Our little family has recently taken a bit of a leap. A new job for hubby has lead us away from our life in the desert and taken us to the beautiful Puget Sound area. We could have planted ourselves on the mainland side around Seattle, but the country bumpkins in us wanted land...not much mind you...but enough for gardening, some small animal raising and a place for my little boys to run wild. So we jumped feet first into an island life and a cozy singled home on over an acre. Instead of dry sand blowing into my home from the hills of tumbleweeds, it's now being carried in on the feet of my boys from the beach.... yes the beach that is now in walking distance from our cozy home. A dream come true for me.
I grew up over here in the rain, spent childhoods on these beaches and on the water in my parents sailboat. I'm enough Irish and English to relish the gray and the wet, the green it brings. There is family history here for me, my Grandmother is a elder and chairwoman of a Washington tribe, a people of canoe and potlatch. A part of me is dancing and yelling "I'm home".. Life here makes me think of this poem.
If Once You Have Slept on an Island by Rachel Field
If once you have slept on an island
You’ll never be quite the same;
You may look as you looked the day before
And go by the same old name,
You may bustle about in street and shop
You may sit at home and sew,
But you’ll see blue water and wheeling gulls
Wherever your feet may go.
You may chat with the neighbors of this and that
And close to your fire keep,
But you’ll hear ship whistle and lighthouse bell
And tides beat through your sleep.
Oh! you won’t know why and you can’t say how
Such a change upon you came,
But once you have slept on an island,
You’ll never be quite the same.
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