Trip to Oregon Coast

John and I went to the Oregon Coast today, traveling to Waldport and down the Coast Highway through Yachats and Florence before heading home again. It was sunny with a cold wind so we didn't spend very much time on the beach, but we did take a lot of photographs. The weather was perfect, there weren't many people, and we had a wonderful time.

Backyard Flowers

Little Birthday Cupcakes

Yesterday John and I went to see his father who is a nursing home as he gains strength to go back home. It was his 89th birthday and we brought him some mini-cupcakes made by the local Cupcake Cafe. We didn't stay long as he was very tired and wanted to sleep.

Some Quotes

These are from Hannah Coulter: A Novel by Wendell Berry.

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Love is a great room with a lot of doors, where we are invited to knock and come in. Though it contains all the world, the sun, moon and stars, it is so small as to be also in our hearts. It is in the hearts of those who choose to come in. Some do not come in. Some may stay out forever. Some come in together and leave separately. Some come in and stay until they die, and after.

Life without expectations was still life, and life was still good. The light that had lighted us into this world was lighting us through it. We loved each other and lived right on. We sat down to the food we had grown and ate it and praised it and were thankful for it. We suffered the thoughts of the nights and at dawn woke up and went back to work. The world that had so often had disappointed us and made us sorrowful sometimes made up happy by surprise.

Anytime an eighteen year old boy tells you not to worry, you had better worry.

After each one of our children went away to the university, there always came a time when we would feel the distance opening to them, pulling them away. It was like sitting snug in the house, and a door is opened somewhere, and suddenly you feel a draft.

To be the mother of a grown up child means that you don't have a child anymore and that is sad. When the grown up child leaves home, that is sadder. Maybe if you had enough children you could get used to those departures but I never did. I felt them like amputations. Something I needed was missing. Sometimes, even now, when I come into the house and it sounds empty before I think I will wonder, "Where are they?

Driving Down Peoria Road

I work at Oregon State University and I always drive to Corvallis by way of Peoria Road. The road follows the Willamette River which means it curves a lot but then, that makes it fun to drive even if one is driving a navy blue SUV with automatic and not a little red sports car with a stick shift.

I drive by Mennonite farms with their neat gardens, clotheslines, orchards and houses with wide front porches, a blueberry farm with row after row of bushes full of berries, and then through the little unincorporated town of Peoria itself with its beautiful old church and its notorious speed trap. Yes, I remember to slow down.

I see flashes of the river as I drive and hawks hovering above grass seed fields on my right hunting for garter snakes and, on my left, others over the river looking for fish. Sometimes I'll see a blue heron and once in a while, a fox or a deer. I drive by the boat landing which is crowded with cars at this time of year. There is usually very little traffic. No tractors, no one tailgating me because I wouldn't go faster than the speed limit and no one dawdling, making it necessary for me to watch their driving instead of the scenery.

And even better, the drive will be almost exactly the same when I drive back home late this afternoon.