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Joy and Aliens
Feb. 5th, 2009 08:22 pmMy aunt lives just south of Stanwood, which is a drowsy farm town, in a township called Warm Beach. Apt, because her home is perched on a clifftop above a beach that is indeed warm, shallow enough that even on an overcast day, the water warms up to a tolerable sort of tepidness. So shallow that at low-tide, the mud seems endless, filling shallow Port Susan from here to Camano Island, half a mile or so away. Most days, from up here, the water is only distinguishable from the silvery, reflective mud because one of them moves with the wind and the other does not.
'Up here' is the top of two-hundred-odd feet of sand bluff, made secure by the hardy trees growing up and down it. There's a staircase, two hundred steps and two landings (thoughtfully furnished with benches) that my uncle built, spanning the height of a sixteen-story building, ending in a breakwater of man-sized logs sunk into the beach, and a little storage hut with a clear plexi roof. All the way down there.
At the top, of course, is the house. It's a beautiful place, natural wood inside and out, all unfinished golden cedar. The Western wall is entirely glass, floor to ceiling, looking out over the water, and the few rooms are all tucked against the other wall, under the loft supported by unpeeled logs. Even that was open, when my aunt and uncle bought the place, but they've since divided it into bedrooms for their three children.
Here in the main room, kitchen, dining room, living room all running one into the other, the vast span of glass makes it chilly, but it's worth it. Some nights, the moon is so bright that you can leave the house lights off and read by its blue glow. Right now, I'm staying warm and cozy in the dining room, laptop on the table and feet right on one of the heated stone floor's hotspots, Amber the dog close at hand for additional warm if I need her. Goliath the cat is over in the cozy chair. He likes that chair as much as I do, and I suspect he has something to do with the fact that that is the one place in the house where there is no wireless. Emerald the anole is in her tank, and doesn't care about wireless, chairs, or warm floors whatsoever, but she is adorable.
Going farther from the cliff, there's the rental house, currently inhabited by a pair of women from their church, and under it, Joy's basement. Her larder is there, easily a year's worth of home-canned food, much of it grown in her own gardens. Then there are the chickens, their coop and run. I collect about an egg a day from each bird, a rate which I worry will overflow the fridge here before my two weeks are up. I do not eat nearly as many eggs as my aunt Joy and her family of five.
At the low point of the property, there is a stream running across it, and the horse paddock is just before that. Luna the quarterhorse lives there. I'm not her Personal Person, and she makes sure I know that, whickering at me when I come to feed her morning and night and stomping her feet if I come into her stall without food. She's on a diet, or I would spoil her rotten with apples and sugar-cubes. Alas. When her Personal Person is back, I'll learn how to ride, and maybe we'll become friends.
If circumstances ever warrant it, I'd love to live here, to rent the small house and spend my days out between the country and the sea, where bald eagles roost fifteen feet off the deck and helicopters buzz the windows. Two hundred steps down and up a cliff every fair day would do wonders for my legs, as would long walks on the silent gravel beach below. The drive into town winds through the woods and then stretches out across diked-off farmland...
Which is where I had an alien sighting the other night, now that I think about it. I was nearly to Conway, on my way here from Anacortes, and I was the only car as far as I could see along the unlit road. I'd just come around the sharp turn on Fir Island when I saw a barn ahead of me, to the right of the road, its seams all aglow. As I got closer, slowing my car as I tried to make sense of this phenomenon, I could see beams of light shining out from every door and window, from the ventilation lights in the roof even, lancing into the misty sky like search lights. I tried to peer in as I passed the building itself, expecting a party, a welder, some earthly source of this unearthly glow, but the only thing in there was light. The door to the barn was a portal to a white-blue illumination with no texture, no source, just this pure, blinding light. And then I was past, and my mirrors gave me no answers either.
Also, eee, paper egg.
'Up here' is the top of two-hundred-odd feet of sand bluff, made secure by the hardy trees growing up and down it. There's a staircase, two hundred steps and two landings (thoughtfully furnished with benches) that my uncle built, spanning the height of a sixteen-story building, ending in a breakwater of man-sized logs sunk into the beach, and a little storage hut with a clear plexi roof. All the way down there.
At the top, of course, is the house. It's a beautiful place, natural wood inside and out, all unfinished golden cedar. The Western wall is entirely glass, floor to ceiling, looking out over the water, and the few rooms are all tucked against the other wall, under the loft supported by unpeeled logs. Even that was open, when my aunt and uncle bought the place, but they've since divided it into bedrooms for their three children.
Here in the main room, kitchen, dining room, living room all running one into the other, the vast span of glass makes it chilly, but it's worth it. Some nights, the moon is so bright that you can leave the house lights off and read by its blue glow. Right now, I'm staying warm and cozy in the dining room, laptop on the table and feet right on one of the heated stone floor's hotspots, Amber the dog close at hand for additional warm if I need her. Goliath the cat is over in the cozy chair. He likes that chair as much as I do, and I suspect he has something to do with the fact that that is the one place in the house where there is no wireless. Emerald the anole is in her tank, and doesn't care about wireless, chairs, or warm floors whatsoever, but she is adorable.
Going farther from the cliff, there's the rental house, currently inhabited by a pair of women from their church, and under it, Joy's basement. Her larder is there, easily a year's worth of home-canned food, much of it grown in her own gardens. Then there are the chickens, their coop and run. I collect about an egg a day from each bird, a rate which I worry will overflow the fridge here before my two weeks are up. I do not eat nearly as many eggs as my aunt Joy and her family of five.
At the low point of the property, there is a stream running across it, and the horse paddock is just before that. Luna the quarterhorse lives there. I'm not her Personal Person, and she makes sure I know that, whickering at me when I come to feed her morning and night and stomping her feet if I come into her stall without food. She's on a diet, or I would spoil her rotten with apples and sugar-cubes. Alas. When her Personal Person is back, I'll learn how to ride, and maybe we'll become friends.
If circumstances ever warrant it, I'd love to live here, to rent the small house and spend my days out between the country and the sea, where bald eagles roost fifteen feet off the deck and helicopters buzz the windows. Two hundred steps down and up a cliff every fair day would do wonders for my legs, as would long walks on the silent gravel beach below. The drive into town winds through the woods and then stretches out across diked-off farmland...
Which is where I had an alien sighting the other night, now that I think about it. I was nearly to Conway, on my way here from Anacortes, and I was the only car as far as I could see along the unlit road. I'd just come around the sharp turn on Fir Island when I saw a barn ahead of me, to the right of the road, its seams all aglow. As I got closer, slowing my car as I tried to make sense of this phenomenon, I could see beams of light shining out from every door and window, from the ventilation lights in the roof even, lancing into the misty sky like search lights. I tried to peer in as I passed the building itself, expecting a party, a welder, some earthly source of this unearthly glow, but the only thing in there was light. The door to the barn was a portal to a white-blue illumination with no texture, no source, just this pure, blinding light. And then I was past, and my mirrors gave me no answers either.
Also, eee, paper egg.
