Category Archives: water

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On a rock

And who is this on the rock? We are facing north, on the beach walk from North Beach to Cape George. We are looking across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Vancouver Island.

According to the Cape George website, it’s 6.5 miles from Port Townsend. However, that may be by map or road or as the crow flies. My phone claims that I walked for 5 hours and 47 minutes. I had the location turned off, so it does not include distance.

 

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Cape hike and clay layers

My friend J is here for the weekend. He used to live here. High tide was around 9 yesterday and he invited me on a long beach hike. From North Beach to Cape George and back. J says that this is 10-12 miles round trip.

We park at North Beach and start the hike. The tide was still going out. The beach curves along bluffs that get quite high. These bluffs are a mix of clay and sand and sections collapse. I was walking along North Beach once when it was raining after a dry spell. I hear little trickles of sand and there are small collapses that I can see…. I turned back.

This is a photo of the bluff after a fairly recent big collapse. The chunks of clay and rock and trees go all the way out to the water line. J. has seen a big collapse when hiking and said it was terrifying.

clay-3

The chunks of clay are a dark grey, a lighter gray and an orange color and there they are in the cliff face. We both wish that we had more geology training.

clay-2

The hike was beautiful. My feet complained at me for the last half mile coming back. J. said that he has invited more than 20 people to go with him over the years, and I am the only one who has. I am glad that I didn’t whine. Today I am limping a bit and sore, but it will get better.

A beautiful hike….

 

 

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Morning at Wooden Boat

The Wooden Boat Festival is in September. This is from September 2016, early morning, before the festival is in full swing. I am thinking of selling my father’s sailboat, sigh. Slip fees are rising and medicine is such a mess right now…. let go.

But the festival is a delight each year. This year it will be September 8-10.

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mother, maiden and crone

When Beth is dying in Little Women, she says that it is like the tide going out….. sometimes I miss my sister so much. I am trying to make sense of the third stage, the stage after mother. With my daughter in college, I am living alone for the first time in 28 years. And I don’t have my sister or my mother or my grandmother to accompany me.

I took the title from one of my sister’s essays: An early promotion to crone. Here: http://e2grundoon.blogspot.com/2007/08/early-promotion-to-crone.html

I want to discuss my sister’s essay with her …. I can’t, except in dreams.

mother, maiden and crone

small child in my heart
baby cuddled warm
safe and loved
small girl dancing
sing run shout

woman seen and heard
woman silenced dressed undressed
woman learning searching writing
woman held and loved
woman gravid bearing carrying
woman feeding raising nurturing

crone quiet watching
white haired dismissed old
unseen unknown ignored
laughing playing dancing
crone alone
sing run shout
dancing

music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiP9WH0zN0Y

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Blue and pink too

I went down to the beach last night with my camera, to catch the light from the setting sun on the clouds and walk the beach.

I am realizing that I like my house but I love being outdoors and I love my work and writing and photography and knitting and exercise…. the end result is that organizing the house after 10 years of being a single mom, full time doctor and opening my own clinic, along with my sister’s and father’s deaths…. well, I’d rather be outside than work on the house. If sorting the house takes time, I don’t mind. I want to walk on the beach and see the sunset more than I want to organize….

Come with me…..