Back to the Coast

“We drove through the avalanche tunnel, crossed the pass, and descended several thousand feet into central Washington and the broad Yakima valley, about which we knew only that it was orchard country. As we lost altitude, the snows disappeared; our ears popped; the trees changed, and in the trees were strange birds. I watched the landscape innocently, like a fool, like a diver in the rapture of the deep who plays on the bottom while his air runs out.”
- Annie Dillard, Total Eclipse

When I take the last bags to the car, a older couple are saying goodbye in the hotel parking space next to mine. She stands at the open car door of her Mercury SUV while they kiss, then she gets in and he goes over to his Chevy truck, and the three of us leave the parking lot together. 

I muse over those little rendezvous and what those goodbyes are like, and then realized she was probably my age. Maybe she was younger, I realize with some chagrin. 

The landscape of Washington felt familiar, even though I hadn’t been here before. I noticed wide subtle lines of purple shadow in the sky, not sure if they were real or not. I know I can’t capture them with any camera I had. I wonder if they were some kind of shadow from the clouds; they might have been anticrepuscular rays.

The moon is faint in the sky, hanging over sagebrush with the threatening yet attractive windmills. As we pull off at a rest stop, I think to try a photo (even though those daytime moon photos never work), and laugh when the last curve of the exit suddenly adds Mt. Ranier, in all her glory, to the scene.

Into the Cascades and over the pretty Snoqualmie Pass we go. There is a certain kind of exhaustion that comes from driving those long descents. But the feeling of familiarity approaching the Pacific coast carried us, and we make it all the way to our next stay in Hoquiam, WA.

I wanted to visit this area, and particularly Ocean Shores. I was intrigued by the availability of more affordable houses, and things I’d read about the friendly community, though I knew they are under terrible threat from tsunami and earthquake. Still…I wondered about trade-offs.

As they say, the map is not the territory, and all I had to do was drive to the AirBnB to know at once that I’d not be able to live here. The evacuation signs are a constant reminder, and the towns are dense. When the Cascadia subduction zone gives way, they’ll have less than an hour to make it out.

They’re not going to make it. 

It’s living with impermanence on a dramatic scale. I kept turning it over in my mind. I think it would require either a certain spirituality or an ability to put it out of one’s mind entirely. I’m too anxiety-ridden to not think about something like that; I already struggle with that and wildfire and heat. It makes me consider the spiritual approach and how I might work on that more, how other cultures already have.

My pattern is usually to hole up some place during the work week, and never quite get out as much as I’d like. The drive out to Ocean Shores reminds me of Point Reyes and I get pangs. We visit the beach—in Washington and Oregon, one literally just drives to the beach and park on it, sand packed down into a parking lot. A chance to touch the ocean…”hello again, Mama!”

On Friday afternoon, we’re back on the road with a mission. We battle through Portland traffic, experience the hell of trying to get gas and food between Portland and Salem (it takes an hour), and make it to the Veneta post office three minutes before they close.

The new pole segments for Agnes, mailed general delivery, haven’t arrived yet. I’m stuck here waiting for them, over the weekend and probably into next week.

However, since I’m the luckiest woman in the world, I’ve got a great place to wait. So I go to the farm where my brother, sis-in-law, niece, and nephew are unloading one of many trailer loads to come, and help carry in a couple of moving boxes. This land is already full of love, happiness, and lots of dog joy.