Island Moments

Orcas Island: light reflecting on water at every turn, spring winds tousling small boy hair,  copious clouds and the occasional ray of gorgeous sunshine. Rocky beaches bestowing upon us a world of infinite treasures, if only we stop to notice them. We rise at 7am because the six year old is up, and watch the sun crest over the evergreens, the gorgeous Sound glittering in the morning light from our secret cabin in the woods. We would have missed this if we were still sleeping.

One thousand piece puzzles on a floating ferry boat, and one hundred eleven pages read of a weighty Pulitzer Prize winning novel; a five mile hike in the woods, which seems more ordinary than extraordinary this week. Beaches overflowing with gun sticks and sword sticks and cannon sticks and fishing sticks, all of which absolutely, positively, have to come home with us, mommy. (You should see his arsenal.) A hand-crafted teeter-totter, seventeen deer (including sweet spring fawns, more cautious than their mothers), and scoops of vanilla ice cream with a side of spring lilacs. Piecing together an impromptu eighth birthday celebration for our king of adventure and practicing downward dog with an eleven year old Golden on our last day, before burning off morning pancakes in a wide, open field.

Every day feels like Sunday, with a constant push to tune in to what matters in the here and now. A reminder that so often, the destination isn’t the point. It’s the letting go and the diving deep into a world where time matters not and imagination is king. These, they are the days that will not escape me.

“What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.” -Walt Whitman