Skip to main content

Existing in "The Moment".

I was able to visit the coast on the day after Thanksgiving.

I had been dealing with an important audio-visual project and when I wasn’t planning for a trip, I was scanning pictures until early morning and if not, I was worrying about it. Either way, I wasn’t getting much sleep. And then I got blindsided by a cold that I couldn't get rid of.

So, on the 18th, the presentation went off without a hitch and I was finished and then all the details of Thanksgiving were over and suddenly I had a moment when I didn’t have to do anything (not counting a growing stack of dishes) and like I said, I was able to go to the beach.

But it didn’t appear to be such a great day to go to the beach. Snow was threatening to fall in the passes, and rain was enthusiastically falling everywhere else. Once or twice a patch of blue sky hinted at an alternative to November’s moisture onslaught, but mostly these hints proved to be cruel teasing.

By some cosmic gift of timing, I ended up at Oswald State Park in-between cloudbursts.




To the Southwest, you could see a storm approaching and I knew it wasn’t the first one that had paraded up the coast that day and I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be the last. It was hard to tell how fast it was moving, but it turns out that at this point, it was about 45 minutes away. Thick batches of sea-foam collected around rocks and driftwood or swirled like clumsy ballerinas across the thin film of receding water that was dumped from the last set of waves.



And in the brief burst of light and warmth from a strange sun, opportunistic surfers struck out into the surf paddling in faith toward some big imaginary wave, tourists abandoned the craft stores and bakeries of Cannon Beach in search of nature, and dogs rejoiced in the moment, unaware of clocks and calendars. I tried to imagine being a dog.

As I walked up the beach I saw a little girl, from a distance, wielding kelp like a whip. It reminded me of a story about a little tiger (I think) who claws at the ocean while the tide is going out and at the end of the day believes it has ‘beaten’ the ocean because it looks like the ocean has retreated.You’ve probably seen these giant kelp-whips washed up on the shore. I sense it would not be scientifically sound to say that there is an innate behavior wired into the D.N.A. of every child who ever went to the beach to use kelp as a whip, nevertheless there does seem to be some evidence for a species specific archetypal recognition of the “whip form” and an underlying understanding of the physics involved in its use.


Here briefly, it appeared that the little girl found the secret to existing in ‘the moment’ just as the dog had done.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

John Day River: Thirty Mile Creek to Cottonwood Bridge

"Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse;" -Romans 1:20 "I'm not so sure about that, but whether or not we all make it through these rapids alive, I'm confident the grading criteria will be fair." -  Scott "Get ready to explore your world without boundaries." -  Wilderness Systems Owners Manual Sunrise found us on the outskirts of Wasco, high on the Columbia Plateau, our 3 vehicle convoy speeding through golden fields of wheat on toward Condon and then West to a 7:30 AM meeting with a rancher who would provide us a private launch site to the John Day river and also execute our car shuttle.   Startling verdant fields, free of the vestiges of irrigation, belied narratives of drought that punctuated the news. The fresh born morning, still cool to the senses, felt like the fledgling hours of a

Miller Island Expedition: Columbia River Ghost Cult

My brother Fred sent me a checklist of things he didn’t want to forget for our second attempt at a Miller Island Expedition. Foil pans Steak Beer or whiskey/tequila Bacon Shovel TP Bug spray Homebrew Ghost repellents Scouting Miller Island from the Lewis and Clark Highway (Washington side of river) “Ghost repellents?” I asked. Well, it turns out that Fred had been doing some research and found an old article from American Anthropologist by Wm. Duncan Strong called The Occurrence and Wider Implications of a “Ghost Cult” on the Columbia River Suggested by Carvings in Wood, Bone and Stone. The article, written in 1945, revealed that bone carvings depicting figures with prominent rib cages, a symbol of death, were found in old cremation pits on Miller’s Island. Excerpts from the article: “It can be shown that among these peoples there was an old belief in the impending destruction and renewal of the world, when the dead would return…” “One of the most striking fea

Test Paddling the Tarpon 160 (finally)

The problem with 'objectivity' is that it's usually 'subjectivity' cleverly disguised as objectivity. I've wanted the Tarpon 160 ever since I saw it sitting in the rack at the kayak shop. However, I'm trying to take the universal advice of the broad community of kayakers who suggest that choosing a kayak is a personal choice based on how a particular boat fits one's body and objectives, and so, going through the motions of due diligence, I've finally come to the day when I actually get to paddle my dream boat. It doesn't escape my attention that I seem to have a Wilderness Systems' bias. The first kayak I ever sat in was their 12 foot plastic Pungo which delivered me down the Sandy River without making me a candidate for the Darwin Awards. The first kayak I ever bought (so far the only kayak I ever bought) was their Tsunami 125 which has, over the last eight years, patiently taught me everything I know about kayaking except for tha