stephanie elizabeth Mohr

on the coast of oregon

I rise early, step onto the porch of a rental house on a nameless stretch of land between the coastal communities of Neskowin and Pacific City in Tillamook County, Oregon.

I take in the view. Below is a scraggy cliff covered with firs and, beyond, a broad sandy beach, and the vast Pacific. It’s August. I’ve come to escape the heat and the wildfire smoke that have drifted into the Willamette River valley east of here. Escape that and more.

The ocean roars as banks of raging waves churn and crash along the beach.

I sit and watch.

The mist rolls in and back out again, slowly, moving on its own tidal current. I
feel hungry. I sip hot coffee I’ve brought out to the porch with me.

The beach beyond the firs is a canvas of dynamic color. As a wave retreats, a band of sand is glossed with water, and, like a ribbon of silver, reflects the brightening sky. Then the waves break again, brushstrokes upon brushstrokes, repainting the scene.

My phone is indoors. The book I’ve been reading is indoors. I am not.

I hear the chip-chip of a nearby bird in a fir tree, prop my legs on a plastic deck chair. The ocean continues its roar. Approaching waves swell and curl like blown glass.

A sole person now walks the silver waterline, leaves footprints. Stops, restarts. A sole white shorebird takes a similar walk a few yards away.

This person must know the way, but I haven’t figured out yet how I can reach the beach. Each parcel of land around me is claimed as private property, and the slope below is so steep, I’d have to tie ropes to the porch rail and climb down to reach the beach safely. Or else jump and tumble, hope the limb of a fir breaks my fall.

The sole person now walks where the sole bird had been. The bird is no longer in view. No—there it is, southward. The two beings have switched places.

I stood yesterday on the broad beach at Neskowin, where access is easy, and I mourned the crowds. Mourned the coolers and half-dome shade tents, the colorful flipflops and Crocs. The Oregon coast is free and open to anyone. Is it possible to both access a place and leave it alone?

I sit and watch. I sip coffee that’s now cooled. I breathe in the salt air.

And all around me I hear the roar of the ocean, an endless white noise. The roar hides from me the songs of whales and the chatter of seals. Hides the stiletto click of a hermit crab as it crosses a rock in a tidepool. Hides the moans of kelp below the surface, suffering growing pains as meristem divides. Hides the lessons taught by elder fish to young ones as they school. Hides the answers I seek and cannot find, the questions asked in return, the flutter of a flatfish settling on the seafloor, the dive of a guillemot into the water. Hides all of the answers. All of them. And I long for something I cannot define.

But, oh, too, the peace I feel as I listen. The ocean’s roar is not a roar but a song. A song of soothing. A song everything. A song full of answers.

I catch sight of two people on the beach now, and two white birds. Everything’s multiplied. The two people walk beyond view. The birds remain behind.

The mist drifts again onto the beach and softens my view. Softens everything. And still, I hear the vast majestic roar.

How quiet it will feel in the valley when I return tomorrow.

How quiet, as I hide there from the heat and the wildfire smoke, sheltered indoors.

__________

About the author

Stephanie Elizabeth Mohr is the author of First in Fly, which was named one of the 10 best science books of 2018 by Smithsonian Magazine, and has studied creative writing at GrubStreet writing center and elsewhere. Her essays have appeared online at Cognoscenti and Orion Magazine.