The Big Leap
By Barbara O'Neal | August 1, 2023 |
I saw whales this morning as I made breakfast. They moved along the water, blowing spouts as they looked for their breakfast. My husband and I each peered through the window with our binoculars, watching in wonder. “Oh, another one!” “Did you see that?”
And then we sat down to oatmeal and coffee, still looking hopefully through the windows, even though we probably won’t see any spouts without the binoculars. We’re quiet, happy. We know they’re out there, even if we can’t see them.
Every morning, and sometimes in the evenings, I walk on the beach. Most of the time, there are mussels and the broken pieces of crabs left by seagulls and crows, but sometimes, I find sand dollars or starfish dislodged by rough waters. An entire diorama unfolds on my kitchen window, agates and shells and the sand that has become my unrelenting companion.
On my watch, I have replaced my altimeter with tide tables, and my bookshelves are filling with books on ocean life and tide pools and birds. Every day, I learn something new, something amazing. Little things, like why my sunglasses get so gross (salt), and big ones, like the fact that a pod of whales hangs out due west. A big rock a mile down the beach houses seals and their babies, and hundreds of seagulls and oystercatchers and common murres. I’d never seen an oystercatcher before I lived here. I’d never seen whales spouting, or a seal beaching to have a baby.
It makes me feel 10 years old, alive and interested in everything. I’m learning which plants will survive salt winds and which ones the deer will leave alone. It’s as if a door has blown open in my brain, revealing a wild new landscape. Entire estates are open to my writer self, land ready to be explored.
It’s exhilarating.
A year ago, if you had told me this would be where we were now, I couldn’t have conceived of it. I’m a third-generation native of Colorado. I’d just remodeled my entire house and created the kitchen of my dreams.
We’d talked about living on the beach for a long time, off and on, but in the way we talk about a lot of things—what we’d do if we won a big lottery, or what kind of house we’d buy in the mountains to seduce snowboarding children to come visit more or the list of travels we’d like to enjoy, the Orient Express and a long ocean voyage on a luxurious liner, a trip to China’s Great Wall.
But until we traveled to the Oregon coast on our honeymoon in September 2021, the beach house idea was mostly theoretical. Too expensive, too hot, too many animals to realistically move between two houses.
I’ve loved the ocean madly since I was seven and my grandmother took us to the beach for the first time. It’s a clear, powerful memory, standing on the sand, watching the waves roll in. I didn’t have the language for the way it made me feel, but it was the most magnificent thing I’d ever seen. All that water. All that power, all the eternity and movement.
Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time on those central and southern California beaches, getting there as often as I could, and staying as long as possible. I taught workshops to go to the beach, many times.
But until we drove north from Capitola to Cannon Beach, I’d never gone north.
I was utterly smitten, a word that doesn’t feel anywhere close to large enough. I hated having to return home and pined desperately for my love when I returned to Colorado. I set a book on the Oregon coast and started going back and forth between Oregon and Colorado, for a week at a time, the entire winter. The weather was brutal on those trips—gigantic storms pummeling the rocks and the windows, one so intense that I really wondered if I needed to call someone. Instead, I watched it, listened to it roar and slam things around, and in the morning, all was well. On those trips, I walked miles on the beach, and wrote thousands and thousands of words, and felt more myself than I had in all my life.
My heart said, this.
My head said, you know that’s absurd.
My husband is my husband because he sees me, and he saw my pining in a clear way. He suggested we start looking around, just to see what might be out there. I agreed, but I really didn’t think we’d do anything. We took a family vacation and looked around a bit, but nothing touched my heart. We went back home and resumed our lives.
Except, secretly on his side, he was looking for “the sunniest location on the Oregon coast,” because he’s English and hates rain and he knew we would move. He went to explore the south coast, just to see. He visited one town that had a lot of sea stacks, and a long, long, long beach to walk, and the hard sand I like. And the day he came home, a realtor called and told us to go look at a house that had just come up for sale.
On a dune above the beach. With a studio I immediately knew was mine. We made an offer one hour later.
The reasons this house could even be available, and that we could have seen it just at that second, in a town I’d only passed through, in a state a thousand miles from home, are improbably numerous. That we bought a house we’d never seen was crazy, but maybe not as crazy as it might have been pre-pandemic. A zillion things tangled but they always worked themselves out, and within a couple of months, we were packing up our newly remodeled house and moving far away, from a city of more than half a million people to a village that tops out at about 3000, at an age when people are usually settling into their forever homes. Many people at that point would use it as a second home, but it was impossible to move our animals back and forth, so we chose to come to Oregon.
It sounds like madness.
It was madness.
And it has been even better than we anticipated. I learn something new every day, language or new creatures that live here, or how to pick blueberries or where to get cranberry and boysenberry jam. I came home with fresh peaches, and “today’s blueberries” and some new honey on a recent trip. I eat fish. All kinds of fish.
But of course, for a writer, it all comes back to the writing.
I’ve written a lot of books. Keeping myself fresh, fully creative, and as if I’m offering new work to both me and my readers, is a challenge. Feeding the girls in the basement is an ongoing part of the job. Right now, they’re delirious with joy. They’re gaining reams of new material, all bits and pieces they’re down there sorting and arranging and playing with.
Does that mean I’ll be writing about the ocean? Oregon? Marine life? Birds? I have no idea what they’ll come up with, how they’ll weave the details I’m giving them into new work. I’m sure they can use my terror when the move day arrived—what the actual hell was I doing?—and the tears of joy I shed when we came around the last corner and I saw the house and the sea behind it, and my passionate curiosity and delight in our new world. The annoyance over the endless sand and wind that doesn’t take away one whit of my joy.
I fell in love with the Oregon coast. Hopelessly, helplessly, and that love led me—led me to a book I wrote on this coast, which is out today in Amazon First Reads, The Starfish Sisters. I feel it’s one of my best, written with great love, and I hope you’ll give it a try.
But passion, or love, is where the lesson in all of this lies. This was a big leap, maybe the biggest I’ve ever made, and I did it for love. Not all leaps have to be that big, but as writers we have to keep ourselves in a state of wonder and challenge. That requires noticing when you’ve become too comfortable, allowing yourself to experience wonder and yearning.
Have you shaken up your life, now or in the past? If you’re feeling stale, what can you do to open some new real estate in your brain? Is there some yearning you could explore? Some whisper you might pay attention to? Let’s talk!
Barbara O’Neal is the author of more than a dozen award-winning, bestselling novels, including the runaway bestseller, When We Believed in Mermaids, which has been published in more than 20 countries and spent many months on the Amazon Charts, as well as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller lists. Barbara lives on the beach in rugged Oregon with her husband, a British endurance athlete who vows he’ll never lose his accent and their zoo of cats and dogs. You can find more information on her newsletter and where to find her on social media at barbaraoneal.com.
What a beautiful post, Barbara! I’m so glad you are happy there. It sounds like an absolute paradise, despite the sand. And what a thoughtful, insightful husband you have — can you clone him please?
He’s pretty great, Lorraine. Thanks. :)
Hey Barbara, I really relate to this because my entire writing journey was incited by our big leap, which was a move to a cottage near the shore. Not the ocean, but still. You’ve made me feel like I’d do well to take another big leap before I get too settled in. It would be tough to leave this place, as we built it ourselves. Plus, I’m always thinking of spots that would provide more solitude and less hub-bub, and my wife is way too social for that. Maybe I should consider other possibilities that don’t involve changing houses.
Another lovely essay. Can’t wait for the book! Thanks, as always, for the inspiration.
Your shore looks like the ocean to me, Vaughn, and yes, perhaps leaving a house you built with your own hands is a lot to ask. Moving house is definitely not the only way to shake things up.
I know exactly what this is like, Barbara. I’m replying here under Vaughn’s post because the shores of Lake Michigan are my heart-place and I know that’s where he is as well. When I go, words are tripping themselves to get off my tongue and I know peace. But, I can’t see a way to financially afford a second home, and my husband doesn’t feel the same way about it. Alas. However your words remind me to let that love in, no matter where you are, and they will give you words. Thank you for this post!
What a joy to read this post while eating my breakfast (although I would’ve loved to have been watching whales with you)! I’m thrilled that your move has been such a blessing for you and your family. Having read an ARC of Starfish Sisters, I can say with certainty that readers will feel your love for that area (and love the story). Best wishes with its release into the world. And thank you for sharing these thoughts with us all today.
Thanks, my friend.
Your beautiful post is a testament to following one’s passion. As writers, I think the need to do that is built-in. Don’t we follow a passion with every story? It feels that way to me. There has to a fire to sustain the hard work. Now, I’m wondering, can there be mild passions and fiercer ones? Because I have a certain passion for the weird aspects of my native New Jersey, but my big one is for the Scottish Highlands, and lately, the wilds of Caithness. I’ve been to the one but not the other, which I am, in your words, yearning to explore. I’m glad you found your slice of heaven and that it keeps opening up before you. Thank you for the inspiration!
I love that, Susan! Yes, we do follow a passion with every book we write. I hope you get a chance to dive into your explorations soon.
What a delight to learn more of the back story on your move…and hear the serendipitous tangle of things that put you on the coast. May those geraniums keep blooming for you❣️
Those geraniums have been such a delight!
Your post gave me the warm-and-fuzzies, Barbara. I live on the water as well. I know the leap you speak of. We jumpers are passionately brave souls. I’m toasting you from my back porch over the water and wishing you every wonder your new path has to offer.
Hugs,
Dee
Cheering you with my coffee, Densie. Here’s to leaping!
My spouse and I once moved from her native Washington State to Brooklyn without much knowledge of what we were getting into so I could attend graduate school. While my studies didn’t go quite the way I’d planned, our move turned out to be good for both of us. And, the experiences gained have definitely fueled and informed my writing, even if not all of them have made it to the page.
I’ve been feeling a bit stuck of late, and your suggestion to find a way to explore and recapture a sense of adventure appeals. I have some time off coming up, but no specific plans for it. Perhaps this would be an opportunity to explore some unknown places nearby and see if inspiration strikes.
That’s a big move! I hope you find a way to explore the edges of your restlessness. That’s a good place to be! What could be brewing?
Oregon coast? Welcome to the PNW! You’re just down the way from me! Well, a long way south from me, where I’m tucked into the very northwestern most corner of the country.
You may know but if you don’t, you are in a region highly populated with fiction writers. I mean densely packed. Perhaps only Texas, NYC and LA can compare. Conferences, bookshops, university writing programs…there’s so much. Throw a stone from your house, you’ll probably hit a writer.
Get yourself to Powell’s in Portland if you haven’t been already. I know you’re enchanted with the shore right now, but the northwest is the country’s unrecognized capital of fiction. There is hidden history here too, never mind nature, trails, mountains, music, a farm movement, hundreds of wineries…oh, hurry and get your marionberries, they are in season.
What took you so long?
Thank you for the welcome! It’s a magnificent place, for sure, and I do look forward to hiking, too. I didn’t realize there were so many writers and conferences, and will happily dive into that exploration.
I recognize that bit of beach! Loved your enthusiasm for your new home–so much joy, beauty! This is exactly why I write for kids. I experience so much wonder at all these little (and big) things. Congratulations on the love letter to the Oregon coast. I used to live in WA state (14 yrs in the Palouse and 14 years in Redmond) and there’s an abundance of natural beauty in the Pacific NW from your beloved coast to the majestic Cascade range. How beautiful that your husband is attentive to the longings of your heart. Twelve years ago, we were praying for more faith and a door to SC opened through my husband’s work. We stepped through it and I couldn’t be happier (and indeed our faith continues to grow). God has rewarded us richly–it’s better than I could’ve imagined. Everything! I’m on the farthest coast from you (in the Continental US) and equally delighted with the beauty and treasures of the Lowcountry. Thank you for this lovely essay.
Wonderful! My heart leaps for you. Imagination on your pages…but now you and yours are living some of those pages. What a gift, you, your husband and your work will benefit.
I’m so curious to see where it will lead in the writing!
Barbara, madness driven by love is the best kind of road trip. I’ve spent time on Oregon beaches, and they are rough and eye-poppingly lovely—sounds like the sand in your shoes is at home. It’s always a treat to read your writing here, and best success to the new book. Have a whale (and a seal and a starfish) of a time in your new home.
Thanks, Tom. It’s pretty thrilling.
Oh Barbara this is so very beautiful! As always your words steal my heart (and steal into it). Travel is my favorite way to open up real estate in my brain. But these days it’s been updating and decluttering my home. Just paying attention to the little things that get dusty and buried under clutter over time. And, moving to a beach has long been my dream too. Thanks for being so inspiring in all things.
All those changes do create new real estate for the brain, don’t they? Thank you, my friend.
Welcome to the Oregon Coast! And yes, there is a rich community of writers all along here. I co-founded and helped run a Writers series here in our tiny town for 12 years starting in 2008, still ongoing in a more limited way. Because I wanted to connect to the writing community, and boy did I! Met so many NW writers, many who live here and others who are drawn to the coast to write. Can’t wait to read your book! (Although I realize your previous novel is sitting on my shelf…will need to dive into that first.) Will get through our great Indie bookstore. I’ve got a novel in the final (I hope) editing stages, also set on the coast, well part of it is set here. Inspiration everywhere. Maybe we’ll manage a meet up, a hike and talk maybe? I’ve been following your writing for years…always love it when I get t meet someone in person.
I’m always up for walking and talking writing!
Barbara! Welcome to the west coast! I live in Los Angeles with all those many writers Don Maass talks about being here but the Oregon coast is always a win for our vacations. What I love most about your post is how hidden your pining was and how your husband still saw how much you needed to act on it. Wonderful that you did. And as I have loved all your books and they stay with me so much (your characters!!) I cannot wait to read Starfish Sisters.
Hey, neighbor Barbara. I live in the Rogue Valley in southern Oregon, a mountainous equivalent to Oregon’s beaches–we’re a day trip away from those beaches, and visit often, especially in Bandon by the Sea. As for writers conferences, there’s one on the coast that I’ve taught at, the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference. I think their sessions are in August. I recommend it.
Congratulations on finding your dream place, Barbara! I just visited Oregon’s coast last year when my son was working a biology field job there. So rough and rugged and wild and beautiful. After a lifetime as a military brat/spouse, I finally moved to the beach five years ago. Not exactly a small, quiet one like yours–because hubby’s job is in LA county–but our city is one of the quietest, happily least famous on the Santa Monica Bay. I love being able to walk to the water anytime I want, and get peeks of it as I drive around, and hear the buoy and the sea lions and feel the amazing breeze when my windows are open (like right now). It was worth the wait. So glad you’re enjoying your new home!
LOVE this, Barbara! Love picturing you writing here. <3
Wonderful that you made the leap, and what fun! You were questing for adventure and found it. I know I couldn’t wait to drive off into the wild blue yonder the day after retiring.I can see how the ocean so close could be inspiring. Even when, or especially when, it’s raining. Take a look at Euell Gibbon’s Stalking the Bue-eyed Scallop or any of his other foraging guides.
Didn’t go to the beach, but almost 25 years ago my hubby and I moved from NE to East Texas to a small town. I’ve always wanted to have some acreage where I could have some critters and work the land, but I didn’t think it would be possible when my husband’s health started to decline. A very wise friend encouraged me to follow that dream and go. So we did. My hubby was very supportive as he knew how much that meant to me. He ended up really loving it there, too. We had fifteen wonderful years on our little place the kids dubbed “Grandma’s Ranch.”
I’m sure you know the Oregon dunes inspired Frank Herbert to write “Dune”. The sea and its coastal realms have incited numerous visions in humanity for millennia; perhaps because water is essential to our survival. So have the sun and stars. But even the simplest elements of our world can be the seed for a story. That’s what makes we writers and other artists unique – our minds and souls are bold enough to create something extraordinary from anything.
We spent six years in the mountains of Colorado, which I loved, then twenty-two in my husband’s home state of California. I loved everything about our house, the coastal village in north San Diego County, our neighbors, walking to the beach, raising our boys there. We just finished remodeling our house and garden. And then last year we sold, gave away and packed up the remainder of our worldly goods, rented out the house, put our dog on a flight (he did beautifully), and moved to a town I’d never even heard of before, much less visited, on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia. At an age when most people are not only well and truly settled into their forever home, but many thinking about retirement living! I’m just not that person and the idea of living out my life in the same house forever gave me a feeling of panic. Plus, I missed family so much it had become unbearable.
I’m originally from Australia, so the move was easier than it might be for most, but I’d spent three years in Europe and forty+ years in the U.S. and this was no minor move. I’d visited home many times over the years, but living here again felt like a foreign country, and we had to familiarize ourselves with terminology and the minutiae of everyday life. We miss our adult boys and my dear friends. The trade-off here is that we are living a fulfilling, supremely satisfying life surrounded by beauty, able to drive to my family, and a short walk to the beach. My husband is so happy, he must have been Australian in a former life. I look out from my office window every morning and see a variety of birdlife: galahs, kookaburras, cockatoos, ibis, herons, lorikeets, and the occasional kangaroo. I can walk down to a nearby promontory and watch migrating whales (it’s still a thrill every time) and I’m gradually making friends. I’m still working, but far less than I used to, by choice, which gives me more time and a less cluttered, less stressed brain for writing. I think change is necessary for the soul.
This is such a lovely description. Australia has been on my husband’s bucket list since we met decades ago. Maybe some day. :)
Thank you, Cathy. I hope you make it. I’m working my way through my bucket list, still mentally and physically fit, but mindful of mortality.
What a beautiful, evocative essay. I feel the same way about the ocean. I live just outside of Boston so I can get to the ocean easily, but I hope to move to Cape Cod to be even closer to it. I look forward to the change of scenery and to being near the water all the time.
Congrats on the new book AND the move. I’m from Idaho, so the Oregon coast was THE ocean for me until I was an adult. We just made the jump from the St. Louis area to a rural area in Eastern Tennessee. My husband is a mountain fan, but I get your joy. We don’t watch whales, we watch deer and turkeys and hummingbirds. Lovely essay.
Lovely post, Barbara! Yes, every time I’ve moved, it’s unleashed a burst of creativity. Eager to see what you do with your next book.
Your post echoes what my husband and I did 2 years ago. We relocated from Colorado to the desert southwest of Arizona. Like you, we had talked about it off and on for years, then when the housing market went crazy, we sold our home of 22 years. The desert is so foreign, but we have learned to call the fire department if a rattlesnake is on the porch, wear gloves ALL the time (scorpions), and watch for bats up in the solar screen. We can’t take long walks on a beach, but there is more hiking and biking that can be done nearly all year round. Good luck in your new home, breath the salt air deeply, and find joy every day.