Rockaway Beach: Day One
8.12.06
Be Glad, Be Glad, Be Glad
The Jolly Roger is flapping outside my window as I awake. I’ve slept solidly in a bunk bed with a red coverlet and a one-armed sock monkey as my bunkmate. My extra blanket is yellow with bright tassels all around. The curtains are old grass skirts stretched wide across the windows, and though there is an entire bookshelf full of vintage wind-up clocks, I don’t know the time.
We are both ecstatic to be here. Jen is dying to throw herself into the sea, naked and raw, in devotion to a life of art. She scurries about – ebullient, buying a kite, meeting the ranger at the tide pools, making plans to roll down the sand dunes. I am more staid, evenly paced, content to fall in love with the rivulet carvings in the sand and the endless sound of the waves.
Yesterday we saw a seagull trying to eat an overturned crab. The seagull kept pecking cautiously between the flailing legs of its prey. The crab was all digits trying desperately to fend of the impending beak. The seagull seemed perplexed, the crab frantic. The seagull needed dinner– the crab, escape.
Today, Jen and I will breakfast on yogurt with a handful of ginger granola and nectarines. Then she will go to the internet café while I work in solitude in this kitsch and colorful cottage. I feel peaceful and centered with a slight buzz of energy that says, ‘You’re actually doing it! What fun!” I want my little altar with me and it will sit on my work table – the Greco-Roman dolly; the smooth, nebulous, feminine made-in-god’s-image figure; the tangerine candle for clarity. I will evoke the Trinity as I light the candle, for this making-of-things is holy work.
Today there will be long hours in my pajamas as I move through old pages of writing, sorting and highlighting and watching things take shape. I will wonder if this is how it feels to work clay on a potter’s wheel, or to begin to shave a torso out of a huge block of marble. I am eager. Ready. A tiny bit afraid. But mostly, I am glad.
go rachelle! i loved experiencing jen’s oregon beach energy first hand last week on her way through portland, and now i love hearing of your peaceful and purposeful inspired progress. blessings! kelly
I slept in that same bunk bed. Have a great, creative, peaceful, wonderful time!
oh what bliss to read this! more! more!
i don’t know if i’ve ever been happier in my life than in the company of the rocks and the sea of that amazing place. write on, dear friend. i will live it all again through your eyes.
(happy sigh).
[…] Welcome to Magpie Girl! I’ve been longing to get this page up since Jen and I went away to our cozy cabin by the sea to indulge in a non-stop week of artmaking. Here you will find various and sundry written thoughts (most of which will be half formed) recommendations of things i love, and items for sale, handmade by moi. […]
[…] As you may know by now, Jen and I are constantly in the current of an on-going mutual love fest. Today she posted about the life-changing ‘writing’ retreat we embarked on last Summer. It’s fabulously written and you really must go over and have a gander. But the main reason I’m waxing poetic about Jen today is that I just got her amazing Zine in the mail. Beginnings is a full-color, hand-drawn, wisdom-and-wit-drenched glossy piece of goodness guaranteed to inspire the most stuck amongst us. Go order right now while you still can! […]
[…] We are off to our rented hideaway on Rockaway Beach, Oregon. I’ve set up some posts to go up automatically while I’m away, including this retroactive post from my stay here last summer while I was on writing retreat with Jen. Reading this helps me to breathe easier. May it bring a peaceful sigh to you as well. […]