Jackson

Jackson

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When I’m falling asleep now, I imagine I’m on Jackson, one of my favorite streets in Port Townsend.

I make my way down the hill from my house at the foot of Artillery Hill in Fort Worden, stroll along the brow, listen to the surf surging below.

From there it’s up one hill and then another. But at the top of that second hill, huffing and puffing, I see all of Admiralty Inlet spread out before me.

I snap photos. And in fact, I snapped plenty of them. But they never did it justice, never captured the openness and the light.

No matter — it’s in my mind now, and in my bones and sinews, too.

Warming Up

Warming Up

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Cold weather moved in yesterday. It wasn’t frigid by winter standards, but by the gentler measures of late fall, it was significant. 

The wind and cold reminded me how hard it can be to drag myself out of a warm house into a brisk breeze.  But it also reminded me that the body is a furnace stoked by motion. The colder I am, the faster I walk.  

Yesterday I was almost running. 

(One place where I wasn’t cold yesterday: a sunny bank full of warmth and glare.)

Weathering

Weathering

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I noticed it on my recent forays in Washington state but I notice it here, too:  the beauty abundant this time of year. Though it is the season of diminishment, it’s also a season of plentitude, a harvest of fluttering last leaves, a bounty of bare branches.

Leave beauty up to nature, I think, conveniently skipping tornadoes, wildfires and other natural disasters. Nature knows what to take and what to leave behind. It is seldom gaudy or superfluous, always the right amount of color or cover. 

There is a subtle reassurance this time of year. It speaks of weathering, of seeking splendor in the frail and fallen, of finding enough in what is left behind.

The Day After

The Day After

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The day after the feast: Leftovers fill the fridge. Two turkeys vie for space and baggies of extras are jammed into every other nook and cranny. The coolers still house sodas and beer, and bottles of unopened wine line up like soldiers in a drill.

There’s a load of laundry churning away — placemats and tea towels mainly, having forgone cloth napkins for paper this year — but the china and silver are washed and stored for the next big occasion.

Outside, the wind is blowing, the pumpkins are still intact. But inside, all is calm. The dust is no longer flying. Twenty-nine people have come and gone … and we survived. 

Ripeness

Ripeness

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Before the flurry of preparation begins, I search for a poem to serve as grace before the meal. Or if not, to sum up gratitude for my eyes only. This one does: 

Ripeness

Jane Hirshfield

Ripeness is
what falls away with ease.

Not only the heavy apple,
the pear,
but also the dried brown strands
of autumn iris from their core.

To let your body
love this world
that gave itself to your care
in all of its ripeness,
with ease,
and will take itself from you
in equal ripeness and ease,
is also harvest.

And however sharply
you are tested —
this sorrow, that great love —
it too will leave on that clean knife.

Time and Memories

Time and Memories

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I’m reminded this morning that it’s been 60 years to the day since President Kennedy was shot. The act that defined our country for many years, until the other tragedies came along. 

Now there are young adults who were born after 9/11, who have no direct or televised experience of the smoldering ruins or the silent skies. 

Time marches on; memories do not. They stay locked in place — in amber, perhaps, or something far less valuable. They define us, as a generation and as a people. 

How do we honor them and move on? Only by understanding them, I guess, by realizing the many ways they hold us in their thrall. 

Palimpsest

Palimpsest

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Rain dislodges leaves and sends them dripping and dropping into the backyard, which is already covered with them. Nothing like the old days, when we would wade through them ankle deep, but still a presence, a reminder of the season. 

When I look at the leaves from my upstairs window, I see a palimpsest, a manuscript that tells two stories, the lines on top and the faint scratches beneath: a new story and an older one. I see the yard as it is now, but I also see the yard of yore, little girls jumping into piles of brown and gold. 

Those little girls are grown. Now their children come to jump in the leaves, to bounce on the trampoline, to run and dance and play. But when I look at the yard I don’t just see the newest little people, I see the ones that are no more, the young women who are once again the children I knew them to be.

Give a Little Whistle

Give a Little Whistle

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At home it announces itself with a steady crescendo of gurgles and hisses and a click when the water has boiled. Almost foolproof.

At Fort Worden, I heated water the old-fashioned way. I filled the pot, flipped the top down and waited for the whistle. Ingenious … but not foolproof. For instance, you could (and I did) forget to close the contraption. I quickly learned — no top, no whistle.

You could also (theoretically) leave the kettle on until the water vaporized and the pot was singed. But for that you would have to ignore the whistle, which is mighty difficult to do. 

I’m glad to be back with my electric teakettle. But the whistling version is fun, too … maybe the original smart appliance? 

Beacon

Beacon

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Fall is farther along here at home than it was out west. Only the Japanese maple is still brilliant with color. I’ve written about it before. 

Today, it seems a souvenir, a memento from the trip. For so many years my writing has been what I do around the edges of things, something I slipped into the day wherever it might fit. 

The last three weeks have given me an idea of what it’s like when writing comes first. It becomes a glowing thing, a beacon, the last tree gleaming. 

Eastward

Eastward

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The question is, would you know it if you didn’t know it, know that here in Seattle you’re near the western edge of this wide continent?

I always think I can tell — something in the quality of the light or the casualness of the architecture or the philosophies of the people. 

But it’s probably just what I overlay on the place, based on visits and attitudes (dreams) about the West Coast I’ve had since I was as a kid. 

This afternoon I fly home, take the eastward journey, which is often faster. It’s the prevailing westerlies that make it so, but today I think it will be the magnet of home pulling me back where I belong.