Whatever Did I Do to Nature to Get This Kind of Treatment? 

     This past weekend Lorraine and I spent a few days out on the Oregon coast. It was as enjoyable as always except for---well, read on. 
     Along this portion of the coast, around Cape Perpetua especially, where the ocean waves meet the very rocky and irregular coastline, there is a lot of splashing of water into the air, (out here they call them spouters, so I’ll do the same), making for very scenic and psyche-traumatizing occurrences. Why would these beautiful spouters be trauma producing you ask? Because, over the years I have sat along this shore by the hour, camera in hand, focused on the last place I saw a spectacular spouter. 
     I wait and wait and wait, then out of the corner of my eye I see a spectacular spouter fifty yards down the coast. I say to myself, “aha,” and point my camera toward this new location. This action is repeated until I have finally come to acknowledge that the waves, rocks, and wind are in league against me. They know full well who I am, what I want, and are determined to limit me to quickly snapped pictures of spouters that are three-quarters spent with most of the spray already blown away. The gusts of wind, which are usually perfectly timed to catch the most spectacular of the spouters, at least if my camera is aimed in its direction, will blow the spray flat away into the next county just before I snap the shutter. 
     The wind, water, and rocks, have this all perfectly timed to make sure I don’t get the picture I want and fully deserve, or so I believe. Like I said, it is traumatizing to my psyche.