Pacific Beach, Oregon
Took a trip today to the Oregon coast, me, my mom, my brother, our black lab Lucy and my buddy Neil. Of all my closest friends from high school, Neil’s probably the one who’s had to grow up the most in the traditional sense. When I left for college he was still working on his GED, and it seemed like every time I came back home for vacation he was living somewhere else, a different apartment, a different city and often holding down another job. I stopped writing down his phone number and address because I figured they’d change soon enough. But he was always steady with his girlfriend Leanne, and soon enough that brought some changes -- now they’ve got two little girls, and when I call him I can ask about “the wife and kids” with a straight face for the first time in my life. I still feel like I’m eighteen, so this is all a bit weird to me. He’s holding down a job, taking care of a family and pursuing a degree in network administration or something like that up in Portland. Meanwhile I’m just working on writing stories, trying to pass my pre-calculus test and wondering where I’ll go for the upcoming endless summer after graduation. I’m proud of him, but I don’t know if I could handle his life. And I’m never quite sure if we’ve got anything in common anymore besides a sort of tenuous connection to action and sci-fi movies we like and video games I‘ve never played but am used to talking about.
But he’s the only one who still calls me when I come home, sometimes before my plane even lands, and we’ve stuck together since fifth grade or so when his family moved down the street from mine.
So we’re on the way to the Coast in my parents’ van, which is the sort of thing that could have easily happened six years ago, but now he’s only able to come because his mother-in-law is watching the kids. We drive for over a little over an hour and the dog pacing the car anxiously, leaping to put her paws on the dashboard and whining as she feels us get closer to the ocean.
We finally stop at Pacific City, a small town of summer homes and a few over-priced diners like Fat Freddie‘s where a BLT is eight dollars, a club sandwich is ten, the milkshakes are made with more milk than ice cream and our waiter reads every addition or correction to our order tab verbatim as he writes it down (“there‘s four of you, this is table eight, your server is me,” “ok, double the cheeseburger, check no tom, no pick”). It’s far removed from California’s Pacific Beach, and other sunny surf cities although there are maybe half a dozen surfers in black wetsuits on the water. There are trees and shrubs right up to the beach itself and there’s a chilly breeze that cuts through my jacket and sweater.
Families and dogs wander the coastline at varying speeds -- some sprinting giddy with manic energy, some slowly scuffing sandals in the sand. Neil and Nathan know this beach for its “dune,” a steep mound of sand that’s at least a hundred and fifty feet high, and that’s where we head -- aiming for the top. Neil yells that we’ve got to start out at top speed, and we taking running starts, aiming for the grip proved by old footprints.
It’s a good run, but every step sinks as soon as we make it, and reaching for a new solid place to stand on shifting, slipping diagonal land so steep starts to wear us out, and slowly makes us stop. I find my lungs aching for oxygen. The view is beautiful. Forested hills on one side. The other, sand and tide. Wind is everywhere, air shoved against my body. And I grasp for it, deep breaths impossible.
“Adelante y arriba!” is my cry as we press on, stopping occasionally for rest and air. People of all ages climb up and down at various speeds, many are content to enjoy the view from where they sit or stand. The strain on my body is more than I expected -- my heart clenches and my lungs burn.
Before long we arrive at the top, where a more spectacular view greets us -- oceans and cliffs in every direction. Neil and I collapse on the finally flat sand, and I take some pictures. His ears hurt, he says.
We stay like that for a while, taking in the air and the scenery, and talking. We’re perhaps more settled and serious than we were as kids, but it’s nice to be able to finally talk about things that actually matter to us and not have to worry about cracking each other up all the time, even though we still crack up.
Eventually we head toward the edge of the dune-cliff again, and look down at the beach and tiny people below. “This is the best part,” Neil says, “this is what makes it worth it. Are you ready?”
And I am. We jump and crash into the soft sand below, and take off running down the hill, superpropelled. And I don’t fall. I was expecting stumble and spin into the sand, sputtering, but I don’t fall. We weave around each other as we careen toward the pristine beach, the bright wind in my face, the world spinning freely and wonderfully around me. Neil is not far behind me. And I truly feel that we’ll all be OK after all.
posted by Aaron at 8:21 PM
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