The Sound and The Fury

… And The Salmon (because she does it by tempting my tastebuds at every turn).

It took some time.  It took about a week- maybe a little more- of absorbing, of realizing, of making amends.

When I moved to New England for the first time- when I was, what? 21?- I realized that I was a mountain girl.  There was nothing so soothing to my soul as the sight of land in motion- mountains raising out of the earth, caressing the sky, stopping time.  The mountains feel like a gift to me.  They feel like a part of my soul given back to me after a long absence.  They feel like completion.

And I am now again in a place of mountains- of mountains and earth and sky and time.

But I am also, now, in a place of water.

And the water, the sea, the violent commotion of rain, hail and fog has made herself known to me.  She has recalled herself to me.

For a long time I was an ocean girl, like my mother and her father before her.  I loved the liquid expanse that faded eventually into the horizon- literally.  The sea becomes the sky becomes the same thing.  I grew up taking trips to the beach, swimming, sunning, building sandcastles and baking 'sand'wiches.

The mountains have my heart but the sea has my history.

And here, here the sea is constantly reminding me of that.  She does it in ferocious ways, in the rollicking wakes of boats, in the rolling waves that hit against the side of our building.  She does it in her raining, her hailing, her furious noise-making which rattles our windows and pounds against the skylights.  She does it by her fury.

She does it in gentility, too.  She does it in the purple-pink-lavender of the sunset that I am right now watching.  She does it in the shadows that play on our dining-room wall- the one that faces the open balcony doors- the light and shadows reflected in soft ripples against the harbor water.  She does it by her sound.

The sea is reminding me of herself.

And so far, I am okay with her.

It's a tenuous moment we are having, a tenuous reintroduction.  But she is so much in this place that I cannot ignore her any more than I can ignore the scent of salt water and cool air.

Until next time, Dearests…

Good Morning

I spent some time, this morning, laying in bed and absorbing my room- the one in my parents house where I retreat to when I am off-season or ailing.   It is the room that is cluttered with books, kitsch, photographs, prints and paintings.  It is the room that proved to be a sanctuary over the twenty or so years that in which I have inhabited it- off and on.  The outside reflection of the inside me.

The room from my childhood (actually I had to trade rooms with my brother at some point in the distant past) has cool lilac colored walls and only one window so the mornings are generally a gentle greeting to the day.  This morning was no different, even Henry seemed slightly gentler when he hopped onto the bed for his morning snuggles.  I pet him, stared out the window, and watch the gold spring sunshine begin to creep up the wall, through the shades.

I got a bit misty eyed- but there's really too much to do today to dwell on that.

This morning will be the last of the 'lazy' ones in that room, in that bed- where I can enjoy that view, that parade of light and wonder, only half awake with a puppy tucked in beside me.

Tomorrow will be my last in general in that room and that bed.  At least for a little while, until I either return auspiciously or get the boot out of Norway.

Until then...

I need to pack.

:)