Walking Sky- Fort Stevens State Beach

I am not sure if given wings to fly that I would immediately jump up into the air and flap myself crazily about. I would most certainly not be graceful about it if I did. I do dream, however of falling in flight. I do not remember if I smile when I wake up, but that might be worth the mental note to find out.  Regardless, wings or no wings, I still like to walk the sky.

Today I am at Fort Stevens State Park, on the Oregon Coast. I am walking in a world between two skies. My footprints behind me hesitate before disappearing into the clouds. Off in the distance the horizon smudges becoming more of a concept than a definition of an idea. When the waves roll out, people bend down to greet their shadows.

This is line I walk between the worlds, is familiar to me. I seem to be obsessed with the search for duality. When I was young at my elementary school there was a merry-go round. Late in the afternoons when I was waiting for my mom to pick me up, I would spin myself, lying my flat back to metal and falling, flying into the fathomless blue sky. The sensation of experiencing two places at once, the metal grounded earth and the equally airy blue sky, grounds me. When I lived in Alaska, I looked to the ice beneath my feet for glimpses at the cosmos, often drawing connections between the star patterns and the cracks in the ice. Here, along the Oregon coast, I look at the waves on the beach. When a wave slides back down the sand, a thin film of water is left, hovering, carrying a mirage of the sky. This is what I am walking upon.

The concept of duality seems to be emerging as a strong theme within my artwork lately. My suspicions are that since I came out, and accepted that once dual side of my persona that it gifts a clarity towards other aspects of my dual nature and it’s representation in the surrounding environment. There is a certain amount of distrust left within me since that experience.  I am grateful for the realization but also horrified by the mind, my mind’s capability to deceive itself. As I seek to understand the implications that has on my personality I find myself drawn to these sort of grounded sanctuaries where I can experience both sides of the duality at once, extroverting an expression of my thoughts as a realized environment.

 The beach is peaceful to me today. With the constantly moving energy of the coming and going of the waves, the tumbling and sifting of the sand, and the scrambling, picking about of the local volunteer group cleaning the beach, I would think I would be irritated and taking my anger out selfishly on a stowed away chocolate bar. But I am not. Instead I am at peace walking the between-the-worlds where the sun is a washed out negative and the sky ripples silver and blue beneath my feet. I am comfortable on the edge of this perceived sanity. I am comfortable knowing my shadow connects me to the ground and my feet connect me to the sky.