Monday, August 9, 2010

Back To My Roots


We recently returned from a vacation to the beautiful Northwest coast. I was able to take my children to Portland, where I showed them my home, the elementary school, and the high school I attended, where I first fell in love with literature and decided I wanted to be a writer.

I loved the green trees in our campground, thick and fuzzy with moss, the light filtering down through needles and leaves. The air seemed rich with oxygen and smelled green--can you smell green? If so, it would smell like Oregon.

We built a big family sandcastle at the beach and did a lot of beach combing. I wiggled my feet down into the soft, fine-grained sand, as if I could root myself to the beach and stay there forever.



The water was too cold to swim in so the children gathered treasures of broken shells and limpets. They watched small crabs skuttle for shelter when dislodged from their homes under large rocks.

Something about being back where I grew up made me feel whole, filled, at home. It was as if the trees and moss were welcoming me back. I think a part of me will always be there, in the coastal forest, breathing in the rich air, so different from the dry mountain desert I have lived in for the past 23 years.

10 comments:

  1. How nice that you were able to "go home," and share the experience with your kids. Awesome!

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  2. What a fun trip for you and your family! We used to go camping up the Pacific coast from San Diego to Klamath Falls, Oregon, where my aunt and uncle lived. Those are some of my fondest childhood memories. It is a beautiful place.

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  3. It was wonderful. We were lucky to not be rained on all the time, which is something I don't miss about my hometown!

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  4. It sounds so beautiful. Sometimes you can never go "back home" because everything changes so much. A few years ago I went back to the old neighbor and walked around the block. Good therapy even though it was so different from when I lived there.

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  5. I love the Oregon Coast--lived there a few months in my YA years. Thanks for the post--and the reminder of how beautiful it is.

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  6. Karen - you so beautifully described how I felt on my own two week vacation back to my home in PA. I'm glad your family had such a wonderful time!

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  7. Going home is the best. I'm so glad you could share it with your family.
    Oregon is gorgeous!

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  8. Karen I have awarded you the Versatile Blogger Award. I Love how you have book reviews in the side column of your blog. What a fun way to share.
    For more details about the award, go to my blog.

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  9. Karen, I missed the September ANWA meeting so I didn't get in on the critique. It always helps me to hear how others' opinions may differ from mine. By the way, I'm from Portland, too, and the pictures made me a little homesick. I also like your book reviews. I have a few on my blog, The Write Stuff, pamwrite.blogspot.com. I didn't find Sadie as obnoxious as other readers have so I decided to read something else by Josi Kilpack, and I chose To Have or To Hold. I recommend it highly. Interesting twist on the 'marriage of convenience' plot device. It starts out as HER story and somewhere in the middle it turns and becomes HIS story. I don't know how she did that, but it was fascinating to see it happen. By the way, there are eight in the Sadie Hoffmiller culinary mystery series. I've read the first four and enjoyed them, and I'm not usually a mystery fan.

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