As the rain began its relentless downpour just before the break of dawn, he shouldered his familiar backpack, resigned to the cold, wet reality that awaited him throughout the day and into the night.
The Columbia River’s South Jetty stood like a stoic sentinel, closing off the northern end of the Oregon Coast Trail. To the south, the beach vanished into an enigmatic sea of fog, obscuring the path ahead.
Leaning forward against the relentless headwind, every step became a hard-won victory over the powerful gusts. It was a battle of man versus nature, and the wild was unyielding.
Along the way, he encountered a seagull with a limp leg, hopping away with its broken limb flailing in the wind. The sight tugged at his heart, leaving him wondering if he was already carrying a burden of sadness all his own. The enigma of Alexithymia was that he might never know.
Behind a couple of logs in the dunes, he sought refuge for the night. His small windbreak and an umbrella were all he had to protect himself from the unrelenting rain. The poncho roll that covered his exposed body became a makeshift shield, but water seeped around the sides, forming a puddle on the sleeping pad beneath him. There was no tent to protect him from the intrusion, and the night promised to be a long, chilly embrace with a soggy blanket.
Yet, amidst the discomfort and the uncertainties, he felt an odd sense of contentment. The simplicity of the wild, the untamed forces swirling around him, all of it it brought him to life. In the rhythm of the rain, a deeper melancholy stirred, a sadness born from witnessing the struggles of friends devoured by the relentless machine of life, grinding away at the core of existence.
As he embraced the stormy night, he found an inexplicable sense of being alive amidst the chaos
To be cold, to be wet, to stand firm against the howling winds, and to hear the primal rumble of the surf, these things left him filled with joy.
There was something strangely alluring about the wildness of it all. Wrapped in his trusty poncho roll, he embraced the ruggedness of sleeping exposed to nature’s raw elements, at one with the untamed world.
Until it decides to eat him too.