Unbeknowst, I am an islander.

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A damp week, full of movement, leaving me surprised, satisfied, yet fairly dulled down.
Apparently, a common effect of leaving the city and walking into the middle of nowhere on an Island makes one sleepy. And sleep I have. In fact, I've been sleeping quite deeply every night at my newest hosts' home, Al and Carol. Residents of Lopez Island for 30 years.
Preceding my ferry ride from Northern Washington to Lopez Island, I spent 4 days migrating from San Jose to Olympia once more, then a pit stop in Seattle where I met one of the coordinators of Lopez Community Land Trust. We ventured to the ferry, missing our target ship, and arriving onboard after dark. The darkness stole away possibly the most curious part of the whole trip: spending an hour leaving land, and slowly arriving to a green woodland of an isle.
Winding my way mysteriously through the foggy (apparently deer ridden) road home, I was dropped off on Carol's birthday so I met her family quickly. I hadn't much of a present but two Turkish dates for the old couple, and was warmly welcomed to their beautifully crafted timber house. Wood is the main theme, from the furnace, to my ceiling, to the little knotted hole in my floor that lends me a bare glance to the bedroom below me. The creaking sounds of the house are majestic, and often overshadowed by Carol, who is a particularly busy woman often on the phone(either organizing the new local radio station for Lopez, or directing a rehearsal of Fiddler on the Roof). Al her husband, is a retired worker for the school district, and has got a distinctly subtle sense of humor, that starts me giggling far after he makes a crack.

Onto my so called 'internship' for the land trust, I become a skill-less homebuilder with a tool belt, gladly taking any instructions that come my way; supervision is a must. We(some real carpenters and I) are building a small rental unit and office conjoined into one building that will soon have straw bales to support it.. I've only worked one day so far, and must actually be up early tomorrow morning to figure out the next step.

A beautiful area is my intuition but the weather has been making it quite definitely a tough jig to pull out a camera to.

See you on the Island.

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