Hurry-up and Wait!

Hurry up and wait....  So that's what I did - hurried and hurried and hurried and now I am waiting!   Karla and I hurried all up and down the coast of Oregon looking for a place for me to live, to unload my stuff, etc.  Karla drove, Garmina navigated and I hoped...   It was Labor Day weekend and no one answered phones or e-mails or returned calls... It's the last big hurrah on the Oregon coast.  So I unloaded by stuff - again - but you know that part.

After three years of being transient and rootless (Peace Corps plus Mexico) the need to put down roots has become almost an obsession, so this part of the waiting has become a challenge. Waiting for Peace Corps to make up its mind was practice for this part.

Haystack Rock

I finally got a call from the only place that looked promising (a cottage Karla found on craigslist) - having looked at a whole slew of places that were really depressing.   On the 15th I drove the 2.5 hours to the coast and had four places lined up to view.    The first was the little cottage, just what I visualized - with four other people in line after me to see the place.  No choice but the wait and see who the owners would choose... with so many people looking and so few places available, it's a landlord's choice.  The remaining three places were like closets - no room even for my thinned down collection of belongings.  The waiting was excruciating because the cottage was in cannon beach, my town of choice, famous for it's beached, Haystack Rock and Ecola State Park near by.

Ecola State Park

My stars must have been in alignment because I got the cottage.   Again - waiting - till October 1st to move in.  It's a precious shake-shingle one bedroom with converted loft, a block and a half from the beach, a block and a half from the middle of the town of Cannon Beach and partially furnished so I don't have to run out immediately and buy any big pieces like a mattress set, couch, TV...

In another step toward "normal," I now have a car - 2011 Honda Fit!  The freedom is intoxicating, but I have also discovered it's a little strange...  almost like driving in another country: 

• $500 for driving with a hand-held telephone (your's truly opting for simplicity doesn't have hand's free)
• B-I-G tickets for accidentally drifting into the bike lane or turning across it outside the dotted lines...
• Randomly placed flashing (tiny lights) pedestrian walks: when flashing mean S-T-O-P  
• Against the law to pump you own gas - fines for that too! ($200)
• Fine's double in "safety corridors," - never mind school zones!

Note: Oregon has no sales tax, so it makes up the revenue with traffic fines.  At least the still drive on the right side of the road.

It's cool and lovely, though I have discovered that November through February at lease, the coast gets about 12" of rain per month.  Too bad I gave a way my big rubber gum-boots (rain boots) in Uganda.  Whodathunk I would need them here?     Well I am ready for for cooler, wetter and seasons that go beyond Uganda's rainy or dry and Texas' hot and hotter.  Loking forward to finding out how Oregon feels over the long haul and discovering whale watching, crabbing and storm watching, to mention a few new "seasons." 

Another Returned Peace Corps friend of mine (not Africa) recently sent me quote from Henri Matisse

 that relates well to life or at least the life of "a traveler." It goes like this:

“Each picture, as I finish it, seems like the best thing I have ever done... and yet after a while I am not so sure. It is like taking a train to Marseille. One knows where one wants to go. Each painting completed is like a station— just so much nearer the goal. The time comes when the painter is apt to feel he has at last arrived. Then, if he is honest, he realizes one of two things — either that he has not arrived after all or that Marseille... is not where he wanted to go anyway, and he must push further on.” Henri Matisse

I don't know if Cannon beach will be my Marseille, or another stop along the way, but I plan to immerse myself fully, discover what we have to offer each other and enjoy the process of continued discovery.  I do know, that - like a painting - I've been mentally painting in the details of ach room as I wait to move in.  And there are certain pieces of personality that endure where ever one goes, and other aspects that emerge only when offered an opportunity that's new enough to bring out latent talents, the shadow, or pieces of coal that needed pressure and time to become diamonds.

We'll see what pops up and what falls away...    What I do know is that I am being very selective about what I add back in to this phase of life, starting essentially with a blank canvas.  Choosing a simpler way of living,  closer to nature and as "off the grid" and still being able to do the consulting I love.   Sometimes that's more complicated that it should be - in the "first world."