Beaches and teleporting bugs
On the best roads, the miles unwind themselves.
This is true whether your means of transportation is walking, running, biking or driving. The right time of day paired with the right cocktail of scenery and surface.
Asphalt, gravel, dirt wind its way into our memory while strangely allowing us the privilege of presence. A road is not a "place" but it is a "between". An opportunity to make a break from the realities of life. The thoughts can drift or they can settle. Just let them travel as you do, wild and free.
---
The road that inspired this? Strait de Juan de Fuca Highway. On the left is the sound. Bountiful and wide, a tendril of the Pacific, bordered by the lumpy bumps of Canada. On the right grass, bushes, flowers and trees. All irrepressible. The particularly rainy spring and winter has turned everything into a comic book level of color.
This is the first father-son road trip of the year. We've spent three days hiking the Ozette triangle. Dan with his rally car skills is hugging the corners and accelerating through them in a way that takes me back to my high school physics class. It's entirely scientific, but at the same time philosophical. My trust in him is balanced with my acceptance that this may well be my last car ride.
The trip has gone better than I could have expected. We have hiked over the boardwalks and camped along the beaches. Phones, ipads and computers have been traded for sand, water and wind. The boys have scrambled over logs, chased birds, spontaneously napped, counted sand crabs and babbled for hours and hours and hours.
The first night they share a tent. They stay up till 10 naming new varieties of bugs ("these bugs are called 'teleporting bugs'").
The second night - the night that fills my head as we ride back to Seattle - is the night I share a tent with Gaël. We talk for an hour while listening to the sound of the waves. He tells me what he is thinking. He tells me what he is feeling. We watch the sky fade from baby blue, to yellow, to pink, to dusky blue. His eyelids began to get heavy. I can see the thoughts pass across his face. And I see him fall asleep. All of my problems feel so very far away and I am struck with the realization that in this moment, I am truly and deeply happy.
---
Cowabunga Dude,
DJ
This is true whether your means of transportation is walking, running, biking or driving. The right time of day paired with the right cocktail of scenery and surface.
Asphalt, gravel, dirt wind its way into our memory while strangely allowing us the privilege of presence. A road is not a "place" but it is a "between". An opportunity to make a break from the realities of life. The thoughts can drift or they can settle. Just let them travel as you do, wild and free.
---
The road that inspired this? Strait de Juan de Fuca Highway. On the left is the sound. Bountiful and wide, a tendril of the Pacific, bordered by the lumpy bumps of Canada. On the right grass, bushes, flowers and trees. All irrepressible. The particularly rainy spring and winter has turned everything into a comic book level of color.
This is the first father-son road trip of the year. We've spent three days hiking the Ozette triangle. Dan with his rally car skills is hugging the corners and accelerating through them in a way that takes me back to my high school physics class. It's entirely scientific, but at the same time philosophical. My trust in him is balanced with my acceptance that this may well be my last car ride.
The trip has gone better than I could have expected. We have hiked over the boardwalks and camped along the beaches. Phones, ipads and computers have been traded for sand, water and wind. The boys have scrambled over logs, chased birds, spontaneously napped, counted sand crabs and babbled for hours and hours and hours.
The first night they share a tent. They stay up till 10 naming new varieties of bugs ("these bugs are called 'teleporting bugs'").
The second night - the night that fills my head as we ride back to Seattle - is the night I share a tent with Gaël. We talk for an hour while listening to the sound of the waves. He tells me what he is thinking. He tells me what he is feeling. We watch the sky fade from baby blue, to yellow, to pink, to dusky blue. His eyelids began to get heavy. I can see the thoughts pass across his face. And I see him fall asleep. All of my problems feel so very far away and I am struck with the realization that in this moment, I am truly and deeply happy.
---
Cowabunga Dude,
DJ
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