Ocean, Ocean

Fall. The honey thickens.

Visited the beach at Neskowin. Sunny, a light breeze from the north, temperature around sixty degrees. No sand fleas. The tide was coming in, but it wasn’t so high that we couldn’t see that since our barefoot stroll there two years ago, the ghost forest has been mostly covered with sand. Only the top of one of the heavily barnacled stumps was visible. The western-most part of the forest might have been hidden under the incoming waves; it was hard to tell. Either way, the ocean has a way of rearranging things. Today the entire beach seemed higher, and was almost perfectly packed and smooth up to the rocky barrier where the nearest houses are. A light fog hugged the cliffs. After another round of winter storms, the forest may be back again.

A picture of the ghost forest, and a brief note about our Neskowin trip in 2021, is on Page 1195.

Read The Rambler, Numb. 6. Saturday, April 7, 1750. Active in indolence, abroad we roam / In quest of happiness, which dwells at home: / With vain pursuits fatigu’d, at length you’ll find, / No place excludes it from an equal mind. —Elphinston.

James Elphinston (1721-1809) was a good friend of Samuel Johnson. From Wikipedia: Thirty-six of Elphinston’s translations of mottoes appear in Johnson’s Rambler, as part of a revised, corrected edition in July 1752 and subsequently. Johnson’s affection for Elphinston is evident from a letter from early 1752 in which he wrote, “I beg of You to write soon, and to write often, and to write long letters, which I hope in time to repay you, but you must be a patient Creditor.”

September 21, 2023.

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