Life's a beach...and sometimes, that's not such a bad thing

A day at my happy place with my bestie. It's good to check out, even if only for 24 hours.

Some random thoughts from a day (and night) at the beach (because it shouldn’t always be about politics and Donald Trump farting in court, right?):

To celebrate my 64th birthday, Erin took me to my favorite spot on the Oregon Coast for a night. Oceanside is a quaint little hamlet that few tourists from outside the Willamette Valley think about visiting. It’s a hidden little gem that’s not on the way to anywhere. If you’re in Oceanside, it’s because it’s your destination. Highway 131 out of Tillamook ends in Oceanside. If you’re on your way to other places on the Oregon Coast, you have to backtrack to Tillamook to hook up with US 101 once you’re done in Oceanside.

That may be why few tourists make the 19-mile trip from Tillamook to the quiet beach here. I’ve been here during the heat of summer and the dead of winter, but it's never been busy no matter when I’ve come. That may be because there aren’t many amenities in Oceanside- a couple of restaurants/coffee shops, two or three small shops and that’s about it. No pubs, no wine bars, no crappy tourist traps. It’s virtually perfect.

There are no hotels, only a few Vacasas or Airbnbs, and after 8pm, nothing’s open. That’s OK, though; I don’t come to Oceanside for the nightlife or the great restaurants. I come for the quiet and the beach. It’s a place where I can find a spot on the sand and watch the surf come in for hours.

I love this place more than I have the vocabulary to express. To call it my “happy place” (as if most of the Oregon Coast) would hardly do it justice, but it’ll have to do because I’m pretty damned happy at the moment.

It doesn’t hurt that I get to celebrate my birthday with my best friend and partner in crime, someone who’s helped to make this journey a helluva lot more fun. Erin may not love Oceanside nearly as much as I do, but she indulges me, which is one of the reasons I love her.

(Beaches aren’t bad, either.)

We did make a new friend while we were in Oceanside, though how something with a brain the size of a large grape can process a concept like friendship is difficult to know. I have a feeling there was something more visceral at work for him…most likely the quest for food.

Say hello to Uno, who decided to introduce himself when Erin and I first sat out on the deck of our Airbnb. Of course, it didn’t hurt that we had a plate full of cheese and crackers, which piqued Uno’s curiosity, but what struck us (well, me- Erin thought it was weird) was that a seagull was sitting on a deck rail not two feet from me and seem not at all concerned.

That was when we noticed that our new friend had only one good leg, hence the name we bestowed upon him (or her; we had no idea). We were sitting in a relatively strong breeze, which kept Uno hopping about to steady himself, but I’ve never seen a seagull with only one leg. ‘Course, I’ve never encountered a friendly seagull, so I’ve never seen one up close.

And he had no issue with personal space, taking the “Mr. de Mille, I’m ready for my close-up!” routine to pretty ridiculous lengths. Most birds have the common sense to keep a safe distance from humans. Uno, however, didn’t seem to have the caution gene, comfortably coming to within less than two feet of me without a care in the world. I’m guessing he’s used to people feeding him, which might explain why there’s a sign in Oceanside’s parking lot asking people NOT to feed the seagulls.

Uno would hop around to steady himself in the breeze, look at me, hop around a bit more…and then take a crap on the railing. When you have a brain the size of a large grape, it’s not like you’re pondering the vagaries of the universe. Taking a dump is probably about as complicated as things get.

This continued for about 15 minutes or so as he became increasingly interested in the crackers and cheese plate sitting next to Erin. Finally, Uno began to make a move for it, at which point, I chased him off. I watched him fly in the direction of what passes for “downtown” Oceanside before I lost sight of him.

Then, about 20 minutes later, Uno appeared on our balcony railing once again. The poor guy may not have a brain possessed of huge capacity, but he remembers where the food is, yeah? I wondered if he has a regular route that he travels look for people he can beg food off of, or whether he just spends his days looking for easy marks.

I spent a lot of time looking back at Uno as he stared at me. I wondered what might be going through that tiny little brain. When he was staring at me, what does he see? What is he thinking? He’s not evaluating Hamlet or parsing quadratic equations, but he’s got to be thinking about something. What sorts of thoughts does a seagull process when they spend their days flying, eating, and crapping on things?

And what happened to his leg? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a seagull with only one good leg before. Then again, I’m not sure I’ve ever been close enough to a seagull to notice that.

Now, it’s late at night, Erin’s in bed, and as I’m writing this, I’m listening to the surf coming ashore. It’s high tide, so even though the house we’re staying in is a couple of hundred feet above the beach, it’s easy to hear the rhythmic pounding of the waves coming in and receding.

That sounds fascinates me. It’s the same sound the surf made 5000 years ago, and it will be the same 5000 years from now…assuming Mankind doesn't completely fuck things up. There’s something magical about the timelessness of it, knowing that the sound and the motion of the waves has continued unabated for thousands of years before I came along and will continue for thousands of years after I’m gone. It continues uninterrupted, unaffected by time, current events, or anything else. It stops for nothing, it never has…and hopefully never will.

What else in this world can we say that about? Maybe that’s why the sound of waves crashing on a beach is the most soothing sound I can think of. When Erin and I were on Maui a few years ago, I recorded 10 minutes of waves crashing on the beach on my iPhone. When I needed to relax, I’d put on my headphones and listen to that for however long I needed to, and it never failed to calm me. Then I bought a new iPhone and that recording somehow got lost in the transfer, but I loved listening to it.

Years ago, I’d drive to the parking lot in Oceanside, roll down the windows of my car, shut off the engine, and just listen to the waves. Sometimes, I’d fall asleep in my car…hard to get more relaxed than that, eh?

If it were up to me, we’d live somewhere on the Oregon Coast, but though I’ve been working on Erin for several years, I still haven’t been able to convince her. Maybe someday, but for now I’ll take days like this. It’s nice to be back in my happy place, even if only for 24 hours or so.

It certainly beats whatever’s going on in the real world at the moment.

Happy Birthday to me….

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