I walked more than three miles yesterday and I wasn’t even sore when I got home. Miraculous! Gary and I went north to our “Turnaround Rock” a mile and half, up and down the beach, backtracking and noting how high the sand is. It was the furthest we’d walked since April. We met two local people we hadn’t seen in months. Earlier this week, we met a friend we hadn’t seen since last year! They all said they’d wondered what happened to us. It was my foot.

The normal pattern of tidal action that I had observed since I was a child was that spring and summer tides moved the sand in, sometimes high enough to completely cover the basalt underneath. Autumn and winter tides washed the sand offshore. In January of 1999, a single tide swept high, pushing the basalt cobbles up again the shore and tearing away the sand. The sand came partway back over the following few years, but in winter the beach was scraped clean of sand again. But, it’s been nearly sixteen years, and that sand seems to be back.

All good things in time, whether we deserve them or not?

We might have raised a family in Seattle where our sons would have had next-door friends. Instead, we didn’t think we’d have children at all until the opportunity arose to raise them someplace wild. Access to undeveloped land was what we each valued most about our own childhoods. Gary wandered the Arizona desert and I walked into swamps and woody places. Each of us treasure our solitary childhood adventures, though we’d had both nearby friends and wild spaces.

I might have chosen Architecture as an undergrad, or settled on the University of Washington School of Law. I did consider that, taking Architecture classes and touring the Law School program. I was accustomed to hard, focused work, but in the arts. If I’d made it through the first year of law school, I’d surely have managed the second. My dad would have been pleased. My Studio Art majors were fine with Mom because she assumed I’d need office work to “fall back on.” (I’d decided early on I would rather lie on the ground.)

Gary might have gone on in Anthropology. He was urged to do graduate work in Linguistics—he denies it, but I was present when the head of the department suggested it. He was among a handful of Coast Salish speakers and tutored Native kids in the Edmonds School District and began a Masters in Education. He might have taught elementary school for most of his adult life. Instead, his father was dying of lung cancer, his siblings were flying apart, and he dropped the program to take care of family.

Instead, we moved to my family’s beach house. It took me a year to get pregnant, which was part of the plan. Two children. But then a year went by, and I considered we might never have children. I decided that would be okay, that we would manage without, but then I was pregnant. I cried. Of course, I did.

Gary might have gone to work for the local water department. Instead he worked in grocery stores and local schools for the next thirty-two years. He might have gone back to school, but he worked long hours and did his share at home with the boys. I was the one who went back to school.

We might have moved onto The Maples, but instead we gave it away. We might have moved to some other acreage, but we stayed on shore until we retired.

Gary still does the laundry and dishes, and keeps up the garden. I cook and bake and write and make things.

I have been unable to run for three months and gaining ten pounds isn’t really the problem. Wanting to run or even walk pain-free is the problem. It’s not really a problem, is it? I don’t need to run or walk. Do I?

It’s been hot in Portland, cool at the coast. We watch television for a couple of hours in the evening. We walk sometimes in the morning, not more than a mile just now and every other day, because of my foot. Until three months ago, we covered at least three miles daily.

Last week I strung beads I’d had for a long time, years, and it went badly, but I figured it out. I decided to start over and ordered more cord in a different weight. I finished two stories. I think they’re finished. One went off to a journal a week and a half ago; it was on my calendar to submit to that journal on Tuesday. Also this week, three book reviews I wrote about others’ novels have been accepted for publication. I’ll post links once they are up and available.

I make lists of everything. I write most days, sometimes over a very long day, sometimes only in the morning. The stories come when they’re ready. When they aren’t ready, I make something else.