readjusting to work, Saturday 4-27

It certainly is hard to get back in the work mode after a contemplative three day trip to the Sylvia Beach Hotel.  Especially when I see how weedy my own garden is.  But Saturday, due to our heavy responsibilities for resort gardens, we did make it up to Klipsan Beach Cottages, Oman Builders Supply and Wiegardt Gallery to do the basic weeding and the deadheading of tulips and narcissi.

at KBC: tulip ‘Green Star’

and Tulip ‘Cummins’

I hate to see the end of the Narcissi.  I often feel that they are my favourite flower, and if that is so, then they are over by early May and leave only lesser favourites for the rest of the year.  Surely they are not really my favourite.  It just feels that way because they are so glorious and so early that they make a strong impression.

Narcissi at KBC

In a mix I bought for the A Frame woodsy garden at KBC are some doubles.  I don’t really like the doubles and never buy them for Long Beach.  What do you think?

double narcissi…good or not so good?

Among my favourites are the ones that look like birds with swept back wings and the ones with the tiniest of cups.

small cupped Narcissi

AT KBC, the trimmed ferns continue to unfurl…

sword ferns

The unfurling is the most amazing sight, if only one could sit and watch for days.

Euphorbia characias wulfenii continues to impress with its long period of bloom:

It’s been like this since February!

The Welsh poppy is the first “poppy” to bloom.   My grandmother had these all over her garden:

Meconopsis cambrica

A tiny little daphne (I think!) that Mary C. bought is almost hidden by bulb foliage:

If it is fragrant, it should be on top of a wall, because it is very low to the ground and far from my nose.

The island bed around the pond is at its floriferous peak right now:

flowering tree and shrub with unfurling ferns and Japanese maple leaves

The on to a brief deadheading stop at Oman Builders Supply where one of my “green tulips” made me happy.

Tulip ‘Greenland’ (I think)

We were in such a hurry at Wiegardt’s to get a satisfactory amount of weeding done that I took no photo at all.  We needed to get home and have a bit of turnaround time and then go to dinner with Carol, who after our trip to the Sylvia Beach Hotel had stayed in Long Beach for two more nights of vacation time.

Of course, we could not enter the restaurant until we had deadheaded the tulips and narcissi in the the Depot Restaurant garden!

Depot tulips

tulips and narcissi at the Depot

And then….a last social get together with Carol until I see her again in the fall, when she plans a visit to the Peninsula.

The Depot was busy so we ate at the counter.

And then, in fall 2014, we will, I hope, go back to the SBH.  I just cannot take spring vacations; they throw me off the gardening schedule too much.  We have both agreed that we need to stay at SBH for more nights (but will we end of extending our visit night after night because we won’t be able to leave….at all?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Allan’s non-vacation

While I swanned off to the Sylvia Beach Hotel with my friend Carol, Allan worked hard on a huge garden project at Andersen’s RV Park: weeding a nasty stretch of rugosa rose ‘Blanc Double de Coubert’ outside the park fence. We have a of garden space to care for INSIDE the park and usually weed this once a year. Last year, we did not even get the roses pruned and did not do any weeding of this stretch except for right where people drive in the entry road. Oh, dear.

before

What a mess! The roses had gotten way too messy so one of the park caretakers had cut them down for us in the fall.

tools of the trade

partway done

That red leafed rose in the foreground is the old root stock coming up.  A boring rose.  Most of these rugosas are on their own roots, but one, just one, seems to have been grafted.  Or perhaps the boring rose was there from before.

Rugosa roses got their name because their leaves are “rugose”:  wrinkled, corrugated.   They can take the salt air (thus their nickname, the salt spray rose) and are fragrant and resistant to black spot.

very nice!

all weeded

The neighbour across the street had just moved in full time and was most appreciative of an improved view!

The weed pile got put in the woods off to the side of the park with rose roots and clippings removed because the caretakers want to use this pile to fill rough areas around the edges.

the weed pile!

Thanks, Allan!!

For a much more creative project, he installed a fairy door at Crank’s Roost. He bought the door at Home and Garden Art in Seattle (same place we got the fairy doors in our bogsy woods), but he built the steps and added the paint to match the Roost’s trim.

new fairy door at Crank’s Roost

Sorry for the short post; I have been preoccupied tonight with setting up blog entries for my Ilwaco blog. I procrastinated till this last week in getting last year’s Saturday Market photos posted….and the market starts up again this Saturday. Fortunately, WordPress allows me to schedule publishing in the future, so I set up four posts to publish throughout this week….except for the yearly Parade Of Dogs which I do hope to get organized by Saturday. Not an actual parade of dogs: a photo retrospective of dogs that I photographed at the market last year.

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SBH room journals: library and LeSeur

Friday morning I was up by eight.  Even more impressively, Carol had gone up to the Sylvia Beach Hotel library to read at about six AM.  I stayed in the Colette room for awhile and finished the most recent room journal and, yes, left my own entry (which I had neglected to do in the Dickinson room).  It was, of course, about my passion for the room journals.

Here is one entry not by a honeymooner:

“And have you changed your life?”

I then went up to the library to join Carol.  Destiny (my long distance SBH sister-journal-addict) had messaged me (I did still check Facebook messages on my quiet cell phone!) to ask if I had found any library journals.  I had not, so looked harder.  In the northeast corner, where someone had usually been sitting absorbed in a book, I finally found a stack tucked under a table and brought them over to my chair.

more journals! But my time was almost up!

Some of the “retired room” journals (rooms which had been switched to a new author) had been repurposed as library journals, so while I thought I had read the year of new entries since my last visit to the library, I suddenly found that the whole beginning of the book was new to me and was from the Meridel LeSeur room, one I had never stayed in and whose journals I had probably not read since my first stay in 1991.  Pat Henderson wrote movingly about helping to retire the room.

a room fades away

Praise for the Sylvia Beach Hotel:

“one day spent like this can make up for weeks of hard times”

“the silence inside of me”

words from Pat

Just following Pat’s entry, someone writes to him who has, like me, seen his many entries through the years!  I love this kind of communication between guests and if only I had time to read all the journals, I know I could find more.  (Woe betide anyone who criticizes the hotel for not being modern; that person will always be advised in writing to go to a motel chain, but no doubt they never return to see the advice.

letter to Pat

A guest writes about my favourite spot in the fourth floor library attic (mentioning the fainting couch which has been replaced by a chair):

“the thumping, whistling chimney pipes”

As a chronic hypochondriac (I hope, or I am done for!), I can relate to this entry:

home away from home

I found another deeply moving, very personal story:

the ocean works wonders on the broken-hearted

Below is a lovely description of walking the beach, something I would surely do if I did not live at the beach (Long Beach).  One huge advantage that Nye Beach has over the Long Beach Peninsula is that vehicles are not allowed to drive on the beach.  What an improvement that is, even when it comes to just looking at the beach from the hotel.

Nye Beach

I found an entry by Wild Rose.  I think I posted something by her in my room journals blog entry of 2012.  She is someone else I would like to know.

on being an introvert

I hope this one is true:

Captain’s Log

And then….I was out of time as both Carol and I were hungry for our breakfast, after which we would check out.  What to do about the unread Meridel Le Seur room entries that I could not bear to leave behind!  I quickly photographed the unread entries in order to take them with me to read later!

The hotel used to have more obscure writers:  LeSeur, Sigrid Undset, Lincoln Steffens.  Of them, only Lincoln Steffens remains, and I have heard he is a particular favourite of Goody’s.

I had not read any Meridel LeSeur but her stories of “women, working people, the poor, the disenfranchised and the dispossessed” sound well worth seeking out.  Here are my favourite entries from the last of her room journals; I wish I could find and read the rest of them.

in the LeSeur room journal

a birthday present

Meridel became the Shakespeare room.

all ages welcome to write

With no more time, I leave upon a note of mystery.   Who is putting post it notes in the journals, and why?

post its? with backdrop of the library fireplace

I did not have time to try to figure out why certain entries were marked, and I doubt the post its will last till my next visit.  What do you think, Destiny?  Was it you?

We had our lovely breakfast and departed and we did manage to take our walk on the bayfront before leaving Newport.

goodbye, SBH

Next time, I’ll stay in the Jules Verne room for a night, hear the rushing water, and perhaps sit on the deck.

My next visit to the SBH will be, I hope, an autumnal one, because I have fewer gardening worries in the time after the tourist season and before Bulb Planting Hell.   Work put off then is work deferred, not work lost, whereas in the spring it costs me at least three hundred dollars in lost income to take three days off.

Carol and I are planning another trip for late September 2014 (should I live so long) and I wonder if I just might go back somehow in autumn of 2013.  It is easy to settle back into my life and let years go by between visits, but life is not going to allow more than twenty more years of climbing those stairs so I do need to go more often.  Who wants to go with me?  I have journals to find and read:  the Gertrude Stein and Lincoln Steffens rooms are unmined treasures.

Tomorrow:  back to photos and words about gardening.

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SBH room journals: RLS in the attic

I read in one of the journals that in the forward to a book called Quotidian, Goody (Gudrun) Cable, one of the owners of the Sylvia Beach Hotel, describes meeting the ghost of Robert Louis Stevenson in the library.  (Lucky guest to meet Goody;  in my several stays, I only met her once at breakfast.)

Goody’s RLS story

So it seemed appropriate that I found a stack of the RLS room journals in the fourth floor library attic.   I had been fascinated with the RLS room….now transformed into the Jules Verne room…since learning of a wealthy old woman named Edna who used to stay in the RLS room for two months each summer between 1988 and the mid 90s, dressing each night for dinner at the Tables of Content restaurant.  She is mentioned frequently in older journal entries in many rooms and was said to be a great raconteur.  She would sit on pleasant days on the room’s patio and chat with folks coming in and out of the hotel.

Behind the garden is the patio for the RLS (now Verne) and (I think) one other room.

When I wrote about the journals in the Sylvia Beach Hotel Lovers Facebook group, another journal follower wrote:

“I have read many of the journals on my many stays but have not come across any with Edna’s entries.

I was very fortunate to have met Edna on her very first (of many) visits to the hotel. She walked the beach daily in her “nice clothes”, didn’t seem to mind getting blown by the wind. She had stories to tell of her life (England, New York, etc.) and you could find her either at breakfast with the whole table listing to her or later in the day/night up in the living room with guests sitting around her on the floor like little children listing to her tales.

On her second visit to the hotel, I happened to be there. She remembered me from the year before and asked about the “young man” that had been with me! Surprised me; she was a “sharp as a tack” as they say.

At that time, she mentioned that she was going to move to Portland. Her kids didn’t like the idea but she had all the details worked out and was going to tell the kids AFTER she was settled in her new location.

Just a beautiful person; anyone who actually got to met her will never forget her.”

So I had hoped I might find some writing from her in the RLS journals, but I did not.  I may not have had all the ones that used to belong to that room, or perhaps she chose not to write in them.

north end of attic, the best seat in the house

stack of journals

Thursday at 4:20 PM, I settled down in the attic in my favourite chair in the entire hotel with a lovely stack of journals from RLS and Tennessee Williams (another retired room; not sure who the new author in that room is).  I soon realized I had too much to read and too little time so set aside the Williams ones.

I immediately ran across a mention of Edna dated 1999!

Edna

And in the front of one of the journals, a poignant note by Pat Hendersen:

farewell to the RLS room

If you cannot remember, as I could not, RLS wrote not only Treasure Island and Kidnapped but also The Child’s Garden of Verses, from which my grandma read to me.  (She herself was not much of a reader, but every morning she read me a “little golden book” and the RLS poems.  I did not read Dr Seuss or Winnie the Pooh till I was in my 20s).

Another wonderful entry by Pat Henderson:

the home my spirit returns to

and another entry by Pat, with the wonderful creaky huge attic pipes as a backdrop:

1. A job is a waystation in life, not a destination. 2. There are no barriers in life, only diversions.

I found an entry by Patricia L.  As I wrote in the SBH Facebook group:  “I once put a stamp inside a journal in the Oscar Wilde room next to the entry to a woman who often wrote in that one…and asked her to drop me a postcard (with my address) and she did…We corresponded for a little while; this was before email was common or we might have stayed in touch.  She used always to bring her Teddy bear and write about what he thought of the visit!  I wonder if she still goes there.”

Patricia

(Many journal entries refer to some sort of shape on the ceiling that looked like a big bar of Dove soap.)

Here is a story in one short entry:

“my mother’s favourite room”

“I’m home…”

And another story of falling in love with the SBH:

…to sit back and become engrossed in the stories of tales of others’ lives..

Journal writers repeatedly mentioned, usually not in a complaining away, the sound of rushing water, “like a waterfall”, that cascades audibly through the RLS room from the bathrooms of other rooms in the hotel!   This prescient entry suggested it become a Jules Verne room, which it now is.

a suggestion

The following entry is from the Megan who often stayed in the Mark Twain room!  In 2009, I wrote in the SBH Lovers group:  “There is a theme through the Mark Twain journals: an articulate teenager named Megan W____ wrote every year as she was growing up, and the other guests followed her story. I Googled her and I found a Megan W______ who is a successful chef. Does anyone here know her? Entries in the later journals were hoping that she had ended up with a good life…”

And someone replied:  “Just for kicks I googled Megan W too and shot an email to the one who’s a cook/chef, telling her about this group and asking if you might have been referring to her. She wrote back saying it indeed is her, and that she’s flattered that you remember and she wants to get back to the hotel.“

Megan

There must be many stories that a frequent guest can follow year by year through the journals.

Here’a another caution about Jersey the cow cat:

beware

At 5:19 PM, I read this amusing reference to “the game” that is often played at the Tables of Content Restaurant.

two truths and a lie

And soon after, I had to leave my attic aerie and go to dinner…not a hardship but as often happens when I am at the SBH I felt time slipping away and knew I simply did not have enough journal reading time.  Carol and I agreed that next time, we will stay for three nights.

[My two truths and a lie:  I have a degree in offset printing.  I have a gardening business.  I used to manage a resort.]

At 9:00-ish, we returned to the Colette room for more reading.

an artistic entry

Another entry about wishing for solitude!

a dream of solitude

I loved this woman’s memories of a house she lived in…

Another wonderful Pat Henderson entry:

I found another entry by Patricia L.   The RLS room was decorated gently not in a pirate or adventure theme but with childhood prints evoking the “Garden of Verses”.  The only concession to Treasure Island was a treasure chest and a pair of “Long John  Silver” crutches.

At midnight I finished the RLS journals and returned them to the library attic from whence they came.  The last entry I photographed

“a gentler decade”

This was written before the world wide web and all the social internet technology that I love, that keeps us in touch, that lets us have a Sylvia Beach group online…but at the SBH, I even turn my camera on “discreet mode” so it won’t make a beeping noise when I turn it on.

Next…one last morning reading session in the library.

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SBH room journals: Austen/Fitzgerald

I did have to work yesterday (in the rain).  Today at home, the weeds in my garden cry out to be pulled and the weather is not bad.  Still, I cannot go back to the garden until I have processed my latest Sylvia Beach Hotel experience.

By 1 PM on Thursday, after Carol and I decided to postpone our excursion to the Newport bayfront until after Friday check out time, I was in the library with a stack of journals pilfered from the Jane Austen room, just down the hall.

to read

I was excited that the journal with the heart had migrated to the library from the Robert Louis Stevenson room, now Jules Verne.  I always worry that when the rooms are retired and redone, the journals will disappear forever.

In a Jane Austen journal, I struck the pure gold of life experience and poignancy:

Then, another heartbreaking yet healing entry:

I lost my dearest friend…of 60 years

I can so relate to this quotation by Jane, having four houses of excellent neighbours nearby, and one absolutely horrible set of neighbours (fortunately not too close by).

The following entry fascinating reveals how owner Goody promoted the brand new SBH to guests of her Portland restaurant, the Rimsky-Korsakoffee House.

Here is another person who loves reading the journals:

from great despair and loss to wild and enduring passion

Another entry by Destiny:

read more, write more, live more, love more!

and another who loved the journals:

“No other hotel I’ve ever been to does this…”

I do know of other resorts who provide room journals.  The Lighthouse Motel in Long Beach used to, and may still, and Klipsan Beach Cottages has journals in each room.  They are more like guest books where people write of where they ate and what they saw and how much they enjoyed their visit, and they don’t delve as deeply into personal life as the SBH journals does.  So while they make very good reading, they don’t share the kind of deep common experience that one finds in the SBH journals.

Here is a thoughtful entry hinting of sisters growing apart:

I’m ready to let you go…

I found an entry from Destiny written when she could not stay in Jane’s room…

Mark Twain instead

The Jane Austen room has a huge pile of journals.

Jane’s room inspires writing…(I think this was written by Destiny)

I thought I had read most of them in a previous visit (when the room was open and I borrowed them), and even though I wanted to go through them all again I decided to get the journal out of the one year old Harry Potter, er, I mean JK Rowling room.  (I have photographed the room this year and last year.)

I soon happened upon an entry by Pat Henderson!

Pat in the Rowling room

I really want to be friends with him.  Allan would also find him interesting because he is a biker as well as a writer.

two Rowling entries

The single Rowling room journal did not provide me with many entries that I wanted to preserve, so I went down the hall and borrowed a pile from the F. Scott Fitzgerald room.

discovering the journals

discovering the many pleasures of the SBH, including the tea and coffee room.

Here, a woman remembers when the SBH was the old Gilmore Hotel:

a tryst at the Gilmore

journal appreciation

Many of the entries in the Fitzgerald room journals are bawdy, often referring to putting a pillow behind the headboard or having sex on the flowered chair.  I am not quite sure why people want to write graphically of their sex lives in a hotel journal.  Either others with similar fortune will feel camaraderie, or those alone not by choice will feel sad.  As with the Colette room journals, I find it much less interesting to read about someone’s passionate honeymoon than about the more introspective entries in other rooms.  At breakfast, in briefly discussing the journals with a frequent guest, he asked an interesting question:  Do certain rooms inspire more amorous activity, and the writing about it….or do people who plan such activity choose certain rooms to stay in?

I decided I would rather read from the Robert Louis Stevenson room journals which I had been thrilled to find in the library attic.  It was fortuitous that a noisy book club/poetry reading group had taken over the coffee room and caused me to go, at 3:45 PM, one flight up to my favourite reading spot….because in a glass front bookcase I found a stash of old RLS and Tennessee Williams and E.B. White journals.  I had read the E.B. Whites when I had stayed twice in that room.  (It is now John Steinbeck.)  I think I have borrowed the Williams ones before and that it was another of those rooms (now changed to another author) that inspired more of the honeymoon “here’s what WE did, so different from anyone else” (not) type of entry.   So, next:  RLS.

I am feeling guilty about my garden so I do have to go weed for a bit first…If only it had rained today!

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SBH room journals: Colette room/dorms

By ten thirty AM on Thursday, Carol and I were ensconced in the luxurious Colette room at the Sylvia Beach Hotel.  My friend had slept poorly the night before, so she took a nap.  Then our plan was to go to the historic bayfront in Newport and have lunch at the Local Ocean restaurant, highly recommended.  While Carol slept, I read in a comfy plush dark red chair.  I still had a journal or two to read from our first night room, Emily Dickinson.

Emily’s room, real and recreated at the SBH

Emily’s room at the SBH

During my 2008 visit I had read ten room journals from the Colette room…before I had the notion that I could photograph my favourite entries.  Had I the time, I would love to reread them all.  However, the room journals all have a different flavour and Colette’s tends to be about love, passion, and honeymoons.  Given a short reading time I would much rather read the journals of the more reflective, even angsty rooms:  Jane Austen, Emily, and best of all, the dorms that used to be on third floor.

Emily

When I finished the Emily journals, and Carol still slept, I got a room journal out of the nearest room, Dr. Suess.  Someone has been marking certain entries with yellow post its.  One of the marked entries was by Pat Henderson, a frequent visitor and journal writer.  I look for his entries and last time I visited, spent quite awhile putting together in my mind some of the story of his life; at that time, I read one of his entries that revealed he also noticed and wondered about frequent writers, especially Patricia Lent, who might be in her 80s now, or older.

Pat

The Suess room journals are mostly filled with happy children’s scrawls, so I turned to the more recent Colette journals:

another poignant memorial…and magic

another journal addict

Shelley is the sweet hotel cat of this decade.

In two pages, enough of a story for a novel:

a romance

And someone all the way from France:

Marie

Again, the healing power of the SBH:

the only way out is through, through, through

Imagine my thrill when in the stack of Colette journals I found one from the old dorm room!  It used to have bunk beds….now has five? singles.   I read somewhere that the health department did not like the bunk beds.  That may or may not be true.  The other dorm room has been turned into a retreat for hotel owner Goody Cable, who often visits.  In the dorm journal, I found an entry that I am sure refers to my long distance SBH friend, Destiny.  (Later:  She tells me that it does, and is thrilled that it is by her grandmother!)

desert friends

Another entry hints at a great and painful drama:

the key to my father’s heart

I would imagine that my stepdaughter, who stayed here for one catastrophic month in 2011, feels this way and cannot understand that I do not stand between her and her father.

I found deeply moving this woman’s two-page story of her father’s sadness:

Someone wrote a four or five page reminiscence of his college years and how he came out of loneliness and learned to make friends:

just the first page (His life got better!)

I wish now I had photographed all five pages even though the first was the most moving to me.

More on healing:

no longer broken

the quest

On this one, I rather maddenly cut off the last line.  I was feeling a sense of urgency that Carol would awake and then my journal time would end for the day and I would have to leave the hotel on our touristy excursion to the bay.

journal appreciation

loving the oddballs

I found another entry from my faraway SBH friend, Destiny.  (She spent days, maybe two weeks, at the hotel this past February ( think it was).

a last visit

This so reminds me of that poignant entry I read years ago by someone who knew it would be her last visit because she was too aged to get up to the library (third floor, see my entry called house of stairs).  I also remember an entry by someone who visited, as many times before, with her husband, whose Alzheimers made it impossible for him to play the game (Two Truths and a Lie) at dinner.  She also wrote it would be their last visit together.  My heart broke.

As I read another entry by Destiny (who, like me, very much hopes that even in the electronic blogging age people continue to put pen to paper in these journals)…

Destiny, with Colette room backdrop

….my friend Carol awoke at a quarter after noon.  I thought it would be time for us to leave the hotel as planned.  On previous trips together, one in stormy autumn and one in a rainy April storm) she knew I would not leave the hotel because of my room journal fixation.  She completely supports me in this!  This year, because of the nice weather, I had brought up the possibility myself.  I have a hard time staying indoors in nice weather.

So….Carol awoke and we looked at each other and listened to the cold wind and looked at the sunny day outside.   I asked her if she wanted to go out.  She asked me if I wanted to.  I asked her if SHE wanted to.  We both mentioned the cold wind…and then we decided to stay in.   We repaired to the library, and while she did take a walk later (through the Nye Beach neighbourhood, too windy to enjoy the beach), I did not set one toe outside for the rest of our visit.

When we visited a perfectly nice lodging in Cannon Beach in March of 2011, we explored the beach and the town at length and had three meals out.  Most hotels….in fact, I can imagine that no hotel in the world has the pull to stay in and read that the SBH does.  That trip to Cannon Beach occurred because the SBH seemed like such a long drive.  I note that in the two years since, we are wholeheartedly back to the SBH for our yearly trip.

Next: an afternoon of readng journals.

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SBH room journals: Emily Dickinson room

I am obsessed with the Sylvia Beach Hotel room journals, and I can’t get back to writing about gardening till I share some of my favourite entries with you.  I want to preserve them for posterity (at least WordPress posterity) in case something happens to them.

Almost as soon as we checked in, I immersed myself in the journals written by guests in our Wednesday night room, Emily Dickinson.  A few other entries from the same room are in my room journal entry from last year (including a beautiful drawing a man made of his sleeping wife on their honeymoon).   I took the journals up to the library, where I read from 5:25 to 6:47 PM.

some journals from Emily

I was quite excited to find this entry from someone who is writing a book about the SBH and its room authors.

Kelly’s book

We met Kelly at breakfast the next morning and indeed, the book is a serious project.  It will focus more on the authors and not especially on the room journals, I gathered.

In the journals, I am always deeply moved when I read of grandmothers and granddaughters traveling together.    My grandmother liked nowhere better than her own home and was not much of a reader so it’s not as if I wish we had traveled together; I just like to see a close relationship like we had.

granddaughter and grandma

A long distance friend whom I met at SBH in perhaps 2008 cherishes this journal entry by her grandma.

and the granddaughter writes:

granddaughter

Sometimes I have to skip a few pages because the handwriting is illegible, although if I can tell that the entry is a fascinating one I will struggle to read it.  I even saw one from our local author Robert Michael Pyle but could not decipher most of it!  And then I run across an entry like this:

handwriting

You can see the south end fireplace of the library around the edge of this two-page entry about the healing power of the SBH:

“Time is more valuable when there is so much less of it to waste.”

praying to the Emily

A running theme in the 1990s journals:  Jersey tuxedo cat got cranky with age.  Sometimes a hotel cat does become too cantankerous and is then found a private home, but Jersey was at the hotel for years and I remember Jersey sleeping on my bed in 1991.

Jersey poem

I love the phrase, below:  “Still trying to figure it out as though we were kids, still.”

While reading many of these over again I still become weepy with emotion about the human condition.  I rarely feel such deep emotion as when I am reading the SBH journals and connect with the commonality of the sort of person who loves staying there.

second time around

My soul wants to stay forever.

the longing for solitude

At 6:50, I tore myself away from journals so that Carol and I could tour some empty rooms (the doors are left open if the room is unoccupied) and then went to dinner at April’s (delicious and right across the street).

At ten PM, I was back in the library reading more journal entries.

like a laser beam

I well remember reading this moving entry from last time:

six months since I lost her…

appreciating Emily

at the Fishermen’s Memorial

Some people grace the journals with their art, from children’s scribbles to elegant works like these:

Sometimes I find an entry that reveals how much someone has fallen in love with the journals:

journal addiction begins

People reveal so much of themselves and I want to read every word of every journal in every room.

understanding Emily

At the bottom of the blog entry of a visit some years ago, I have added some thoughts about the journals from the Sylvia Beach Hotel Lovers Facebook group,  so check it out if you would like to read more about journal addiction.

At 11:15, we repaired to our room; we were the last ones out of the library and so we turned out all but one lamp.

goodnight

The journal reading would recommence on Thursday.

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Sylvia Beach Hotel: house of stairs

One enters the Sylvia Beach Hotel on the main floor and the check in desk is on the right.  On the left wall, this painting glowed in the sun on our most recent visit.

south wall of lobby, painting of Sylvia Beach and Shakespeare and Company bookshop

Along the west end of the lobby is an gift shop with all sorts of literary enticements.  I did not buy a thing this year.  Sometimes the only things I want to acquire are plants and garden decor.  But I enjoyed browsing and thought you might want to browse with me.

in the gift shop

bookish eats

The treats are handy for getting through the time between breakfast and dinner in the Tables of Content restaurant when one does not want to leave the hotel at all.

I was again convinced that there is a plan to have steampunks enjoy the Jules Verne room.  (I enjoy the look of the steampunk fashion very much but am too preoccupied with gardening to indulge in it for myself.)

a shelf of steampunk items to go with the new Jules Verne room

Yay book! indeed  and cats, gardening, bees….

Tables of Content Restaurant

For dinner, one decends a flight of stairs to the Tables of Content restaurant (where the restroom is named after Henry Miller).

Tables of Content, photo courtesy SBH website

view from Tables of Content at breakfast

At breakfast, delicious fruit, juices, cereals and pastries are laid out and a hot dish is also offered.  Our first morning breakfast entree was Dutch Baby pancakes and the second day we had a vegetarian quiche or omelette sort of thing.

orange, tomato, grapefruit or apple juice!

Dinner is $23 for course after delicious course.  You’ll be seated at a table holding up to six hotel guests or sometimes locals who like the restaurant.  The tablemates are encouraged to play Two Truths and a Lie.  I wasn’t thrilled about this the first time (years ago).  Now I miss it if the table does not want to play.  It is strongly encouraged by the waitstaff, and the head server will tell the table all about it at the beginning of the meal.   When I go to the SBH with Carol, she prefers to only eat at the Tables one of the two nights because she has to talk to strangers daily in her job (metro bus driver) and likes some peace and quiet with her meals.  On our latest visit, the table was reluctant and the game started slowly and uncomfortably, and then it worked its magic and we learned far more about each guest than we would have otherwise.  Carol herself was exempt as we ran out of time (she was not sorry) and one other guest, a frequent guest at that, abstained.  I had breakfast with owner Goody herself some years ago at the hotel and she explained to me that the purpose of the game is to draw out even the shyest member of the dinner party and make sure that attention is paid to everyone.

House of Stairs

After breakfast or dinner, one might very well decide to go back to the library on the third floor.

stairs from restaurant to lobby

There is wheelchair access by coming in a lower door from the sidewalk.

From the lobby, one takes another flight to the second floor of rooms.  Both our rooms (Colette and Emily Dickinson) were on the second floor this time.

from lobby to second floor

Shelley awaits

Shelley on the 2nd floor landing

Another flight of stairs leads to the third floor rooms and the library.

to the library

The library: third floor

No matter how beautiful one’s room, the library entices with its comfy chairs and views and the company of others who are usually immersed in books.  There is no wifi and cell phones must be quiet.

cell phones off

on the entry table

the library, north end

view from north end of library

library, middle

library view

south end of library with fireplace

I borrowed and returned journals from the Jane Austen and F. Scott rooms to read in the library.

Off the library is a coffee room with lots of games and puzzles.  The hotel provides coffee, assorted teas, half and half.

coffee room

my afternoon’s reading

Thursday I found a treasure trove of journals from retired rooms, especially Robert Louis Stevenson.  Carol had gone for a walk and I settled in to read them. I was quite surprised in the afternoon when a group arrived and first settled into the fireplace end of the library, then decided amongst themselves that they should move as they wished to converse more loudly than the library encourages.  Into the coffee room they went and shut the door and proceeded to read poetry.  I realized one small thing the hotel may lack is a small conference room for such groups.   As the noise increased (something I had never heard on any visit there), I simply moved one floor up to the library attic.

one more flight of stairs

looking down on the library from the attic

In the north corner of the library attic, by the noisy creaking pipes, is the very best seat in the house.

north end of attic

The south end of the attic is more of a spot for playing games and its view is more over the neighbourhood than the beach.

south end of attic

I found even more Robert Louis Stevenson journals and settled in for a good read.

treasure trove

I’ll share some entries tomorrow.   I also found journals from Tennessee Williams but simply did not have time for them (and I think I have read some of them before).

I looked out the window with no guilt at not being out walking because I knew the wind had felt strong and cold.

attic view

hardy souls

I looked for Carol on her walk, but when she arrived (and she knew right where to look for me) she told me it had been so cold she walked through the neighbourhood instead of on the beach.

People who came to the beach from afar would brave it no matter what the weather.

windblown garden

Because longtime followers of the SBH might, like me, be approaching sixty, I wonder how long we can all make it all the way up the stairs to the library?  One of the most poignant room journal entries that I read years ago was about how an elderly repeat guest could no longer reach the library.  On the first day, I had to drag one leg behind me because I was so sore from work.  By the second, rest and relaxation had made it possible for me to climb the stairs effectively, but vertigo makes me slow going down.  I said to Carol that I will eventually crawl up to library if I have to and come down the stairs one by one sitting down.  I wonder if anyone has resorted to that yet?

library by night

Every night at 10, hot spiced wine is served in the library and guests quietly troop in for their restful cup and either take it to their rooms or sit in the library for awhile.

A sign asks the last person leaving the library at night to please turn off the lamps, and so eventually it becomes dark, only to be awakened by the first early rise who might be up in time to see the moon hanging low over the ocean.  Thursday morning at six AM Carol saw the full moon from the library and said it was the most amazing moon she had ever seen in her life.

In my last photo from this visit on our Friday morning departure, you can see how tall the SBH is, and why the many flights of stairs.  (The daylight basement level where the restaurant resides does not even show here.)

farewell for now

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Sylvia Beach Hotel: some rooms

as we arrive and park

front entry…like coming home

in the little entry garden

We took a peek in the room we would have the second night, and Shelley was asnooze on the bed.

Colette room

Shelley would be barred from the room the next morning because Carol has developed a cat allergy.  Sad for all, because Carol loves cats and Shelley is particularly nice.

She is a delight.

Down the second floor hall, we checked into our Emily Dickinson room.  My choice of rooms to stay in with a friend had recently expanded when I learned that several rooms without twin or trundle or daybeds do have room for rollaway beds.

Emily’s room

Emily’s room

view to the north

view to the east

The shadow of the SBH is cast over April’s at Nye Beach, where we had dinner the first evening.  We had had every intention of going, on my friend Nancy’s recommendation, to Local Ocean down on the bayfront but already we could not find the desire to go further from the hotel than just across the street.

The next morning Carol left the room very early to read in the third floor library.  It must have been six AM, after a night of insomnia.  (I slept fine, lucky me.)  She kindly let Shelley in and after sitting on my back for awhile, the sweet cat curled up at the bottom of the bed and slept with me till 8:30.

my little friend

************************

During our stay, we explored some rooms old and new.  (Over the last couple of years, some of the rooms have been redone with new authors.  This causes some of the regulars worry about what happened to the room journals of the retired rooms, but more on room journals later.)  The unoccupied rooms are left with doors ajar so that they can be appreciated by other guests.

Jane Austen

Jane’s room is said by many to have the best chair of all the rooms, with a view toward the north.

view from Jane’s chair

J.K. Rowling

I and other guests persist in calling this the Harry Potter room.

I have more photos of this room in an entry about last year’s visit.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

I read a stack of journals from this room and found that they were particularly bawdy.

Across the hall from F Scott’s room is:

Moon and Sixpence

This used to be a dorm.  I think it might have been redone as a room for the owner of the hotel when she visits.  The other dorm may still be in operation as Ken Kesey’s Cuckoo’s Nest but I am terribly confused and never saw the door open so did not find out.

Jules Verne

The former Robert Louis Stevenson room has become Jules Verne.  I thought it might appeal to steampunks and indeed found evidence that it is so, both in the room and in the giftshop (where I will take you in my next entry).   It is a dark room but we are told it will get more lighting soon.

the door to Jules Verne

Carol in the Verne room

Verne

spacious bathroom

on the ceiling

dark and mysterious

I knew it!

I long to stay in this room because I was fortunate to find, in the fourth floor library, the journals from the old Robert L Stevenson room.  A common theme is how the pipes rush with water (from the showers and flushing toilets of other rooms) that sounds like a waterfall.  Back in 91 or so someone suggested it would make a great “20.000 Leagues Under the Sea” room.

prophetic journal entry

I think that the water sounds would soothe and amuse me.  The room also has an outside deck and entrance and is big enough for a rollaway bed so, next time…

Amy Tan

I took some photos of the then brand new Amy Tan room on my last visit, and here are a few more.

Amy Tan

Colette

On Thursday morning, because Chez Colette had been empty the night before, we were able to check in early and spent a few hours reading in the Colette room before repairing to the library for more reading.  First, Carol napped.  When she awoke we both agreed to not leave the hotel.  Our plans to go to the bayfront seemed distant and unappealing compared to the quiet peace of the SBH.  It was very much the right decision.

Colette

by the north window

At breakfast we had met a woman named Kelly Paige who is writing a book about the authors of the hotel.  She has stayed in each room on the author’s birthday and had just completed her mission in the Shakespeare room.  Each room received a birthday present and the crystal cat (and a triangular vase with the letter C on it) were Colette’s.

mantle

over the daybed

Colette spent much of her later life ill and writing on a bed she called “The Red Raft”.  While it is now covered with a white bedspread, you can see in the photo of two cats above (and in some that I took in 2008) that it used to be red.

The Colette room has a little deck but it was too cold to sit out there.

the deck

Thursday night sunset from the “red raft”

When I awoke Friday morning at 6:30 AM, the ocean view from the window by the daybed was obscured by fog.

6:30 AM

By 7:50 AM the waves could again be seen.

beach with Sylvia Beach shadow

Because we were checking out, Carol let Shelley into the room and she resumed her favourite spot on the big bed.

She looks very much like my cat Mary.

Next…tomorrow? :  The library and the gift shop and the lobby….and the stairs.

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there…and back again

My previous two blog entries were placeholders from my phone.  Not easy!   Here’s the real deal.

On Wednesday, I would like to have taken more photos going down the coast, but we were eager to reach our destination and I did not want to pester Carol to stop for each lovely ocean view.  We did take this photo behind a restroom in, I believe, the Nehalem area:

quite a view from a restroom deck

I found it oddly amusing that the sign was for “WOMAN” and “MEN”.

a beautiful fence on a side street in the same little town

On the way, I looked for a house that I had seen the previous year so that I could get a photo for my Purple House Society page.  I thought it was in Nehalem, and when I did not see it assumed it had been painted or demolished, but in Cloverdale, there it was!

There it is!

adorable and memorable

It goes back further than you would think, but the backside is not painted purple.

backside of the purple house

the view from a deck next door

and next door to that…

Lincoln City

On we went, hungry, and Trip Advisor guided me to the Nepali Kitchen in Lincoln City.  In the bleak stretch of stores that seem to go on for miles on the highway through Lincoln City (sorry, but the least charming part of the coast), where even the streetlights are in a hurry and give the pedestrian a 15 second countdown, we found this oasis.   I had eaten there before when it was the Sun Garden Café.

Nepali Kitchen

Inside we found great ambience, Indian music (with two songs I recognized from Shah Rukh Khan films) and good food.

Nepali Kitchen

The food was delicious.  I have found it rare to be able to get Puri, my favourite Indian bread.  Here, it is the bread of choice.

puri and curry rice

by our table

As with the former Sun Garden café, there is a back patio on which to sit.  If I had remembered that it had a cover, and would therefore be out of the wind, we would have sat there.

covered patio

patio

As you can tell, I was very taken with this place and wish them great success.

On the road again we passed more gorgeous scenery.  This video tour does a good job of capturing the Oregon coast in just four minutes, and at 1:31 is the view from our destination, The Sylvia Beach Hotel.

For two days I did not leave the hotel except to cross the street to April’s restaurant.  Carol did take a walk through the neighbourhood.  While the weather appeared nice, a strong cold wind blew on the beach and a small craft advisory was up.  And the spell of the hotel is strong.

After leaving the hotel today (Friday), we made it down to the historic bayfront for a morning walk.  If you drove through town and over the Newport bridge, you might think the main drag revealed a town as drab as the Lincoln City highway, but drop to the west into the Nye Beach neighbourhood where the Sylvia Beach resides or, north of the bridge, down to the old bayfront, and you will find several blocks of charmingly ramshackle shops, a marina of interesting fishing boats, and a herd? of sea lions.

by Newport Bay

I had absolutely no desire to visit the Ripley’s Believe it Or Not museum but I loved the building that houses it, an arcade and a sushi restaurant.  It had the only bayside evidence of landscaping.

Ripley’s building

The colour scheme of the waterfront buildings appears planned to be cobalt blue.

on the water

fish plant

This was as close as Carol and I got to the Local Ocean restaurant.  We’d intended to take my friend Nancy’s recommendation and eat there…till the SBH worked its wiles on us.

Local Ocean

We turned our attention to the docks and interpretive signs about fishing.

sleeping in the sun

boats

Some birds for Mr. Tootlepedal:

And a pile of sea lions, whose lives seem to consist of snoozing and squabbling with each other.

sea lion plea

sea lion dock

the biggest one

The pile would not let a solitary one climb aboard.

It swam around with its back flippers up.

rejected

It swam to the less populated end of the dock…

and was allowed to climb up.

We followed the sea lion viewing with some espresso at a place with a wonderful view.

espresso place

And then we headed north.  Carol is a professional driver for Seattle Metro buses.  I would like to note that I feel quite calm while riding with her. For one thing, she never passes just to get ahead and save a few minutes.  This makes the trip very relaxing for me.   We got as far as Wheeler before stopping again for a late lunch at the Tsunami Bar and Grill, recommended on Trip Advisor.  There were two other places we would have loved to try:  Bread and Ocean in Manzanita or Wanda’s Café in Nehalem, but both closed at two, effectively cutting themselves off from most people making a trip from the south coast.  We do not understand this!  It is our woe every time we make the trip.  Happily, we now have a place to stop.  Tsunami had delicious food with a burger/fish n chips side to the menu and a selection of Vietnamese style dishes.

Tsunami Bar and Grill

From the back deck. I saw a familiar view, almost the same angle as photos I had taken back in ’94 or ’95.

Wheeler

from the Tsunami deck

The estuary leads to the ocean

Over fifteen years ago, to take photos of the view, I must have stood where Carol stood today.

Carol reading interpretive sign

Closer to home, my mind began to return to work so we stopped at Gearhart’s Back Alley Gardens so I could briefly scope out what was on offer.

At Back Alley

But before I get back to writing about gardening, I have at the very least two more entries to make about the Sylvia Beach Hotel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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