By Jane Valencia Download a pdf of the poem set to music Years ago, in the dark of the year, a friend shared with me a dream she’d had. I quickly forgot the nature of her dream, but a phrase she spoke sparked my imagination: “Take, for what is given.” I set to work on…
By Suzanna Leigh “This t-shirt says ‘Nordland General Store’ on it,”R says as he folds the laundry (I wash, he folds). “I don’t recognize it.” “It’s mine,” I say – and I am flooded with memories. Bob and I went aground on our boat Sea Change, on the way to Nordland. Nordland is a community…
By Jane Valencia Michaelmas – the Christian Feast Day of St. Michael the Archangel – is celebrated on September 29th. But I recently learned that this feast day was once celebrated on October 10th or 11th, and that “Old Michaelmas,” at least in Britain, also commemorated the day that Satan was cast out of heaven….
By Marc J. Elzenbeck “All creatures great and small,All things bright and beautiful;All things wise and wonderful,The Lord God made them all.” Sipping a second cup of coffee at around 10:00 a.m., the phone rang. The caller said, “So, your cow. She wrecked my truck.” Stronger words may have been used. Bottom line, our girl…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman When Seán and I talked about this story, the original intent was to reflect our adventures in sailing various boats. Things got out of hand in that Seán had his own darn good story to tell. His boat was a wooden rig ketch of indeterminate age powered by some…
By Marc J. Elzenbeck It’s true that when you travelyou’re never free of Woody Allen.Every sidewalk artist knows himand four score more sketchable actorswho’ll ambush you from here to Thailandicons of the monoculture from which we come. Such harbingers. It reminds me how the prophetssaid the ends of earth express a single sum.Some foretell of…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman We drank water out of hoses, ate dirt and raw oysters, and fell down steep cliffs. We had other dangerous hobbies, such as climbing the nearly vertical clay bank down at the beach or paddling logs out to the middle of Colvos Passage to wait for a freighter and…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman Seán and I spent several decades in Ferry County and had a number of adventures, some of which we can tell now that time has passed. The county is not the largest of the 39 counties of Washington state, but is the most remote, and like Vashon, is basically…
By Suzanna Leigh Rich and Suzanna on Eli-Oh My beloved and I had a “Qufi” wedding; I am a Quaker and Rich is a Sufi, so we combined traditions. We were married on the solstice, on the beach at Lincoln Park in Seattle, where friends from Seattle could find us easily, and friends from Vashon…