Saturday, September 15, 2007
Twilight in the Land of the Ending Sunny Summer People
Quiet has returned to Pend Oreille County.
The change is sudden. The immediate transformation is both harsh and chilling. Like a magic spell, a flick of the illuminating wand and poof! once Labor Day fades, this amazing place is turned all ghost-like. I look down on the river and the absence of 10,000 jet skiers, motor boats and tents pitched on the islands, is surreal. The hush loud, the stars brighter now that everyone has left, the open spaces so vast, it numbs the senses. Echos of silence overwhelm any memory of summer’s former loud crush of visitors.
During the summer, those of us who live here all year long struggle to adapt to the onslaught of so many visitors. We’ve known for a long time that this is a gateway to getting away from it all. Or at least it used to be.
But these days Americans do not sit back and just relax. We race to recreate. It’s all about bigger and faster as we cram our vacations into force fed week long intervals of advance bling. We export the insanity of our everyday lives via IPOD and IPhone and Blackberry right into our remote vacations. Even when we are claiming to escape our information saturated lives, we refuse to be unentertained. We load our SUV back seats with DVD players, CDs and Notebook computers. We hypnotise ourselves into accelerated oblivion, racing to keep from being saddled with the trivial notion of looking out the window, absorbing or even acknowledging the passing wonderment of the journey. These days, it’s all about the destination. And in the act of getting away from it all, we bring it all with us.
So on this mid September night, up here on the deserted highline, the sudden lack of insanity doesn’t seem real. But I can attest that very very quiet it is. “Here” is sparsely populated again. One doesn’t wait an hour to get a sloppily made Big Mac at the Newport McDonalds. Gone are the BMWs and Mercedes and massive motor coaches with quad tip outs pulling cigar boats and four wheelers and SUVs. The lone grocery store, or at least the lone “real” grocery store, our beloved SAFEWAY, no longer looks like all those LA freeways at rush hour. There aren’t fifty million campers, travel trailers, and SUVs, all of them pulling boats piled with brightly colored tubes and $1,000 waterskies, all of them packed with screaming kids-and all of them fighting for the same, way-too-narrow parking spot. No more Texas, California, Arizona and New York Plates. The hold outs, the people still here, are once again adapting to plenty of unclaimed space.
It’s disconcerting.
That this change has come as a sort of shock, well who am I kidding? Denial is my middle name. IT isn’t just that the days are getting shorter and that summer seems a massive blur, but rather it’s also the looming loneliness of winter and these deserted small town streets that linger on. Part of me admits that the abrupt change is refreshing. Part of me misses the chaos. The rest of me stands on guard, unsettled, and wary.
Especially knowing that this year I somehow succumbed to a summer spent on the run. The building of the house became all consuming and more than a few things went wrong and more than a few things went very right. One day became another and then somehow it seems I woke up from February and it was late September.
So as I sit here thinking about change and the seasons and knowing that this year’s summer light is already fading into that golden tone that always marks autumn, I stand alerted that so many things I treasure fell by the wayside. Has time really speed up? Have 2 or 3 seasons just whizzed-banged by without proper acknowledgement? The details, the who-what-where-when and why, the lessons relating to all that change escaped me. Reluctantly, I can only note transition happened- just as I must acknowledge other realities. The humming birds are gone. The deer are gaining winter coats. The fawns are losing their spots. The coyote’s howls come earlier each night.
I keep thinking about the pace of my life, and that I need the silence of the Selkirks, but then again I am afraid of too much quiet. I crave isolation. Yet I savor belonging and community. These conflicted thoughts always seem at war, just as they’ve always been from the time I was a kid stuck living miles out of town, to the lonely years spent trucking, to my current 140 miles-a-day commuting realities.
Today as I watered my parched trees, I heard the sound of air being forced aside by the outstretched wings of a massive bald eagle. His shadow overtook mine before my ears acknowledged the unusual rush of wind. I looked up startled as that same eagle looked down at me. For a few minutes he soared, circling above me. I watched spellbound. It was as if he was equally unsettled and didn’t know where to go. Should the mighty predator stay close to the land, and all that it brings forth, or ride the wind and embrace space and perspective?
Soon enough updrafts took him high above me until I could barely follow his flight. Remaining motionless, I traced his path until I lost his image somewhere over Saddle Mountain.
Finally stillness. That I was aware enough to witness such an incredible stirring of air and wing forced this awakening. Something had been dormant over the summer. Something had gone missing. We writers aren’t supposed to get lost in the hoople-headed pursuits of normal chaos-or at least that’s the expectation the world keeps setting for us. We like to think we are uniquely born to take note. We are admirers of the cursive written progress marked by the wings of eagles. We believe we know the reasons for the shrill chirps of osprey. We affirm that we are meant to converse with the wind and disdain the scorching heat. We alone should document all of June and July and August.
But I did not find that stillness until now. I too have been under the spell of all the commotion lent to us in Pend Oreille Country by these seasonal eternal visitors. These bearers of diversions, delicacies and delights, they do not see the irony of what they’ve created and the madness they escalate. These frantic escapers of their complex lives offer sweet economic poison in return for overwhelming our sense of who we are. They distract us with distractions during the summer season.
That they are gone now is something I can embrace. That the words are finally flowing again is reassuring. That the soft song of these mountains is audible again, is a melody I’ve missed. Even though the sun leaves us earlier each evening now, the glow of the day remains. Summer is vanishing right before our eyes, replaced by a fall chill that overtakes each day degree by degree. Rain is finally in the forecast. Which we know from experience will soon be followed by snow.
I can live with this transition. Change is on the march, defining old and new boundaries with ever lengthening shadows. Even here, on a deserted Saturday night, in a quiet McDonalds, I feel that rhythm. I sit guarded by these solitary golden arches, knowing that tomorrow will take its proper place deep in this mountain valley. It’s the last twilight of summer. Yet the glow of what lies ahead is only just beginning.
The change is sudden. The immediate transformation is both harsh and chilling. Like a magic spell, a flick of the illuminating wand and poof! once Labor Day fades, this amazing place is turned all ghost-like. I look down on the river and the absence of 10,000 jet skiers, motor boats and tents pitched on the islands, is surreal. The hush loud, the stars brighter now that everyone has left, the open spaces so vast, it numbs the senses. Echos of silence overwhelm any memory of summer’s former loud crush of visitors.
During the summer, those of us who live here all year long struggle to adapt to the onslaught of so many visitors. We’ve known for a long time that this is a gateway to getting away from it all. Or at least it used to be.
But these days Americans do not sit back and just relax. We race to recreate. It’s all about bigger and faster as we cram our vacations into force fed week long intervals of advance bling. We export the insanity of our everyday lives via IPOD and IPhone and Blackberry right into our remote vacations. Even when we are claiming to escape our information saturated lives, we refuse to be unentertained. We load our SUV back seats with DVD players, CDs and Notebook computers. We hypnotise ourselves into accelerated oblivion, racing to keep from being saddled with the trivial notion of looking out the window, absorbing or even acknowledging the passing wonderment of the journey. These days, it’s all about the destination. And in the act of getting away from it all, we bring it all with us.
So on this mid September night, up here on the deserted highline, the sudden lack of insanity doesn’t seem real. But I can attest that very very quiet it is. “Here” is sparsely populated again. One doesn’t wait an hour to get a sloppily made Big Mac at the Newport McDonalds. Gone are the BMWs and Mercedes and massive motor coaches with quad tip outs pulling cigar boats and four wheelers and SUVs. The lone grocery store, or at least the lone “real” grocery store, our beloved SAFEWAY, no longer looks like all those LA freeways at rush hour. There aren’t fifty million campers, travel trailers, and SUVs, all of them pulling boats piled with brightly colored tubes and $1,000 waterskies, all of them packed with screaming kids-and all of them fighting for the same, way-too-narrow parking spot. No more Texas, California, Arizona and New York Plates. The hold outs, the people still here, are once again adapting to plenty of unclaimed space.
It’s disconcerting.
That this change has come as a sort of shock, well who am I kidding? Denial is my middle name. IT isn’t just that the days are getting shorter and that summer seems a massive blur, but rather it’s also the looming loneliness of winter and these deserted small town streets that linger on. Part of me admits that the abrupt change is refreshing. Part of me misses the chaos. The rest of me stands on guard, unsettled, and wary.
Especially knowing that this year I somehow succumbed to a summer spent on the run. The building of the house became all consuming and more than a few things went wrong and more than a few things went very right. One day became another and then somehow it seems I woke up from February and it was late September.
So as I sit here thinking about change and the seasons and knowing that this year’s summer light is already fading into that golden tone that always marks autumn, I stand alerted that so many things I treasure fell by the wayside. Has time really speed up? Have 2 or 3 seasons just whizzed-banged by without proper acknowledgement? The details, the who-what-where-when and why, the lessons relating to all that change escaped me. Reluctantly, I can only note transition happened- just as I must acknowledge other realities. The humming birds are gone. The deer are gaining winter coats. The fawns are losing their spots. The coyote’s howls come earlier each night.
I keep thinking about the pace of my life, and that I need the silence of the Selkirks, but then again I am afraid of too much quiet. I crave isolation. Yet I savor belonging and community. These conflicted thoughts always seem at war, just as they’ve always been from the time I was a kid stuck living miles out of town, to the lonely years spent trucking, to my current 140 miles-a-day commuting realities.
Today as I watered my parched trees, I heard the sound of air being forced aside by the outstretched wings of a massive bald eagle. His shadow overtook mine before my ears acknowledged the unusual rush of wind. I looked up startled as that same eagle looked down at me. For a few minutes he soared, circling above me. I watched spellbound. It was as if he was equally unsettled and didn’t know where to go. Should the mighty predator stay close to the land, and all that it brings forth, or ride the wind and embrace space and perspective?
Soon enough updrafts took him high above me until I could barely follow his flight. Remaining motionless, I traced his path until I lost his image somewhere over Saddle Mountain.
Finally stillness. That I was aware enough to witness such an incredible stirring of air and wing forced this awakening. Something had been dormant over the summer. Something had gone missing. We writers aren’t supposed to get lost in the hoople-headed pursuits of normal chaos-or at least that’s the expectation the world keeps setting for us. We like to think we are uniquely born to take note. We are admirers of the cursive written progress marked by the wings of eagles. We believe we know the reasons for the shrill chirps of osprey. We affirm that we are meant to converse with the wind and disdain the scorching heat. We alone should document all of June and July and August.
But I did not find that stillness until now. I too have been under the spell of all the commotion lent to us in Pend Oreille Country by these seasonal eternal visitors. These bearers of diversions, delicacies and delights, they do not see the irony of what they’ve created and the madness they escalate. These frantic escapers of their complex lives offer sweet economic poison in return for overwhelming our sense of who we are. They distract us with distractions during the summer season.
That they are gone now is something I can embrace. That the words are finally flowing again is reassuring. That the soft song of these mountains is audible again, is a melody I’ve missed. Even though the sun leaves us earlier each evening now, the glow of the day remains. Summer is vanishing right before our eyes, replaced by a fall chill that overtakes each day degree by degree. Rain is finally in the forecast. Which we know from experience will soon be followed by snow.
I can live with this transition. Change is on the march, defining old and new boundaries with ever lengthening shadows. Even here, on a deserted Saturday night, in a quiet McDonalds, I feel that rhythm. I sit guarded by these solitary golden arches, knowing that tomorrow will take its proper place deep in this mountain valley. It’s the last twilight of summer. Yet the glow of what lies ahead is only just beginning.
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