Originally written in early September, 2019.
While closing down a couple of projects in the backyard several nights ago I heard a familiar but unexpected sound. The call of a Great Horned Owl.
Most years we can expect one to visit us in the big tree that is also home to my office–the Treehouse at Cafe Irie. In an average year I might first hear the call in October and last hear it in March. I can only speculate what would bring them down from the high country.
The owls are early this year, as was another marker of seasonal shift–different air. I am not referring to the pronounced smell that comes with leafy cold and musty damp wind. I am talking about a hot air flow that gets sucked up the canyon until the heat of the day breaks and all the air pauses for a moment, then reverses. How this feels and smells varies throughout the year. In Summer it smells like dry dust and heat. More of a feeling really.
Maybe the Owls felt the seasonal shift early this year like I did.
I notice this air in canyons around the American west in my mid-summer travels, but never in early summer. This year I smelled it–I felt it, in July.
We had my nephew for a couple of weeks so we took him and my daughter camping at Harris Beach State Park in Brookings, Oregon. Although he lives in the San Diego area just minutes from the ocean, he doesn’t get to go camping and sleep outside with that pure ocean air. Even though the campground was full, you could walk a couple of minutes on footpaths to the beach and be alone very quickly. Just the edge of the continent, the ocean and your consciousness.
A couple of sunset walks for all of us, and I taught my nephew cribbage in the tent under lingering nautical twilight. Then dinner and roasting smores. In the morning a bit of tide pool exploration brought us to lunch. There are some good places to eat in Brookings. I like to eat at Vista Pub. It is a simple place to take kids. American fare. Fair.
With the morning essentials out of the way it was time for an adventure. I had long wanted to explore the Chetco River, but Brookings is hard to get to and so close to the Redwoods that the trees win priority for tourist activities in the area when we do get to the beach.
The access road is busy. There is a lot of pressure on this little river. Fishers, kayakers and other boaters are abundant down low and for several miles above Loeb State park. We poked our heads in to see what the fuss was about and found it denser and less desirable for our temperament than Harris Beach. I guess it all depends on what you want. It is certainly more protected from the Pacific. A different climate and ambition.
Once past the people and noise and end of the pavement our excitement was building. Would we find an accessible swimming hole? What else is up this road? I knew that eventually it ends because of the wilderness boundary.
We found a promising spur that did not push the limit of my car’s ground clearance, or my stomach for queezy on steep gravel roads. At the dead end bottom of the spur a beautiful Volkswagen Superbug was parked in dappled shade of the riverside willows. From the window decals I assumed it was not owned by a psycho or hillbilly. Logos are important. They can be disarming. My guard was immediately dropped by the presence of a relatively fresh UO sticker. My guess was correct. A nice woman with her adult daughter and inner tubes. Good to note if we get back down there. It could be a fun float. The only time we saw them was as they were leaving. Other than that we had the place to ourselves for several hours.
So close to where the river is stressed out and busy, we had paradise–a healthy fluvial condition and solitude. The same condition that draws me to this place also can cause me anxiety. You never know who you are going to encounter no matter where you go, but in general your encounters do not occur at an orifice of movement in a remote location. It could feel like a bottleneck if you meet a bad actor. Hopefully that never happens. Especially with children in tow.
That makes it different.
In minutes the kids had their hands full of salamanders.
Before she left for her reality back in San Diego, my Sister-in-Law instructed me not to return her son a teenager at the end of his two weeks with us. He is 11 and the task was easier than I expected. I thought for sure that he would pick up some bad habits from my daughter and her friends who are all starting High School this Autumn. At 11 I was just as blissfully unaware. It was refreshing to have a pre-teen around–still so unsure and unembarrassed. Genuinely polite and not petulant.
Salamanders are a good life lesson. I took a few minutes to convey the importance of reverence for the fact that we are in the salamander’s rivert their home…and no, we cannot bring one home…no, it will die…no, really it will die…
“Why don’t you just step on it here?” (to which my wife shot me a look and made a noise–you know the one. Sounds like…I was too graphic.)
Discussion closed.
Why do I have to use the nuclear option?
They agreed to just enjoy the salamanders in the river and explore for a while. I spent my time trying to get a good picture of the ruins of a bridge that used to cross the river at this spot. It appears that I failed. I can’t work any images from either camera into something that captures how the bridge makes me feel. It would be nice to go back in winter and try again with inclement weather. It should be a great spot. A stunning river with the forest burned up on much of the surrounding hills. There is photographic opportunity in our destructive Western summer fires.
Maybe the image isn’t the real problem. Maybe I am looking for something that I don’t have the knowledge to see yet.
As the afternoon continued to heat up the breeze grew strong, drawing up the river past us into the high country of the Kalmiopsis, and drying our skin quickly on the rocks and sandy little beach at waters edge. It is easy to see how a fire could easily rip through this landscape in the scorching hot Southern Oregon Summer and Fall. A few miles away at the beach it is 30 real degrees cooler and slightly humid, but up here in the canyon the “real feel” pushes 110–a full 45 degrees hotter than the beach. Above a certain temperature the wind can no longer cool you with it’s movement. It just cooks you like an air fryer. Water was our best refuge. Salamanders dove deeper in their shady pools, finding health in the coldest water.
Insects I can’t identify, birds calling, the psithurism of riparian verdant summer growth all dominate aural consciousness here. Only the river can be heard besides these things, and then, only the river can be heard.
The pause. Dead calm and the birds are quiet too, for a moment.
The wind is going nowhere. The trees sit silent. Insects wait for a breeze to carry their sound and scent further.
At that moment I realized that summer was beginning to tumble away again. It was an early seasonal shift for me. Usually I get that feeling in August. This year it came in mid-July. I would say that the entire Summer really never felt like Summer until that moment of pause on the Chetco, and then suddenly felt over.
It isn’t that we didn’t get to do Summer things, or that it wasn’t resembling Summer around Klamath Falls. It just never felt like we had a moment of family cohesion that will be memorable twenty years from now. Most Summers we take an epic family trip or two. This year we all took trips, but not all together. Probably the new normal for our family.
I am deeply grateful for the several small trips we were able to manage, and for the precious time we stole to spend with family, friends and strangers. I don’t know if there really is less time in existence now than there was 10 years ago, but I know that it is harder to find time for a two week escape than it was a decade ago. Even as I take great effort to simplify and be more deliberate, the time just contracts.
It surprised me to feel the first despondence of the year. Usually July is stasis defined in our lives. The garden is up and running, school is out, the weather is stable and there isn’t a whole lot to do but have fun. We were trying, but I think our changing roles as a family–our different motivations and expectation of how to explore this freedom kept us from ever finding peace.
And without notice I realized that cool air was gently flowing downstream in soft pockets through the stability of the heat that had peaked.
Realizing that hunger for dinner wasn’t far off I began the pry of little hands from amphibian dreams, knowing that I will never see my kid and her cousin like this again.
That is OK. You just try to absorb what you can. If life wasn’t fleeting it wouldn’t be beautiful I guess.
The sun was ahead of us and we descended to Brookings with the windows down. Slow on a dirt road for the first few miles, and then ash covered asphalt. The runoff of winter rains has stained the road white since the fires of summers past. On the placid lower Chetco there were lots of folks enjoying the water. A green algae-more green than I knew green could be was choking the river in places. Remarkable, in a bad way. Salamanders probably prefer that it isn’t there.
Down low we hit the bottom and the air was still hot, held inland by the density of cold Pacific coastal atmosphere. The sinking air we felt after the pause was not down so low yet, and maybe would not make it that far at all. There are enough places along the river where the cold air could stall before it reaches the ocean.
We made camp in time for snacks and more cribbage. My nephew made a few dollars busking with his guitar and original songs (he is really quite good. Really.). I went searching for sunsets. My wife and daughter found a sunset too. One more night of primo air, and in the morning we had to be back for obligations. No time for Redwoods. Just grazed the Stout Grove.
At home the second half of Summer began. Everyone left for two weeks in San Diego and I remodeled the laundry room of our house. The summer had been noisy at our house up until now. Extra kids and a dog to sit that barked at nuisance level. The quiet was lonely except for the dog. I was happy when he left. He had issues that can’t be fixed by me. I owe that dog something in spite of it’s barking. The noise caused me to move my computer workspace to the Treehouse, and that was a productive move for life in general.
I am grateful to have had that moment to realize the subtle shifting of life.
I could so easily move through life and never notice the owls–never notice their patterns.
So few people have the leisure to see life like this. Why?
Is it all a problem of greed and empathy?