I did a great deal of solitary walking on the beach last week, a wonderful incubator for re-balancing references and energies, and re-calibrating my compass. Many walking songs streamed along in the background of my thinking. I’d heard this song, “Walking in Memphis” (Marc Cohn and the Blind Boys of Alabama, 1991) earlier in the week. The song melded effortlessly into my stream. One specific verse remained with me.
Walking in Memphis
I was walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel?
The lines’ duality strike me, especially the last, “But do I really feel the way I feel?” Not infrequently, I root through what I’m feeling to discover that what I thought I was feeling wasn’t it at all, and the source for my feelings isn’t always as apparent as the first thing – or the latest matter – or the dominant issue – stalking me. Sometimes, digging and reflection is required to discover what I really feel, and why.
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.
Ah, an old favorite, from about fifty years ago. Here’s Humble Pie with a 1972 cover of Jr Walker’s “Road Runner”. It speaks to being on the road yesterday, and then doing some hard hiking.
Today’s song is one of my favorite, recurring rocking walking songs.
“Good Times Roll” is a 1979 hit for The Cars. Although it’s a sarcastic comment on being part of the rock scene, I always apply it to my writing efforts and the muses.
If the illusion is real
Let them give you a ride
If they got thunder appeal
Let them be on your side
[Chorus]
Let them leave you up in the air
Let them brush your rock and roll hair
Let the good times roll
Won’t you let the good times roll-oll
Let the good times roll
n/t to Genius.com
I walk away from a writing day feeling pretty good, and think, that was a good write. Let the good times roll. Then the song pops into my head. Its chugging, relaxed beat is good for fast striding, oddly enough.
His head was down against the silvery sunshine heat. Walking along, he looked up to orient his course and spotted Doctor Frank further up the white cement sidewalk.
He literally froze where he was. His heart beat – he felt it – but a shocked stupor held him stiff. Doctor Frank had died two months before. This had to be a doppelganger. He’d heard or read that everyone has an exact replica of themselves elsewhere on the world. This was the most perfect one he’d ever seen. The man was just like Doctor Frank, the biologist, in every aspect from his impish, good-natured expression, gray and white beard, and slender-as-a-broom frame to the outdoor pants, boots, and vest that were Doctor Frank’s regular attire, including the forest green bush hat.
He snapped out of it. The result put him up the sidewalk past where he’d spotted Doctor Frank, as if he’d never stopped. His head swooned. Pausing to regain control of his senses, he saw Q across the street, waiting to cross.
Now that was fucking impossible. Q’d died four years ago. Like Doctor Frank, doppelganger Q was an eerie ghost of his deceased friend. As he wondered what the what, he saw his mother-in-law, Jean, dead for the last two years, off to the left, with her husband, Carl, who’d been dead since 1992.
“Holy shit,” reverberated through his mind and came out his mouth. “What’s going on?”
In a blink, he realized all the color had deserted the world, as though he was watching a movie on an old black-and-white television. Closing his eyes to recover, he gasped; with his eyes closed, he could see everything taking place in color, except the dead folk that he saw weren’t there.
Slowly, he cracked his eyes open and took in the monochrome world. The sound differed from before. Swiveling his head, he saw more dead friends and relatives. It wasn’t his beloved hometown any longer, until he closed his eyes. With eyes closed, color was restored, and he was in the town where he’d been living and walking.
Keeping them closed, he resumed his walk. That seemed to work, but it was a temporary solution. Something fundamental had changed in his world.
He was going to have to open his eyes again sometime. And then…
He shook his head. He was going to keep his eyes closed until he was home. And then —
I don’t mind sweating, but I’ll tell you, I intensely dislike it when the sweat makes my boxer shorts stick to my butt cheeks. Makes me want to swear off undies, but then I’d just end up with my shorts stuck to my butt. The only option seems to be to avoid sweating, unless someone makes undies that repel sweat…
Don’t you love it when you’re outside with a hat on, and a large spider starts running around on your hat brim’s underside, and then he drops down on a thread and swings onto your sunglasses like Tarzan, and then races onto your cheek and makes a dash over your mustache for your nostril?
He rounded a corner and turned to head up a hill. A woman, perhaps in her early twenties, was also going up the hill.
His energy had been lagging and the hill was steep, so he decided that he would push himself and stride up that hill.
He began the walk. Within seconds, he realized that the young woman was right behind him.
Well, that wouldn’t do. Pressing his lips together, he pressed into a fast stride and higher speed. After a dozen feet, he peeked back out of the corner of his eye.
He almost broke stride. She was still there. Damn it. Sucking energy out of his reserves, he walked as fast as he could up the long, steep hill.
Reaching the top was a crosswalk with traffic light. He stopped to wait for the light to change. She caught up with him. “Wow, that was some pace you had coming up the hill. I thought that I’d use you to pace myself, but I couldn’t keep up.”
He nodded. “I was trying to get away from you. I was pretending that a beautiful young woman was stalking me because she wanted my body, and I had to escape.”
Her eyes widened. Her mouth clamped shut.
He grinned. “Don’t worry, it’s just a silly fantasy to push me to walk faster. Of course it’s not true.” Stepping closer to her, he said, “Right?”
Two people were in the cross walk. The red Volkswagen Jetta had plenty of time to stop, but the young woman drove through the crosswalk, missing a pedestrian on either side by two to three feet.
Enraged, they gestured and shouted at her. She had a good excuse for not seeing them and stopping, because she was on her cellphone.
He walked through the neighborhoods of circa 1940 and 1950 bungalows and craftsman houses. The newer neighborhoods were ranches built in the 1960s and 1970s, larger houses with smaller yards.
Throughout were large oak, sycamore, and maple trees, along with cars and RVs filled with belongings parked up against the curbs. Some cars had people sleeping inside. Others had windows or doors open with people lounging by their vehicles, smoking cigarettes, talking to others, listening to music, or reading books.
Churches occupied every third block, churches with an acre or more of vast asphalt for parking with signs stating, “Church Use Only. All Others Will Be Towed.”
Somehow, seeing those cars and RVs of homeless parked on the streets and the vast empty church parking lots, he thought there was a disconnect, but he just couldn’t connect it.
Michael Seidel, writer 