Summer Snapshot

Journal Entry:  July 31, 2014

I am taking a vacation day.  Luscious to be home.  Son is playing Beethoven's Sonata Pathethique.  It never fails to move me.  I stop what I'm doing to listen, sigh, and feel my heart swell.  The beauty makes me want to cry.

I drove Luna to Camp Good Puppy for the day.  She was excited about exploring the farm until she realized, from the other side of the fence, that I was leaving without her.  She went bonkers trying to get to me.  Jumping, pushing the gate, I think she was contemplating digging out for her next move. 

It's a beautiful day and the puppy gets to be out with other doggy friends in a wide meadow with soft ground to dig in.  She will have a grand time.

Today's smells:  the sweet, peppery, fresh scent of potted Basil brought in from the warm patio to water.  The leftover smell of vanilla coffee from the half cup left cold on the table from breakfast.  The scent of plants and forest on the back deck.  The slightly garlicky aroma of last night's pozole every time I open the door of the refrigerator.

The sounds are fewer.  There is Son's music, but the piano is silent now.  So the only orchestra is the one undertaken by a construction crew as they hack away the tangle of forest behind our house and train the land into space for a park.  I can hear chain saws, dump trucks, the faint shouts of the men, and the snapping of branches as they cut through the thick web of shimmering green.

The landscape is layered with light.  Diaphanous shades and tints of green and yellow.  The rich burgundy of the Japanese maple.  Crocosmia blooms are teardrops of fire.  Thyme, Petunias and sweet potato vine cascade from the terra cotta planters.  The sky is bathed with the sheerest turquoise and dotted with floating clouds.

It is summer.  The warmth, the light, the white stillness all lovely.  Lovely.  Lovely.  

Were it not for a vacation day I'd miss its charms.  I would know it was a sunny day.  I would hear a mention on the radio, or someone on the phone would say, "Enjoy the sunshine," as a sign-off to our conversation about hiring or jobs or employment.  I might feel the hard slap of heat if I left the office midday to go home and check on Son, feel the sizzle from the asphalt or the suffocation of the closed car interior before the AC roared to life. 

The quiet, reflective, tranquil essence of an Oregon summer day requires all the senses.  In the spirit of Emily Dickinson, it takes reverie.  I have that gift today.

Chop Wood, Carry Water

Life is made of the common moments. 

Saturday buzzes with cleaning, errands, and household chores.  There are leaves to blow in the yard, counters to tidy inside the house.  The weekly grocery shopping must be done.  Drop dry cleaning off at the cleaners.  Sort and pay the bills.  Take the dog for a romp in the park.  Be sure to exercise - goodness knows there is no time any other day.  Take Son for a haircut.  Time to buy new jeans.  Catch up on journal writing and pen a letter to Grandpa.  That hedge needs trimming out front.  And laundry, there is always laundry.  

Then Sunday comes, a day of rest and renewal of spirit. 

The day dawns quiet.  There is fellowship and spiritual bread.  Long and slow Sunday dinner.  An afternoon nap. 

In the evening, snacks are bagged up for quick school lunches for the week ahead.  Dinners planned for the next five days.  Homework done.  Garbage and recycling sorted and taken to the curb. 

On Sunday night the house breathes deep.

Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.  After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.  - Zen saying

Rockaway

Girls getaway to Rockaway Beach.

Just dune grass, sunshine, a cartwheel on the sand.  Stories.  Lots of talk.  Remember that time in our 20s when....  Mimosas on the deck.  The soundtrack of the waves by day, their lullaby at night.

Go to bed as late as you like.  Get up at noon if you wish.  There is no wrong way to do it here, now, at Rockaway.  Another day in the paradise of the Oregon coast.  What a weekend.

Infinite

August

Nothing like a fire on a summer night.  The day's heat falls away, the stars appear, and the stories begin.

Photosynthesis

Autumn photo shoot at Cathedral Park under the St. John's Bridge for Son's senior pictures.  It is an ethereal setting with soaring Gothic arches.

Brilliant sun rays pierce the angelic white clouds in today's periwinkle sky.

The gritty concrete girders and bisecting railroad tracks are an earthy crossroads to disappearing infinity.  The place is full of mystery and atmosphere and the stain of color and light.

Jackpot

Ninety percent of the time the weather on the Oregon coast is miserable.  Living in the Pacific Northwest means accepting that the beach is not a destination.  It's not pleasant to be assaulted by wind, rain, clinging sand and cold... in June. 

Add in vacationing Oregonians showing too much pasty white skin, and .... Santa Monica it's not. 

No.  Seaside, Oregon, with its mishmash of shabby low-rent vacation cottages and home-spun eclectic businesses, its crowded grid of seafood joints and brewpubs, is Southern California without the sunshine, youth and beauty.

But every once in a millennium the sun shines brilliant and there is no peer to the sparkling pristine carved-cliff beauty of the Oregon Coast.  Saturday was such a day.