My Journey to Oregon: Day Four

Waylon and I have breakfast together.  We agree it has been a great weekend together and a deepening of our friendship.  We hug goodbye and Waylon bikes to work.  I stay alone at his house during the morning.  Where he lives is incredibly quiet.  Most places are quieter than where are live.  I'm near an interstate and a busy road and I'm under the flight path of jet planes taking off so there is always a steady hum of tires on concrete and engines running and depending upon the time of day  a steady sonic boom and sometimes roar  It's been a dislike of mine since I bought my townhouse four years ago, not knowing the consistent and loud airplane noise I would receive when I bought it.  I've worked with ignoring it and accepting it and not noticing it and some days are better than others, but when I stay somewhere else, like Waylon's house, where there is none of the aforementioned sound, I savor the silence.

I'm grateful for my time with Waylon.  Asking him if I could stay with him and if we could hang out for almost three days when he barely knew me could have been awkward or draining, but it wasn't.  Sometimes you have that intuition about a person—that you're  going to get along and being together is going to be easy and easy going.  

Around one o'clock, I drove to the airport, returned the rental car, and waited a few minutes for Waylon's sister, Natasha, to pick me up.  She had an interview for a job earlier in the morning in Portland and then ate lunch with Waylon and visited with friends at Organically Grown Company.  Together, we headed to Eugene.  I spent two weeks with Natasha last summer in Salt Lake City where she lived and we talk to each other often on the phone so it was great getting an hour and half with her in the car to catch up since she moved back to Eugene after finishing her Masters in Gerontology at University of Utah.  She's temporarily living with her parents until she secures employment in her new career.  Her parents live about three blocks from the heart of downtown Eugene and the bed and breakfast where I would stay for three days was three blocks from her parents so it was ideal.  I chose to go without a car on this part of the trip because I didn't really need one since others had cars and were close.  I also wanted to slow things down and do more walking than driving while I was in Eugene. 

It was great to get almost two hours of time in the car with Natasha to just talk.  It's one of the reasons I like a car trip with a friend.. 

In Eugene, Natasha's mom, Betty, welcomed me to Oregon with a delicious meal of organic vegetable wraps and a glass of Pinot Gris.  She graciously offered to make lunch and dinner for the four days I would stay in Eugene which I greatly appreciated it. She's a fantastic cook.  They have a large porch on the second floor that overlooks the street and a bit of the city, but high enough that it's private, so every meal we ate outside on the deck, Natasha, Betty, and I for dinner and Natasha's dad for lunch. 

After my first meal Natasha drove me to the bed and breakfast.  The beautiful top floor room I stayed in at the Oval Door Bed and Breakfast was called The Bamboo Room, a synchronous reminder the best way to plan, decide, and step forward in this wonderful ten day remain sturdy, solid and strong while at the same time flexible, pliable and bendable.  This attitude and outlook will take me, and all of us, through life with confidence and ease, two traits essential for living a life of well-being. 

I relaxed for a bit and then took about a twenty block walk through a residential neighborhood.  Along the way I passed five women practicing tai chi together in a park and a group of ten adults practicing a form of synchronized martial arts with long canes in another park.  I liked the Eastern presence of exercise and spirituality, especially outside in a public space.  The evening was perfect for it: 75 degrees, little humidity, a clear blue sky, the sun setting serenely. I walked back to the bed and breakfast feeling peaceful and fell asleep in the luxury of a soft bed.