I Didn't, and I'm Glad

It's a Damn Fine Thing Everything Changes

I missed you last week.

Arriving at Cape Alava at sunset. Hoh Rainforest, Olympic National Park, Washington, US. October 6, 2023.

I was in good company. The tracks of at least three cone-nosed black bears crisscrossed the beach and primitive path through old-growth forest where my siblings and I walked. In the saffron glow of late afternoon, a smallish one, maybe 250 pounds, navigated driftwood logs in our direction before melting into the tree line when our gazes met. A trio of deer, two of them fawns, ate hungrily at our camp. At dawn, whales (or maybe orcas) glided just below the surface, their satin backs like long charcoal commas sliding above the pewter just there … and then over there, see it?, between the small outcropping and the island … and again, further out to sea now.

I thought, on a high bluff when our phones buzzed momentary connection, of sending a quick missive your way. But a convention of seabirds below caught my eye, no-nonsense pelicans dispersed in a steady pattern among the smaller waders and shorebirds below.¹ A bald eagle soared to the tip of a pine. On the other side of the bluff, an egret, ancient like a dinosaur or an old master, tai-chi’d on a craggy rock, unfazed as the rock disappeared into the rising tide.

Stuffing my old pack and traversing with my home on my back for the first time in a few years felt good. So, too, being with family and letting go entirely, for a spell, how cruel and complicated the world can be. Thrice (at least), I laughed so hard I peed a little (my youngest brother seemed overly concerned). I made a butt-prominent video to send for a friend’s fortieth birthday compilation. We skipped rocks on a lake my siblings recalled with fondness. And I was reminded of what I missed being the oldest of six—and ducking out early at that. How paths diverge, and we’re forever losing something and gaining something else.

Back home in the van, I thumbed through my old notebooks and found what I’ll call a prose poem.

Lying with my cheek on the grass watching lightning

My hair dances up against my nose, showing off for my eyes, riding the Mary Poppins wind.

Lines like the trails of snakes ess through the coal-black silt, whatever made them much heavier than the cat that left its own prints.

I’d be willing to bet that fairy baby pillows are stuffed with the tufts of dandelions harvested one or two days before they’re prime for wishing.

The entry is flanked by divergence. On one side, a sudden realization about a lover.

It took New York

It took New York for me to realize it’s the proverbial bull doing cartwheels through china, knocking people around like so many hourglass-shaped pins—that part of you that doesn’t work for me. It’s the woman in geisha paint jacking off in the sun on a crowded Chinatown street, body fleshy, face yearning for relief and how you jeered, whispering a slur you thought was the enlightened version. It’s the squid and bean curd, salty and slippery in my mouth, that you refused to sample. It’s the Jersey shoreline winking ripples across the Hudson like a Thelonius rift you were too bored to walk to see.

I took my red dress off in the bathroom, and you were asleep before I came out, a cartoon on the television. I turned it off and listened to the city’s song, the rev of engines, the distant horns, the glassy ring of a distant cabbie’s brakes. In the blue light that slipped through the slatted blinds, your gentle snoring joined the melody.

On the other side of “It took New York” was a piece on faith. It was penned on a family trip. Over the car’s sound system the recording of a talk, “Knowledge of God,” played (one of a handful of addresses by the men who guide my parents’ religion from a pulpit in Salt Lake City at a biannual conference). In my headphones, Ray Charles crooned “Crazy Love.” On the page, I found the brand of faith that suited me—in the comfort of knowing there are no absolutes and the solace of cool grass on my cheek.²

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I’d love to know from you

• When did you suddenly or gradually realize something or some relationship didn’t suit you?

• What’s your favorite seeing an animal story?

• What’s your top way to get away from it all?

• Do you pee a little when you laugh “too hard?”

Also,

Writers at Work with Sarah Fay

has a super cool chat in which writers here help each other craft headlines. There were some brilliant suggestions for this essay. I wanted to use all of them! Vote for your fav, and I’ll change it after the fact just for fun:

A coral mushroom on a primitive path between Sand Point beach and Lake Ozette.

Cape Alava.

1. I’ll be damned if I didn’t spot pied-billed grebes among them!

2. I’ll rework the whole of “Crazy Love” (or “Knowledge of God” or, better yet, whatever the headline collaborators come up with) and post it as an essay of its own.