Sometimes the River Is Still. June 22-23. Part 1.

Dear Trail Friends,

I am lying in a hammock in early afternoon sunshine under a cloudless blue sky in the backyard at Seaside International Hostel. It might seem a little odd that my second day on the trail (and my fourth as well!) are days of rest. Particularly since I have no other days of rest planned for the entire beachwalk. This suggests a little bit of imperfection on the part of the planning and preparation committee for my hike (i.e. My various moods and selves) but at the moment I could not be happier. 

Photo 1 is a view of my foot from the hammock. 

 

Photo 2 shows the Necanicum River as seen from the hostel backyard. 

 

Photo 3 is a photo of the map - the little gray-blue widget shows where we are by the river and you can see how the river flows into the ocean. 

 

 

Bob, one of the men who works at the front desk, told me that it is interesting living beside the river. (All the folks who work here also live here.). "Sometimes the river flows one way, sometimes it flows the other, and sometimes it is still." It all depends on the tides. I liked the story because it reminded me of seeing lily pads on a river (also near the ocean) on Chris and my walk to the shore, and of a theme for this walk, the paradox of river-ness (motion, change) and stillness, co-existing. 

Bob incidentally referred to Plato, Voltaire and Hesse in our first conversation - he's a former chemical engineer turned musician and plays melodia (an harmonica with keyboard) on the "prom" (the promenade along the long Beach here) and people like the music, and give him money, and that, he says, is his retirement. 

I got up this morning and joined a quiet meditation on the deck with Bob and Trung (a Vietnamese woman a few years older than me, though much younger looking, I think, who owns the hostel.). During meditation I had that "Here I am" feeling that I so love waking up to at moments on the trail. It was the first "here I am" moment on the Oregon Coast Trail and I was sitting still meditating. Fits with the theme of lily pads on the river, doesn't it? I also felt s burning curiosity to hear Trung's story - had no idea if it was intrusive curiosity or a genuine leading - I had an imaginary conversation with her where she told me there was no way of knowing, we'd just have to find out. After meditation I spontaneously asked if she followed any particular religious tradition and that opened naturally and easily into a lovely conversation where she spoke of her faith in our ability to connect with nature, with dimensions beyond the three we can sense, and when we connect with that largeness, magic happens. She herself has a magical quality to her presence, a simplicity, honesty and openness that inspires faith in me as I listen to her. 

I took a short morning hike along the beach here to the place where I will head up and over Tillamook head tomorrow.  It's 1100 ft and so will be different from yesterday's walk on the long flat beach. 

Speaking of which, well, to be frank, I found it boring. A big long wide flat beach. 

First of course Chris and I had a great breakfast at a crowded local diner (filled with mid-life men and women in camouflage no doubt from nearby Fort Riley Military camp). She took the required photo (photo 4) of me in front of the South Jetty sign that marks the official start of the trail and I took the selfie of our goodbye kiss (photo 5).  

  
 

 

 

 And off I strode to the end of the jetty, perhaps a quarter mile beyond the sign. Only to discover nothing but water pounding on rocks, and to turn around and walk all the way back to the sign, and beyond, further down the jetty, until I found a path that led toward the sandy beach. 

Photo 7 is a collage of the path toward the beach, the big rocks I clambered over, then the vast empty wide beach, and a sand dollar at my feet. The beach was so empty I was thrilled to see cars driving on it! I never thought I would welcome cars on the beach. Nothing of interest washed up with the tide - no shells with interesting colors and shapes, no interesting pebbles, no beach glass. Only fragmentary sand dollars and jellyfish. I missed the trail tread, with its cozy sense of containment, and the sense of past and future hikers' footprints as well as the folks who created and maintained the trail. 

 

To be continued in "Sometimes the River Is Still. June 22-23, part 2"