Where the Forest Meets the Sea

This summer Wayne and I spent a week at a beach house on the Oregon Coast. We tromped and traipsed through hill and vail, bays and beaches. We climbed forested paths, heavy with ferns and trickling water, to photograph lighthouses. We rummaged through the produce at country fruit stands, and gathered fresh flowers from fields ripe with dahlias and sunflowers. We dined at some of the local pubs and cafes and tasted some mighty savory dishes.

There were days that the shore was lost in the fog. On a day when the drizzle turned to droplets, we spent the afternoon sharing a picnic of cheese, chubby pretzels, and peaches under a canopy in the rain. The weather wasn't always perfect, but it was all delightful.

I am in awe of that lucious land. I love the motto for the Oregon Coast..."Where the Forest Meets the Sea". That is perfectly descriptive. Giant pines and oaks do come to the very edge of the cliffs where the salty ocean sends great sprays of water to mist the feet of the trees.

I was thinking last night as I watched my husband sitting in an overstuffed chair reading the last few chapters of a book, how like the forest and the sea he and I are.

Our lives are not intermingled. They touch nearly everywhere, but each of us has remained individual entities with our own strengths, our own flavors. What beauty can be found in us is our own. But, neither of us would be as complete without the other. I move towards him constantly throughout each and every day, sometimes with a mood of tranquility and peace, sometimes with turbulence and a spirit of unrest. He always accepts me however I come to him. While I seem to be constantly changing, he is always stalwart, standing steady, slowly and continually growing toward the heavens.

Like the time spent on the coastline, my analogy isn't perfect. It is as many faceted as the prisms that gleam from the Heceta Lighthouse. I don't intend to delve into it too deeply here...although I did spend a good deal of time milling over the similarities this morning in that space between sleep and awakening.

Let me just repeat how entranced I became with Oregon, and how I enjoyed the slow motion days spent there. And let me also say, how entranced I am with this giant of a man who shelters my life... and how I gather something from the shores of his soul every time his forest and my sea meet.