July 2015 – A Bevy of Books

Too Much Stuff

As a person who has recently whittled her stuff down to a bare minimum, and then made a smaller version of her stuff to travel with, it should come as no surprise that I am very careful about buying anything that might add to my pile. I’ve seen adorable ceramic turtles for the shelves I’ve gotten rid of and artwork for the walls I no longer possess. And it’s pretty easy to resist buying these sorts of things, regardless of how much I like them.

I have added three shirts and a swimsuit cover-up to my wardrobe since March, so I not exactly expanding my wardrobe, either. And all the books I’ve purchased lately have been e-books, so no mass gained there.

But somehow, my stuff no longer fits in the bags that I brought it in. I was a week in Brookings, and couldn’t fit all my stuff in my suitcase – though I’m sure it was all in there when I came. Can 20 tea bags and sneakers rather than sandals really take up that much room? It would seem that the answer is Yes.

I have, of course, been buying food and sundries while traveling, which creates a similar problem. I’ve left a half-used bottle of mustard in virtually every refrigerator I’ve had access to in the last month. And I’ve abandoned avocados and sour cream in more than one kitchen where these items are not usually found. The choice always seems to come down to ‘buy too much and waste it’ or ‘don’t buy enough and be hungry/ hangry.’

Most of this problem will go away once I START TRAVELING WITH MY CAR AGAIN next week, but it appears to be yet another thing I didn’t realize would be a thing.

Accepting No Substitutes

I was in Seattle last week, and I took a ferry from there to Bremerton, about an hour’s boat ride across Elliott Bay.* From the boat, the water is surrounded on four sides by land, since Puget Sound is all twisty and you can’t see where the bay meets Admiralty Inlet, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and later the Pacific. It was great to be out on the water, and from some viewpoints, any land in view was a long way off.

The views of downtown Seattle and Mt. Rainer were spectacular and I was sorry I’d left my good camera back in Portland. The gulls followed us, and fought the wind by being still in the air just a few feet over the deck. The public dock in Bremerton had nice benches where you could stare at the water to your heart’s content.

Sunset from Chetco Point, Brookings, Oregon.

But it was not the ocean. And it seems it really is the ocean I’m looking for, not just a big body of water. Because I didn’t get the same feeling I got in Lincoln City three weeks ago, or here in Brookings today.

Here is the land I’m standing on, there is the water, and then there is nothing. The waves are constant, ever-changing and never-ending. Maybe it’s hot, maybe it’s cold, maybe it’s windy, but the water goes on forever.

Seals in Lincoln City, Oregon — Okay, I realize this is also not the ocean, but SEALS. Seals are cool.

*the ferry is only $8 for passengers. EIGHT DOLLARS! For a two hour boat ride, and the ride back is free.

The Ocean is My Spirit Animal?

It’s been just over three months since I held a real job (Location Independence Day + 3 months = July 4^th!), and I’m still floundering a bit. Partly because I had location-dependent commitments in May and June, mostly because this is all brand new territory for me. How to choose when the choices are seemingly infinite? [Here I should apologize and say thank you to my friends who’ve been listening to me whine about this issue lately. I promise I’m working on it].

Lots of things sound cool, lots of places look interesting, lots of friends have asked when I’m coming to see them (and again, thank you lovely people!). But nothing has said THIS, THIS YOU MUST DO! And frankly, I was expecting something like that. This whole idea was a bolt from the blue, I expected the same kind of pull towards something once I took the big leap.

Ogunquit Maine, Atlantic Ocean, the ocean is my spirit animal — Maine coast, with bonus sky.

But, nothing came. And the more people asked me questions like ‘what are you doing next?’ and ‘what is the most interesting/coolest/amazing thing you’ve seen so far?’ the more I realized I hadn’t really seen anything amazing yet, and I had no idea what I wanted to do.

You don’t get messages from your future when you’re whining, or when you are running around like a crazy person from one event to the next. You can only hear the quiet voice when you are quiet. It yells very rarely, and only when you’ve been listening to the quiet. Or something like that – my metaphor stopped working back there somewhere. What I’m trying to say is… the ocean.

Knik Arm, Mt. Susitna, Sleeping Lady, Alaska, the ocean is my spirit animal — A tiny piece of the view from my favorite bench in the world. Mt. Susitna/ Sleeping Lady trying to peak through the clouds, and the tide is way out.

The ocean has been calling me – quietly but consistently – for a long time. In Alaska, whenever I’d feel like I was in a weird head space and needed to figure something out, I’d go to Cook Inlet (15 minutes from anywhere in Anchorage) or Knik Arm (only a bit further). When I moved out of state, I asked Carl to go take pictures from my favorite spot, just south of Anchorage where you could see Knik Arm dump into Cook Inlet (and you can’t see the other side). My first road trip, to test out my little POS, was to the coast of Oregon.

More recently, the coast of Maine looked like heaven, and Lincoln City, Oregon was incredible – even with the cold and the wind.

I found a journal entry yesterday – from May 1 of this year – that said straight out that the only thing that called to me was to be at the ocean, alone. Apparently I wrote it and then immediately forgot it.

So, that’s it. That’s the next thing, I finally heard it. Now to figure out how to make it happen, at something less than $1000 a week.

Lincoln City Oregon, the ocean is my spirit animal — Lincoln City beach in the cold.