New Chapters

I have purchased a condominium next door to my father’s, overlooking the same small saltwater inlet, with the same owls, osprey and attack hummingbirds above and the same seals and red octopus swimming below. I simply could not be more pleased. Yesterday I took my first ferry ride West across Puget Sound as an (almost) new Olympic Peninsula homeowner. A homeowner that needs a ferry to get from home to the rest of her previous world.  I stood on the car deck next to my car, leaning over the rail and watched the water peel away, strong and sure, from the hull as I have so many countless times throughout my life. When I was little my mom would add to my natural padding the padding of my life jacket and I would scramble to the bow of our sailboat and straddling the very tip with my legs curled around a stanchion. As the bow would nod and weave through the waves I would scour the sea surface and look deep below for all sorts of treasures that might be revealed. That was heaven to me. Those times seemed freedom incarnate, the penultimate moments of ‘being in the moment’ that I have ever known. And I found that feeling of centeredness again on my ferry yesterday. I stood on the car deck and the wind blew my long overdue to be cut / colored hair all over the place, I smiled at people I didn’t know and won’t ever know. I leaned over the rail, fighting hard the urge to swing one leg over and straddle it and watched the waves cleave away in intricately tracing folds edged in white foam, leaving patterns against the suck you in black of the sea. Seagulls wheeled overhead, diving and rising to both lead and follow my ferry to port. The mountains were glorious, from this crossing you can see south to Mt Rainier (14, 411 feet) snow packed and cold against the blue sky, Mt Baker (10,781 feet) to the north, the Cascade mountains behind me, east, that roll away north and south of Mt. Rainier for 700 miles. And I am jostling and lurching noisily on my ferry across very windy seas, my heart open to embrace my new mountain range friends, the Olympics (6,200-8,000 feet) to the West. In our region the mountains have Native American names that evoke a history we have all but eaten up. I say them out loud to myself with a sense of both shame from the injury my race has inflicted and joy at what lies ahead for me to learn. These names are history spoken, they tell of the land and the people who live here and I cannot wait to dive in! My father in a serious student of our Native American history, particularly from Montana westward, and his library and words are my starting point. It is only since my mother passed, 4 years ago, that my father and I have explored our common interests this way. Out of great sadness blessings abound if you can escape the pain long enough to count them, not always possible I know.
 
But for now, it is enough that the Walla Walla (translated as ‘place of many waters’ in the Nez Perce language) and the Tokitae (translated as ‘nice day, pretty colors’ in the Chinook language (pronounced Shin-ook) are my ferries. I am going to let the WA State D.O.T. keep them because I have nowhere for them to sleep but they are mine, make no mistake. And I love them.  And I freely share them with all of you. xoxo