did die for a minute, he flatlined and was resuscitated. And later, he told of what he saw: everything. And he was everything. He said he saw and simply became all of it — the trees, the sidewalk, the sun. He was everything and then he was himself again, his body, his heart beating again. From then on, the man didn’t fear death.
So sure, I’ll look at a tree now, and wonder. Sure, I’ll see a row of pelicans going on by, and hope. There are different versions of what I hope, of where I’d like her to be, and here is one of them.
To be there would be something OUT of this world.
So I hope, and will keep hoping. I’ll keep doing the insane things. I’ll keep saying Hi, or Love you, Mom. It’s all a part of the punch bowl now.
~
Dear Mom,
I have emerged from the forest. Now back in the Carmel Valley. (What can I say, when I point my car north, the car purrs, thinking maybe we’re headed back to Oregon). I will be coming back to the other Valley — yours, as early as tomorrow or as late as Sunday, but most likely it will be Saturday. But I want one more lunch at the Steinbeck house, one more workout at the Salinas gym, and possibly one last soak in the Refuge spa.
Yesterday I went to my beloved Miller Library there in Big Sur, was waiting outside the large wooden gate by the time it opened up.
I brought Grapes of Wrath with me and also, then and there in the bookstore, found and purchased yet another Steinbeck brick — a collection of letters he wrote to a select group of people throughout his life. Steinbeck was a notorious letter writer. He would write letters to friends to “warm up” before beginning his fiction. And he hated communicating by telephone.
Anyway, this book of letters is pure joy to read. And it is also very heartening, in a way, to read of Steinbeck’s earlier years and failures. His first works are universally rejected by publishers. At one point he gets four “No’s” all in a bunch from different publishers and he then writes to a friend saying, “Well, it’s great that so many people are reading my book.”
I took my bag of books much deeper into the forest behind the Miller Library yesterday. Crossed the same winding stream twice where previous people had put down a line of rocks or wood, and then eventually I came to a chair. Some beautiful person had placed a chair right there deep in the redwood grove. This became my home for all of yesterday, as I sat there reading and didn’t see another person for four hours. Only the occasional butterfly.
Sitting on a chair and listening to a forest....wow. What a thoughtful person put this chair there, or was it God.....once I think you bought some artwork with a chair in a landscape. Remember? It is all so inspiring just to listen, but to experience it must be something else. Maybe another book, a little book on literature - is brewing .....
I’m here. Look at this room! I love the slanted roof. And the skylight over the shower. And my balcony (totally separate from other people, no balconies beside) looks out at the bluff. I’m about to walk over to that bluff now...
(The cat was at the front desk and took down my credit card information once he finished drinking)
This IS Heaven all right. I looove wooden slanted roofs. And the view is just...
Snowy is jealous of the orange cat.
Divine. Breathtaking.
I moved these photos to Desktop. They are definitely making my day - more than you know.
I send them also to Babcia - she will love them, she will be so inspired.
I am there with you and feel like a Goddess looking down from that hill.
Two things to celebrate.
Jas, I want to celebrate that you finished the book and the inspiration I got from it. To celebrate I want to invite you to take your pick:
Getty: garden and restaurant or PF Changs at the Strip (Still have 25$ coupon)
I know you will be inviting your mother for her 66. Will you take her to walk and to the Chart House? Or to Huntington Gardens (Chinese restaurant there)?
plus browsing through books at Vromans
choose now because tomorrow I will go where we will not go. Have to take advantage of the weather.
Well, since it’s your birthday then why don’t you decide which you would like to do on which day? Tomorrow and your birthday? If truly no difference then I would probably say Chart House. However: tomorrow is Sunday. Crowded everywhere tomorrow, I’m sure. If you go to Chart House tomorrow keep in mind that their Sunday happy hour is in the afternoons, 12-4 I think (if you choose to go there tomorrow I can call them to double check this).
I will go for a walk in Glendale tomorrow, might be windy at the Marina.
If I decide on 66 it would be Chart House and book celebration at the Getty, with mimosas.
And club salad which Michael thinks is the best. Thank you for the consultation !
Hey, Genius. Marysia K. said that you are an incredibly Individual writer. She is such a fan.
She waited 2 years for the publisher to touch her book finally.
This business is so strange. Some say you need to send it to 70 places to get response.
What in the world is that???? Why this has to be so complicated? Maybe Power from Above is in charge and this wait is a test — when your Ego is crushed to pieces, then something happens.
Go through the test — and then you will come to the Clearing.
My Individual Son knows how to get through — traveling, Individual style — as he is.
You chose the hard path and don't you ever regret it, takes Guts. Enjoy everything you see.
Take good care, tell me about the test when it comes Love - your other fan .... mom
