You might think after only a day on my own I’ve fallen off my rocker. Maybe I have. I took the scooter for a little troll on the gravel road along the river that I walked yesterday. There was a beautiful spot by a small rapid (the kind you would love, Mom) so I scooted back to the RV and got my supplies -- and added to my shopping list b/c I was without a few essential supplies…
Armed with an extra bath towel and a book, I went back and laid pretty comfortably, even though I was laying on a bed of rocks. After an hour or two of pondering, praying and trying to remember song lyrics, I decided to get up and continue my hike. So when did I fall of my rocker, you ask? It is at this point in the story.
I was looking around at all the beautiful deserty landscape and saw on the opposite hillside a very sweetly situated home. The home actually wasn’t too unusual – split-level, fairly big and sorta old looking – but it sat on an outcropping and backed up to these really cool rocks. Kind of like Table Rock in Boise, where there are those straight up and down rock faces that almost look like someone was cutting kindling from above and left a chunk behind.
That was when the very odd thought popped into my head that I should ride up there and give them a book. I immediately dismissed it as totally and completely ludicrous and turned to head back home…but I couldn’t get it out of my head. Yes, it was totally and completely ludicrous and how would I even accomplish such a thing as I saw no way to get up there and quite frankly what would I even say to them if they happened to be home that wouldn’t get me hauled off to the nut shack.
I finally decided that I probably should rather look foolish than ignore it all, if it was an idea I was getting from the Lord. And yes, I said “should rather” instead of “would rather.” I know it’s not quite right grammar-wise, but it was how I felt. I stomped back home, hoping against hope that maybe my scooter had been stolen and I wouldn’t be able to do it.
Sadly, no luck, so I strapped on my helmet and pulled onto the road, intending to ride up to the gas station in Mt. Vernon and ask about how to get up there. Unfortunately I had forgotten to turn the gas on so the scooter died right in front of a turn-off for an antique store. I turned the gas on but it wouldn’t start, so I turned and started walking it up to the antique store, trying to start it every few feet.
Lo and behold, I walked far enough before it started to see that beyond the antique store was the road up to the house. I went ahead and rode into the antique place in the hopes of scoping things out before I rode all the way up there…but in reality I was probably just putting things off. I wandered around enough to figure out that the proprietors lived there, not up the hill. Onward and forward, I scooted up the pretty steep dirt and gravel road.
I told God that I’d guess He better protect me on this fool’s errand. It was comforting to know that, if this was the Oregon branch of the Manson family, at least they weren’t expecting me. I rang the doorbell a second time after no answer on the first and was just walking away saying “aha, I did my duty and slid out of it none the worse for wear.” But an older gentleman opened the door when I was halfway back to the scooter so I had to turn around.
“Hi. I’m not a nut or anything, but I was walking down in the state park and I saw your home and it was so beautiful and I felt like I needed to come up here and I’ve never actually done anything like this before but I wanted to give you a book.” Not exactly as I’d rehearsed, but I got it out in one breath. He looked at it and said “what book?” Oops, forgot that part. “Well, it’s my book actually. I’m just passing through on a book tour.”
So you’re thinking there’s gonna be some deep and meaningful reason I was led up there, right? Like he had been praying all night that God would show him a sign in the form of a nervous stranger at his door... Or he’d been about to commit suicide and the doorbell rang as he held the razor to his wrist… Yes, I am a fiction writer. ;)
But really, it was nothing like that. Actually, he gave the book back to me and said thanks anyway, but he was 92 and couldn’t see well enough to read anymore. I was apologizing and sidling backwards telling him what a lovely place he had when he started talking about it. He and his wife came there in ’67 after he left the military. His wife wanted a place where she could spread her arms and not run into anyone. Her people were all here and some of his as well. They’d wanted to be higher but it was a summer of wildfires and all the Cats were in use elsewhere. He’d finally gotten ahold of one and dozed a flat spot for the house, but before he could finish they’d needed the Cat back. He asked where I was from and then talked about his brother who’d been a GM salesman in Boise back in the day, but now only drove through there on his way to warmer weather. Right now his brother was on his way to Palo Alto Island, off a 7-mile bridge out into the Gulf. He apologized and said he would have invited me in for a drink, but he was just about to hop in the shower because he had an appointment. I said goodbye and that was that.
Now I’m sitting here on a blanket in the grass in front of the RV. Cali is acting remarkably docile, laying beside me with her leash hooked to the picnic table. The shade and slight breeze is helping to cool off the scorcher of a day it’s been. I’m watching massive RV after massive RV pull into the lot. And I’m wondering. What in the world? That was highly unlike me. I do occasionally get wild hairs, but I normally talk myself out of them. I’m wondering whether that was me being foolish or if it was some kind of heavenly directive that I don’t understand but for once obeyed. I guess I’ll not get an answer to that one.
