Late Summer Sunset

I'm borrowing a page out of Masked Mom's book tonight and posting something from the notebook. Not literally, this is from my book. I wrote this about two years ago for a friend of mine who was having trouble seeing with the right kind of eyes. 

August 16, 2010

Sunset in the late summer here is like no other place I've been. I lived some places that could conjure some pretty amazing sunsets. The soft, greenish-red of Vermont; the dazzling, glittery high-tech of Hong Kong. I've watched the sun set on four different continents, dozens of countries, countless cities. But here... here it's different. Here, it feels like home.

A clear, sunny day has its own color. The way a cloudless summer sky blue reflects the green of our urban spaces surrounded by mighty trees gives way to the violet mountains, the baby powder volcano, the liquid indigo of sound and lakes and sea. This cool palette is a constant reminder of elements, greater forces at work. It makes our efforts in sticks and bricks and glass seem like childish play.

The mountains recline while the trees whisper and the water giggles and they toss the sunlight around. Allowing us, for now, to sit nestled in their laps and play at technology, progress, before they choose to wipe us clean. I like the feeling of living in borrowed space. The wanderer in me feels at home in a city whose very nature feels transient. I haven't felt this welcome since I lived in pre-1997 Hong Kong.

One of my favorite times of day is when the sun decides to call it a day, pack up and go home for the night. To go put up its feet for a while in Asia while we cool off. It's not the gentle slipping from the sky, the polite and lingering egress I've seen in other places. It's like it suddenly realizes it's been at this party too long - suddenly glances at its watch and realizes "It's nine-o-clock! I should have left hours ago!" and vaults for the Olympics, turning once to flash a dazzling smile across the Sound and it's gone. You're left standing there with your cooling cup of coffee in the rapidly cooling air, feeling the full force and impact of dangling off the northwestern-most corner of the continental United States.

But there are those few minutes... the brief moments between the slight shifts in the light. Like when a momentary hush falls over the party and you sense it is time to go. That few minutes before the sun hops over the mountains that its sleepy light dims a bit and crackles, sending a shower of golden sparkles to settle over all those blues and greens like the iridescence of a peacock's feather. It's a beauty almost too much to take in.

If you look with the right kind of eyes, it's a cad's apology meant just for you. "Hey, sorry about all those days I was supposed to show and didn't. If I could hold you in this light just a little longer, I would. But I gotta run. You understand. Listen, I'll be back soon. Not sure when, but I promise, next time I'm through this way, maybe I'll stop by."

And just like that, before you can protest, give it one last kiss, it hops over the mountains. And before you get the chance to protest or be hurt or question its fidelity, it gives you that wink and special grin over its shoulder, bathing you in its glow. A special light just for you and it's gone.

Discovery Park

The winter had been mild, but brutal for reasons other than the weather. Seemingly for months on end, stuck indoors with first one illness and then another, circling our family like greedy, mucus-laden vultures. It shook me to the center. Made me question my beliefs about myself, my health, my children's health, my parenting prowess. I declared "Enough!" and bundled little bodies, sore with remnants of our latest bout. I stuffed my pockets with tissues, healthy snacks, a camera and a map and heaved us out the door in search of a cure.


The city is hemmed by natural vastness on both sides. The Cascades to the East, the Sound and Olympics to the West. Abundant forests, lakes, foothills, volcanoes surround us. Hulking, shimmering there, patiently allowing our farce of human progress until they decide to reclaim the land. It is this constant visage of the absolute enormity of nature while still having access to good schools, flushing toilets, cultural events and decent shopping that I love about my most recent home.


The kids were antsy as we wound a new direction through a residential area. They'd never been this way before, had I? How did I know where we were going? Was I sure we weren't lost? 
"Trust me, please, to be the Mama."
Their questions were literal, but the low boil of irritation they ignited spoke to my own set of questions on an entirely different level. How did they grasp that so naturally? Or is it just my inner critic speaking?
"No, honey, I've never been this way before."

The shadow of doubt infected our space, in spite of my reassurances. The oddly flat, well-manicured mid-century subdivision through which we were driving didn't seem like the wildness I was seeking. Slowing for speed bumps and watching for my cue, I think I held my breath a bit. Slowly, slowly, then - aha. There it was, my talisman: the small, slightly dated-looking, rainbow striped sign of a city park. With a triumphant flip of  the blinker and a tap on the brakes, I felt more vindicated than I should have. I was right. I did know the way. With that slight course adjustment, we left the landscape of tidy yards and ramblers for our personal frontier.


Over lunch we spotted a white rabbit, startling against the green underbrush. It stopped and watched us watching it before cocking its head and leaping off into the deeper forest. It seemed as good a sign as any that it was time to begin our descent to the beach.


The path was worn and well-marked and the kids enjoyed the freedom to dance or run or meander at their own paces. Stopping to inspect: witch's butter here, moss formations there, rocks, bugs, the first brave flower buds of late winter.


Across the meadow to the bluffs - the first lookout point to the Sound. I think it was then that they finally started to believe me that we were going the right way. Impatience, urgency - "There it is! I can see the beach! Let's go straight!" The futility of explaining that what felt like walking away was really the best way to go.

I watched their little legs and feet making their way down the steep and knobbly forest trail. Each step so much effort, distances so much further for them than for me. These two little forest creatures, gamely heading the direction I pointed them. Setting aside their doubts and plunging deeper into the evergreen glow of sunlight filtered through clouds filtered through cedars.


We rounded a bend as the cedars gave way to deciduous trees not yet in leaf. We three stopped to catch our breath and mine caught me. Unfolding before us, the wind and salt bleached trees, with bare limbs held high. Clothed in white, a crowd of supplicants, arms lifted in praise, frozen there in their dance down the hill to be baptized by sun and sand and sea. We took up their dance for them; eagerly, trippingly, breathlessly down the rest of the trail. At once blinded and inspired by the occasional flashing glimpse through the limbs as the ripples on the Sound grasped a little sunlight and tossed its sparkle up to us. In good faith we clamored through the last tangle of vines that completely obscured our goal until bursting, tumbling, gasping like birth onto the sand. 


Off they ran to dig, to hunt, to discover, to revel. The brilliance of the sudden afternoon sun was matched only by the shining, dancing, aching pleasure in my children's chilly, wind-kissed faces.
"Thank you, Mama! We made it!"