Not a "yes man" for Enys Men — not yet, anyway

Several times a year, I park in a long line of cars in Mukilteo, Washington, and look across the water to the broad green span of Whidbey Island. I have more than thirty years of experience exploring those woods and rocky shorelines, and so, when I glimpse that simple line on the horizon through the fog, memories come to me in waves. Memories of well-traveled trails, overgrown trails, and trails I blazed through the brambles myself. Memories of horned owls and deer and rabbits and mice and otters and harbor seals and sea lions. Memories of hovering kestrels, regal bald eagles, and shadows at dusk that were probably great horned owls. When the ferryboat arrives to take me back there, my adrenaline spikes. Island isolation calls to me whenever the demands of my day-to-day tax me to the point of fatigue. There is something about the anticipation of leaving — really leaving. Not just leaving town, but leaving ground, and stepping into another dimension where the rules are different and I, too, am different.

Then, there is something about the crossing — moving across the visible border, stepping into the ambiguity of the waves and sailing across invisible worlds beyond that dark blue curtain.

And then there is the island — a world simply defined by water on all sides. It is at once a prison and a world in which the limits convey a sort of security: I can know this place, and I know what is possible. The coastlines seem wilder than those in my neighborhood just north Seattle. Madrona trees on the high cliffs above the water lean backward as if in a fierce effort to hold the line, their roots gripping the edges. And the bark of those madronas, such a deep burgundy color, peel back and curl like scrolls, revealing a bright green — newness, vulnerability. Among them, I too feel peeled by the elements, exposed.