Oregon Coast Transitions

It’s grey. It’s dreary. It’s pouring rain. And I strangely am enchanted by it all, as I cruise in my car with nearly six years worth of stuff as my four passengers in tow.

I'm on “The 5,” as I’ve learned to call it—a nod to the San Diego chapter of my life. The shortest way from Seattle to the San Francisco Bay Area, about thirteen hours in total, is to stay on the 5, a straight shot through Oregon until I hit the town I grew up in, the one I used to call home.

Instead, I take a fork off the main highway towards “The 101.” I’m not looking to get home in in thirteen hours; I’m taking time off and driving towards the ocean. I’ve never been down the Oregon coast. I’ve heard it’s one of the most stunning drives on this planet you can ever take. This is my chance.

The drive is also a bit of a test. I’ve never driven more than two hours by myself, and I’m usually a very social person who gets antsy when spending long stretches of time in solitude. This drive, however, is going just fine. I haven’t seen a single car in front of or behind me going in the same direction for hours. It seems like it’s just me in the world, enjoying the long scenic route. Some past version of me would’ve hated the weather. It’s not sunny, but it’s still strangely beautiful. The wind is fierce; my car is a little harder to handle, and I can see the trees rocking back and forth on the side of the road. Every so often, I steal a glance at the waters, and I can see the grey skies, the dark seas, and the foggy whiteness where the two meet.

When I’m alone, my mind tends to wander. Between some pensive music, an audio book about a guy who dies but becomes an AI a century later, and my own imagination, I actually feel pretty busy, lost in my own thoughts.

Right now, my head is considering a theory about post-traumatic stress disorder that I remember reading about: One reason PTSD is much more prevalent in our era, is due to the lack of transition time and space to process. Today, after experiencing the horrors of the battlefield, soldiers can be back on a plane and on home soil within a day. In the past, this used to take months, allowing for time to process what had happened, alongside other comrades who endured similar experiences.

I have no idea if this is true, and Google is not particularly helpful in verifying it either. But in my mind, it makes sense. Technology has allowed us to jump from one place to another. Maybe our bodies, and minds, have not evolved fast enough to adapt to such stark changes without the time to progressively adjust.

Before I know it, I’ve crossed the Oregon border and am in a town called Seaside. The freeway becomes a local road, and at a stoplight, I see a sign that points to my right. “Downtown and Beach.” I love both, so I make a split second decision and turn off the 101.

In the summertime, I can imagine this quaint set of souvenir stores, small cafes and narrow roads as packed with families strolling about in the warm sunshine. But today, it’s a ghost town. It’s dusk, a random Thursday night, and in the middle of winter. It’s also raining, which I don’t seem to mind anymore.

Cannon Beach is the next town over, and is my checkpoint for the night. I check-in to my hotel, and walk to a nearby restaurant that I find on Yelp. Normally, I really don’t like going out and eating on my own. But when I’m on the road, and obviously a tourist, I don’t really care. I chill at the bar, and surprise myself when I order a drink before eating anything.

Basketball is on TV, and I’m finding that sports is a comfort familiarity to have when on the go. My hometown Warriors are on, but they lose because they can't shoot today. The hometown Trailblazers are next to show up, and they show up big. I’m sitting next to the kitchen and folks inside cheer like crazy.

I ask for the bill and something catches my eye: There’s a line for gratuity, but none for tax. And then I remember: I’m in Oregon. There’s no sales tax here.

Suddenly, a wave of comfort floods over me, knowing that I am on the go, in the middle of an adventure and even here, there are small differences in what life is like. Maybe my home really is on the road.

I walk back to my hotel and lie in bed for a while, staring at the ceiling, thinking about...I’m not really sure. I’m restless, feeling the muscle fibers throughout my body twitch. The wind is like me, still rustling the leaves outside and rattling windows as gust after gust flies by. I shut my eyes for the night and wait until my brain checks out.

Dude

A high-pitched beep blares next to my ear. It’s a text, from my Seattle friend, Bobby.

10 minutes, my phone blares again. When Bobby and I worked together, we used to randomly get coffee together on a near-daily basis. Eventually, I left that job, and part of me wondered if I would also leave that coffee routine behind. My worry was unfounded, because when Bobby continued going into the office, he’d text me to grab coffee in the morning on his way in. Like old times. Like he’s doing today.

So I play along. “Putting on my shoes.”

A couple of minutes pass.

Um...are you coming?

I know he’s joking, but I momentarily experience my first real pang of sadness. No, I’m not coming today. I know I will, again, someday in the future. Just, not today.

I wander off to the beach a place called Haystack Rock. The wind has stamina like none other and it hasn’t slowed in pace since last night. It sends the sand flowing in streams along the beach, almost like a river in the way that it splits when it hits rocks or fallen tree stumps and then gels back together afterwards. The ocean rolls back and forth in the distance, but there’s a patch of sand that was covered by water at some point, but the ocean doesn’t seem to reach it anymore. It’s like a serene layer of still glass, reflecting the sky, Haystack Rock, even me. I imagine a scorching sun, people hiding under beach umbrellas and the sound of children laughing. Instead, the world is still grey, I’m the only human as far as the eye can see, and the only sounds are the wind, the ocean, and my own breaths. A light mist falls in the air on my face. It’s beautiful.

I do end up getting myself a cappuccino at a small cafe. It’s not bad, but it’s not Seattle.

I pack up my bag, and jump back on the road.

There are so many “viewpoints” on the 101, and I periodically pull off the road to check out some of them. Not all, because there are simply too many. Part of me wants to stop and just hike around for a few hours. The other part of me says, “maybe next time.” That part wins.

I start thinking about my friend Gabriel, who has been trying to convince me to buy a van and retrofit it so I can live in it and travel around the country. It was always a nice idea, but not something I ever truly thought I’d enjoy. This trip is changing my mind.

Before I hit my pitstop for the night, I enter a small town and that has a funny side street that has painted on the surface “OCEAN VIEW” so big you can’t miss it. I veer off the main road to check it out. I feel like I’d be missing out if I don’t.

Turns out it’s pretty disappointing. Not all viewpoints are worth it, but you can never know. And sometimes the fun is just in taking guesses.

I make it to my next hotel, pull up Yelp again, and find a small mom and pop restaurant. I’m one of three guests when I walk in, and the other two are a couple. I take a seat at the bar.

The restaurant looks like it’s run by a husband and wife, or maybe just two friends. He seems to be the chef. She plays waiter, makes the drinks, and offers me a very warm towel.

“This will probably feel good,” she smiles.

I feel the heat sear my fingertips and send warm shivers through my body. Oh it does feel good, after being in the rain and cold and even though my car is warm, this is like a hot shower in towel form. I rub my hands with it and then press it against my face and suddenly it’s like it’s a soft manifestation of the sun and I’m in heaven.

“Oh yeah, that felt great,” I laugh, handing back the towel.

“So how’d you hear about Anna’s?” the man asks, referring to the name of their restaurant.

“Yelp.” I smile.

He nods. I imagine he’s heard that answer a lot.

They ask about what I'm doing and why I’m here in Random Town, Oregon. Since no one else has entered, it’s easy for us to sit and chat. I’m enjoying this slower pace, and it’s a nice social thing to do on my trip home.

“I’m from Seattle, moving to the Bay Area.”

“From Seattle, going to the Bay. Let me guess: You work in tech,” he says. I feel like I catch a slight disdain in his voice.

“Not anymore, actually,” I laugh. “I quit. I’m taking some time off.”

“That’s good,” the woman says. “What are you taking time off to do?”

“I’m going to take care of my parents for a bit.”

“Oh that’s nice. You’re not going to regret that.”

“No.” I flash a sheepish smile as I take a swig of my drink, “No, I’m not.”

I’ve never been one to “have a drink” just to relax and wind down, but between last night and tonight, clearly I’ve changed, and after I finish one drink she offers another and I don’t refuse it. We chat periodically throughout the night as she alternates between entertaining new guests and myself. We talk about family, Facebook, family drama, where we’ve been in the world, family. It always comes back to family.

I thank them for a great meal and some great drinks. You really do meet some of the coolest people on the road.

I can’t sleep tonight. I wake up every few hours, emotions surging through my veins. My short dreams are fleeting, and even if I can’t remember them, I remember the hollow ache when I wake up. This isn’t a vacation. This is change. The days have been pensive and thoughtful, punctured by moments of awe at the beauty and vastness of nature. But the nights, they have been hard.

I wake up the next morning way too early. But I can’t fall back asleep and I have nothing else to do. I figure I might as well get back on the road.

I take one last walk on the beach. There’s a small patch of blue sky peeking through the clouds. Just a small patch, where the sun shines a single ray through.

Before I know it, I’ve crossed into California territory. It starts off pretty, and I’m up and down over hills and ravines, and even underneath a few towering redwoods. But eventually the road forks between “The 1” which takes you to the ocean, and the 101 which stays a little inland. I’m starting to feel a little tired, and my right leg is mildly aching. I decide, it’s time to go home, and so the 101 it is. And the rest of the drive, honestly, is pretty boring.

I make one last stop at one of the glorious symbols of California: In-N-Out. I ask for animal style everything. I get a coke—shocking, since I never drink soda anymore. Unless of course, it’s a part of a cocktail.

The road eventually becomes your standard freeway, with two lanes on each side and glimpses of civilization in the distance. I start to wonder if I should have just done the shorter drive and gone straight home from the very beginning. Maybe it’s just the fatigue, or maybe it’s because now the scenery isn’t very exciting. I think it's easy to always want to be at your destination, to just jump from one place to the next. But sometimes the transition time between places, between life stages, is critical. You need it. And if you rush through it, you miss out on the beautiful drive, the mom-and-pop-restaurant experiences, the solitude—and you realize maybe the transition was the journey all along.

As I exit Treat Boulevard, a street I’ve always known, I think about when I was packing my parents’ van and preparing to move to Seattle, six years ago. Faint in my memory are those emotions, those feelings, the same ambition that brought me from Hong Kong to Seattle in the first place. I moved to be closer to family. And here I am, six years later, doing the exact same thing.

There’s a quote that resonates with me, supposedly by a Greek philosopher: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”

Maybe, all of Seattle was a transition. Maybe, everything in life sort of is. All of life is the river. All of us, are the man. Home, is not the same home when I left it. And I am not the same man.

And so hours later, I cast away the thought in my mind. I don’t wish I came home sooner. I’m glad I took three days to come down, instead of one. This transition was what I needed. It was time to process, time to think and wonder, time to remind myself and talk to others about why I’m doing this. Before actually doing it.

Like when the lady, Anna asked me: “What are you taking time off to do?”

“I’m going to take care of my parents for a bit.”

“Oh that’s nice,” I hear her voice ringing in my head as I pull up to my parents’ house and switch off the ignition. “You’re not going to regret that.”

And I say to myself exactly what I told her then. “No. No, I’m not.”