The Seattle rainy season typically extends through the fourth of July. What most people name Independence Day we call the first day of summer. However, by this past July, a raindrop hadn’t landed on my yard in over a month and daytime temperatures remained around eighty. Summer to most, but an outright heatwave for Pacific [...]
It is my second year at a writing retreat on Harvester Island off the west coast of Kodiak, AK. The island hosts a working fish camp, a seasonal home to the Fields family, and is known to Leslie’s readers as “The Island of Grace.” Getting to this bump of a rock is half the [...]
It’s another hustle-bustle workday morning. I’m waiting at the Link Lightrail train station for my thirty-five minute commute to downtown Seattle. Stacked in lines, passengers' eyes and ears are plugged into i-Pods-Pads-Phones. The wait is brief, but drudgery is worn on their faces. Mine probably looks a little weary, too. Isn’t there more goodness in the [...]
I stand knee deep in hip waders in a wetland pond. I’m surrounded by native sedges and rushes, and willows chewed by beavers. Pacific chorus frogs jump from floating logs. Mallards swim in a cluster and dabble on aquatic plants. King fishers and violet green swallows bob and weave. Life is abuzz in this restored [...]
It’s a work day at Boise Creek on the White River, in Enumclaw, WA. My workmate Josh and I are here to prep for an upcoming restoration project. A van pulls up with a corrections crew, all wearing orange vests. They’re clearing the road right-of-way with weed whackers. I study my own thoughts. What [...]
