Month: January 2021

Walking on the Western Edge of North America – Kalaloch, Ruby Beach

Posted in Kaloch, Memoir, Ocean, Photography, TravelLeave a comment

Photo by S.W. Cosgrove

Traveling north on Washington’s Pacific coast, vast sand beaches and endless horizons of rolling surf are replaced by towering stone stacks in a restless, crashing surf that carries battered driftwood the size of entire trees to the beach.

Inland lies the lush, primordial rainforest.

I love Kalaloch in winter when there are fewer people and the storms roll in, blackening the sky, sending mountains of water into the air before crashing to the beach. I rent a rustic cabin on the beach, going to sleep and waking up with the insistent pulse of the mighty ocean right outside my door.

In future posts, I will share more of this world. Here is Ruby Beach.

Shine on, you crazy diamond

Posted in Memoir, Photography, Story, Travel, Uncategorized2 Comments

Photo by S.W. Cosgrove

Good night, Emerald City, I’m on my way home across water. Shine on, you crazy diamond.

“Here in the corner attic of America, two hours’ drive from a rain forest, a desert, a foreign country, an empty island, a hidden fjord, a raging river, a glacier, and a volcano is a place where the inhabitants sense they can do no better, nor do they want to.”

– Timothy Egan, The Good Rain, Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest

Flow river, flow

Posted in Memoir, Ocean, Photography, Poetry, TravelLeave a comment

Photo by S.W. Cosgrove

The river flows
It flows to the sea
Wherever that river goes
That’s where I want to be

  • Roger McGuinn

Moclips River meets the Pacific Ocean, Washington, USA

Pigeon Boy

Posted in Japan, Memoir, Photography, TravelTagged Leave a comment

Photo by S.W. Cosgrove

From my One Year in Japan, unpublished as yet.

I wonder what the future had in store for this child, whom I call Pigeon Boy.

He was shy, and he loved his pigeons.

I took this photo on my visit to the Ueno Zoo and Japan’s oldest Buddhist Temple, Sensō-ji, in the Taitō ward of Tokyo.

Here is a photo of Pigeon Boy’s apparent father and sister, who tended this large pigeon crate and sold small bags of grain to feed the pigeons. He watched me very closely and gave permission to take photos. I call him Pigeon Master.

Stairway to heaven

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Photo by S.W. Cosgrove

If you can’t quite climb the stairway to heaven,
In L.A. you can take an escalator

Painful endings, new beginnings

Posted in Memoir, Ocean, Photography, Story, Uncategorized2 Comments

Photo by S.W. Cosgrove

“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” ― Lao Tzu

May this new year bring us peace, health, and wisdom.