It was three years, three damn good years, and I don’t think it’s the sandpapering nature of memory saying that. I remember arriving in Bend, pulling up alongside all this good weather and better beer, passing Badlands and bad golf swings on my way to making great new friends—thank you great new friends. It wasn’t love at first sight, but this place sure is a head turner—thank you Cascade Range, Deschutes River, High Desert of Oregon—ultimately I fell in love with you. Granted, it took time, a few years to feel like I belonged, but it happened—thank you Dudley’s, High Desert Journal, the Source, The Nature of Words, KPOV, you precious ones at OSU; quality is the word that describes you. How ironic, then, that just as I feel I’ve arrived, I look up to see you in my rearview mirror. Dammit. Dammit all to hell.

What happened? I still don’t know. Except it’s a leaving that needn’t, shouldn’t be, and yet calm-voiced Prudence prevails, counsels me, and I listen—thank you Prudence, and damn you. On top of everything I discovered shame, because never in my life have I felt more ill-will toward a person. Let me repeat: I am ashamed. I’m ashamed I feel this way, act this way, show myself to be the small person I am. Where is my forgiveness? A long time ago I learned the story of a woman who’d been infected with HIV. Her husband had hidden from her the fact that he was gay and eventually he’d passed the disease onto her. The woman was able to forgive him. In South Africa, when Nelson Mandela was freed, he instigated a program of reconciliation where murderers and rapists came before their victims and victims’ families and confessed their crimes—and they were forgiven. So why can’t I?

It is 7:30 p.m. and my wife comes into the bedroom, crosses to the closet and pulls open the two bi-folding doors. Although I can't see her face, I know she's pleased. I built this closet for her. Her wardrobe hangs in front of her, each dress sorted according to style, color and season. The same goes for the pants and the sweaters and the shoes—the multitude of shoes—each pair tucked into its private cubbyhole like a pigeon at roost. My wife has yet to enter and instead stands there like a general surveying her troops. I close my book and put on a pair of light shoes and walk out to the shop. I will leave my wife to her weighty decisions.

You’re leaving in the morning and pack the night before, throwing in your phone charger, toothbrush, the novel you've been meaning to get to, an extra shirt you won't need. Before bed you count backward from the boarding time, padding five minutes here, ten minutes there, allowing extra time to get through security. In a state of disbelief you set the alarm for an hour you haven't seen in years, one that makes you wonder if you should go to bed at all.

When the alarm goes off, you groan, cursing fate and the executives of airlines. Not to disturb your wife, you dress in the living room while the coffee brews, putting on the clothes you set out just hours ago. Dressed, patting down your pockets you run through a mental checklist, afraid you're forgetting something. Meanwhile, the cats watch you sleepy-eyed and disgusted from the sofa, wondering what you're doing up at such an hour. You take a slug of coffee and tell them you wish you knew. When you kiss your wife goodbye she tells you to be safe. “I'll call when I land,” you say, and close the bedroom door behind you.

On a recent Sunday evening, 3,000 miles from home and feeling every inch of it, I opened a bottle of wine. It was a gift from friends, an Argentinean red I knew to be excellent, but contrary to plans I had for it, it was not a joyous occasion. Across from me, my wife sat slumped on the couch, the two of us hungover from a crying jag. Circumstances forcing us into a decision we would have preferred not to make, we’d just finished a number of physically and emotionally grueling days, and the reality of our new situation was settling in. I seldom like to drink when feeling blue, alcohol for me a celebratory drug, one used to augment happy occasions, not mask the bad ones.

That said, it functions well to bevel the hard edges of the world, and I will admit to feeling the need. The bottle, it turned out, was the only alcohol we had on the premises. Scarcity, as much as necessity it seemed, would press it into service. When it was given to us, I promised to open it only when the time (and more importantly) the people, were right. Having come from dear friends, I didn’t want to share this bottle with just anyone, my idea being to toast the best of the old as I rang in the new.

I’ve always lived in the mountains, or at least near them. And when times got tough and I needed to get away that’s where I go. Up. Up high where there were long views, clear air and perspective, where the eye and the mind could roam unimpeded, where the birds spent their days. I can’t say why this is – still is to this day – except that’s how I grew up, half feral in the shade of something bigger than myself that took up a good portion of the sky during the day and at night a deep bite out of the stars. Ever since I can remember, I’ve identified myself with steep inclines, deep shades, the protectiveness of ravines and the odor of pine. I’d go to the mountains to rejuvenate a depleted spirit, or get over a disastrous love affair. It just seemed the natural thing to do.

Then, not long ago, I drove over the mountains and dropped down 5,000 feet and pulled up alongside the ocean. Damn, it was big. And that was just the top of it. This was the Oregon Coast, something I’d heard about, read about, seen pictures of and yet didn’t have the first damn clue what it was. So I sat there with the windows down and the roar of the surf in my ears and just stared.