I knew from the moment I spotted her on the beach that my life would never be the same.  I don't know what it was exactly that drew my attention to her.  Yet I knew instinctively that she was it--the catalyst.  I was forever changed before the first "hello." 
          I had just finished washing dishes in my cottage on the Oregon coast.  It was September, and my husband and I were taking the first vacation he had managed to steal away from his interminable caseload.  Paul was a successful lawyer.  I was his wife.  I had been begging him all year to take me to the beach for a change of scenery.  Out of self-preservation, he finally arranged it.  He had tried initially to convince me to go by myself, but I refused.  I wanted my husband by my side.  I didn't want to travel alone, like a woman who didn't have a man who cared for her.  It wasn't long, however, before I began wishing I had left him behind.
         It was on the second evening of our vacation that I found myself walking alone on the beach.  The summer crowds had dwindled away, so I was able to amble along without running into more than a dozen people.  I assumed they were mostly local residents and perhaps a few visitors taking advantage of the off-season to spend a peaceful week at Cannon Beach. 
         As I walked on the loose sand, my gaze took in the waves crashing against the dark rocks that lay scattered along the shore.  Huge rocks that reminded me of giant toys left behind by titanic gods of another world.  Their size amazed me.  Their geologic history intrigued me.  As I surveyed the scene, it was hard to tell which was the stronger of the two elements.  I knew that water had the ability to wear away the hard, solid surface. Yet as the powerful waves slammed into the rocks, they were instantly transformed into mere saline droplets.  Watching this interplay of water and rock, I felt as though the rocks were my heart and the waves my emotions.  Feeling a slight chill in these thoughts, I pulled my windbreaker close around me as I walked in the direction of Haystack Rock, the largest remnant of volcanic expulsions found at this particular point along the shore. 
I came upon her at a particularly isolated section of the beach.  She was sitting atop one of the many logs that had washed up on the shore.  She herself looked nearly as weathered and battered as the wood upon which she was perched.  Her long indigo hair was flipping wildly in the ocean breeze, snaking around the acoustic guitar cradled in her arms.  She was wearing a navy blue T-shirt and a pair of faded and tattered blue jeans.  Her feet were bare, although I noticed an incongruently new pair of blue Birkenstock sandals next to where she was seated.
            It was her silhouette that first caught my attention.  She was playing her guitar and singing passionately to the waves.  Though I could hear nothing above the sound of the roaring wind and crashing waves.  Desiring to hear her voice, I ventured closer, hoping she wouldn't stop her performance before I could get near enough to hear what she was singing.  I approached from the rear, for I had the distinct impression

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