A Small Tale
on ferry rides and mainlands
A. and I took off to the mountains last week. The ride over to the mainland was bright and blue. I could see Mt. Entrance from the boat, its two lumpy bald patches like boobs erupting from the sea (which is exactly what they are called by the local queers).
The day before, a friend and I had stood on top, looked down on the island—we saw Oprah’s trainer’s house, the private white sand beach, the hills behind my house, the gulf islands. What the hell! I thought. And my friend played the melodica while we bathed like lizards.
But the ride to the mainland was blue. And when we drove off the ferry, into the world, (there are traffic lights and billboards and targets and hospitals and food chains in the real world!), it hailed and poured and some peeved-off clouds followed us to Wenatchee until, finally, it was blue again and the mountains were all balsamroot and lupine.
On the second night, in an un-serviced campground, where it is still in the 30s at night, I woke up to a strange noise. It sounded like someone bouncing a ball outside our tent. At first, I thought it was A.’s heartbeat and then I thought it was my heart, malfunctioning, and then, like a typical person with anxiety, I thought Oh shit this has got to be some kind of attacker’s signature sound or an animal stalking me. I woke A. up because, if you’re about to be murdered, it’s good to have an extra set of arms and legs. I took my phone out from underneath my pillow and searched: ball bouncing in the woods. Turns out the noise is a bird, the ruffed grouse beating its wings, a mating call. Once I knew what it could be, I unzipped the tent and turned on my flashlight. Nothing I could see. I fell back asleep, surrendered to what I didn’t know, and hoped it to be a bird.
…
The island is healing me, in ways. The town I grew up in was a bubble—small, conservative, stale, gray. But what is more bubble-like than a little island? So here I am, again, bubbled. In this bubble, the people are weirdos. They are queers and farmers and anti-capitalists, like an entire herd of freaks. It is a different kind of bubble than the one I grew up in. I like to see that this kind can exist; and with gratitude for the place I come from and will go to again, again, watching its changes like a tiny thing I am, just on the side now. Just on the side, wherever I go. Aren’t we all?
Right after I had moved out west, I wrote on a sticky note, “Maybe I’ll return to Michigan, where the pines are smaller, and the boys will be wearing their flowered crowns and trench coats.” I return and I see.
Anyway. It’s in the 60°s today, the sun shines, school is out, the children are all gathered at the library now—the hang-out place. The sheep are grazing. I might go sit on my front balcony and eat some strawberry ice cream and watch the sheep with binoculars. A. made it, the ice cream. I’ll try to save them some. Thank you for reading and supporting me, for being a friend or a stranger or whoever you are.
From the mountains,
over the pass,
Jolie
