Two New Poems up at Cold Mountain Review and Picturing the Oregon Coast

Haystack Rock and Giant Sand Dune at Sunset

Visit to the Oregon Coast

Just returned from the Oregon Coast – Pacific City, to be exact – where we had this review of a giant sand dune and Haystack Rock each morning and evening from our balcony. Pacific City – which can be reached only with a five and a half hour drive, the last hour of which was a hairpin turned, one-lane bridged mountain road driving – complete with washed-out roads and steep drop offs – almost reminded me of driving through the mountains in Tennessee only to wind up in California. The rocky dunes and steep cliffs, the scrub brush, the surfers –  definitely echoed the beaches in northern California. Maybe a little like Big Sur – the lush growth of mountain trees, ending in a spectacular stretch of beach.

Egret in flight

Even the birds – when we went through town, which was a bit modest and even seedy in spots – on the river reminded us of California. We saw our share of herons, but we were really excited by a sighting of a great Egret – which we hadn’t seen since we left Napa. We went to a wildlife preserve, where we saw the only flowers we saw in Pacific City. We didn’t encounter the rare butterfly they were trying to protect, but we did run into several deer, which were plentiful just like they were in Port Townsend, Washington, another mostly touristy, small beach town. These little coastal towns are fascinating to me: the people, the landscapes, the jobs, the houses. What are daily lives like when the pace is so different than, say, Portland or Seattle? There are a ton of these little pockets all around Washington and Oregon. You can definitely see the appeal of escaping here.

Last sunset on the Coast, our balcony

It’s easy for us to forget that we live so close to so many amazing landscapes – mountain ranges we rarely visit, a roaring ocean we don’t see often enough, a whole different menagerie of birds and butterflies. One of the benefits of taking these kinds of road trips is re-familiarizing yourself with the area you live in, the microclimates, the tiny different ecosystems. Also, we listened to almost the full book (and I finished when I got home) of Yoko Ogawa’s depressing with very salient The Memory Police, about the dangers of succumbing to authoritarian governments without too much resistance. (And also the very Japanese emotion of aware – the sadness and beauty of things that disappear – in this case, memories.) We try to get through one book on every road trip. Glenn said it would be easy to do nothing but watch the sea – as the light changes, as the birds go up and down the beach, watching various vehicles get towed off the beach after getting stuck in the sand.

Glenn and I on the windy beach, where it was really hard to walk with a cane!

But I remain attached to Woodinville – the abundance of flowers, especially, and hummingbirds, which were missing in our beach visit. I think of myself more as a tree/forest/waterfall person than a true beach lover. I love the shade rather than sunning. I like the shapes of the leaves overhead. But it is nice to remind ourselves of what is out here. Also, for disabled people, the beach is hard to have fun on. As I discovered quickly, canes sink quickly in the sand, and the person trying to navigate the beach in a puffy-wheeled wheelchair had a really hard time. As it was, I took a few steps towards the water, got my feet wet, and then jumped back into the car (which yes, though it had all-wheel drive, got stuck on the sand, but instead of being towed, we were pushed out by a volunteer gang of teenage volleyball players. I’ve never been so relieved to be surrounded by teens! They cheered as we successfully rolled away, and Glenn and I could not stop laughing.)

Here’s a snapshot in pictures: a cabinet inlaid with slices of geode from the Rowboat Gallery, a friendly deer, the scrub flowers at the wildlife preserve, and us:

Two New Poems up at Cold Mountain Review

Thanks to the new Spring/Summer 2019 issue of Cold Mountain Review, which has two of my new poems in it. The whole issue is beautiful, so check it out. And here’s a sneak peek at one of my poems, “Self-Portrait as Migration,” what I write while I was preparing to go into chemo and reading about the disappearances of poisoned snow geese. Snow geese are one of the birds I had never seen before moving to the Northwest, and they are amazing. Wishing you a quiet and peaceful transition into September.