For my writer's group, this month's prompt was pleasure and I found it to be a difficult subject. I started with a list of ten things
which give me pleasure. It reminded me
of the things I love to do and at the same time it made me nostalgic because I
do some of the items on the list so rarely.
I struggled with writing something positive and uplifting and all I came
back with was pleasures that I have gone without.
Everything changed tonight as I left the community center in the city where I live. It was about 6:30 and
the sun had just dropped below the horizon.
The western sky was still bright yellow above the hilltops. The yellow faded to green and then to azure
blue. As I turned south the sky
continued to darken and there was a sliver of silver crescent moon hanging in
the sky. I looked up and saw two large
stars above me, and from the southeast the lights of a jetliner headed north
into the airport. When I turned east the
sky was dark indigo. I had viewed Mt.
Rainier there not an hour before. There
were cars moving through the parking lot but I was unaware of them. It was as quiet as evenings are in this
area. I rejoiced of the beautifully
sunny afternoon and the cool blue evening which it had given birth to.
The view tonight was a reminder of the beauty of my
home. I fell in love with this place in
1962 when our family came here for the World’s Fair. My aunt and uncle had a house above Eastgate
in Bellevue and at the time there was nothing behind it but forest. I walked out their back gate and into a dark
green cathedral of cedar and Douglass fir.
My footsteps were muffled by a thick layer of needles and when I had
gone far enough that the houses disappeared from view, I had a close encounter
with the deer which populated the forest.
I wanted to stay there forever. I
set a goal of living here and after I graduated from college I did just that.
I love this wondrous place I live. It is alive with nature and the changing
seasons. I am never so aware of that as
when I visit the Olympic National Forest.
I love to walk on the beaches between Kalaloch and Forks. The eerie seastacks stand on the beach like
Titan sentinels. I love the piles of
drift wood and the dark red sands of Rialto Beach where I stood one one late
summer afternoon counting two dozen bald eagles in the surrounding trees. I love hiking the trails of the Olympic
National Forest. There life is
primitive. I love the quiet, deep green
of the moss and the rushing sound of waterfalls. And round every curve there is something
new. I love the tiny black winter wrens
and the variety of pale fungi which decorate the trees. I love rounding a curve in a trail to find
deer and elk, so calm and trusting that they don’t run, but stand looking back
at me with dark, fluid eyes.
I especially love soaking in the hot pools at Sol Duc at dusk,
looking at the tall hills surrounding me.
I sit there in the heat smelling the sulfured waters. I watch the swallows dive for insects
overhead and I listen to the silence of the forest.
Back here at home I love the magic Mt. Rainier. I saw a peek of it as I drove to the
community center tonight. It sat there
stark white against the darkening blue sky.
The girls used to tease me about how I would always point “The Mountain”
out to them. It never bores me because
each time I see it, it is different.
Interestingly though after living in the Pacific Northwest for nearly 30
years, I have never been there to see it close up. I just like to watch it from the
distance. I love how it hides behind the
clouds and other times like tonight when it is “out” you can see it all. I love how sometimes it is topped with a
little stratus cloud like it’s wearing a hat and how sometimes in the evenings
it lights up like a giant strawberry sundae.
It seems to move with me wherever I go.
Sometimes it looks far, far away and other times it is huge and right
there. I understand why the Native American
people thought the gods lived there.
I have written before about my lifelong love affair with
birds. I always like to see something
new but it is also fun to see old friends like robins and mallard ducks. I am also always on the lookout for animals
in the forest, sea creatures on the beach, and sea mammals when I can see
them. When birding in West Seattle this
fall we spotted a pod of orcas playing tag with the Vashon ferry. I stood in awe of these gentle creatures as
they breached and blew their way across the Sound. It reminded me of a salmon fishing trip we
took to Victoria many years ago. The
fishing had suddenly dried up and we were about to head back to shore when our
boat was surrounded by the dorsal fins of orca.
I crawled out on the prow of the boat feeling the sea spray on my face
and hoping I could touch one as they passed.
When the girls were in co-op preschool we took trips to the
beaches around West Seattle in the summer.
I remember one of the kids finding a moonsnail. I always find the shells but to find one
alive was memorable. I sat on the beach
surrounded by ten five year olds watching the huge mollusk squeeze himself back
into his shell, his exeuded water pouring across my hands until he was all in,
slamming his opeculum door after him. I
made sure to put him back into deep water so he wouldn’t be attacked by the
marauding gulls or crows. We did the
same with the crabs, sea stars, and anemones which we also discovered during
our adventures. And that memory took me
back to all the wonderful family vacations to the Oregon Coast, walking wild
beaches with the wind in our faces, picking up agates and shells and exploring
tide pools with Sarah and Robin. I
haven’t been there in eleven years. It
seems time is too quickly passing me by.
Today, as I walked out the community center, I felt the
beginning of spring. Through this dark
winter, I have missed all the colors and the beauty of my home. I want to get out and enjoy those things,
using them to wipe away my winter funk. It
has been too easy lately to focus on the negatives; the parts of my life that
will never be the way I want them. However,
I know that to find true pleasure all I have to do is look outside my patio
door and enjoy a hummingbird at my feeder, the tender shoots of hostas in my
tiny garden, and the quiet beauty of a Pacific Northwest evening.
