I took this week off for a variety of reasons: the Summer is ending and I wanted to catch what’s left; many of my clients take the month off; and the Humptulips County Fair begins this week. For my wife and I, attending the county fair is akin to a religious experience. There will be many farm animals, harvest displays, quilts, homemade foods and flower arrangements, extraordinary appliances and gadgets to admire, and a great deal of bad food to eat willingly and eagerly. There is nothing like a visit to a county fair to celebrate the end of Summer, but we may not make it this year simply because we have found too many other things to do during my week off.
We had no plans to go anywhere specific. Since I work in the city, a week at home can be a true vacation. I can catch up on odd jobs, take day trips, run errands or simply watch the world go by in a place where I ordinarily spend too little time. I live quite a distance from my place of work and, between the commute and the brevity of the daylight hours, I see far too little of the land where my home is located. My home and my place of work are simply worlds apart.
Today it is raining quite steadily at our house – that sort of doggedly determined rain that soaks everything thoroughly while not beating down the plants. The rainfall is soft but relentless, leaving puddles on the tarmac in our driveway that become reflected worlds for me to admire from our kitchen window. The plants seem to be enjoying a good bath and their leaves and needles are glisteningly free of Summer’s accumulated dust. While the grass in our fields is still brown and sere, if the rain lasts more than a day or two, it will shortly become green again. The grass has simply been lying in wait since mid-July for this and future rains.
On Wednesday, we drove into a steaming early morning on our way to Leavenworth, a small town in Eastern Washington just beyond Stevens Pass. Our drive took us up the Snohomish River valley and the fog over the river guided our way. Seen from the ground, the fog is splotchy and intermittent but always hovers near the river’s course. I suspect that from the air the fog would appear inextricably connected to the river. I would love to fly over the valley early some morning to see if my suspicion is true and whether I could detect any patterns to the fog’s sideways creep.
We go to Leavenworth once a year to look around and repeat our often voiced complaint that there are too many trinket shops and too few true artisans, but mostly to enjoy the drive over the Cascade Mountains. Even dry and wary of a spark from any source, the mountains’ forests have a life of their own – foreign enough to make a simple drive seem like a visit to a country abroad. The wind in, and the smell of, the pines combined with bird song and dappled light forcefully remind me of childhood Summers spent in the Blue Mountains of Southeastern Washington. For me, all forests project a sense of wild sanctuary that asserts itself each time I visit, for they are as much places of the human soul as they are a living ecosystem foreign to humanity’s modern ways. I have a strong suspicion that we were once residents of these forests and that, as we continue to build indiscriminately, we are decimating our original home. At least for me, in this time, the forest is still close by and accessible. I can only hope that it remains that way for my grandchildren.
I have spent a good deal of time reading, not in an attempt to lessen the height of my ever growing to-read pile, but for the simple pleasure of the rhythm of well-written passages. A portion of our day trips always includes a visit to a well-loved book store, so the to-read pile’s growth continuously manages to out pace its diminishment through reading. Books are a constant solace to me, and a well-written book draws me into worlds I can never know first hand – worlds closed by time or simply non-existent except in the mind of their creator. I seem to travel a lot from my home, all while never leaving the confines of our beautiful library. This week I have variously been to 12th and 19th Century England, modern Norway and Los Angeles, and am currently resident in Caroline Graham’s fictional Midsomer County. Who knows where I will next go, as not even I yet know which book I will next choose when it is time to do so.
This week, I have found myself struggling with the question of retirement – it’s timing and the manner of its enjoyment. Much of my imaginings about retirement center around my home and how I may enjoy it more often than I currently do with the reduced capacity that comes with age. Weeks like this past one only make me think that retirement should come sooner than later. The land of which I am privileged to hold the current stewardship will remain the same while my ability to husband it carefully will only diminish with time’s passage. Perhaps the time for me to give the land more of my attention is nearer than I would have imagined at the beginning of my home-bound vacation.
