The Day of Letting Go - A Short Story

It was nothing short of a miracle.  There was no ecclesiastical imperative, no lying on of hands, no blinding heavenly light, no animal sacrifices, no chanting.  There was just letting go. 

I had no idea I had begun to grasp things so tightly. 

I started having pain in mid-July.  Neck pain and shoulder pain.  Couldn’t sleep well, or long.  I kept adjusting, medicating.  I looked for possible ergonomic discrepancies that might be the cause.  Made more adjustments – some helped, and some only made it worse.  Then my knees started hurting.  They are already arthritic, so more pain and more swelling is not good.  Then the back spasms started.  Next thing I know, every night is a challenge: how am I going to try and sleep so as to not lay on something that hurts already? Left side? Nope – shoulder pain.  Right side? Nope – back spasms. Prone? Nope – hyper-extends the knees.  Back?  Nope – snore.  Sigh.

I began to despair.  I was going to have to ask someone else to go to the grocery store for me.  I didn’t think I could manage the walk, much less carrying the bags.  The trash and recycling were starting to back up. I did not want to ask for help.  I’m 49 not 89!  Then it happened: the Day of Letting Go.

What did I let go of?  Oh, different things in different ways.

I let go of feelings that had been festering in my mind by openly admitting them to friends and acknowledging their silly reality.  Getting them out in the open meant we could deal with them, talk about them.  It wasn’t hard.  Why did I forget that friends are friends for a reason?  Why did I forget that REAL friends are people you can be yourself with and not worry about judgments?  I looked back at people I called friends, trusted too easily.  People who were not really my friends.  People who were “friend imposters.” I was glad I had real friends right now, and that I had trusted them with my honesty.

I let go of control of an ongoing creative project I had held a tight grasp on for months.  Something I had loved and kept to myself.  I had begun doing it in a small way in July – sharing my vision of a project with someone and letting them create pieces for it and brainstorm with me.  This time I went all the way:  “I have two events I need decoration for.  I can do either of them, but I want you to do one of them.  So here are the themes . . . which one would you like to do most?”  Her enthusiasm was so immediate that I shared another project with her.  Why had I not done that before?  Why had I kept it to myself?  I am not generally overtly selfish so . . . what?

I let go of pride.  A friend was down and depressed.  He called himself a loser.  He is not a loser.  I couldn’t stand that.  He always listens to me when I am bothered.  Always asks me to tell him.  I spoke to him sternly and with affection – he is not a loser.  I told him so.  He is someone who is always there for people, and always supporting.  Men like to be knights on chargers, and often we let them be.  But everyone needs a leg up to the horse at some point.  No one is the hero all the time.  There were people, I was certain, that would help him if only they knew.  There were people who would welcome the opportunity to be there for him, as he had been for them.  In a way, his problem was so small, but he had let it become so large that it was affecting his sense of himself.  I found myself telling him about my pain, about the humiliation of facing the fact that I was going to have to ask for help. It was a fact that I accepted as I told him about it.  I stopped focusing on my problems and focused on him.  His problem had a solution.  So did mine.  All we had to do was let go of our pride, and our need to control the situation.  All we had to do was ask for the help we needed.

I went to bed that night, not realizing all that had happened in less than 18 hours.  I went to sleep with the usual precautions that I had accumulated over the last six weeks.  I fully expected to awaken barely able to move, in pain after only three or four hours sleep, and have to do them all over again.  I slept through the night.  It was the deep, dream-filled sleep that renews the body and soul, and has you waking up with a smile and feeling better about life in general.  I had that smile when I awoke. I also had a whole lot less pain when I woke up.  I had something more than both of those combined.  I had the realization of how very much I had let go of the day before.  I felt the weight of restraint, control, and pride lifted from me.

I had no idea I had begun to grasp things so tightly.  It now seems clear I had, and that grasping had physically manifested itself as pain.  I looked out on the August morning feeling optimistic, happy, and profoundly relieved.  I found myself wondering if I could program a day like yesterday into my calendar once a quarter.  Maybe even schedule it once a month the same way some people schedule their dry cleaning or hair appointments:  A Day of Letting Go.

by Judy Cullen
"for my REAL friends - you know who you are."

2011 all rights reserved 

The Cathedral of the Waves - A Short Story

I had made a promise.  I knew what I needed to do.  It wasn’t just that I had said I would get beach sand and collect shells and driftwood while I was at the Oregon coast on vacation. It was who had asked it of me: someone much beloved.  It was a promise I could not break, even though I had to face the reality that walking with a cane and beach sand do not mix well.

I would have been content to hear the sound of the waves, feel the coastal air, and watch the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean lap the shoreline.  I could do that without actually getting on the sand.  Wet sand compacts into a nicely firm, somewhat smooth surface that is generally as walk-able as any solid floor.  Dry sand, on the other hand, is anything but.  Even without the additional “foot” of the cane, dry sand can be hard to maneuver for anyone with mobility issues.  When you have a beach, you have both: dry and wet.  The only time you do not is high tide, and then you have no need of walking far out on the sand to get to the surf. 

I knew Sunday morning was the time.  I was going home today.  I woke up early enough that even the devout were still abed.  I had found the place that would get me to the beach without the stairs that accompanied most access points in Newport.  I drove into the parking lot with a mixture of trepidation and excitement.  I wasn’t sure what this was going to be like, just that I had to do it.  I was in luck, the lot was practically empty.  There would be fewer people to see me struggle.  The Pacific was beckoning.

I walked slowly down the ramp and into the sand.  Damn!  I had forgotten just how hard it was.  The cane was just one more thing to sink into the dry sand.  It just barely served its usual purpose to remind me what balance is.   Not like I could look up and enjoy the view as I was slogging through it either.  There were hazards to avoid: last night’s beer cans, bit of plastic, charcoaled fire sites.  I noticed the first people on the beach with me were locals, picking up trash.  I slogged on determinedly with all three feet, and tried not to think about how ridiculous and pathetic I might look.  I had my little Ziploc bag for collecting treasures and sand, my camera, and a few shreds of dignity somewhere holding on for dear life as I tried to take the most direct approach to the wet sand about 50 feet away.

I made it to the wet sand.  I wondered that people who do not have disabilities assume that going to the beach is resting on the sand, sun bathing, toes in the waves, brief tops and shorts, bathing suits.  I hadn’t actually done that in years. I mean many, many years. My thighs have not purposely been seen in broad daylight, in public, since the 1980s.  But here I was, emerging triumphant from the initial morass.  I tried not to think of how I would get back to the parking lot.

I reveled in the feel of the spray in the air, and I smiled. I felt once more the power of the Pacific, and the timeless sense that comes from watching the waves – this happens, and has happened since time immemorial: centuries upon decades upon years upon moments.  I am struck, as always, by the profoundly humbling sense that this was a reality long before I appeared on earth.  It will still be here long after I have passed on.  It was here when the first Asians crossed the land bridge from Alaska onto North America.  It was here when Odysseus set off for Troy.  It was here when Shakespeare penned his first sonnet.  It was here when Lincoln read from an envelope in Gettysburg.  It will be here when my nephew is old enough to make his own adult treks to the ocean.  It has almost been here forever.  Not quite.  But it has been long enough to wear a thin patina of eternity.

Gradually, so that I barely noticed, the waves begin to sing.  Their song is ancient and enduring.  It speaks of time, and spaces, and places far removed yet connected by the shifting waves.  It sang with a smile of artificial boundaries of sea to sea.  Are there really seven? Or are they all one sea wrapping our own celestial orb in dynamic majesty?

The air became an embrace.  It transferred the churning energy of the waves through the air. I felt the power of this eternal cathedral start to seep into my hopelessly transient being.  I found myself smiling, not just at the dogs and passers bye, but at “being” as a whole. One sea.  One air. One world.  One life. 

It was time to return to the car.  Even the embrace of eternity cannot forestall the tiring of two arthritic knees.  I didn’t want to leave.  I wanted to stay in this state of grace.  I slowly worked my way back up the tide line.  The treasures I had come to fetch appeared as if they were waiting for me.  I swore one feather actually called my name as I stood looking at it dumbfounded, and finally heeded the call - adding it to my bag.

As I got closer to the parking lot, I kept turning and looking back at the surf: feeling the ebbing touch of the ocean, hearing the chorus of the waves sing their unending canon.  I found a large snag at the top of the beach and I sat to watch for a few final minutes.  My shoes were full of sand, and it caressed my skin and supported my foot.  It was not an annoyance.  It was as if I had physically carried the seas embrace back up the beach with me.

The parking lot had filled in the time I had been on the sands.  I began to notice the people around me: a girl with her grandfather and her six month old golden retriever, an older couple who wore the smiles of those who have made many such morning pilgrimages, a young man in his twenties with his friends.  The young man had trouble on the sand too, though he didn’t have a cane and was easily twenty five years younger than I.  His friend came back from the wet sand and lent him a shoulder to help him get to firmer ground.  I thought of early Christians bearing up those in pain to be healed.  “Welcome to the Cathedral of the Waves!: your soul can be soothed, your strength renewed, and you can find redemption.  All you have to do is cross the dry sands of doubt, fear, egotism, self-absorption and let the holy arms of the Ocean reach out and fill your soul with everlasting power.  Hallelujah!”  Each one I saw, every person on that Sacred Sunday morning, carried a little plastic bag.  We all wanted to go home with a little bit of grace found amidst a singing chorus, in the vibrant presence of the eternity.

by Judy Cullen
"for DB"

2011 all rights reserved 

The Sylvia Beach Hotel: The Robert Louis Stevenson Room.

And what's more . . . the room came with complimentary cat visitations.  The one on the left is Dickens ( I think) the Hotel cat.  The one on the right is a friendly neighbor cat.

Discovered a work of Stevenson's I did not know about  while staying in this room.

When I think of Stevensin and I am not thinking of Treasure Island, I think of my Mom's favorite rhyme from A Child's Garden of Verses.

When I am grown to man's estate I shall be very proud and great. 

And tell the other girls and boys Not to meddle with my toys. 

OR Highway 20 - A Short Story

Some trips are karmic from the very start. Good karma.

I hadn’t been on a vacation trip in years.  I’d left town a couple of times, but always for business or something I “had” to do.  This was a “just because” trip – one that would have been savored best with a companion, but was served up fine solo.  It was karmic.

Even though my stress level had been at “high rev” for what seemed like years, I was amazed at my own unconcern regarding when I left and arrived.  It was a five hour drive from my home to Newport, OR.  Surely I could find those five hours somewhere between 8am and Midnight. When you travel on your own for pleasure, and there is no pre-packaged agenda for you, hurtling yourself through the transport just to get there seems silly. 

I called my Mom as I was pulling out of town at 2:00pm, to ask her to leave a note for someone I had forgotten to notify I would be gone.  “You haven’t left yet?  GO!”  Her words echoed those of several friends I had communicated with that morning.  I felt like a recalcitrant chick being shoved from the nest.  I didn’t stop to question the shoving.  I wanted to go.  I needed to go.  I needed to break the compelling rhythms of “life at work” and “life at home” and get a freshened perspective.

I made it down I-5 and into Oregon easily.  It was a drive I had made many, many times.  As I cleared the inevitable traffic in Portland, the vacation karma kicked in.  I found myself musing “Why do dangerous interstate traffic curves have fancier names than other features?”  In Seattle they are the Duwamish Curves, in Portland they are the Terwilliger Curves.  Does their treacherousness make them somehow additionally poetic?  I shrugged this off as fancy, still resisting the karmic call to let go entirely the control of the day and just be “in the moment.”

As I entered Marion County I noticed a white fleet car in the lane to my left with the word “Corwin” printed on the door.  I looked at my car clock, which was conveniently working at that moment.  It clearly read 4:04pm.  My friend “Corwyn” Craig Allen was just starting up his weekly poetry open mic in the virtual world of Second Life.  Uh-oh!  Karma was calling.

I stopped at my favorite Oregon rest stop sometime after 5:00pm.  The sun was still high in the sky, but the light was starting to adopt that amber trademark that signals its lean towards setting.  I would be chasing the sun out of the Willamette Valley and over the coastal hills to Newport.  I fortified myself with a “car broiled” Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich which I had been tending on the dashboard since I left home.  It was nice and gooey – just as it should be.  I had noted as first one side, then the other, worked up a nice head of steam in the Ziploc bag on the sunlit dash.  Washed down with some ice cold lemonade from the thermos I had packed, it tasted like the ghost of  sandwiches from a dozen of summer trips past, laced with the excitement of a child strapped in the back seat of the family car.  “Are we there yet?”

On to the challenge of Corvallis!  This is the point in the journey where I leave the interstate and journey via Highway 20 to the coast.  It is one of the worst thought through interchanges in the state.  I have long joked that in the State of Oregon, if there are not at least three signs for it, it does not exist.  Corvallis is the proof of concept.  I always think I have suddenly lost my way – Corvallis panic!  Someday I should really scrutinize a detailed map, or use an online tool to sort out the route.  Something tells me that would never work.  Nothing short of a native guide would do. 

It starts with leaving the interstate.  There are two places to exit: one broadly marked, and the other one not so much.  The latter is the one I really want, and I always have that terror:  “Did I miss the turn off?  Damn!”  Then I spot the Phoenix Inn.  “Phoenix” – the same name as my Second Life Viewer I use.  Surely this is karma whispering enticingly in my ear.  Yes, this is the right exit!  Saved!  But then there is downtown Corvallis.  How do I always get dumped off the State Highway into downtown Corvallis ?  It is college town with all the complications there in.  Ever notice how college towns have four times the green road signs as a non-college town of the same size?  I lose the lane I am supposed to be in according to the green signs, so I turn left and attempt to double back to get in the correct lane and stay there.  In the process of doubling back I discover that I am once more in the correct lane, and heading 90% from where I was headed before.  Is this real?  Am I on the real Highway 20? 

My shoulder is now starting to ache from being up against the car door for hours.  On my way down this new  (supposedly correct) lane I spot a Safeway Store.  Maybe I should stop and take something for my shoulder?  Keep driving.  Then I make the merge onto the state highway and my good fortune is confirmed by the sight of a second Safeway before I leave Corvallis.  Another sign?

Karma is starting to wrap its arms around me and I am somehow resisting it.  But my shoulder does hurt, and as I leave Corvallis for Philometh at the foot of the coastal hills I vow that if I there is a third grocery that appears I am taking that as a sign and stopping.  I will submit to karma.  Sure enough, there is a Thriftway store, and I exit to buy some aspirin, something to wash it down with, and the last baguette of the day from the bakery section which has been underneath the rest of the bread all day and taken on a strange curved shape that amuses me.  I head back onto Highway 20 and I see the sign: “Newport 45 miles.”  I drive for another ten minutes and see another sign: “Newport 45 miles.”  My restored confidence teeters.  Did it move? 

Now I am in the wandering, two-lane track of the coastal hills.  In other parts of the country these would be called mountains.  Where I come from “mountains” are defined in the high four digits and involve year-round snow packs.  These are not that high.  They are lovely none the less, despite their lack of awe inspiring height.  Full of steep grades, winding curves, speed zones and passing lanes.  Ah passing lanes!  I remember the days when I would have confidently zipped into the left lane and sped past whomever was ambling up the grade at a slower rate.  Now, years and miles later, I submit to the reality that I have entered that time of life where I am relegated to the right lane.  Why?  I no longer see the sense in charging the hill just because it is there.  Or perhaps I am descending into the true vacation psyche. Highway 20 is having its affect on me.  After buffeting me around in the Valley, it is lulling me into that vacation frame of mind that I didn’t truly have when I left home.

On the accent through the hills I stay at the speed limits in the ever changing zones.  Then the winding and rolling (and the aspirin) start to take effect and I start to enjoy the sunset beauty of the ride: the road winding around a streams path, some long forgotten railway running along side, lush greens, deepening ambers, glimpses of pure blue sky.  There are the sign post oddities too.  “Eddieville”:  who was Eddie and how did he rate his own “ville?”  “Toledo”: did the Conquistadores really come this far north?  “Tom Jack Road”: okay, was someone incapable of making a decision on the name?

Finally the accents diminish and I begin the descent towards the Pacific Ocean.  It is a portion of the journey filled with cheats, each new turn revealing another topographical mass to be navigated.  If I see another sign that says “Newport 45 miles” I’ll be in trouble.  But I don’t see one.  The karma has totally set in and I no longer care whether I am driving the speed limit or not.  Twilight approaches and I start to see car headlights far behind me as I sidle into another right hand passing lane.  I amuse myself thinking “Clearly the people who left home at 3:00pm and not 2:00pm have finally caught up with me.” 

Then I make a final curve and I know, deep in my soul, that THIS is the one.  Sure enough, I clear the bend and the trees part to reveal Newport as I descend the final mile to the coast.  The broad Pacific Ocean unveils itself, embracing the entire horizon in her magnificence.  The much chased sun dips low into the horizon and majestically sets into a bank of fog.  This is the Oregon Coast after all, and cloud free sunsets are reserved for Saturday nights during the tourist season.

Some trips are karmic from the very start.  Good karma. You don’t really know how or why they are.  You only know that they are, and that you are glad.

by Judy Cullen

2011 all rights reserved

The Sylvia Beach Hotel: The Hemingway Room

 My first night at the SBH and it was mighty comfy! Arrived late in the evening and enjoyed an alfresco dinner under the watchful eye of Pappy!

Scenic Newport, Oregon - Yaquina Beach and Yaquina Head

Looking South from Yaquina Head across the Bay, with Newport on the left.  There was a family of seals on the rocks with a litter of new pups.

Yaquina Beach Lighthouse to the South of the bay, interior has been furnished as it would have been in its hey day.

Yaquina Head Lighthouse inside the National Park.  The Park is an ecological preserve, which does not explain the great quantity of bugs.

The Sylvia Beach Hotel - Newport, OR

How can you go wrong with a hotel that comes with its own friendly cats.  This one happened to be a neighbor cat, but what the heck.  Check them out . . . each room is themes to an author.  The Sylvia Beach Hotel.