The Wind

“In small towns, news travels at the speed of boredom.” 
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón

I’ve been working on a short story about a cast of characters in a small town, and how they are all rattled by the wind. It will be FICTION but…it IS very windy in Port Orford and most of us who live here are a little (or a lot) discombobulated, me included. The wind started in late April I believe, right when it finally stopped hailing. It’s just…a lot of wind. In one part of my story a toddler gets blown down the road and I’m surprised I haven’t actually witnessed this. My hair has been insane for weeks and today I wore my favorite blue Mr. Rogers cardigan inside out. A tourist gave me a very smug look upon seeing my tags flying from the seam when I was picking up my weekly hamburger across the street at The Crazy Norwegian’s. Underwear inside out too. Nice! I guess that’s the kind of bookstore owner I’m turning into. I’m fine with it.

#goals

My debut novel, “A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest” has come back from the copy editors at Torrey House Press and I’m giving the manuscript a final look over before the galley copies get printed. This is completely fucking terrifying. It feels like the 500th time I’ve looked it over. The sentences are all blending together and my eyeballs burn as I read individual words again and again, second-guess them, think I should change everything, eat a little chocolate, and then decide it’s as good as it could possibly get. But only for two minutes does this bit of peace last. I guess this is a thing?

This town technically has about 1100 residents but I think I only see the same 30 people over and over. Many beyond those 30 only come into town to grab some groceries and gas and then disappear back to their secret, forested homestead hideaways and ranches, for weeks, months, years? I get it. I too have been disappearing into the trees as much as possible. They are magnificently kind and comforting. (Cute too.)

I am getting a divorce and a few local citizens have made a point to let me know that the whole town (but I’m guessing 3-8 people, max) is talking about it. Uh. Thanks? It is hard to believe anyone at all cares, because it is not that interesting. There is a tree near the lighthouse that is about a thousand times more interesting than my breakup. Its branches are massive and on the forest floor surrounding the base of the trunk are many hundreds of Western Lily of the Valley plants, stretching out to the cliff’s edge. It’s pure magic. Why is there not town gossip about this? I mean… Shhhhhh. But have you seen and heard? (It’s tantalizing.)

(Special tree not pictured. Way too private.)

I think tomorrow morning before working at the bookstore I will print out a couple chapters of my novel to review and go sit under the beautiful, aforementioned tree. The wind will ruffle my pages, my hair, and my train of thought. It will scour the gossip out of my ears and lift it off my skin. I’ll feel it rise off me and up into the ether. I’ll think about that one Ernest Hemingway quote and try to live up to it, “The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector.” I’ll give my tree a hug and just before noon when the bookstore opens, will head back into this strange, little town that I have thoroughly fallen in love with, maybe or maybe not with some of my clothes inside out.