It was a nudge of my shoulder. Or rather more like a scarf flying out as someone rushed past me. Barely perceptible but it got my attention. I was quietly on the dunes of Cape Kiwanda, Oregon, listening as the distant surf heaved onto the shores before me. There was no one near me but I still had the sense that someone brushed by me.
It was the summer of 2010. My teenage son and his step brother were romping across the Cape. Neither my wife nor I felt the same urge to charge about and sat relaxed on the warm sands. In a natural setting like the Cape, I often sit and connect with the landscape, as I did then - sensing the earth and sand, the wind sculpted trees, the rolling ocean before me. I’m not a hardy outdoors person trekking through the wilderness or scaling mountain peaks. But I’ve felt at home on sandy shores and forest trails since I was a kid.
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