I’m sitting on the sandy ground, beach grass swaying around me. Missy, my dopey, loving, lab-mutt is sitting next to me. The air smells faintly of old, briny mud, rotting crab meat, and the musky smell that sandy loam exudes when you are sitting on top of it, running your fingers down into its softness, wondering what things it has swallowed and now holds from you. This ground feels isolated and fully mine.

~

I remember returning not long after graduating from high school. My spot on the back side of the point, watching the sun rise over the expanse of Oregon in front of me. The mosquitos are out in force but the toxic smoke from my cigarette keeps them at bay. If only toxic smoke could protect my dog from sand fleas that torment her when ever she lays down close to the water watching for mysterious creatures to emerge from the glassy water of the bay. I can watch her endlessly as she stares intently into the water, waiting, and then laugh a little, inwardly, when she yelps and looks at her own ass, wondering what invisible creature is attempting to consume her. I tell her that she should keep on guard, the little bastards are vicious.

~

I keep looking down the road running along the most westward part of the campground. My point, the point, the place where I can look back on Oregon spreading for what seems like eternity, is at the end of that drive. My mom is cooking my son chocolate chip pancakes. I cannot go, cannot miss this ritual echoing from my childhood to my son, chocolate chip pancakes cooked on a camp stove, my complete happiness in those moments, the complete happiness of my son in this moment…my desire to step away from this moment that will end up being one of my final good ones with her, my mom, to go to my point, the point, and run my fingers through the sandy earth, whisper warnings to my dead friend who guarded us from creatures of the mysterious deep.