like home

Manzanita beach, Oregon, early in the morning on Sunday, August 16, 2009.  Photographed with Nikon D300, 60mm lens.

I'm generally a morning person, but because of the time difference, in Oregon I was a particularly early riser.  Since once I'm awake, I'm awake, and I didn't want to remain lying still in my bed for fear of waking the other women in the house up, in the mornings I'd grab my camera, pull on my wellies, and go for a long walk on the beach.

The village of Manzanita looks a lot like the coastal villages where Marcus grew up, in Cornwall, England:  lots of tiny cottages tucked away on hilly little lots, generally surrounded by beautiful, colourful gardens.  I wish Marcus were here to see this, I thought to myself when I came upon a particularly quaint home.  He'd love it here.

But the beach?  The beach is where I was immediately taken back to my childhood home in Trinidad.  Manzanita beach is what a friend of mine from back home calls a walking beach -- one where there are very few people at any given time on the sand, and it looks like you can walk for miles and miles.  And on Sunday morning, as I headed out on the cool sand, I was really and particularly struck by how much like my childhood beach it was.

There were small mollusk shells, opened into butterfly shapes, and littered all over the sand, just like the chip-chip we used to collect at home.

There were broken sanddollars.  I've never been on a beach in my life that had sanddollars, save for the beach of my childhood.

There was even a peninsula close by, where the sand suddenly turned into large smooth rocks, covered in shells and algae, and tiny trails left by snails in the sand.

Just like back home.

After I'd explored for a while, taking photographs and looking for signs of life in the tidal pools, I headed back to the house.  Then suddenly, I stopped dead in my tracks.  Out of the blue, I had realized something -- something I should've realized even last year, but for some reason, didn't strike me until that very moment:

I was on Manzanita beach.

The beach I grew up on is called Manzanilla beach.

I smiled, and continued walking, quicker now.  I have no idea if Manzanita beach is meant to be really important in my life, but I made the promise to myself right then and there to bring Marcus and Alex to see it.

Soon.

Song:  Home by Josh Verdes