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REPLACING SUMMER’S MUSCULAR BUZZ from a neighbor’s power saw, now comes the gentle sigh of wind in tall firs. Instead of goldfinches fluttering at my bird feeder, golden leaves whirl on cooling zephyrs.
From August’s idyll, my island is shifting to idle.
I had a busy summer, guiding visitors who came to my islands from Vermont, Florida, Texas, Alaska, and all over. My gig with Road Scholar, the international tour outfitter offering educational travel for folks 50 and older, took a week of each of my summer months. When I wasn’t wearing my tour-guide vest, I was working my own Skil saw and rebuilding my back porch.
Completing that task, which was on my to-do list for several summers, has been wholly satisfying. Situated halfway down a steep hillside, my cabin is subject to earth creep. Over 25 years soil and massive rocks heeding gravity’s marching orders had submerged the base of my cedar porch. Rot ran rampant. With pick-ax and shovel I unearthed the decayed timbers, shielding their replacement planks with upright cement paver stones to keep the hillside at bay.
When not toiling with tools, I was at my laptop’s keyboard reviewing edits of my friend Neil’s novel, Near the Wild Heart. Lake Union Publishing, an imprint of Amazon, will publish it next February. This spring and summer brought edit after edit, with multiple reviews and proofreads. My one-off role as literary agent morphed into editorial assistant. A triumph this week: delivery in my island mailbox of two advance reader’s copies (Neil got a box of 45!), which include the full-color cover, interior photos, map, author’s note, the works. It’s a thrill to sit and read it like, well, a real book.
Another summer accomplishment: the apparent prospering of the spring-planted aspen sapling next to my writing hut. I watered it faithfully to nurture young roots. It leafed out beautifully, and now that foliage quakes in the breeze and shows the first hints of autumn gold that makes aspens the glory of the Colorado Rockies. Surprisingly to many, aspens do grow naturally in the San Juans. Sucia Island has a big grove.
After partaking of my island’s Labor Day salmon barbecue and meeting new friends at the clubhouse — a sailing family with shiver-me-timbers tales of hurricanes and other salty adventures — I took a couple days off this week, buzzing in WeLike over to Orcas Island to pick up my buddy Tom. We had a fun campout on James Island, a marine state park just 10 minutes from my Center Island dock.
Coming later this month: a family wedding at a honest-to-god castle near Tacoma, for which I ordered a mail-order tuxedo jacket (we’ll see how that turns out). Port Orchard friends Dave and Jill will rendezvous with me in La Conner in October. And today I sat down and booked a November flight to California to spend a few days with Olympia chums Daniel and Jean, who like to spend weeks in Berkeley adoring a young grandson. Along the way, I’ll have a stopover on Seattle’s Magnolia Bluff to see former Seattle Times colleague Carol, her husband, Tom, and our mutual friend Holly. Nurturing friendships is important when you live alone with your cat on a little rock in the Salish Sea.
To everything there is a season, dear Reefers. Which reminds me: Midterm elections are coming this fall. Please make plans to vote. Strategize ahead of time; don’t let anyone stop you. The U.S.A. remains a democracy only as long as we make it so.
