Adventures of a One-Room Schoolteacher: Last Day in Oregon

The wind is back after a few days of respite. It’s amazing how much of a chill it brings to the air. I’m sitting at the little internet café sipping a chai latte made with soy milk—one of the amazing comforts of living in an urbanized setting that is easy to give up but equally easy to take back as a habit of daily routine.

I’m becoming quite the surfer, able to read the waves better than ever and I have been able to drop into some pretty big sets. I’m getting better at watching and waiting for the right shape of wave to come to me, whereas before I would just paddle for anything and hope to catch it. When you surf this often, conserving energy becomes essential, so waiting for the good ones before paddling your butt off is important if you want to stay out in the surf for a while.

I’ve had a wonderful time here on the Oregon coast, surfing almost every day of the past few weeks and exploring all the little nooks with good surf within a hundred miles north and south of Pacific City. Darin has been an amazing partner in crime as well. We both love the great outdoors, the mountains, the ocean, so get us spending time together for any stretch and we fill up our waking hours with time in the hills and in the surf. During his days off last week we did a little overnight backpack to a gorgeous lookout, camping in the trees and watching birds circle as the sunset rolled in, and then dropping our backpacks off at the car and heading out for a morning surf.

Leaving for our hike. We surfed before we left and then again the next morning in the waves behind us.

It was actually the most amazing sunset I have ever seen in my life. Honestly. And I was thinking about how many sunsets I have seen. Probably not that many when I consider the number of days I have been alive and inside during twilight hours. Not to mention growing up in North Van to top it off, where a shelf of grey cloud often obscures the horizon for weeks on end.

Experiencing this sunset was like being at an orchestra. Darin and I walked from our campsite to the lookout with a view of a lighthouse sitting on a tiny island in the sea a couple of kilometers off shore, and I climbed over the sagging rope rail, which, judging by the wear and tear on the ground beyond, was a very common occurrence. Darin soon followed after some quiet comments about safety, and we had ourselves a front row seat on the root of one of the tall trees closer to the edge of the cliff. Far below us a crumbling rock wall gave way to a rocky beach with pounding whitewater rolling itself along the pebbles and throwing itself against the cliffs of the coast, which themselves quickly sprung into a thick forest of evergreens.

The sea stretched itself into rows of crumpled dark blue corduroy, and a golden eagle took flight circling low and steady, twitching its tail rudder and the tips of its wings to keep it in smooth flowing arcs. The crumbling rock must be the perfect place to hunt for rodents. Soon a bald eagle joined in the dance, and our view of the forest and the sea was bordered by the silken movements of these two birds. They would climb higher, circling just above us, before careening down close to the surf below to start their scan all over again.

At one point Darin went back to get some things organized at the campsite and I was left to witness the rest of the show alone, gasping and clutching my fists. As the sun dipped lower in the sky a strip of cloud came across the horizon, just beyond the reach of land, between my eyes and the lighthouse. It streaked across the sky, slowly blanketing out the sun enough so that it was a pale yellow orb set into a grey belt, and I could stare directly at it without hurting my eyes. Then more cloud, still in an ever-thickening stripe across the sky, and the hazed smudge of the release of rain dancing with the ocean breeze.

Then the pink of the sun melting into the pastel edge of cloud, into the buttery rain, and still the eagles circling higher and closer. And the lighthouse perched out on its own rock, and the endless miles of steady sea, rippled and fraying at the edge of the coastline.

The remnants of the sunset once Darin returned. Little lighthouse on the rock at the centre of the frame.

At one point I heard sniffling, and in looking behind me I saw no one because of my stealthy seat, but it was a sight that could easily make one cry.

Darin arrived back with my camera in hand just as the last piece of yellow from the sun had melted into the ocean, and we watched, still in amazement, as the wispy clouds above us lit into sunset colours of red, pink and purple, and the eagles started to drift away and out of view.

It was the most dramatic sunset I have ever seen.

A few nights ago there was another amazing sunset as we sat on a log at the beach. A strip of red pierced the sky for a solid half hour, a thick sheet of grey clouds above and below it, like the slit of an eye barely open, and then the haystack rock of the Pacific City skyline standing like a black statue, the arrow of red piercing through it like a spear thrown straight through a watermelon. It was one of those things that shocks the senses and slaps the words right out of the mind, for there are none to convey how beautiful it all is. And the view of sky to the soundtrack of crashing ocean waves, with fine silken sand underfoot, and the taste of salt from an evening surf still clinging gently to one’s lips.