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10—Jonah in Oceanside

As the Macaroni Grill faded from my little bubble of light, the sound of the sea teamed up with the wind to take possession of the night. Under siege of bullets of rain, I flung off my blankets. “This is personal,” I muttered as I leapt up, then strode across the room, pulled back the drape, and slid open the balcony door to confront the bully ocean. But the wind knocked me back with a blast of razor-sharp rain that stung my face and in the seconds it took to slam the door shut soaked me through to the skin. 

Even after I’d dried off, turned up the heat, and withdrawn into my blanket, something disconcerting seemed to inhabit my room. The gray ceiling beams came together over the bed like an upturned ship. In the eye of my own storm, I opened the bed-stand drawer, slid out the holy book....



Trying to avoid God’s directive to go to Nineveh to turn the people from their godless ways, Jonah stowed away on a ship bound for another port. To express his displeasure with Jonah, “the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken...”
To save themselves, the sailors tossed Jonah into the sea where he was devoured by a big fish. And from the belly of the fish, Jonah cried out.

“...The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped around my head....I will pay that that I have vowed....”

And when Jonah finally agreed to go to Nineveh, the fish barfed him up onto the land.

A drowsiness overcame me. I turned off the lamp and drifted into sleep.

The next day, I avoided the ocean by taking a hike in Cape Lookout State Park. I chose a trail that wound through a spruce forest that opened up to a rocky cliff high above the Pacific. Panic attacked me on the way back to the car. 


I ran, tripping over roots and fallen branches, sure I’d lost my way, despite the fact that there was only one clearly marked path. Back in the car, I sat shivering in the gray chill.

On the third day, I was grateful that the drizzle had turned into heavy rain, which made it possible for me to sit snugly in the local coffee shop, away from the window, writing postcards about what a great time I was having.

By day four, the rain had diminished to a drizzle. I decided the whole archetypal terror thing was ridiculous and went striding across the beach to the tide line where I stooped down and extended my open palm to receive the incoming sea. While resisting the temptation to bolt from the enormity of this act, I was momentarily distracted by the sizzling white edge of water that danced toward me like a miniature Busby Berkeley chorus line, right behind which was a surprise wave that soaked my sneakers. As the water receded, the sand gave way beneath my feet. While I sank only up to my toes, terror engulfed me.

Finally regaining the presence of mind to walk away, I glanced back. Not only had the ocean receded, but the foamy white lip of that vast primal body seemed to smile as if to say I was just one more dumb stone to be polished. 

On my fifth and final day, I drove out on the Bayocean Spit, a thin strip of land between the nearby Tillamook Bay and the ocean. Here, in 1906, the town of Bayocean was founded and later billed as the Atlantic City of the West. However, storm erosion that eventually washed away the entire town—homes, tourist havens, a narrow gauge railroad, natatorium, cannery, tin factory, and Texaco gas station—all of it lost to the sea because of a decision made to save money by building only one jetty at the mouth of the bay instead of the two required to control the water. Too tired to hike the site laid bare by folly, I drove back to the motel for a nap.

That night, the sky cleared, and a full moon cast a luminous path across the sea to the stars. Wrapped in layers of fleece, I sat on my balcony. With the human world at my back, I breathed in the white light of the Milky Way. My thoughts ceased to flow. Growing drowsy, I went inside where I lay down and fell through the sound of the sea into a dreamless sleep. 

The next morning, the sun shone brightly. As I finished packing the car, I glanced out across the blue ocean to the horizon and felt as if I’d just met my soul mate. 



Having spent the last five days longing for the desert, I now hated to leave and asked the motel manager for the name of a short-term rental agent. He gave me two.


Next: The Quest-ionable Zip Code

1 comment:

  1. Had no idea about Bayocean (city of) and its demise (a Texaco station?). Can't wait to read more of the Oceansidians (see also: Words that rhyme with 'obsidians').

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