Today I am sitting in the sun in my garden with Henry in another chair beside me. He was happy once I put a cushion on his seat like mine!

It is only a week, since I returned from a wonderful literary weekend, the Get Lit Festival in Cannon Beach. It was fabulous! I had a lovely studio room overlooking the beach and could see the famous Haystack Rock in the distance. In case you didn’t already know, it is 235 feet tall. I didn’t go out to it this time, but I have in the past. It was one of my second husband’s favorite places on the Oregon Coast.

On my way down to Cannon Beach, I spent a couple of days with my friend in Olympia. We went on a lovely afternoon walk at Millersylvania State Park, just south of Olympia, known for its deep lake and wooded old-growth trails. It was beautiful, but we managed to get turned around by the signs. As the sun sank behind the trees and a chill evening wind blew around our shoulders, we imagined being two adult orphans lost in the woods—why hadn’t we thought to bring breadcrumbs with us! We survived, drove home, and enjoyed a good dinner and a movie.

The drive to Cannon Beach was uneventful—no heavy traffic and no missed directions—and I arrived at Tolovana Inn about two hours before the start of the first event. I unpacked, strolled along the beach, took a shower, and drove to the Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce, where food and an outline of the events were given by Terry Brooks, a prolific writer.

ONE OF THE VIEW POINT PULL-OFF –LONGVIEW

Before the end of the evening, I joined other readers and writers at the Wine Shack on North Hemlock, the main drag through Cannon Beach and one of the festival’s sponsors, for delicately arranged charcuterie in a cup. Kerry Newberry was there to talk about her cookbook, written with Danielle Centoni, Oregon Wine and Food. It was such a delightful evening that I thought I couldn’t go wrong buying it for my son and his wife as a belated birthday gift. I do hope they will enjoy preparing some of the recipes. I went back to the hotel, my mind whirling with too much stimulus and wine. I needed to sleep. The next day was a full day of authors reading from their books and talking about their process.

To digress, I rarely sit in my garden. There is always something I feel I must do. But I took care of all the essential weeding, pruning, and uncovering of pots and bird baths the day after I returned home. It is a pleasure to sit among my flowers and feel the sun on my body, not working, and to let memories flow through my mind and heart. My glass of orange juice—something I rarely drink—reminds me of having breakfast with my second husband–Richard, sitting next to the pool at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. We did not have what I would call the best marriage, but his generosity and grand gestures are something I will always be grateful for.

To return to Cannon Beach and the Get Lit Festival: Saturday started at nine and, with a break in the middle, did not end until almost 8:00 p.m. My only hassle of the day was not being allowed to park in the resort’s car park. But as luck would have it, while I was driving around looking for a spot for the day, a woman working in her garden let me park in her driveway—what a blessing. She was a lovely person who loved gardening and reading. I gave her my first memoir, Chosen, as a thank-you. Bless you, Jolynn—may the elk stay clear of your garden.

It was a full day of authors reading, sharing, and speaking, and of course, buying books. I love books. I bought a total of eight over the weekend from four women authors: Laurie Frankel, whose book This Is the Way It Always Is was the reason I signed up for the festival; Eileen Garvin, whose memoir How to Be a Sister fascinated me; Claudia Rowe’s The Spider and the Fly, which I had thought might be too macabre for me but I have not been able to put down since I started reading it (I am still not entirely sure why, but I am glad I bought it); and Karen Russell, the keynote speaker after an incredible buffet dinner, whose book seemed to me a natural segue from two other books I had read about the historic Dust Bowl drought: Timothy Egan’s The Worst Hard Time and Karen Hesse’s succinct free-verse novel Out of the Dust.

Here are the pile of books I ended up buying. I have finished the top one: The Spider and the Fly by Claudia Rowe. I can’t say I enjoyed it, but it was fascinating and definately a page turner. Claudia is an excellent writer.