The Cure: Washington's Islands in JanuaryIt isn't just the body that gets thick and soft after Christmas. My soul starts to feel sludgy. Maybe it is just old fashioned cabin fever. It affects me every year just a few weeks after the lights come down and baby Jesus goes back into the box until next December.
The doldrums can only be swept away with the winds of an island storm. I have a need to take a wild winter ride on one of the Washington State Ferries and walk the rocky beaches of Whidbey or San Juan. In a pinch the sandy beach of Point No Point will cure what ails me. What I desire is the sound of waves and wind.
Winter sea birds, in all their flirtatious glory, assure my old eyes that the year is again new, more than the midnight fire-works that shot from the Space Needle on New Years. The Scoters with their neon beaks are sure to come to one of the sea ponds at Keystone or near the Ferry docks. Harlequins will be in the protected waters of Cattle Point. Pied Grebes will surely be found at Pass Lake. Old acquaintance ner' forgot.
Beef and mushroom soup, whole grain popovers, a glass of deep red, all to warm the little trailer. Shelter for body and soul while experiencing the storm. A game of Skip Bo, we never play at home but enjoy it after dinner with a plate of cheese, seedy flat bread and slices of the last of the pears. Bliss.
One of the joys of an island storm is coming out the next morning and finding damage done to the trees. Our God has never let us, or anyone near us, be hurt by falling limbs. Nor from storm surge that likes to sweep in beyond her boundary. Who doesn't belong so far up past the break water, us or the sea? It is always a tossup.
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