B5
THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, MARcH 19, 2022
Coast: Writer enjoys variety of urban and rural settings
continued from Page B1
The view from our condo
in Portland includes at least
10 buildings of 10 sto-
ries or more. Our condo in
Gearhart is very close to
the beach and features an
unparalleled vista of the
ocean and the great moun-
tain-like peninsula of Tilla-
mook Head jutting out into
the water.
Whenever I would ride
the daddy bus west, or,
during the pandemic, my
wife and I would travel in
our SUV in the same direc-
tion, we would breathe a
palpable sigh of relief, feel-
ing welcomed by clear sea
air, no traffic, the sound
of the ocean, and the view
of Tillamook Head from
our window. Our condo is
small, but very comfortable,
especially for the two of us,
and as my wife, Ann, reli-
ably comments, it has “the
best view in Gearhart.”
We had begun alternat-
ing between the two loca-
tions before the pandemic.
We found that we like
this alternation of locations.
Why does this appeal? The
obvious answers would be
the beautiful expanse of the
beach, the quiet of the small
town, the south winds, and
the fresh fish, on one hand,
and the city buzz, the restau-
rants, the proximity of Pow-
ell’s Books, and friends and
colleagues nearby, on the
other.
But there are deeper
underlying reasons.
Peace in the outdoors
If I want to evoke an
image of Gothic horror to
anyone who knows me well,
all I must do is utter the
phrase “Brookwood Park.”
That is a suburban cul-de-
sac where I lived from age
9 to 17. It is located near the
Albany airport in upstate
New York.
It is where we moved
after my parents divorced,
and where I lived with my
Katherine Lacaze
The Gearhart Ridge Path Loop features scenic views.
mother, stepfather, brother
and sister. We occupied a
small white brick house in a
fairly new suburban devel-
opment. My brother and I
shared a room. There was
a yard with an overflowing
septic tank to mow. There
were surrounding woods
and creeks and shopping
centers. There were a few,
but not very many, peo-
ple my age around. Not far
away was the mediocre ele-
mentary school I attended
in fifth and sixth grade as
well as the equally medio-
cre high school I graduated
from. And there was, from
my point of view at the
time, and ever since, abso-
lutely nothing.
My escapes from Brook-
wood Park felt lifesaving. It
first occurred during sum-
mers at my father’s golf
course home in North Caro-
lina. Then there was my exit
to college in Durham, North
Carolina. My brother used
to say that he had never seen
anyone change as much as I
did when I came home for
Thanksgiving
freshman
year. I remember how much
more alive I felt. Part of the
appeal of going to school
there was the Duke For-
est, a large expanse of for-
est near the Duke Univer-
sity campus in which one
could roam for hours with-
out encountering a soul. A
little later, after acquiring
my ‘69 green Mustang, I
also found my way to Myr-
tle Beach on the South Car-
olina coast, and to the hik-
ing trails in the mountains
of western North Carolina.
After medical school
and internship in North
Carolina, I lived in Den-
ver for my psychiatric res-
idency. There I took off to
the mountains on a regular
basis to hike, and especially
to ski. I learned all about
feeling Rocky Mountain
high, though I never became
a fan of John Denver.
Then I lived in Cam-
bridge,
Massachusetts,
where I started my career
and pursued further stud-
ies. I learned to appreci-
ate the vitality of a more
urban situation, with Bos-
ton across the Charles
River, and sailboat racing in
the Boston harbor. But liv-
ing in the Boston area also
came with a certain tension
and a widely appreciated
and vivid means of escape
from it. All one had to do
was drive south on Inter-
state 93 and cross the Sag-
amore Bridge to Cape Cod.
The sensation of driving
across the bridge with the
water and Cape Cod in view
was one of profound physi-
cal and spiritual relief. This
was not unlike the feeling I
later experienced riding to
Gearhart over the coastal
range on the daddy bus.
During my years in
Cambridge, I also became
acquainted with some other
urban settings. I spent a
week per year from the
early ‘80s on in Manhattan
at professional meetings,
and as I became acquainted
with my future wife, Ann, I
became increasingly famil-
iar with one of North Amer-
ica’s oldest urban settings,
New Orleans. My daughter
ended up going to school in
the Big Easy and living in
our condo there for several
years.
‘Try taking a good
walk on the beach’
Then came my move to
Oregon, and a 25-year set-
tling into the version of
town and country I found
in the Northwest. There
is no shortage of Brook-
wood Park-looking sub-
urbs around Portland, but
I have discovered a vital
and growing urban set-
ting where it was possible
to participate in founding a
training institute for those
interested in learning about
and professionally immers-
ing themselves in psycho-
analysis. Many friends from
Boston and elsewhere have
come to visit and teach. We
have often driven them out
to the gorge to hike and see
the river and the waterfalls.
Gradually we became
acquainted with the coast.
We explored several towns,
and one time drove its entire
length. Before too many
years though we found
that a sort of magnetic pull
brought us repeatedly to
Gearhart.
Part of it was that the
drive over the coastal range
on Highway 26 became
our new Sagamore Bridge.
Another part was that the
quiet non-touristy town
reminded Ann power-
fully of the small Louisi-
ana town on the Missis-
sippi where she grew up. It
had appealed to her much
more than Brookwood Park
and its memories of a newly
broken family ever did to
me. After a few years we
found the condo with its
amazing view.
In Gearhart the long
walks on the ever-changing
beach year-round became
a reliable, recurring and
soothing dream of sorts. I
am reminded at those times
of one of my mother’s
repeated pieces of wisdom.
She had a deep emotional
attachment to the Jersey
Shore and had many early
family memories connected
with that seaside location. It
was close to where she grew
up in Montclair, a New Jer-
sey bedroom community.
She would say at times
of discouragement, frus-
tration or disappointment,
when no solution seemed to
present itself, “Try taking a
good walk on the beach.”
This essay was produced
through a class taught by
Tom Hallman Jr., a Pulit-
zer Prize winning reporter
at The Oregonian.