Windswept in Lincoln City

The world is wild with storm. Fierce wind rips kites apart. Sneaker waves toss dare-devil surfers into the air and then bury them. I watch, tense, till heads bob up again. Lashing rain and wind-driven sand tattoos the bare skin of lovers walking two by two, heads down into the wind. A few hardy youths persist in trying to build fires to cook hotdogs and melt marshmallows. Inland just a mile or two, quiet rivers surge through wetlands, sucked seaward by tides (Extra). Groves of foxglove bend in the wind, their steeples tossed earthward to meet torn sweetpeas and iris. I drive up a winding country road to deliver Sue to the art center where she’s taking a course. A lone man mows wet hay on a hillside, and the dizzying pungent sweetness intoxicates me as I drive back toward the beach. I pause to buy strawberries at a farmer’s market and listen to a jug band composed of six grandmotherly women as they sing: “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile.”