Winter seems a long way away. So does spring and summer. But there is still a lot of color in the forest. Standing dry beach grass still display rich browns and tans. Each network of blueberry twigs is a deep maroon. Then there are the spruce and hemlock trees. They will be green all winter, as will be the forest floor moss. Fall is a time for quiet colors, not the monochromatic palette of the tundra in late fall.
The rain catches us halfway through a mountain meadow walk. Unless accompanied by a wind, Aki never reacts to rain. Today shower doesn’t stop her survey of this familiar trail. I understand. It comforts as it falls amid snowflakes. True, the heavy drops shatter mountain reflections in the meadow ponds. Yes, the rain soaks my gloves until they chill the hands they cover. But, it also washes things away: irritating plant seeds, dust, and some of the sadness I carried since learning about the death of a friend’s child. Don’t hunch protectively in such a cleansing shower. Stand and let it wash freshness over your face like you would tears.
It’s day for being on the water, not in the woods. Aki and I should be in the canoe, spoiling the salt chuck’s perfect reflection of mountain, fog and sky. Only one feeding fish, a trout or maybe char, distorts the mirror. Behind, Lynn Canal is just as flat and calm beyond where water spilling down the salt chuck falls loses the energy to disturb.
I’m sad, but reassured by the sound made by water spilling over the falls. This cusp of sea and lake, today simply black and white, is the needed place to pray for a family who just lost a child. Here I can trust in a welcoming heaven, hold a child’s wake.
Yesterday winter seemed close. But here, in this ocean-side forest the ground plants act like it is spring. The sorrels retain their green and some sport red berries. The ferns are still in summer colors. Most surprising are the skunk cabbage plants that send up new, spear-like shoots through recently died back growth. Which are wiser, the mountain muskeg plants already hunkered down for winter, or these forest guys?
The First Snow. To reach it, we climb a steep gravel road that ends at the top of one of Douglas Island’s mountains. My hands cool almost to point of pain and I worry that it might be too cold to my middle-aged dog. But further up the mountain Aki reminds me about how much she loves the winter and the snow. We leave the road where cold weather had already frozen the muskeg enough to allow for easy walking. Aki sniffs and pees here and there, barks once, throws up her tail, and snaps off a series of large circles on the snowy surface. That snow dance done, she dashes up to me, bows with her tail pointing skyward, and barks once again.
Walking with Aki 