The Breitenbush Chronicles – #1

Well, we’ve arrived, deep in the Oregon woods, a spiritual retreat as advertised — my wife’s favorite place.

It’s pouring down rain out there. I had to remove my shoes before entering the silent library in the main lodge, so you already know what I think. I’m at a place where they tell you to take off your shoes. It costs $134 a night to stay in a small wooden cabin – we’re in Section B. There are identical cabins every 10 feet, they spread out through the trees like pod people in a science fiction movie.

I can hear people laughing loudly out there, from here in the silent library. Without shoes. And there is a fly dive bombing and buzzing my ears. Flies here at the spiritual place. This forest retreat is famous in the West for its natural hot springs. Three distinct pools. My wife plans to leave the silent library soon and walk to the middle hot spring, strip naked and slide right on in. Damn the cold, falling-down rain. It’s something beyond spiritual, she says. I take her word on it.

Now a bell is ringing, a loud gonging from somewhere outside, on the grounds beyond the main lodge,and people are silently standing and walking out of here in the silent library to go to the dining hall. They all stand, nearly in unison, with the sound of the bell, and say nothing. The thought of pod people skips through my mind. Which makes me chuckle.

Even here in a place where I am told I have to remove my shoes. And flies bomb my head. Pod flies, no doubt.