Spring Break - R.I.P.

Sloshing through the rain on the last days of Spring Break, hours before you were due in front of a classroom filled with cantankerous sixteen year olds, you came to a realization that time—with all of the moments in life that seem to last forever—has a way of creeping up on you.

The sleepy town of Seaside is where we ended up on the last weekend of the break, amidst the surly population that seemed content with the bleak grey views booth seats afforded in overly priced seafood restaurants on the main strip of town. The skies bled white with rain throughout the duration of our stay, but one morning I went for a quiet walk on an inlet, looking out at the pounding surf across the eerily calm inlet pond in front of me. In the distance I could see older couples slowly sauntering against the oncoming wind. The beach felt wonderfully lonely, with a palpable salty chill in the air, and my coffee went down well as I imagined an eventual life spent in front of this undulating, churning sea. I feel vindicated in front of an ocean, and humbled by the lack of people and sunshine. The vague feeling of dread washes away after the first few steps, and you mildly surmise your existence in all of this change.

One week at home, with books and words, did not yield the poetic bounty that I was anticipating. I read Rex Pickett’s Sideways in just over two days, and was reminded how much a book that some could view as “fluff” is actually a beautifully moving treatise to friendship, and how part of the maturation process is eventually shedding much of the self destructive behavior featured in one’s late teens and early twenties. I am currently in the middle of Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, which is so far proving to be a dazzling chronicle of a Greek family fleeing Smyrna, Greece to Detroit in 1922. The fact that the narrator is a hermaphrodite yields some interesting narrative perspectives, adding much cinematic flair to the adventurous read, similar in scope to Chabon’s Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

As for my literary progress, little ground was covered despite my time spent in coffee shops, attempting to correct the lack of material. I did manage to spool out a fourteen page story about a young man who escapes the stuffy confines of the Southeastern United States for the stormy anonymousness of the Pacific Northwest, specifically Port Angeles.

I may eventually push morsels of the tale online, but much of it is better suited to the sleeping blanket of the printed word.

Having the entire week off felt strange, especially with the perpetual rain as an hourly companion, but I made the most of it by lying low, reading, writing and contemplating the nature of getting a teaching job over the summer.

Music was perused, analyzed, digested and finally discarded during the break, here being the prime targets of my listening:



1. Decemberists – Picaresque

2. Andrew Bird – Andrew Bird and the mysterious production of eggs

3. Buena Vista Social Club

4. Antony and the Johsons – I am a bird now
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5. Bellwether – Six and seven

6. The Bravery – S/t

7. Doves – Some Cities

8. Kaiser Chiefs – Employment
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9. Mountain Goats – The sunset tree

10. Thievery Corporation – Cosmic game