A Walker in the Suburbs

By the time I finished writing yesterday it was mid-afternoon and the rain was settling in. What else to do but take the walk anyway. It was my last full day in this marvelous place. 

So I ventured out into the drizzle, plugging into a chipper playlist and heading up the hill, the way I’ve started most every walk since I’ve been here.

It was the perfect northwest experience: trees were dripping, waves were pounding, gulls were soaring — and some brave soul was wind surfing.

I returned home a bit damp but no worse for the wear. I knew the walk would be worth it — and it was. 

For a walker in the suburbs, I have trouble with pacing. Not with the steps themselves — those come naturally — but with how many to take in 17 waking hours.

The days of high walking, of great movement, those liberate and restore. But so do the days of sitting and writing, jumping up only when the sun starts sliding to the west and I realize that if I don’t leave now I won’t get to town and back before the sun sets. 

Every time I walk in this place, this faraway and beautiful place, I’m struck by the connection between location and inspiration. I write, I waffle, I sink into despair. Then I lace up my hiking boots, step outside — and the vast views pull me into a deeper truth. And that, I realize, is what I seek. 

Yesterday I met the artists who are in residence here this week. It’s a bigger crowd than last week, and a more eclectic one. 

Tucked away in various cabins and studios around the park are a sculptor, a painter, a concertina player, mother and son visual artists, two musicians who usually collaborate electronically and are thrilled to be working together in person, and an author of children’s books. 

It was a congenial group, and we parted with the promise of a studio visit or concert to come. 

Companionship after solitude is welcome, especially when it’s with others who are jealously guarding their private time … what you might call “companionship lite.”

(The residence lounge where we met.)

It’s a day of hauntings, of swirled fog and footsteps in the night. But here on the tip of the Olympic peninsula (actually, a map tells me that it’s called the Quimper Peninsula), it’s bright and clear. 

I arrived here yesterday when the sun was streaming in the windows of the house that will be my home for the next two weeks. There were just two hours left of daylight. I had to explore.

There was a road down to the beach and a lighthouse at the end of it. There was a single sailboat moored in the waves. There was Mount Baker and the North Cascades on the horizon. 

I walked until I was hungry, then came back here, to this most improbable home.