This day is about measuring wind and lives well lived. It is hard not to think of wind today since it blows fierce across this beach. We could avoid the wind by staying on the old growth trail but the sound of a heavy surf draws me to the water. Aki stands by my side looking puzzled. She finds no magic here.

The wind strengthens as we approach Point Louisa where bending grass reminds me of a late summer morning spent watching spiders. Once, while my child was young, I sat in a tidal meadow at sunrise watching thousands of spiders climb stalks of beach grass. They were small—born that spring. As each reached the top of a stalk it would jump off, trailing a short line of silk that caught the wind and carried the spider away.

The spiders rode a stiff wind, strong enough to carry some of them across a fiord  to a healing clear-cut forest beyond to begin a life well lived. The journey of others would end when their silk caught on branches in a nearby spruce grove. Many spiders would fall to their deaths in salty water.

Today’s wind finally drives us into the trees where Aki stalks a well groomed Skye Terrier. Her owners, an older couple, find joy watching Aki trying to get the aging terrier to play. Tall, thin, slightly stooped, they look comfortable in this place of unkind winters. When we part I ponder measurements of a life well lived.

Society judges a person by attendance of their funeral or plaques on the wall. But isn’t success better measured by the peace reflected in an older person’s eyes when they smile.  It only took seconds to find it in the terrier’s owners.