The place where I live isn’t where my physical body is. I don’t sleep at this place, and I don’t see the people I love at this place. This place, this 5-mile-long town, Rockaway Beach, on the Oregon Coast, is my state of mind.

I grew up going to my grandparent’s tiny beach condo, right on the beach. Going up to 6 times every year. I will always remember the smell of the elevator, taking it up to the second floor, then walking to the door with the wooden sign marked “Wildfong”. My grandpas last name is as great as he was.

There were only two twin beds, a bed in the loft, and a pull out couch. When me and my sister took friends down with us we would see who could put a puzzle together the fastest in order to see who had to sleep on the couch and hear my parent’s symphony of snores all night.

In this secret 5-mile-long town, there was one grocery store, and one coffee shop. You always went to Larry’s market to rent a movie and buy popcorn and snacks for the rainy Oregon weather. As kids we would always wake up to my parents sitting at the little dining table right in front of the window looking out to the waves crashing. And smell the coffee that my dad walked across the street to get along with the morning paper.

The condo was right next to the train tracks and the creek that went all the way to the ocean. We would always ask for pennies we could put on the tracks, so when a train went by it would flatten them and they’d hopefully still be there when we came back for them.

At the end of the night, only on clear nights, with just the right timing, you could see the green flash as the sun sets.