(The audio version of this story is available on my Building A World podcast)
Where am I? What am I doing? I’ve been so confused lately. Lost. Out of sequence. Out of time. Do you know that feeling? That feeling of tension as a deadline approaches, a timer ticking toward zero. Here is this impending thing and your stomach turns and your anxiety races as you hurl towards it. Have you felt that before? I feel it all the time, a perpetual slope, slipping, straining to reach for something. Never grasping it. Not knowing even what it is. Struggling to keep balance.
Where am I this time? Sunrise. Somewhere on the Oregon coast. Didn’t sleep last night. Neighbors were loud lovers. I’d debated about the hotel, it was that or sleep in my car. I thought a mariner themed hotel set on a weatherbeaten coastal bluff would have thicker walls. I would have rather slept in my car. No bother. The sunrise was worth it. I might have otherwise slept through it. The only good thing about insomnia are the sunrises.
For the moment I allowed presence to leak in. I was simply at that moment. Right there. Right then. The orange pink sky drawn onto the motion of cotton clouds as the morning surf licked up on a flat stretch of sandy beach. An eagle swoops down and then coasts to rest at the top of a wind blown tree, taking in the scene just as I am. I’ve got to try and do this more: Be present. It felt good. I’m always lost in some day dream, a million miles away from where I actually am.
There’s that feeling again. That ticking clock. I’ve just been wasting time.
Get it together. Time to focus. Time to focus on the time I’m supposedly wasting. What should I be doing within it that I’m not doing now? Confused again. Huh? What? Oh, right, the sponsors. Of course. Don’t forget to mention the sponsors.
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I don’t so much as visit the woods, rather, I flee to them, seeking sanctuary. The real world I occupy, that which isn’t me lost in day dream, the world I must function in to earn and provide and to be a model citizen, is centered in a highly metropolitan area and involves the daily requirement of being around and speaking to hundreds of people. As an introvert, a soul whose energy is depleted by others, after weeks on end of this I grow weary and delirious. An anxiolytic knot forms in my stomach and I feel edgy, moody…the skin of patience I portray stretched thin and starting to tear at the edges. I needed a break. I needed quiet. Where to this time, Gov?
The Oregon Coast.
I was finally through San Francisco, a city of such beautiful frustration, and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge. It was the last stretch of urban density as I fought and clawed my way out of town, desperate to put the city behind me. Starting out of San Jose, it’s not like San Francisco is that far away but I was on edge and the time seemed to stretch from what should have been 45 minutes into infinite oblivion.
As you pass over the landmark, you can’t help but be struck by the magnitude of it. The long red suspension bridge, built over churning Pacific currents, was a testament to human achievement. A marvel in every sense. You take it for granted because you see it photographed and filmed so often. But when you’re actually on it, driving over the thing, it’s all you can do to keep your eyes on the road.
Sometimes, the fog grows thick around the bridge and you briefly glimpse a towering pillar through the haze before it disappears back into hiding, not wanting to be seen. Or perhaps you catch the suspension wire rib cage of a passing oceanic beast. The fog always sets my imagination ablaze. With so much unseen, you can’t help but wonder.
Just after the bridge you pass through the rainbow tunnel and hit Sausalito and Marin City. A quick left and you’re on The One. Not too long after that you hit Stinson Beach and a smile of relief spread across my face as the city was at last behind me. A quiet stretch of road with serene vistas on all sides was before me.
A while later I hit a milestone. I’d just driven the entire length of the Pacific Coast Highway, the California 1, starting from its southern most origin in Dana Point to its northern terminus. Not all at once, mind you, it had been split up in the course of road trips over the years. But I’d driven the whole stretch, and for a guy that likes to drive it definitely felt like an achievement.
Approaching Rockport the hard coastal cliffs meet the ocean and the One turns inland toward Leggett. You then stay on the 101 as you continue to Crescent City at the top of the state. The PCH is one of the most epic drives any avid road warrior could take, traversing hairpin turns and overlooks so high that you’re above the marine layer such that it looked like you’d just topped out on a jet liner at 30,000 feet. It felt like you were flying. An ocean of clouds below you and below that, an ocean. Ohh but keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention because it’s easy to get lost in the vista and forget you were operating a vehicle. Plenty of others had made that terrible mistake. Turning inland takes you through lush green old growth redwood forests.
It is with little fanfare that you pass over the border from California into Oregon. The terrain was heavily wooded and log processing facilities and lumber mills pocked the landscape. In a couple of areas, fresh tree logs were stacked for what seemed like a mile, just long rows of stacked whole lumbar waiting for the mill. The smell of pine tar hung rich in the air.
Scent memory kicked in and I was transported back to summer camping in Flagstaff and the smell of the pines after a monsoon burst. Chasing that memory was another of playing Babe Ruth league baseball and applying pitch pine tar to our bats, pretending we were like the pros. The stuff clung to your skin like tree sap and was difficult to wash off. All the dirt stuck to it so we were covered in sticky patches of dirt traps spotting our hands and forearms dark.
It was an absolute delight driving through the coastal towns of Oregon. They were post-card beautiful and full of a working energy. I realized now that the Northern California I have always imagined in my head was actually Oregon. I cruised along, mindful of the traffic but lost in the old memories of childhood and the new ones I was making now seeing new sights for the first time.
Arch Rock was a treat of rugged coastline, possessive of several look out points as you stand on a great rock cliff overhanging the pounding surf below. Rock formations in the water form archways as the ocean roars past, frothing the surface water with foam and salt spittle. The sound of it along with the blue sky and cool ocean wind lull you into a trance of calm. I close my eyes and breathe it in almost falling asleep where I stood. It was a type of peace that wrapped itself around you like a blanket and I relinquished to it, resting.
As you progress north you travel over many bridges that extend over bay inlets or river deltas flowing out from the coastal mountains to meet the ocean. Having grown up in the high deserts of Arizona, this was such a unique and unfamiliar sight to me. The amount of water was something I’d never seen before. My eyes scanned every bit of the landscape, drinking it in. It was a blast of a drive. You’ll also notice that the ubiquitous effigies of the California bear, from wood stump carvings to keychains and flags, was replaced now by the Sasquatch. Oregonians, it seemed, were obsessed with Big Foot and had adopted the mythical creature as their unofficial mascot.
I tried to power through the fatigue left behind by my sleepless night. Echoes of memories tend to resound through my mind when I’m overly tired, bouncing around and growing louder. The magical colors of sunrise had faded now as the morning grew later. Where was I again?
Oh, right. Oregon. My room was decorated in old whaling equipment, harpoons, ropes, a ship’s steering wheel and framed sketches of sailors on high seas hunting for whale. The surf pounded outside and an old memory banged around my mind.
“You know what,” she said to me. “You’d be just fine with your education and career. I don’t know what you think I am to you.”
I guess I didn’t know either. I had thought she was my partner. After everything I’d given, all the love I worked to show, she didn’t feel it. Was I that emotionless that despite having gone through all the motions of love, there was nothing actually behind it? That can’t be true, I felt it. At least I thought I felt it, as much as I’m able to feel…which is perhaps not much at all given the stinging commentary. I remember the pain of it, like poking a snail and watching it retreat back into its shell. I’d extended outward, trying to move forward, left myself vulnerable, got sliced open and retreated back to the safety of my shell.
It was the type of words that would become self fulfilling. I had tried to be a good partner and as it all disintegrated I would be left with only my education and career. And maybe I really was just fine with that. At least both of those things had recognized the work I’d put into them and delivered results. I didn’t want to lose that love, but here it was…lost. And we both now seem so unavailable to each other.
I will always picture her as the one. Even if our paths in life lead us away from one another, at the end of all things she will still be in my mind as this image of her I have, smiling at me with the sun setting behind her, a halo of backlight making her appear angelic. Even when I can’t suffer the hurt of it anymore, the hurt of the loss, that spirit of her, that magical moment, is etched deep and will always be what I reach for as I try to tune out the aching echoes of old memories.
I gathered my things and readied myself for the road once again. I hit a coffee roaster in Newport, invigorated by the smell of fresh coffee and needing the pick me up, needing the sensorial distraction from my echoing memories, got a cup and some beans to go and headed out on my way to White Salmon, WA.
I’m on this journey for a reason. Get to Work! No more wasting time…heed the clock. Find a spark of inspiration and write it down!
Atlas Sinclair 