Last year was truly memorable, like being reborn. It was our first year of living fully engaged with the world after the isolation and frustration of the pandemic. A new year free of the fear that I had Parkinson’s Disease, a fear that was finally banished after consultations with specialists and some dietary changes. After two years of saying “not yet” to visiting family and friends, traveling, eating out, and listening to live music, we got our boosters and enjoyed all those things like never before. It was a magic year of saying “not yet” to aging, disability, and death.
I’m in a bit of a slowdown right now, waiting for bunion correction surgery on my left foot to heal. But we’ll always have last year!
In January, we spent a weekend at the Oregon coast at our favorite getaway, the Overleaf Lodge in Yachats. The weather was wild and stormy, but we had a great view, and we were adjacent to a hiking trail. Whenever the rain let up, we slipped outside to walk by the water and enjoy the wind and clouds. There was so much foam whipping up among the rocks that it was blowing in gobs up onto the bluffs and catching in the bushes and grass.
We also stopped at a favorite inland hike on the Sweet Creek Trail. We were very excited to see a Water Ouzel (also called American Dipper) for the first time. It’s a plain little gray-brown songbird that has the special ability to swim and dive in the water. After its swim, it sat on a mossy rock to sing a joyful song of our wet Oregon winters.
