Live Like No One is Watching

The Nehalem Bay Jetty with bay on one side and beach on the other.

As a new blogger, I feel all this pressure to “speak to my audience”, “focus on my niche”, and “be valuable”, so I focus on gardens and cooking and recipes…

But today someone inspired me.

So I am shifting gears for a moment.

I drove out to the Oregon Coast this week because my husband is visiting Cape Cod with his family and our kids. It’s an unbelievably rare opportunity for me to have 8 days with no kids, no husband, and no one else taking up time and space in my house. And when I say, rare, I mean it has literally never happened.

So I came out to the beach with this grand plan of a writer’s retreat that would leave me inspired and busting out blog posts like a writer’s assembly line.

It didn’t exactly turn out that way. First, I cannot tell you how gross my hotel room is. And I am NOT a hotel snob. I certainly expected an element of rustic charm for the price I paid. But this place is so small I can barely walk around the bed, I can hear EVERY word from my neighbor, and the green tinted and flickering fluorescent lighting has me reliving the charm of my journey to rural parts of India back in the mid-nineties.

Also, every place I go says, “no dogs”. So, unless I want to starve, I am packing my poor little dog into a backpack to sneak her into every business and restaurant, praying to god she doesn’t decide to bark and henceforth get me arrested for breaking the rules. It adds an additional layer of stress.

Me taking photos from the Nehalem Bay Jetty the last time I was here.

And, I reluctantly admit I’m feeling lonely. My family is like, 3000 miles away right now.

So, rather than bailing back to Portland first thing this morning, I decided to pull my shit together and make the most of this time at the coast…come hell or high water. One of the goals I had for this trip was to make the 4+ mile trek south from Manzanita, along one of the most remote beaches in Oregon, to the Nehalem Bay Jetty. I have only done it one other time in my life and the experience does make you feel like you are at the end of the earth. It also comes with the satisfying reward of climbing up and on top of the rock and driftwood piled jetty and gazing over into the rough and churning currents aggressively sucking water into the Nehalem Bay while the many fishing boats push their way out towards the ocean. It a total “King of the World” kind of moment. It’s also a beautiful site, usually with mist and sinking clouds that dust your forehead as they blow by.

By the time I approached the jetty today, I had not seen another soul for well over an hour. As I walked, I found myself wondering, “If something happened to me, a sneaker wave or rolling driftwood, how long before someone would even find me?” As I reach the jetty, the tide is coming in swift, wave beaten sea creatures are piling up along the tide line, and the smell of salt water is magnified.

Then a surprising site. In the distance is a man. I notice he is really tan, but I mostly ignore him because the beach here is so wide, I can’t make out his details in the distance.

I climb the jetty, scrambling up huge lava boulders and driftwood the size of entire trees. And at the top I breathe in the salt air, gaze out over nature’s glory, and decide to capture it on a video to share with friends and family. I start to pan the camera across the scene, sharing the details of the journey…four and a half miles…trek along a deserted beach…breathtaking day…fishermen in the bay…bay on one side of the jetty and beach on the other…and there is he is again…he’s walking into my camera viewfinder…the first person I have seen in over an hour…

And he’s naked.

Not like, in his skivvies because he’s doing the polar bear plunge, but like the full Monte…the full frontal…his bits all out on display for the world. And, unfortunately, I am the only audience. And he’s walking right towards me. Now, I try not to be alarmist, but I am on a beach so remote I haven’t seen another human for over an hour and I am pretty sure no one is going to saunter by at any moment. And this man is walking right towards me. So I begin to devise my exit plan, asking myself, “Am I in the right place? Is he in the right place? Am I trapped? How well can I swim if I jump? How vicious can my 5 pound Maltese get? Should I make a break for it since it would be a shame to get myself murdered on such a beautiful day…? And now he’s climbing up the jetty towards me. My pathetic single hotel key is locked between my fingers and I am ready to strike.

“Didn’t mean to bother you”, he says, “I just didn’t expect to see any people down here today. In fact, I never see people… I just need to climb past you and back over the jetty to get to my bike.”

Now all I can think is, “Your bike??? That’s definitely gonna chafe.”

So, now my perspective changes. You know the expression, “Dance like no one is watching”? Well, here is a man full on living life like no one is watching. And it got me thinking…

As someone who considers myself a “maker”, how many projects do I start and then stop because I think, “everyone is watching me, and no one is going to like this…or understand this…or even care about this.” It’s a self-induced paralysis.

Even taking this Mom-cation…I questioned myself every step of the way…”Is this worth the money? Is it worth the long drive? What will I do when I get there? Is it worth staying in this shit box motel room? Will I feel inspired enough to write in this place? If I take a long hike, will I be wasting time that I should be using for creativity?” Honestly, it’s friggin’ exhausting. It was so hard just to accept the fact that I love Manzanita, I miss our beach house here, and I just wanted to be here again for some time and space to myself. I had to pep myself up to stop planning and assigning quantifiable value to every moment and to just go with the flow and figure it out as I go along.

So, that’s how Tarzan and I ended up at the jetty together.

And I can tell you, it’s a moment I will never forget, and a story I will tell forever.

So, now I can say, it was all worth it.

But there was a lesson today, up there on the jetty.

What else would we do differently in our lives if we thought no one else was watching?

No else potentially judging me? No one else potentially questioning me? No one else potentially telling me the value, or lack thereof, of my choices?

I say, “potentially”, because I know much of this comes from inside myself and not from the outside.

I am a perfectionist. And I am my own worse critic.

For myself, it now becomes a personal challenge.

And for all of us, it becomes my wish….to live our lives like my buddy, Tarzan.

To live authentic lives, as if we are truly wild and free.

To live bolder, as though we have all the confidence in the world.

To worship the sun and stars, as though we are truly connected to all the nature around us.

To make choices that are right for us, or for the ones we love, as though we have no fear of criticism or condemnation.

To love all our body’s nooks and crannies, as though we are beautiful just the way we are.

To live and love unapologetically, as if we have nothing to apologize for.

To live ready to consume inspiration, as though it could strike at any moment.

And, one day, to ride a bike naked…just to say we did it…as though absolutely no one else is watching.

Me, and only me, on the beach south of Manzanita.