Calm Sea

Yesterday I took a run up to my new home with some boxes of Christmas ornaments~wouldn't want to be caught out :) It's lovely having a garage with miles of built in shelves! I have never had a garage so am feeling rather thrilled not to keep my shovels and rhododendron fertilizer in the hall closet with my boots and coats. This is living, I tell you!

The day was spectacular, (though here in the Pacific Northwest we miss rain if the sky stays totally blue for too long, and that is where we are now) and the sea was glossy with gently, hardly discernably rolling swells. Not much breeze so you could smell the warming shells and seaweed on the beach left by the tide. That's one of the things I get such a kick out of, finding broken shells on the street or walkway, on the steps up to my front door where they have plummeted from the beaks or talons of an avian diner winging above. I had not realized how deeply I needed to be near the sea. I have always lived on an island but it has grown increasingly citified and lost most of its natural connections. But now, I can putter about my new home and see Osprey sitting above me, miniscule Rufus hummingbirds perched on the smallest Hemlock branchlet with their throats gleaming ruby and glistening green like teeny ports and starboards. They truly are the same size as hard boiled egg yolks, how can they survive the winter? But they do. And I can hear the seagulls calling, whichever species they are, and the Bubbleheaded Bulatoes dive and leave circlets where they disappeared. There are deer that walk by every day, I'm told and give birth at the end of the street by my neighbor, Pegi's, house~twins yesterday! I am not certain that I would want the deer midwifery clinic abutting my porch but she enjoys it so that's all that matters.

As I carried boxes from one room to another I caught sight of a sweet river otter, sunning itself in the inlet, floating on its back going out with the tide. Truthfully, I have no idea if it was sweet,  it could have been a real rotter, but it looked sweet, all fuzzy headed and serene. Wait...I just described myself. Except for the serene part, I have been nothing of the sort this spring. But a lovely Scottish blipper has summed it up beautifully for me saying that I am a hermit crab in between my shells. The old one doesn't fit any more and on the new one I have yet to smooth off the rough edges. His words have comforted me frequently and I am truly grateful for the solace found therein.

I am slowly meeting my neighbors and I really like them all. They are all happy, what a change that is! It may be that I hardly know them so they are being pleasant but I have a feeling they are all pretty content and that is a nice change from the world I live in now. They are all retired, I suppose that makes a difference, too, and some of them have done interesting things that I can't wait to hear about.

The woman who lives below me, Sonia, sailed around the world with her husband, she must have tales to tell! She did actually, she told me that almost a year ago she was walking from her kitchen into her living room and saw a black bear eating seeds from her bird feeder which hung about 2 feet from the window. He ate and then stood up and placed his two front paws on her window panes and stared inside at her for what seemed like an hour but was only a few minutes and then lumbered away. She called the wildlife people who reassured her that his standing was not an aggressive posture but rather giving him support so he could look inside for more to eat (Sonia?). They advised her to not have any feeders, even hummingbird nectar, out until late fall when the bears are asleep.

I am glad that I am on the second floor. 

If Sonia becomes annoying I may put out a bird feeder above her patio in early spring :)