R & R for the soul

As of this week I am on vacation. Yay for the burning heat or foggy chill of the Oregon Coast! As always we are in Cannon Beach, where the weather is random and as many of our large family as can make it come to kick off our shoes and play in the surf. This year several great-grandchildren I have never met are visiting from the east coast.

We are engineers and designers as well as artists and musicians–we will build a monument to sandcastles!

Or hang out at grandma’s condo and assemble a jigsaw-puzzle if it should suddenly turn cold and rainy.

Or we’ll watch TV on my son-in-law’s portable outdoor theater, which I find intriguing–I rarely watch TV at home. But we have to watch The Goonies, since we are in Cannon Beach–it’s a family tradition and a rule.

For reading material, I have my kindle loaded with Tenth of December by George Saunders. I listened to the Audible book, and I was so impressed with Saunders’ narration that I have to read it with my own eyes. Yep–this will be an awesome, relaxing reading-for-pleasure kind of vacation.

By virtue of past experience with Cannon Beach cuisine, I know I can eat in several cafes that offer vegan/vegetarian options–they are good, but limited.

But we always rent a condo, and I am doing most of my own cooking, as no one really gets that vegans eat vegetables–go figure! (oh god, a vegan–what will I cook?) I am the queen of barbecue tofu sliders, and all food homemade, not just vegan.

We always stay down by Ecola, and love that end of the beach. Watching the grand-kids and great-grand-kids play in the sun and surf is awesome. Making vegan smores is a total treat. The others are not vegan but I use vegan chocolate and if I can’t find any Dandies, I just won’t eat the marshmallows. The simplicity of sitting around the fire at night listening to my kids talk about their work, their ambitions, and their parenting lives inspires a sense of pride in me that is hard to explain.

The little ones are building memories that will bind them closer together, cousins with a common history of one particular place they went, a week-long family party, and a summer that seemed endless.

Kite-flying is my big down-time hobby. I keep it simple, and have found through experience that flying a kite in the fog is not always as easy as it sounds. In many ways writing is a lot like flying a kite–it takes a little effort, but wow, once you’re aloft it’s mesmerizing.

I always return completely revitalized, and ready to get back into publishing and writing. Who knows what amazing revelations regarding my work will have occurred to me while I am enjoying the views and salt-sea air that Ursula K. Le Guin frequently enjoys?

Le Guin’s work was one of the many that inspired me to think I might be able to write–her way of telling a story was so compelling I couldn’t get enough of it. The first book of hers that I read,  A Wizard of Earthsea is set in the fictional archipelago of Earthsea. I loved how she painted that world with words, and brought it to life in my mind. And it was just my cup of tea–the story follows the education of a young mage named Ged who joins a school of wizardry—and is my favorite fantasy book of all time. She knows how to write great prose, and how to keep it moving so that even picky-wannabe-critics forget they are reading great prose.

Now, if only some of that  gift for word-bending will rub off on me while I am building sandcastles and flying kites in her old stomping grounds!