tales of a duffel bag, part 1

I’m sitting in the rocking chair in the corner of our bedroom, and the soft yellow lamplight bathes the tousled bed and the the daisies on the bedside table, both closets stand ajar, with light spilling out the doors. Ford’s drawings, tacked upon the wall here and there, rise gracefully off the wall under the occasioanl breeze. It’s quiet, nothing but the drone of the window unit, but I can still hear my ears ring. And that, my friends, is the peace my ears deserve at the end of an afternoon with my own children.

I finished unpacking our bags from the past month’s travelling, all piled upon the floor and covered, by now, in a smattering of white dog hair. The clothes from one bag drained coarse sand in its wake as I walked to the laundry room; those were from our paddling trip up Mendocino. They smell of campfire and redwoods and ocean. I already want to drive back.

Mendocino is like Provincetown, Mass, minus the saltwater taffy stands; everything about the town digs up vacuous memories of freshman orientation in Cape Cod: the ageing middle class, tie dyed tee shirts, burgeoning blocksful of B&Bs, cottage gardens, picket fences, and storesful of kitch.

But we only spent an hour or so downtown; we camped at Russian Gulch state park.

We practiced knot-tying and sm’ores-eating and echo-making

boat-ramming and sea-dogging

It’s the kind of place where, if you have a plank to paddle upon, you can skim your way mellow up Big River; listen to eagles and the drift of seawind weaving through swaying flats of saltmarsh; look down past your oar into cleargreen depths of bull kelp and eelgrass,and let your eyes guide you up beyond mammoth timber moorings (once used by Russian pelt hunters).

And when the tide returns, you can drift seaward, out of the gentle, giant embrace of coastal redwoods and into the wild expanse of the Pacific. It is a place to feel very small and, among all ages, full of wonder.