Meeting the Lovely Roma Simone

On the day of my 40th birthday, I finally conceived. I’d been waiting for many years, saving money, dreaming up names, thinking of everything I would buy for her, and preparing for the day when she would come into my life. She’d arrived! Yes folks, it’s true: a few months ago, I bought a beach house in my favorite place in the world: Yachats, Oregon.

View from the south shore of Yachats

“YA-hots” is a glowing artistic beacon among miles of untamed coastal forests. Eight years ago, this town’s siren song ignited my cultish devotion and my manic scramble to spend as much time here as possible. 

This creative town is known for its culture, whether it’s the La De Da Parade or the iconic Mushroom Festival. Poor in AirBnBs and rich in local community, the stringent laws regulating short-term rentals have protected Yachats from becoming yet another place everyone visits but nobody lives in.  Folks here are woodsy and worldly, many having lived elsewhere and let this town’s hooks sink into our cheeks.

Every Saturday since late May 2020, a group of 8-20 locals gathers on Highway 101 between the C&K Market and the Green Salmon Coffee Shop to demonstrate for racial justice. They’ve been doing this since the murder of George Floyd; they stand on that stretch of road week after week with their signs—rain or shine—when many tourists are cruising that part of the 101. 

Yachats reminds me of what my hometown Laguna Beach, California may have been in the 1950s: a sparsely populated coastal haven that attracts artists and fishermen alike. A big-hearted progressive community that hasn’t let the wealth overwhelm the culture. A friendly small town where residents and visitors can’t help but walk around with huge grins, greeting one another for simply sharing the pleasure of a beautiful place and time.

The Pacific Ocean hits differently up here. In Laguna, the sea served as a calming backdrop in a monotonous series of perfect days—in Oregon, the violent spectacle smashes giant driftwood onto the rocks, shaking you by the lapels, exclaiming, “You silly mortal bitch! You’re gonna die someday! Do something with the time you have left!“ A thick, matcha latte foam makes the rocks slick on the roughest days of the King Tides, and sometimes the air is so cold and wet I want to wear snowboarding goggles. 

In summer, the Oregon coast’s call can be softer, soothing even, but she still refuses to be ignored as a benign background. She never fails to wash my heaviest thoughts away.  I love it here with an intensity historically reserved for my middle school crushes.

The Yachats River flows into the sea through a lushly forested amphitheater. To the south is Cape Perpetua State Park, a magnificent stretch of evergreen buttes, tide pools, and mind-boggling rock formations such as Thor’s Well—a collapsed sea cave roughly 20 feet in diameter, host to the churning tides. To the north is a seven-mile unbroken stretch of beach you could walk all the way to Waldport, the next town up. 

View from the Cape Perpetua Rock Shelter

I remember the day when I decided to buy a house here. I was reading a book on the Yachats State Park’s main beach. Suddenly, a bald eagle with a giant fish in her mouth grazed by my blanket, with a hungry (and possibly robbed) seagull in hot pursuit. I’d never been so close to the iconic American bird with its angry eyes and hooked beak. In my journal, I wrote about my intention to buy a house and ultimately start an artist residency for others to share in this slice of sublimity. There was something about that bald eagle that hatched my modest American dream.

However, the story of how I got here isn’t as interesting as what’s to come. Take a breath here because it will be jarring if you aren’t familiar with what’s in store for the Oregon coast.

Breathe in…and out.

One more time…in…and out.

Did you do it? 

Great. You’re ready. 

The fact is that someday, perhaps tomorrow morning or 300 years from now, the Pacific Northwest will be annihilated by a 9.0+ earthquake and drowned in the subsequent tsunami.

Wait…what

In 2015, The New Yorker published an article titled “The Really Big One” that spelled out in no uncertain terms the future of my favorite region. According to Kenneth Murphy, the director of FEMA’s Region X, which includes Oregon and Washington, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.” There’s no way to sugarcoat the unstoppable wrath of the Cascadia Subduction Zone—and there’s a one-in-three chance it will happen in the next 50 years. 

You’d think that this seismologic uncertainty would throw some freezing seawater on my obsession, but it hasn’t. There are natural risks living anywhere—wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, avalanches, blizzards, volcanic eruptions. We’re all on the same train, moving at different speeds. How and when we get to our unavoidable destination is a matter of luck and some careful preparation.

Also, the instability of the land is a double-edged sword: it’s formidable and chilling to contemplate but it inspires me to feel gratitude and create art. Seizing the day takes on new urgency with imminent destruction looming on the horizon. It’s terrifying and electric, moving me to act and make my time count. And it’s one of the reasons I want to make an artists’ residency here—whether you’re looking down the barrel of an angry sea or the Cascadia Subduction Zone, mortality is always top-of-mind. The threat is abstract and distant enough to not paralyze me in fear. Rather, it brings to the forefront my creative impetus: I’m pushed to write and paint and hike and dine and dance and dream, and most importantly…to build community. 

Better to have loved and lost it all in a 1,000-year tsunami than to have never loved at all, yes? Or consider this: what if everything goes right? The threat of destruction may keep our creativity burning but the disaster doesn’t come to pass for centuries to come. 

No matter what happens, I’m fortunate to feel such a deep sense of love, purpose, and connection. Everyone, please welcome Casa Roma Simone to the world. She’d love to meet you, and I’d love to have you.

7 Replies to “Meeting the Lovely Roma Simone”

  1. My favorite of your writings so far. You hit the nail on the head. Now please, please don’t tell anyone else about our beloved Yachats!

  2. What an inspiring story! Taking action to create community and invest in a special place. Everything is ephemeral anyway so might as well make art and be with people that light you up. ¡Que te quiten lo bailado!

  3. I love your passion and ‘fear nothing’ attitude and the way you connect to your surroundings. Taking the time to see and feel what many never do. Can’t wait to be in Roma’s presence and all of her beauty.

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