Arriving on Whidbey

It is so good to be here.

It’s a discipline to simply go to bed and sleep in the midst of all this beauty. Classmates are so hungry to see one another, I know there is a gathering of people downstairs in this dormitory, or headed to the little cottages up the hill. I will stay up late and talk one of these nights, but not today. I can’t seem to locate myself in time, three hours from my home time zone. East and West seem all wrong today, and I work to orient myself. I can hear the surf outside my window, on a cool spring evening and I could just walk down to the beach… it’s a discipline to simply go to bed. Maybe when a few night’s rest are behind me.

A nine-hour sleep, a delightful conversation with my hostess’ boyfriend, a four-hour drive with fringes of mountains visible. Mexican lunch, Thai dinner, Italian dessert: it's been a day of many graces.

I’m living on a green isle, and the weather is early spring, vivid green. Daffodils and blossoming trees show color, grape hyacinth and English daisies dot the green, green lawns. We walked the beach without coats, tossed Frisbee on the giant green lawn until I was drenched.

My classmates and I greet one another, throw Frisbee or walk and ask, how is your work going? Headlong hugs, hand-shaking greetings, cracking jokes: we warm up to one another again. Our writing exposes so much of our lives, much that is intimate. But we need to learn to talk all over again—or at least I do. My eyes feast on everyone. People tease me that I brought a fold-up Frisbee in my back pocket, that I was tempted to skip lunch in Seattle to visit REI, that I get on my knees and greet each flower I pass in the landscape. They ask what I’m knitting these days (fingerless mitts in hand-dyed pinks and plums, and the same tank I was knitting last summer). They ask how my kids are. I ask, too, about jobs and families and all I can remember.

I spoke for an hour this evening with Luci Shaw, the conversation I've needed to have with her. I'm eager for the next one, too.

The schedule has some hours open tomorrow, and I hope the weather is as lovely as today. There are trails to explore, quiet to hear, woods to see, surf to hear.

But first. That sleep. Now.