January 18
Living out this version of life has been a constant preoccupation of late—examining which parts of it I would tail along behind me in leaving, a drawn wake, & which parts I would sever sooner than later. Living & working in this same secluded place for this same particular breed of secluded people has already run its course. One minute I dodge xenophobic tirades, the next I am utterly ignored if I happen into the same room when the neighbor comes round for coffee. Thursday afternoon Judy had a blood pressure spike, I learned later, & an ambulance came & they followed it a half an hour later to the hospital in town without a word of parting, walking by me as I stood aside without any explanation. I got a call later presuming that I would be present to care for house & dog for dinner, after which I didn’t hear a word. Until ten the next morning, when they nonchalantly arrived home & set me to pruning salal. One silence might be accounted for by the absence of the next, but not so. I weigh my options, & find the weighing quick.
I have spent a good deal of time in the woods again over the weekend, the sun dappling the sitkas & Douglas firs, the pine-needled soil damp & given to suctioning puddles of thick mud & brown water underfoot. When I am away from here, away from Deer Point, I recall the spark this island gave off in our first month & find it resurrected, its current thrumming still, a fine & ample filament. I remember myself unfettered by the insidious, foreign pulls of being a servant. I know it is pride, that gall rising to my throat. But then I am proud enough. & I am not one to expect anything of the world, to feel the compulsion to outstretch a hand & wear a blacker countenance if I pull it back empty. I am owed nothing. But I will take respect when I have earned it, & its continued absence here has me closer to certain curtains, plotting an alternative. We are, last we spoke, welcome back at Morning Star, & I have an interview this week for another position. I have reasoned that it makes more sense to stay on Orcas & patch together our living until one of us finds a career-oriented position to pursue (though we toy with the idea of ditching it altogether, striking out for Maine). That urge towards stability, though, towards responsibility for ourselves & our futures has arisen strikingly & with a great deal of urgency. Perhaps we’ve done enough of this, between the two of us, our ceaseless roaming, our anchorless ship. I feel the wiser for having lived it & learned its lessons, but I feel ready to get along with my life. The places I have traveled. What beauty & what marvel & what strife & what light we come upon we carry already within.
& so I become a discriminating Orcas resident. I have felt a consistent aching along my back & into my neck of late; I am one to think the body in its metaphors & know I’ve not stood firm or tall enough always. We let ourselves grow little, I think, if we are not careful, if we don’t have people to help us realize it. What I am doing here does no good, & I have come to understand that serving a function beyond myself is a necessary component of my ongoing felicity. & so. Soon I’ll say goodbye Rosario Strait & until we meet again sprawling regenerate field of salal & I’ll remember why it was we moved here in the first. Until then, I inch closer.
I have spent a good deal of time in the woods again over the weekend, the sun dappling the sitkas & Douglas firs, the pine-needled soil damp & given to suctioning puddles of thick mud & brown water underfoot. When I am away from here, away from Deer Point, I recall the spark this island gave off in our first month & find it resurrected, its current thrumming still, a fine & ample filament. I remember myself unfettered by the insidious, foreign pulls of being a servant. I know it is pride, that gall rising to my throat. But then I am proud enough. & I am not one to expect anything of the world, to feel the compulsion to outstretch a hand & wear a blacker countenance if I pull it back empty. I am owed nothing. But I will take respect when I have earned it, & its continued absence here has me closer to certain curtains, plotting an alternative. We are, last we spoke, welcome back at Morning Star, & I have an interview this week for another position. I have reasoned that it makes more sense to stay on Orcas & patch together our living until one of us finds a career-oriented position to pursue (though we toy with the idea of ditching it altogether, striking out for Maine). That urge towards stability, though, towards responsibility for ourselves & our futures has arisen strikingly & with a great deal of urgency. Perhaps we’ve done enough of this, between the two of us, our ceaseless roaming, our anchorless ship. I feel the wiser for having lived it & learned its lessons, but I feel ready to get along with my life. The places I have traveled. What beauty & what marvel & what strife & what light we come upon we carry already within.
& so I become a discriminating Orcas resident. I have felt a consistent aching along my back & into my neck of late; I am one to think the body in its metaphors & know I’ve not stood firm or tall enough always. We let ourselves grow little, I think, if we are not careful, if we don’t have people to help us realize it. What I am doing here does no good, & I have come to understand that serving a function beyond myself is a necessary component of my ongoing felicity. & so. Soon I’ll say goodbye Rosario Strait & until we meet again sprawling regenerate field of salal & I’ll remember why it was we moved here in the first. Until then, I inch closer.
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