Off We Go!

Well, Kumatriel and I are off for a four-day jaunt to play and teach.

The travel requirements for a trip to Friday Harbor are truly strange. Even though we can actually see Port Townsend from our final destination on San Juan Island (the lovely Olympic Lights B&B owned by our dear ones, Christian and Lea Andrade -- which we highly recommend, BTW) -- it takes all day to get from here to there via an often-rocky ferry ride over the Strait of San Juan De Fuca, a drive up Whidbey Island across Deception Pass, another one and a-half hour ferry ride up the Puget Sound, and a short drive to the Andrade manse.

Then, of course, there is the challenge of packing. I rarely travel light, even when I'm not going to teach (if we're teaching, add a 40 lb bag of crystals, candles, and invocations). For some reason, I remain convinced that if I am traveling, I will need art supplies, guitar, computer, three books to read, my Hebrew notebook and primer, and a partridge in a pear tree -- just in case.

Consistently, during my visits to place outside PT -- I don't even open the bag that these accoutrements are in. But hey -- I've got them in case I undergo a complete personality shift overnight. It could happen.

Saturday is my beloved's birthday. Three years ago, we travelled to Friday Harbor to teach on her birthday as well. The ocean offered up nativity-anniversary greetings to her as we crossed the strait -- it was a sunny, cold, and windy day, and the little ferry rocked through the big waves, which threw up sprays of rainbow every few moments.

Even on a calm day, that particular crossing is a bit rough. In a wind, people stagger down the outside decks like drunks. But it is rare that I don't venture out when crossing to Whidbey, even in a storm. The Olympic mountains tower all around, and as Port Townsend fades into the distance, I feel a renewed sense of softness toward my home-town. It looks delicate and tiny from here, and I always greet the site of it, on my return trip, with a sense of dewey-eyed relief.

May I just say here that I adore Port Townsend?

I had something like this feeling when I moved to Portland. I loved Portland's quirky interfaces, it's body bi-sected by rivers and bridges, and the mix of city/town that it had.

But I never felt that I was truly home until I moved to PT. Within a month of moving here, I had the certain sense that I would never leave this place. Indeed, if I did not have a vocation that sometimes called me out to teach, and a vet that is 40 miles away, I wonder if I would leave town at all.

But this week, I am wandering away. I may find time to blog from the road -- I'm hoping I might be able to. If not, I'll be back to report on the travels upon my return.

If you Port Townsenders think of it while I'm gone, give our little town a good-night kiss for me every night between now and Sunday.