Treebeard

guarding a squirrel's commode

In Search of Yaquina City 38 years later

It was 38 years ago this summer that I first drove down the Oregon Coast with a camera and sketchbook in hand. I didn’t know it then but I was in search of something other than photographs. At that time all I knew was that I loved this place and wanted to be here full time. Now, in retrospect, I see that I was looking for Yaquina City; that parallel universe where life becomes immersive, subsuming one in coastal consciousness and art among these rugged headlands. Now that I have found it, I see so well how I was guided, albeit rather circuitously, to Yaquina City just when it was time to be here. George Harrison once wrote the lyric, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” I might add the thought, “If you don’t know where you’re going (but where you would like to be) any road JUST MIGHT take you there.” Something to think about when your plans and dreams die. They might just be handed back to you more alive that when you first birthed them.

As I struggle up the icy creek of my yearly winter depression, I am fixed on the still weak Winter sun. I crave its warmth; gladly will I trade shivering for sunburn; frozen hope for balmy optimism!
In the mean time I hold on to thoughts like this: “The deeper sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can absorb.” Jan Coleman Author of: After the Locusts: Restoring Ruined Dreams, Reclaiming Wasted Years PHOTOS Left: A tree on the grounds of “Its a Burl” in Kirby, Oregon (featured two years ago here). Center: My van (the Wasichu Wagon) on the Oregon Coast, cir. 1972 Right: A winter sunrise, somewhere in Northern California (as I remember it).