The wind is storming out of the south east, symptom of a classic “pineapple express,” a line up of low fronts back to Hawaii pulled by a fierce jet stream right over the top of the Olympics to us.Warm rain will fall in copious amounts and the heavy winds will knock down some tree that’s been standing in the same place for two-hundred years, all that remains of an ancient stand of fir cleared before the housing development went in.
Blows like this came again and again in what locals called a dry winter. I was just getting started with the pain and pills and anxiousness. Looking back on it, during one of the wettest seasons in history, its great to remember the bouts of sunshine, that bright light pushing through the clouds, a brilliant blue sky above the gray-green, white-capped water, walks in the soggy woods. Now, off the island on a spreading river delta full of tulips, the water rises in the plowed and planted fields, as it always does in this levy-lined country, before drying away . And the sun’s shining on the little town (Hint: Tom Robbins lives just a few blocks away!) where we live a short walk from a channel lined with Swinomish fishing boats and pleasure crafts…March, 2015, 2016
