Wednesday, June 08, 2005
A Palpable Presence
Summer fog and quiet misty mornings like this are what keep the coastal redwoods alive here in the mountainous Marin Headlands of the Golden Gate. They also remind me of ferry boat rides between Whidbey Island and Port Townsend, Washington where we occasionally went as walk-ons to browse through the native art stores and dine in hippie cafes and photograph the island bluffs with a volcanic backdrop or watch red-billed oystercatchers picking through the kelp-piles on shore.
Watching the droplets accumulate on the trumpet vine leaves in front of my desk window, I sometimes think of the movie Snow Falling on Cedar that so elegantly captures the tenor of the islands where I wandered and explored on salmon boats long ago. Silence interrupted only by the sound of the ocean breeze and patrolling ravens recalls Sol Duc River silver salmon jumps and Samish lookouts from Mt. Erie and Rosario Beach.
On days like this I savor bacon and eggs and strong black tea and don my pearl-snapped flannel shirt, all of which recall an earlier life in rubber boots and the smell of slow, damp decay or fungus frying in butter and oil. And I daydream of radiant heat from crackling fir in a stone fireplace built by masons undoubtedly distracted by the forest fragrance and the palpable presence of spirits who carved the totems now detritus in the wild rose banks sheltering the hewn-log structure from chilly drafts that seek pathways ashore.
Sun-bleached driftwood, Harlequin ducks, pale pink rhodendron trees and undulating otters pass through my mind's eye of Whidbey Fidalgo where the snowmelt waters of the "Magic Skagit" meander through sloughs and meld with the briny currents of Deception Pass where we joyfully scrambled over barnacled rocks in search of oysters, mussels and clams on misty mornings such as this, and afterward ate sandwiches and hot coffee from a thermos while droplets formed on the steamy windshield.
Watching the droplets accumulate on the trumpet vine leaves in front of my desk window, I sometimes think of the movie Snow Falling on Cedar that so elegantly captures the tenor of the islands where I wandered and explored on salmon boats long ago. Silence interrupted only by the sound of the ocean breeze and patrolling ravens recalls Sol Duc River silver salmon jumps and Samish lookouts from Mt. Erie and Rosario Beach.
On days like this I savor bacon and eggs and strong black tea and don my pearl-snapped flannel shirt, all of which recall an earlier life in rubber boots and the smell of slow, damp decay or fungus frying in butter and oil. And I daydream of radiant heat from crackling fir in a stone fireplace built by masons undoubtedly distracted by the forest fragrance and the palpable presence of spirits who carved the totems now detritus in the wild rose banks sheltering the hewn-log structure from chilly drafts that seek pathways ashore.
Sun-bleached driftwood, Harlequin ducks, pale pink rhodendron trees and undulating otters pass through my mind's eye of Whidbey Fidalgo where the snowmelt waters of the "Magic Skagit" meander through sloughs and meld with the briny currents of Deception Pass where we joyfully scrambled over barnacled rocks in search of oysters, mussels and clams on misty mornings such as this, and afterward ate sandwiches and hot coffee from a thermos while droplets formed on the steamy windshield.
