A lion dream that left me breathless was experienced last night. I was in a village which seemed to be on an island. Small cottages and huts were built in the jungle around a small stream that fed into the ocean. Going left, I’d come out on the beach, and then, there was the ocean.
Well, on this day, I walked around a hut alongside the stream, when I stopped in shock; on the other side of the stream, where the jungled abutted the beach, was a sleeping male lion. He was huge.
Terror and worry struck me like a lightning bolt. Backing up in a frenzy, I tried warning others about the lion, fearing it would awaken and attack us. Then children saw the lion and screamed. Awakened, the lion crossed the stream and headed for me. I at once wanted it to come after me so it wouldn’t get others but also didn’t want to be gotten. Trying to get away, I couldn’t get any traction in the sound. The huge lion came right up on me.
It began pawing my leg, but in a friendly manner. Then it sniffed and licked me. I calmed down but remained doubtful that this lion just wanted to be my friend, but that’s exactly what it seemed to be. Relaxing, I let the lion come up beside me, standing still as it rubbed its head and face on my hip.
Awakening reflections, I thought, I must be needlessly fearful and worried about something. Later, I sorted through what the could be, but it’s a long and complicated list, one I don’t want to share with the world.
The dream was odd. It was about me and two balls. Ahem. These were small hard-rubber balls. They easily fit in the palm of my hand. I’d been traveling with friends. The friends included a person I worked with about fifteen years ago — a female who I’ll call S — along with a male that I didn’t know, who was white and my age, and another female not known to me, but a friend in my dream. The male and I were throwing the ball as we chatted. First, we seemed to be in a mall but moved on to a gathering that was by a beach. As we went, we encountered other people, talking with them.
I also discovered a special affinity with the balls. Although dull red and normal in appearance, I discovered that I could hurl them with great power and accuracy. I first found this on my own, then decided to explore it with my male friend. This happened first in the mall area. He was about fifty feet away. I thought, I can really put some speed on this. Worried about him not being able to catch it, I refrained from throwing it too hard. After visualizing a six-inch square target in my mind, I threw it with impressive velocity. It landed right where I wanted but he had trouble managing to bring it in.
S joked with me about the balls. Out on the beach, I explained to the male friend that the ball was energized; I fed off its energy and it fed off mine. It was a matter of being in the moment. I thought that anyone could do it. He asked for a demonstration of what I meant. I sent him out into the water because I didn’t think he could catch it and I didn’t want it hurting anyone. When he was about a hundred yards out, with waves splashing over his knees, I whipped the ball at him. It shot out above the water with a little rooster tail. He flinched and missed it. The ball skipped into the water.
But I had a second one in my hand. Using the second ball, I called the first ball back to me. My throwing prowess catch the attention of the crowd. They clamored to see more. I discovered by trying that I could throw the ball in a high, long arc that would bring it back to me, and that I could catch it. After I demonstrated this, others gathered, including male and female children. I kept telling them that they could do it, too, and then would throw it to show them. They would try to repeat what I was doing but kept falling short. Some tried catching the returning ball when I sent it off in a long arc, but it would usually come in too fast for them. Even when they missed, I could put out a hand and have the ball return to me, even after it rolled to a stop on the ground.
S said, “You’re pretty good with those. I think that’s something special.” I thanked her with a laugh. That’s where the dream ended.
Friends were renting a house in Waldport, Oregon, three bedrooms, three baths. They’d invited their family. Their family couldn’t make it. Would we like to come?
Twist our arms, ouch, ouch, okay, we give, we give, we’ll come! The house wasn’t on the beach, but on a bluff that overlooks the beach, less than a quarter mile to the beach. Topology and beach access rules and agreements made it a ten minute walk to the beach. Not a problem.
We drove through pouring rain to reach Waldport. The sky ratcheted down to a gray sunshine the first night, permitting a walk on the beach. Waldport has fine, sandy beaches, flat, wide, and unpopulated by many others in September. Rain drenched the area that night. We awoke to a misty gray day, but that burned off. Sunshine and blue skies arrived and hung out with us for the next few days, a very welcome guest. Temperatures jumped into the high sixties, flirting with seventy-one inland.
Waldport is a small, comfortable town. Not many eateries called to us but Yachats ten miles to the south and Newport fifteen miles to the north were easy drives up Highway 101. Down in Yachats, we returned to Luna Sea Food twice, and also visited the Green Salmon for some excellent coffee and food. Once again, we struck out when we tried to visit Bread and Roses, as it was closed for the week! Dinner on Tuesday was at the Adobe restaurant in Yachats, where the dining room presented us with an excellent seat to watch the sunset as we ate and drank.
I walked on the beach at least twice a day, in addition to our daily hiking. For the week, I ended up with sixty-five miles on my Fitbit, which was the same as the previous two weeks. I often walked barefoot in the shallows, enjoying the sun-warmed waters churning over my feet.
Meanwhile, we had terrific companions, Marcia, Art, and Lucy. The owners’ net situation kept us off computers except to check email once in a while. We traveled the local coastline, hiking, and visiting the sights. We also walked the Alsea Bay Bridge. Just three quarters of a mile long, the bay’s water were fantastically clear and often shallow. Seals sunned and swum below us, entertaining us with their pastimes (yes, we’re easily entertained). Amanda’s trail in Yachats offered a more challenging walk, giving us fifty flights of steps on our Fitbits, and offering terrific views of the Pacific. Signs warned us about a mama bear and her cubs in the area, so we stayed on guard.
Amanda’s head has been washed away, and has been replaced by a smaller, carved statue of her. Her sad history, shared too many times with other people across America, remains to remind us how inhumane and barbaric Americans and Europeans often treat others.
A return visit to Cape Perpetua was in order, with its short hike to the CCC era stone shelter.
When we were back at the house, time was passed reading, chatting, eating, cooking, drinking wine, and gazing out at the ocean. The moon was waxing and was almost a full moon by the week’s end, splashing its gorgeous glow over the calm, rolling ocean. Not much writing was done, but batteries were drained and recharged.
Got my coffee, and my ass is in the chair. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
I’ve decided that a new holiday is in order. Don’t worry, it’s a personal holiday. It shouldn’t affect you.
(“Then why do I care?” you respond. “Well,” I reply, “maybe you’ll want to adopt my holiday after you read about it. Maybe you’ll want to have your own personal holiday. You can, you know.”)
National holidays are often so impersonal for me any longer. Commercialization, false patriotism, and cynicism have ground them down. Yeah, I get some credit for all that.
I was watching QI on BritBox the other night. As part of the program, Sandi Toksvig told about a Bolivian holiday, the Day of the Sea. A landlocked nation, Bolivia remembers the day they lost access to the sea. Here’s a little history about it from Boliviabella.com.
What initially detonated the conflict was Bolivia’s intention to charge a 10-cent tax per 100-pounds of potassium nitrate (saltpeter) harvested by Chilean companies in the Atacama Desert. The Chilean government did not accept this Bolivian decision and ordered its troops to invade the Bolivian regions of Antofagasta and Calama, where Bolivia had no military presence and most of the population was of Chilean descent.
It is because of the Battle of Calama that today we celebrate the Day of the Sea. With just under a hundred soldiers, Commanders Eduardo Abaroa (Bolivian) and Ladislao Cabrera (Peruvian) faced over 500 Chilean soldiers. Abaroa was obstinately defending a small bridge over the Topáter River, when on the 23rd of March 1879 the Chileans ordered him to surrender. His response was “Me, surrender? Tell your grandmother to surrender!” after which he was promptly shot dead.
I was instantly inspired. No, I wasn’t planning to shot anyone nor get shot or go to war. Let’s put all that to rest.
I love beaches, seas, and oceans. When I lived in California, my wife and I made a habit of visiting a little town, Half Moon Bay, almost every weekend. Situated on the Pacific coast south of San Francisco, it had wonderful beach access. Walking along the beach was permitted, and the town had restaurants, coffee shops, and book stores that we enjoyed. When it came to buy a house, we decided we’d buy one there. Hearing and smelling the ocean every day was wonderful. I’d get home from work and walk down there to check it out. Sometimes my wife would accompany me.
Moving to Ashland in southern Oregon meant giving up easy beach and ocean access. So, last night I decided to celebrate my beach and ocean addiction on a personal holiday once a year. Since I moved to Ashland in July, I decided my holiday will be on July first.
And like the people of Bolivia, I’ll stop doing everything and listen to the sounds of the oceans for ten minutes, and remember.
My wife and I were just moving into a beautiful new home that was on the beach. Leaving the living room, I entered a courtyard that was part of my home. Cross it and go out a gate, and I was on the beach, about two hundred yards away from the waterline. I was quite happy with it.
Early parts of the dream were involved in moving in new power supplies. My wife had never heard of them. I had to explain that the small, red devices that I was sitting up in different places would supply all the electricity we needed. About the size of a plug-in air freshener or a night light, they had an innocuous small body. I was setting up two per room.
Besides that, we discovered a litter of kittens in our courtyard. We went to meet them. They took off in every direction, but we coaxed them back. Soon they were coming into the house to visit us.
Our new neighbors invited us to a party at their house so we could meet everyone in the neighborhood. They were ebullient and friendly people. Introducing themselves, each invited us for tours of their homes. We soon discovered our neighbors were wealthy and accomplished people.
I became envious of their places. While our house was nice, their houses were better. No one ever said anything, though, and they were all eager to meet me, the gifted writer, and talk to me. One in particular was a Jeff Goldblum look-alike. Telling us, “I want to spring some ideas on you, and hear your ideas, so we can partner together on some things,” he invited us to his house.
We met in his courtyard. It seemed huge, to the tune of about five thousand square feet. Filled with furniture that formed dining areas and conversation pits, the courtyard was attached to his large, red house. It looked like it was four stories tall.
The J.G. doppelganger was cordial, friendly, and energetic, but he had a weird affliction. Sometimes, he would stop and burst out in uncontrollable laughter. It was strange to see. Once I became used to it, it was okay, but it really bothered my wife. As we sat with the J.G. double drinking on his deck, I decided, I wanted a bigger and better house.
A carpet of fog was rolled in with majesty in the afternoon’s middle, and that was it. Sunset decided not to show and sunrise didn’t get up. Twenty miles an hour sea breezes stretched the Stars and Stripes into a snapping fabric panel and tortured our hair into brambly messes.
We were in Bandon.
The fishy fresh smell from tides, ocean and piers hooked its fingers up our nostrils and jerked us in – again and again, often eliciting, “Whoa, I’d forgotten that smell,” that sort of primitive and unfiltered smell associated with small coast towns we’d lived in and visited. Sea sprays blended with mists to coat us with salt and sand.
Bandon was a step away from our first world existence of dry and hot Ashland, but it was further than we expected in technological miles. While the hotel room had a flat screen tv, coffee maker, frig and nuker, the things required and expected for the modern American urban traveler, the wireless connections were spotty and phones never acquired a signal. Your experience may vary.
Sunshine heralded our arrival, so we were absurdly hopeful about how the visit would go. We used that time on the first afternoon to stroll the beaches past Facerock while the tides were out. Imagination easily informed us, we are the first, we have discovered a new territory and ocean, thinking about what it must have been like for the first humans to travel that way and look out on the powerful sea.
Returning to Bandon’s Oldtown, we wandered the windy streets, unchanged from two years past, save businesses had closed or moved away. Menus were perused. Food offerings were the same as before, basic pub grub and seafood offerings. Without knowing the reasons for it of season, month, weather or day of week, the streets were usually free of other souls. Waiting to eat was only encountered for breakfast on the second day, as one eatery was closed for repairs and the other was closed for good, reducing where to eat breakfast by almost fifty percent.
There wasn’t even a Starbucks, Dutch Bros, or Seattle’s Best, for heaven’s sake.
No, those places are not my first choice when traveling but their ubiquitous availability has become a meter for how far from the norm we’ve gone. It’s odd to find a place in America without these places. Nor were there fast food places, except for Subway. Other than a Dollar Tree, the chains have not found Bandon. That would have been wonderful, if Bandon exuded more charm. It was like visiting an aged movie star who no longer knows who they are.
A wallet of money and credit cards were found on the First Street sidewalk the second day, requiring a visit to the police station and foisting worries about the person who lost it on us. Hopefully they’ll be re-united with their wallet. Then we drove up coast to Coos Bay. Heading back down, we missed a turn and ended up in a state park, which was cool. A coyote trotting down the road was encountered. We stopped and gawked. He gave us a glance and veered away, disappearing into the forest. But there he was again on our way out, giving us a longer, more appaising gaze as he traversed the forest along the road. Being romantics, we thought encountering him was significant. Some precious web time that evening was spent trying to determine what his appearance meant to us, and which of us it was meant for. I believe he was a messenger telling us to let go of the past and pad into the future.
Those are the highlights. Bandon, we decided, needs a new tide, a new wind. Despite the sea breezes, the town is in the doldrums. Perhaps it’s as they wish, a nostalgic visit to a fading past. It did recharge our batteries, sooth our anxieties and blow out our stresses, as was our desire. Visits to the oceans do that for us, though, and there are other coast towns to visit.
Michael Seidel, writer 