Spring Break

The water is now steel blue under cloudy, variegated skies, but things change so quickly. By the time I finish writing this post the colors will have changed. Yesterday a bald eagle swooped over the deck and down toward the shoreline. Last night the rain fell hard; this morning we looked out over the waters and saw a rainbow.

We’re in a beach house on the Oregon coast with lots of good food and good books. Each day we’ve had some sunshine and some wind and rain, and we’ve been here just long enough that the days have become indistinguishable.

My girls went down to the beach this morning, bundled against the wind in bright jackets. One flew a kite while another made sculptures in the sand. The kite flier came home with a perfect, hinged clamshell the size of her cupped hands.

And so we have come to a place of rest in this, our tenth month living in Oregon. We’ve nearly completed our first cycle of seasons: picking summer berries and raking leaves and building a snowman as the opportunity arose. We’ve seen the daffodils and suspect that tulips are soon to follow. Last September we visited the coast and spotted whales swimming south, and now we see them again, completing their migration cycle and moving north.

And yes, the ocean’s water has changed already, more blue now with green translucent swells. The sky has become a single, solid blue, with clouds rimming only the horizon.

We have two more days at the coast, and two more months to complete our full year as Oregonians. Today and tomorrow we rest, and for each small memento, each shifting season of life, we are thankful.