To Sea Or Not To Sea

Mt. Hood from the Plane

Time.
Hardly linear, except for being forced to look at my Android to catch Thanksgiving planes to Eugene and Seattle. For what would be yet another sudden turn in my script-less life. (Dad's spirit smiles.) The Prescott sun was strong as I stepped on the plane to spend Thanksgiving with Hope, with plans to include a short jaunt to Sedro Woolley, WA. I needed to feel out the invitation to spend the winter in a cabin on the edge of the Skagit River.

Travel was seamless; not so circumstances back in Prescott. I received a call the first morning from Gail, who had the first shift with Teak and Hobo. She had opened the door to see and smell projectile shit from one end of the trailer to the other. The cat door was ripped to five times its size. A raccoon had gotten in, Teak woke up and the chase was on. (Yea, remember those cute pictures of the raccoon family I posted on Facebook?) I came close to flying back in order to handle the monumental mess and traumatized pets, but Gail, and Sara who had night shift, assured me they'd take care of it. Coons can kill dogs and cats. I was thankful to tears.

Hope and I did the turkey thing on Thanksgiving, met with Montana friends who happened to be in Eugene, drove to the Newport coast, devoured fresh calamari, fish and chips and did a fair share of walking the parks of Eugene. The weather gods smiled on us. AND, we managed tickets for the "sold out" Duck football game, as the goddess winked from on high. She also dumped some rain on us during the game. Enough to let us know how blessed we were.

Six days later I continued on to Seattle where my friend Jeffrey picked me up and rushed me to a fine restaurant, a bowl of luscious french onion soup, a caesar salad, gin and tonic and (hey, hey) the end of the Broncos game. I only had one day to gather impressions. To sea or not to sea was the question as we walked the banks of the rushing Skagit river where eagles and salmon converge. We hiked Whidbey Island where I met an ancient doug fir. We drove to the shore of Puget Sound and bought a live crab and clams from the Taylor family for dinner, fit for the lovely champagne that chilled in the frig. I was submerged in wet and green after 30-plus years in the high, dry southwest, where muse saw fit to dissect the power of empty space. This was scrumptious-alien to the soul.

Skagit River and Cabin, between Puget Sound and the Cascade Mountains

I nervously returned to Prescott, relieved to find two daemons intact and a clean, aired out trailer. Alas, streaks of coon diarrhea on the ceiling had escaped my rescuers and the next morning, when I dressed for work, rocks in my hiking boot turned out to be coon turds. Don't ask. I have no idea. Hobo copped a "get this cleaned up, will ya?" 'tude. Teak looked forlorn, as if she was the guilty one. Nothing that love and a few verses of her familiar song, "You're the best dog in the world," couldn't overcome.

Wintering Trumpeter Swans

Yesterday was my final day with the USFS. I have decided to take Jeffrey up on his offer to inhabit the cabin on his property and write by the Skagit this winter. For the third winter in a row I will travel north, not south into Mexico, as I fall back on my belief that spirit puts me where I need to be.

I was in a thrift store a few days before my departure for the NW, where I ended up in the book section. My eyes landed on, "It was a dark and stormy night" - A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle). Is that not the most famous opening line? I love how books come to me at precisely the right moment. Love it even more when I don't know it's the right moment until after I've finished it. Which was last night. So it was I was introduced to a tesseract, the uncanny ability to enter a wrinkle in time (to hell with the linear) and travel unknown dimensions; to mine the mysteries of the dark and stormy, which it was here in Prescott last night.

Whidbey Island

I'm undeniably with Madeleine's unearthly stranger as I prepare to depart for the NW. "Wild nights are my glory!" she declared. And the days aren't bad, either, as I awaken to fresh snow on on granite boulders and floating cloud wisps that carry the remnants of dreams to daylight.

I have a sequel to write and new landscapes to breathe. Lushness be Thy name.

______________________________

HEY! New edition Living on the Spine or Colorado Book Award Finalist, Drive Me Wild: A Western Odyssey for holiday gifts??? Click here to order ebook or paper!

www.christinanealson.com