Watch Out! There Are Trolls About!

     There were forest trees the size of giants on our vacation out west this year, and the ghosts of mountains haunted our horizons. We flitted between island and mainland on ferry wings, and I ate swordfish for the first time. Swordfish, you know, are the unicorns of the sea.

     So it seemed only natural that I should also visit a troll. This one lives under a bridge in Seattle. Thankfully, he was turned to stone a long time ago and offers no threat to either billy goats or other passersby.

I have fist bumped a Pharaoh before, but never a troll.

     The tats on this fellow are not his by choice. Some narcissistic little trolls who have not yet been turned to stone have been at work here. I saw their work in the mountain forest too, carving their names into trees so that we will never forget that trolls are, above all, despoilers.

Tidelands

     Many of my memories from the first half of my life are framed by salt tides, islands, bridges and ferries. I took all of these things for granted then. Not anymore. My husband and I took a couple of days away from family on our summer vacation to celebrate our anniversary. We sailed from Port Townsend to Whidbey Island on one of the many ferries that link the islands of the Sound to the mainland.

     We drove the length of the island from the bridge at Deception Pass in the north to the southernmost ferry dock in Clinton before sailing to Mukilteo on the mainland.

     Our day spent among the tidelands of the Puget Sound with the ghosts of mountains presiding over the horizon ended in a marina restaurant in Everett where we ate swordfish and watched the sun set over the islands.

Between the Mountain and the Sea

     After our trip to the mountains we went to stay in my sister's beachside cottage. This isn't her cottage, but I think it is the most intriguing house on the lake. Thornewood was constructed from a 500-year-old Elizabethan manor brought in pieces to America 100 years ago. It was featured in Stephen King's movie Rose Red in which my sister performed as an extra.

     On lazy afternoons we sat beside the lake reading, chatting, eating fruit and other toothsome tidbits, and watching the eagles prowl the sky.

     Two evenings near sunset, we took a boat ride around the lake. I like to go fast, feel the wind and the spray in my face and hair until the thumping of the boat jars my bones and reminds me of my age.

     Another evening we hiked through the woods along an old railway line for a picnic beside the bay.

     Sometimes there are seals and Orca whales to see in this bay, but all we saw that evening were trains on the working tracks behind us. I counted the cars in memory of my mother.

She would have been pleased.

A Green and Pleasant Land

     I was born in a green and pleasant land between the mountains and the sea.

     Time and tide have swept me inland to a fruited plain where cornlands break in waves along the western shores of the horizon and the only mountains rise as brick and mortar pinnacles above canyons of business and industry.

     I often hunger for my homeland and when I return, a trip to the mountains stands as high on my list as a visit with friends and family. It is not gentle land up among the peaks of these ancient hills, but steeply fierce and rocky. Above it all, like a frosty old troll squatting over a nest of beaky squabs with its winter hair flowing down its back, around its shoulders and into its lap, looms The Mountain. Of course, the peak itself is illusive and is often cloaked in cloud as it was on the day my husband and I visited last week.

     We stopped at Paradise, a lovely alpine landing between the cold shoulder blades of the peaks, and hiked up into the flowering meadows with the sound of wind and waterfalls breathing in our ears.

Along the way, we met a few of the lodgers.

     After our climb among the creeping clouds and mystic mist, we sheltered among the giants in the forest. As is often the case, there is something about the enormity of creation that makes one feel smaller.

Not Fireworks

     We went for a walk after breakfast. Over the river. Through the woods. The flora was spectacular. Sudden bursts of light and color like fireworks to celebrate the day.

And then we came home again.

Noble Pear

See fruitful days

Fruitful of golden deeds

With joy and love triumphing

~ John Milton ~

     I splurge on fruit in the summer: strawberries in June; ridiculously high-priced Rainier cherries in July; tree-ripened nectarines and peaches whenever I can find them; soft plums for my husband; watermelon or cantaloupe for my live-in daughter; grapes for sudden picnics.

     Not pears. Pears are not a summer fruit. I save them for September to eat with cottage cheese, or baked brie and honey, or sliced into salad greens sprinkled with marigold petals and almonds. But as I pushed my grocery cart quickly past the aisle of citrus and apples, thinking vaguely about blueberries and imported pineapple, this pear caught my eye. This hard, misshapen, aspiring green pear wearing a shriveled brown leaf like a feather in its cap. Beautiful. Irresistible. Perfect in its imperfection.

     I picture it plucked and dumped into a harvest bin in the orchard, jumbled into a cardboard box with a host of its fellows at the packing house, tumbled into a heap at the grocers. How did it manage to arrive still clinging so tenaciously to the fragile regalia of its leaf? 

     Noble pear.  

     At home, I placed it on a throne of nectarines as the crown jewel of my fruit basket. I don't even care if it ripens properly; it is a feast for the eyes and food for the soul.