Fort Building Metaphor Magic

Way too long had passed since I'd last built a driftwood fort on Oregon's socialist ocean beaches.

As the self appointed world's expert on the art, science and metaphysics of building driftwood forts, I will say there is nothing as good for the soul and body as building one. And I would know because I've built several thousand driftwood forts on Oregon's oceans beaches, mostly by myself, but occasionally with dogs and students.

So there I was on Manhattan Beach north of Rockaway, and I was there very early in the morning after a dark drive from Portland and a brief tour through the Old Town abyss of homelessness. It's looks terrible in the daylight but ten times worse in the darkness and when it's 37 degrees and raining.

But the sun broke through at the beach and I had the place all to myself. I didn't have to pay a cent to access or use the beach and when that isn't the case in Oregon anymore, I'll lead the revolution to restore our Great Birthright, as former Governor Oswald West memorably described our ocean beaches.

I love this beach because I have a long history with dogs, forts, a tarot reading and personal survival here. It's overrun in the summer but never at 8:30 in the morning on a weekday in March.

There was hardly any driftwood around, but once you see a few scraps and start building, more magically begins appearing. It's kind of a loaves and fishes thing with the beach making the subtle offering.

I found an ancient driftlog to anchor the fort. I found a spar and a Y-shaped branch and a piece of exquisite beaverwood. I dragged them to the log and went to work.

I hoisted and connected pieces; I interlocked and wedged. They began to settle into one another and gained strength in their mutual support.

I dug up more wood. I gathered from 50 yards away. Any scrap would do, any scrap would find a role in shoring up the fort, creating shelter and making art.

My master touch wasn't gone. My mind cleared as I constructed. Bullshit evaporated. Interesting ideas began to coalesce.

I worked for half an hour. A grandfather appeared with his toddler granddaughter. We waved at at each other. He nodded his approval of the fort. He unearthed a long thin pole from underneath a driftlog I had overlooked it earlier. He held it aloft and twirled it. I yelled out, “Can I use that?”

“Yes!”

I walked over and he handed it to me. I said thanks and went back to work. His pole was the perfect imperfectly shaped piece I needed for the right splash of decoration and as a crucial backup for the sturdiness of the fort once the winds and high tides arrive.

I was finished, but of course, I wasn't. Driftwood forts are never finished. They will need constant maintenance and additions by other anonymous builders who come along. Eventually the fort will collapse, that is their very ephemeral nature, and the wood will scatter. But the wood remains and a new builder merely need come along and start building a new fort with new hoisting, new connections, new interlocking, new wedging, and you will have a new fort entirely recycled from the wreckage of earlier structures or new driftwood that is always coming ashore, blown, eroded and floated down watersheds to reach a tiny or large estuary and then a beach.

As always these days, my mind drifted to the homeless crisis in Oregon. I thought: everything about building and rebuilding a driftwood fort is the perfect metaphor for helping homeless people get off the streets and staying off the streets. I mean, everything is right there.

You give me ten sober homeless people from anywhere in Oregon and a trip to Manhattan Beach for a fort building session and I will prove it.