I sit in a starbucks on the main drag of newport, about 45 minutes until the bus will take me over the long high windy bridge back to south beach where i stay. and i feel depleted and i know i have felt this way here before – on a rainy day, in november, and now the sky has returned to grey though the sun shown and the sky was blue for a while.
I have felt depleted or sad for much of the day as i passed through many zones. i woke up from dream zone, that place and environment that exists only there – a long hallway cutting underground, connecting buildings full of art, sculptures and a purple room were i danced for a bit, swirling around wearing a skirt that swirled with me, and then i climbed up to an open room with chandeliers and a grand piano with a notecard – i tried to read the schedule but a woman swept me away, and i went over to the counter to ask who was playing that night, and the woman pointed to a table with white linen and fancy brochures and wine glasses turned upside down and told me to take one of them and turned to continue her conversation, i asked again and was dismissed. the dream went on in that landscape and scene that exists in only that other world and then I woke up to my alarm clock ringing in my tent and the sky was grey. i played snooze for a bit, but as always my bladder won and i emerged from my tent – planning to take in newport for a day.
I had remembered a place when i was away, boats lined up in a bay with a large bridge that cuts across the water and remembered that remembering (or visioning) a few days ago and wondered if newport could be it. i looked at the bridge last night, spanning high across the bay, and with the winds that blew and the narrow sidewalk i knew that i would take the bus across – I got a coffee from the hospitality center at the campground, the seniors gather and i feel i intrude though at this time of year there are campers of all ages – unlike in the fall when retirees in rv’s rule. i eat my breakfast and then walk towards the bridge and the bus stop wondering if i have enough time. i take the path behind the beach through the small dunes and grass and reach the bay so quickly – much closer than it seemed only yesterday.
i walk the now empty road and under the bridge to where the bus stop is; last evening the road was filled with parked cars with people watching the ocean and playing on the beach. An eagle and a seagull chase each other and a crow squawks nearby. i am early – way early – and i look at the parking lot to the brewery – rogue – rogue nation – where i have visited and only wish i drank more as they make good beer and i like their vibe. but it is 10:20 am and i decide to walk through these more empty lands – the marina just down below, rvs behind a hotel, the aquarium – which is excellent for i visited many years ago – and the aquarium village – i think of small neat shops where i will browse for a bit.
The village seems empty and sad despite the colorful and sometimes whimsical facades on the stores that fill what i imagine was once an industrial space. I thought of coffee, but there is only a full service restaurant that seems empty. i enter into the first large building – a flea market of sorts though is billed as something more – old clothes and books and beads and shells and “collectables” and fishing stuff in a concrete shell – i browse through and think of the remains of bygone eras – a few older couples here and that is it and it feels sad and i remember being here before on a cold rainy november sunday and it felt like that then – but now is july and in the season. i go out the backdoor where smaller “boutiques” exist – a closed second hand book store, a shop with costumes, a sword shop now out of business though the pirate and piratess outside remain, but not a living breathing soul. still more time and i wander back to the bus stop where i was and wait a bit more.
I feel hard and i long to dress up, wear pretty skirts and be soft again. i think of how months ago people said my face had changed, and i feel it changing back as i regain the edge – the edge produced by this kind of life – at least for me – i think of boots and blouses and dancing and watch the few cars drive by and sit in the shelter out of the wind under the gloomy sky. I feel separate from the lives that pass on by and know that when i stayed here that time in the fall how badly i wanted to reconnect with the dance of life, to be part of something larger than i. i smell the sweetness from the beer factory and it cloys a bit at me. the minibus finally comes and takes me across the bridge.
I go down to the harbour, the tourist area by the bay. i walk past expensive coffee and junk food and smell the fish from the remaining fish plant. A child is making a barking sound and that means some sea lions are still there, i walk out onto the viewing platform and watch the 8 or so that still remain – a cage is now on the lower dock, empty but used for study, and one of the large males has a number shaved onto his back. but they always make me smile. the rocks further out are empty as i expected they would be for this is the time of year that the sea lions generally migrate elsewhere.
I walk past the undersea gardens, the small wax museum and the ripleys believe it or not and get a coffee at a cute cafe i remembered, now crowded, and take it out and sit on a bench by the water. the sun has emerged and it is getting warm so i take off my coat and feel less worn, though i know i still have that look about me. i sit and feel myself relax, calm and at ease for a little while – but then i think it is time to move on out of the tourist zone. i wander into a few tourist shops selling t-shirts, doodads, sweets, and oregon jams and wine, revisit the sea lions and the crowd of large waddling tourists that gather there and head on up the hill, to the center of town – if there is one in this city spread out along the 101, stopping at a lovely independent bookstore that smells like cat pee and older women eating lunch but i imagine they are having tea. And i ask myself, in this place, what is there for me – not to gain but to connect with.
I come to the highway and the “deco” district of more “antique” or second hand shops on the highway – now 5 lanes instead of 2. I feel like a leper as a pedestrian as cars whiz on by. Sidewalks exist, but are empty in this place where cars do not want to let you by. I will go to the arts district maybe get some real food. i cross at the lights, it takes forever for the walk sign to come on, and who do i see but evan from florence and eugene – he has found some shoes and seems as lost as ever with his thin frame and shaggy blond hair, as he gives some change to a guy who begs on the corner, and a car hands him a brownie, and though the walk sign is on and the light is red, the car pulls ahead and gives me a glare as i am crossing the street. and the cars on the 101 whiz on by.
I go down to the nye district by the beach in town, with a few cafes and boutiques and full of attitude – the cars are shinier (though not by big city standards) and it seems that many have something to prove – where is good honest healthy food without the pretence and vibe. and here i feel shabby and like i no longer fit in. i walk back up to the highway and get a cheap bite at quiznos – one of the better fast food chains – and i look out at the cars going by and ask myself what have i done. and i thought of going for chinese at a place i had been before and though i remember it had good food, it has a depressing stagnant atmosphere. And i remembered how out of society i felt last time i was here after a summer and more of life in a tent, and how those lunches and coffees in decent places was my way of clinging on – and then how many miles on down the coast i lost the need to cling and through that began to open up to me. and then down to the library where i sit inside though the sun does shine playing on my computer.
I have a bit of time until the bus back over the bridge – i will go down to the nye – it is closest and have a coffee there – clouds have come in once again, and the cafes are shut for the day so i stroll along the stretch along the highway once again. i need cigarettes and a small store has a sign with my brand at a good price – i go in at shift change as two women count the till, the place is depressing, cigarettes and beer, grey walls and fading florescent lights over worn dark carpet and the hum from some of the fridges. the woman who has just come on has a face that shows the abuse it has endured over the years – broken of sorts around the eyes, the nose and the lip out of kilter – a tough girl who makes the best of all.
Then to the grocery store the thriftway in the center of town – don’t want to walk further up the highway where pedestrians are not to be found to the larger chains – a sad store and more pricey despite the name – still find some food and end up at starbucks for a coffee before the bus. As i wait at the shelter, i remember a day waiting for this same bus though it was dark back then, a conversation with a guy carrying a back who lived in a vacant lot, and the kid who was hitching on down in the rain and how it was the days in the library, when i took the expense to get up here, that made want to go to a city with arts and more; but this is a town which i craved when in more country land, and despite the people and cars around, i feel more disconnected from the rest. the bus is fuller, and full of those who struggle on – a woman looks for work that can fit the limited bus schedule; and the passengers to the southtowns know each other well, and life goes on and the people are tough with softness around. but the place seems worn or is it just how i feel.
I return to camp and take a long hot shower and feel like a new person again. i meditate and sing to myself, and sleep and awaken to a new day. I hear water running and peer out and it is sprinklers across the way, the threatened drizzle did not come and i know i will be here another day. i think of the pretty towns, yachats, bandon, manzanita, cannon beach to name a few and how it was different here way back when – when it was a place some hippies and artists sought out back in the 80s my first time here – but even then newport straggled on, and coos bay was sad. Do i go inland, but that is what called my last time here, and i did not feel right until i reached the coast again – still the mountains and the sun do call.
And when i think of the pockets up and down this road, i think it is the divide that has become america – that polarization that has occurred – and as with the sands on the beach, all is change. And i reflect back on my trip to mayaland – not just the maya of illusion but of that 3d place and the remains of civilization we see there – how the divide took place perhaps and the rich in temples decaying within and those that remain just getting by. And i know i will venture on out of here, but this divide exists across the land and i have seen it time and time again.
i walk along the path to catch the bus again – i am calmer and quieter inside and i have my hair down and feel lighter today. i notice the fishing pier beside the brewery and the picnic tables there, i catch the bus, this time full of people who know one another by name, and go down to the bay and get another great coffee and realize this resto is one that serves good honest food with flare but without pretence but still i do not eat there. I sit on the bench by the water and the sun peaks though and the temperature rises as it did for a while yesterday. and once again i feel at peace and come to realize i generally prefer the harbours to the beaches and remember what drew me here and can see myself migrating down this road once again.
I listen to and smell one of the last fishing plants along the bay and while newport is still home to one of the larger fishing fleets along the coast it is a mere shadow of what once was. As with so many locales the runs of fish that some with the seasons have been replaced by that of tourists, a migration that one day may also change place, lessen or disappear. And i should not glorify what was – or is elsewhere – for it can be a cold, damp, smelly, dangerous job, a hard life – but there is something that makes it just seem more real. And i think of the place where i did not go – alaska- where fishing still exists as a way of life, in isolated locales and in others mingling with the tourist trade. But just as the earth and tourists are mined more efficiently, and huge patches of forests are so rapidly stripped bare, we too are raping the seas – no longer the small independent boats that predominate but the factory ships that trawl the waters taking all in.
as i sit and sip my coffee i smile – watch the seagulls around, the men (and a few women) in the bright orange rubber bibbed overalls work outside and the several with the high sturdy rubber boots go strolling by and say hi to one or two – i must admit, through they can smell like fish, there is something a bit sexy in the independent men who live from the sea. I look across the water to where a cute retriever cross was tied, and now his person is there, lying down on the dock, a full embrace, dog on top, you can see the love, then a walk down the dock, retied as the guy in orange overalls heads back to work – and i cannot help but feel the love and joy and smile and rejoice in the bay and the seagulls around and those who walk up and down the street.
still i move on – it is lunch time now – the many mexicans stand outside the plant and the music that can be heard is from that part of the world. I go up town and find the food coop and get a salad there – a true independent health food store. i pass the bus stand with too many worn with daypacks and backpacks like my own who meander in town or up and down the coast – so many worn down with drugs and alcohol but others just like myself. i am at the library where i sit and write and two guys talk of free meals at a church, places to crash and job interviews. and i go down to nye beach for a coffee and see it is not so grand, a place where some wannabe more sophisticated than they are – but others sit out at an irish pub drinking beer, and i sit on a bench for a cigarette and talk to an older woman travelling through. I return to the library which is calm and large and used and is another layer of the town.
Tomorrow i will go on somewhere – the where i do not know. Part of me wishes i could join these small towns but the call is for something more – there is joy and love and hardness and despair and life goes on and people pass on through – for a moment, a day, a week, a year or several, or even a lifetime, but we are all just passing though.
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