The challenge of my life has always been how to schedule enough doing to feel busy, healthy, creative and effective, and still have time to recollect the meaning of it all along the way. Here we are at the end of November and I never finished my California trip in October. I never mentioned walking in the redwoods which felt more like a cemetery than a refuge. So many trees were chopped down for so little and now only a token is left. The one part I appreciated were the plaques commemorating the selfless effort of a few conservationists to save each grove from the chainsaw. Even with the underlying sorrow, each tree is amazing.
That night we stayed at a little campground on the Klamath River and met the only other campers, a couple from Eugene. We bonded over Robert’s interest in their teardrop camper, and the fact that the other woman was another tall Ellen. It’s the little things that bring us together.
The next day we drove up the coast through a very foggy tip of California into sunny Oregon, right after Gold Beach. We hiked out to Blacklock’s Point, and then up to the Oregon Dunes, staying in Eel Creek Campground.
Then we are back and life resumes, and now I am trying to write a novel in thirty days which is impossible, just in case you wondered. But I am up to 27,000 words and I have to persevere simply because I said I would. I am also helping to put together my neighborhood’s annual street tree planting next weekend and getting ready for several Christmas recorder gigs. Going to work is mercifully nonthreatening for the moment. No killer custody trials are looming.
I just returned from the place known as The Swamp for Thanksgiving. A cabin set on the very northern edge of the Klamath Marsh, it is owned by Robert’s sister and husband, and is isolated and beautiful.
We had to leave early for fear of getting snowed in. This didn’t seem like a bad fate, but I was overruled. Goodby herd of chickadees, hello Willamette Valley skies.
