The Ocean – A Bevy of Books

Betwixt and Between: What do I do now?

Rhode Island, Atlantic Ocean, beach day, bevyofbooks.com — Probably my last beach day of 2016, Rhode Island coast.

I’m almost out of money.

The smart move is to head back to Montana and stay free with my sister, get a job and return to the story of work and home and a settled life. Or that same scenario, but back in Portland where I have a support system and more professional connections.

Winter is coming. No, not Winter is Coming, nothing ominous here. Just snow and cold and studded tires and windshields that must be scraped. Montana has winter, the real stuff. I will not be actively choosing to winter anywhere that knows what that word means.

Returning to Portland would feel like coming full circle – which wouldn’t be bad, but it would feel like the end of this story. And I’m not ready for that ending just yet.

I am a little tired of not having my own space to return to. I might be spoiled for ever living with anyone long-term ever again. I just want to wake up in a space where no one intrudes without invitation, regardless of how much I might love the intruder. That means some kind of place of my own, even if just for six months or whatever. But while I am looking forward to not being a ping-pong ball, I did still want something new.

So I’m going to Seattle in two weeks. West Coast feels like home, Seattle is on the water and near the ocean and has very little winter. I have a friend there who’ll let me crash while I find work and I can take the train back to Montana for Christmas. And if it all tumbles down around me, both Portland and Montana are close enough to crawl back to and lick my wounds.

So here I am in South Carolina, sitting in a new place with not-new people, headed down a well-traveled road with a new adventure at the end of it. At least, what in my head seems like a new adventure. I’m looking forward to it.

Better living through slacking off.

Clifford beach California, bevy of books — Best seat in the house.

I went to the beach yesterday.

All by myself.

It’s not really warm, but nice enough that capris and a sweatshirt will let you stare at the ocean as long as you like. I saw a sea lion fishing in the waves, the sun peaking through the clouds and a surfer practicing in the tiny waves.

I wrote a bit in my journal, I read some of my book (Empire Ascendant by Kameron Hurley) and took 133 pictures in about 1.5 hours.

And it was amazing. And it was enough. And today I can do that all over again. Or I can stay ‘home’ and read all day, or color, or binge-watch Gilmore Girls.

I’m house-sitting for a friend on the southern Oregon coast for more than a week. House is empty except for a cat that hides most of the day. No one around to give a shit what time I wake up or how I want to waste my day. I really can do WHATEVER I want.

It wasn’t until recently that I had really asked myself that question – what do I want to do? – without some heavy modifier, like ‘that doesn’t cost more than $50?’ or ‘that isn’t more than 100 miles away?’

Rocky Mountains Montana, pileated woodpecker, bevy of books — I bet this bird has it all figured out.

It took months to train myself to think about days on my own terms, rather than those determined by permanent residency and limited time. You can’t just dump a 30-year mindset like an old pair of shoes that hurt your feet. It’s more like learning a new language, or moving to a brand new city. You still have to eat and sleep and wash your clothes, but you have to figure out how to do that all over again.

I’m hoping to kick-start that process by staring at the ocean a lot. Then I’m off on a driving tour of the southern USA, highlights to include the Grand Canyon and New Orleans. Maybe I’ll see you?

A Temporary Return to The Grind

Redwoods California, Bigfoot, bevy of books — I’d rather face Bigfoot that go back to work again

I’m back in Portland for a few weeks, refilling my savings account with a short-term contract job that was too good to pass up (which made the Frugal Franny voice in my head SHUT UP for the first time in months). And while the work itself is not any worse than it was five months ago, the experience of working is a seriously unpleasant shock to the system.

I was exhausted for the first few weeks – a combination of greatly increased mental efforts (finding and fixing a crazy quilt of errors on the project) and not having adjusted back to a work-supporting schedule.

I said yes to all the social invites I received – as I would when I was just here visiting – and as a result did not have one day in the first ten where I got enough sleep. I had a lot of fun, but I was wiped out.

I make jokes about the oppression of work and the rigid schedule it imposes on your life… but it’s not really a joke. Most people are just so acclimated to that schedule as a way of life that it seems normal, and therefore unavoidable.

I spent months with no particular schedule on a daily or even a weekly basis. Other than having payroll deadlines to be meet twice a month, my hours, days, weeks, meal and bed times were my own, to organize or ignore however I liked. Often, those would be heavily influenced by the people I was living with and travel I was doing… but all of those things had also been chosen or determined by me.

Redwoods California, trees, bevy of books — My preferred view.

I don’t think I have the words to properly convey the joy I took in reminding people that – while they had to go to work tomorrow, go to bed early, leave before the show was over – I did not. I’m quite certain a few people were sick of my shit, and I don’t blame them. But it was often as if I was realizing it for the first time. I DID NOT HAVE TO PLAN MY ENTIRE EXISTENCE AROUND THE NEED TO BE AT MY DESK AT 9AM MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY.

Because it really does take up WAY more time than those 40 hours to be a good worker bee. Commuting time, wardrobe maintenance, meal planning, hygiene, daycare or pet care – the time to manage all of these activities is greatly increased (and sometimes only made necessary) by the demands of a job outside the home. Not to mention the additional work many of us bring home and the stress induced by all of the above.

So now, here I am, week three of this project, and I’m right back where I was in March. Not ‘what do I want to do today?’ but ‘what do I need to do this weekend so I can go to work on Monday (grocery shopping, laundry, etc)?’

But I don’t have to work Monday – I’m off to Montana for a week. A fact which has been virtually invisible to me for the last two weeks as far as daily planning is concerned. Vanished. Overwhelmed by the unaccustomed demands of the work schedule.

A schedule I have to remind myself will be gone again very soon. Intellectually, I know I’m running off again in early October – but viscerally, I feel like I’m back to working a real job again and next week will look just like this week, and on and on forever. And, having recently been removed from that mindset, its return looks like the tyranny that it is.

A rat race most of us have acclimated to. A thing I’m hoping to leave behind forever.

Gold Beach Oregon, bevy of books, ocean — This isn’t me, but I plan to be this guy in two weeks.

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.