Category: Uncategorized

The world has plenty of potential and abundant regrets. What the world needs is a few people willing to answer the call of their dreams … again and again. 

Late autumn has its own special rhythm in the northwest, when, color by color, the trees bid farewell to their leafy crowns and stand in spare elegance.  The flashy maples go out with a riot of red, as if to say, we’re bad and we’ll be back! Others more modestly shed silver-backed discs or little yellow sails. Stately heralds of the season, they become all bark and branches reaching into the sky. Below them, the grass and sidewalk lay replete with a harvest of tints and shades and hues.

In the park a few stoic walkers populate the paths. Migratory birds land on the lake, wild feathers tucked away for a short rest amid raindrops. I lean toward a hedge to take a picture of winter berries and a tiny bird flits through the branches squeaking out an equally petite chit, chit, chit, then quiets.

Each week since mid-September the earth has slowly, gently, shed its summer energy as it slips into wintery slumber. Perhaps I am a devotee of fall because it feels so much like sanctuary. A place without too much but just enough. Ungarlanded and yet comfortable in its own lovely way.

Fall reminds me that my soul craves a place to retreat and reflect, to listen for that other voice, the one that restores and encourages and guides. A refuge where the spiritual part of me can just abide without a to-do list. Where the heart can call out to heaven and feel power, hope, love, curiosity.

In the fall, the trees give us new eyes. It is a time to see differently. To walk more slowly, finding answers, or perhaps more interesting questions, in our steps.

The sun called me out for a walk today and my feet took me to Gene Coulon Park. It’s a place for walkers. No animals and no bikes. While I am an animal lover and I think bikes are cool, it is great to stroll and not have to worry about fangs or whirling spokes. Everyone ambles along the lakeside at their own pace, frequently passed by joggers in all kinds of healthy living gear. I am sure everyone’s arteries are greatly enhanced by their fluorescent sneakers. Strolling toward the park entrance, I put on the brakes to enjoy the siren call of rhodie trumpets.

At the park, I admire remnants of an old pier marching alongside a new one. Then a small gaggle of domestic geese, trying out the spot usually occupied by Canada geese, taking a walk on the wild side.

I look for the turtles that usually emerge from the mud in springtime to sun on the partially submerged logs off the lake shore, but they must still be slumbering in the depths.

There’s a sailing club at this south end of Lake Washington and I have made many photos of their little crafts bobbing in the water. Today the clouds are bobbing overhead as pretty as a dream.

Wandering along on a spring day in the park would hardly be complete without coming across a wedding party, adding Technicolor dresses and lovely tresses to the greenery. All of us in jeans and T-shirts stop a minute to enjoy the scene … I’m glad for them that it’s not raining.

Around the corner I find a solitary sailor perched on a rock, much better than a turtle.

A field of daisies has popped up and I brave the very wet grass to take in their pungent fragrance of newness.

It’s a day of tapestries, the kind that a park encourages, with life flowing along the paths and roadway in full regalia. Around the curve and along another pier, there is a group of guys who’ve launched a squadron of model boats. They appear to be racing but are silent as golfers, focused on their marker buoys in the water.

I linger to watch a little crew of ducks in the midst of the sails. They are slightly alarmed but stick together, paddling and keeping their distance from the unknown intruders.

There’s a sculpture of walkers at the entrance to the park and now and again, someone dresses them for the seasons. Now they are kitted out in Easter bonnets, or so it appears to me.

It’s been a rich hour and my busy week is far behind me, drifting away on the clouds and rippling lake waves.

Each day a moment before spring bursts into view, the earth exhales a few more blossoms, some leafy buds, while birds give song to that little hope, the one that takes root in March looking past April for May, for warm, soft air and open windows and skies that put robin’s eggs to shame.

Flickers clatter against the metal chimney flue and black-capped midgets call chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee , hopping through petals fallen by a rainstorm. In one tall pine a glorious eagle eyes the lake’s watery world, watching for a flash of scales. Canada geese, itinerant wanderers, graze along, looking perfectly at home across the border.

We visited Mukilteo Lighthouse Park pressing through a watery, grey day, convinced that soon we’ll be tucking away warm jackets but glad we have them today. A few other sturdy folks stroll around the small park, as the ferries come and go with a rhythm that feels like the tide, washing in, washing out, carrying cars, people and their dreams and worries.

We find tulips in well tended gardens and soak in the color, contrasted against the monotone clouds. Hubby takes a photo of a marooned kite leaning on a chimney of the lightkeeper’s residence and I suggest naming the photo Unplanned Layover.

Along the beach, someone has lit a fire pit and we stand in the warmth, a little unwilling to admit we still crave the smoke and cinders as we lean toward them

thinking of another, kinder season.

Finally, we head up to the Red Cup Café where we find friendly if slightly forgetful service, steaming soup, homemade sandwiches with awesome bread, and a rustic, quirky atmosphere that feels like someone’s beach cabin living room. The room is filled with graying heads interspersed with the multicolored locks of youth, everyone involved in timeless conversation. Wide windows frame the bay below, cool and quiet, unwilling yet to release spring among us but unable to stop her cheery advance columns of blooms.

A late winter day waning into early spring has drawn many to enjoy the lake near my friend’s home. The lack of rain swells the numbers of visitors as flotillas of birds float along the placid waters. Skateboarders, cyclists, wanderers, runners with jogging buggies, and a large assortment of dogs flow by me as I watch a flicker assemble himself at the top of a leafless tree and unleash his sentinel call. The hoots, blats, honks and trills of birds curl through the air like madrona bark … the gorgeous tones of a hidden blackbird is especially lush. We are an unlikely crew, humans and animals, visitors and neighbors, joined for a few minutes by a common body of water.

I keep stopping to enjoy marching mallards, first the drake then his girl following a few steps behind. They waddle back and forth across the path, taking flight when kids can’t resist racing toward them. A few feet away their larger, less nervous cousins, Canada geese, stroll along adding contrast to the grass they are intent on cropping (and fertilizing) ignoring humans and, amazingly, the many dogs. Maybe the geese have figured out what a leash means. A brown form pokes up and cruises across the water. I am not sure if it’s a nutria or a beaver and wish I had my small binoculars.

It is nearly dusk and the flotillas are stretching their wings and chattering more. In a moment, they lift as one, all wings and bird noise, off to a destination hidden within their calls. I meander home, taking pictures of early berries and blooms, feeling a little more whole than when I started.

Ruckle Park is my favorite place on Salt Spring Island to take in dramatic scenery and shoreline. But for a restorative walk through forest and meadow, I always enjoy Duck Creek Park. The trails are kept up nicely and allow for a short or longer easy hike. Benches donated in honor of loved ones are scattered along the trails for those who need a rest or a place to contemplate. Simon, my brother-in-law, says it’s a place that makes visitors feel as though all is right with the world.

We pass other wanderers, most with dogs. A gentle, overweight boxer. A very happy Labrador. A border collie cross with a red bandana and a chipper jaunt. Salt Spring has the friendliest dogs ever. Most of the resident canines spend their time smiling broadly and saying howdy to everybody in dog language, which usually involves rubbing copious amounts of dog hair on nearby legs and sitting down on the feet attached to those legs while emitting large, contented doggy sighs.

On this day, a lady was walking the trails with three small dogs and the happy Lab pictured above. As our group approached, she called out, asking if we had any dogs. When we replied in the negative, she immediately put one of the small dogs in my hubby’s arms. Somewhat startled, he assumed Simon knew her and gamely held the little pooch for a bit. Meanwhile, the lady dogwalkers was on a verbal roll, telling us that people who owned large dogs needed to know how to handle them and most didn’t and that was because they were afraid of the dogs and they needed to get over that, “I mean right now!” The small dogs surged around our legs, tangling leashes and tussling with each other. The Lab contentedly deposited herself on the nearest foot, oblivious to her human’s aggravation about other large dogs. The lady wrapped up her self-described diatribe by declaring that people who did not know how to handle big dogs should “GET A CAT. That’s what I say! I’ve got plenty of ’em!” By now the Lab was a bit discouraged with the delay…

Finally, she and her pack moved on. We then learned that Simon did not in fact know her. (We always assume he knows everybody on-island – it’s a pretty small place.) I kept giggling and teasing hubby. We wandered on, plucking fragrant blackberries from the side of the trail, watching dragonflies shimmer in the sun and chatting about anything brought to mind by a lovely late summer day. With so much dark news of late, it is good to feel, for a few moments, that all is right with the world.

Signs have always fascinated me for some weird reason. A few caught my eye around the island.

Around Salt Spring there’s some pretty creative signage, such as this collection greeting vehicles off-loading from the Fulford ferry terminal.

Hiking through Duck Creek Park, we came upon a chair with a sign. Simon, my brother-in-law, assured me that it would not be stolen. So cool.