I didn't want this to read like a travelogue. I had a meeting scheduled this morning out in Poulsbo. I still don't have a car that's up and running so I took public transit instead, caught the foot ferry over to Bremerton, walked up to the loading area and then caught the number 11 to the mall. Transferred over to the 32 which took me to Poulsbo. Walked over to get a cup of coffee at Starbucks before the meeting. Pretty much end of story as I had a ride back to the ferry after lunch.
It wasn't so much riding as it was observing. Watching the details of a quiet morning flow by the window. Unlike driving where you have to concentrate on working many mechanisms just to stay alive and out of harms way, as a passenger on a public conveyence you get to relax, take a look around you while you travel. See the sights, turn your head, take a look back at where you've been.
I suppose that's what today's ride felt like, like I was looking into a rear view mirror rather than through the windshield while heading down the road. I watched scenes of my life unfold as if I were down south watching the Ramona Pageant unfold before me on a grand outdoor stage. It was a ride filled with snippets of emotionally charged film, a sunny day, "best of" edition of my Kitsap years with you, a chapbook of memories like the ones you pick up when you attend a major event like a play or opera, like the yearbook you buy when you leave high school. We've all picked up old programs or souvenier pamphlets and sighed and said yes, I've been there, too.
Today was like that. A grand old glossy guide to places that we have traveled on the north side of town. All too much. All very sweet. Makes me realize that there's not too many places in this little slice of the world that we haven't touched on together.
Years ago I wrote you a poem about the events we experienced during our year. You told me after you had read it that you were surprised that we had done so much together. Just a ride between Port Orchard and Poulsbo can bear that out. We've ridden that little ferry to supper, and have worked over that corner of Wheaton and Sylvan Way to death. I've waited for you to make your way up the street from that school your girls once attended, and we strolled the aisles of the Orowheat store in search of good day old deals. We sipped coffee at the Starbucks that I saw over one shoulder and shopped for curtains at the Walmart I saw over the other. We parked at the Target to conserve gas on our way to meetings, took my tire in to get fixed at Sears, took in coffee and tea and discount books at Barnes and Noble with your daughter, and did our best to look busy at The Central Market before the Audubon Kingfisher group met. We did our best, no doubt, to make time stretch, to make it turn to plasticine. It didn't always work but we tried.
No, like Yoda says, "don't try, do". We did. We stretched our stolen moments out like Silly Putty and made those suckers bounce. We took life and that route and those shops and stores and highways and made them ours, turned them into our very own Outlaw Trail, roads where only true loves travel. We were gypsy lovers and nobody, not nobody, could shut us down.
Nobody but us.
Today I traveled by ferry and bus to Poulsbo. But in reality I took a time machine back to our times and in my heart of hearts I knew that you, too, were along for the ride. Like my buddy told me today at lunch, we don't choose love, love chooses us. We don't have a say in the matter, it just is. We love for life, my dear, just like geese or swans. I may not be with you, my love, but that's okay, for I know that you and I love each other anyway. We said that to each other when we saw each other last.
It wasn't so much riding as it was observing. Watching the details of a quiet morning flow by the window. Unlike driving where you have to concentrate on working many mechanisms just to stay alive and out of harms way, as a passenger on a public conveyence you get to relax, take a look around you while you travel. See the sights, turn your head, take a look back at where you've been.
I suppose that's what today's ride felt like, like I was looking into a rear view mirror rather than through the windshield while heading down the road. I watched scenes of my life unfold as if I were down south watching the Ramona Pageant unfold before me on a grand outdoor stage. It was a ride filled with snippets of emotionally charged film, a sunny day, "best of" edition of my Kitsap years with you, a chapbook of memories like the ones you pick up when you attend a major event like a play or opera, like the yearbook you buy when you leave high school. We've all picked up old programs or souvenier pamphlets and sighed and said yes, I've been there, too.
Today was like that. A grand old glossy guide to places that we have traveled on the north side of town. All too much. All very sweet. Makes me realize that there's not too many places in this little slice of the world that we haven't touched on together.
Years ago I wrote you a poem about the events we experienced during our year. You told me after you had read it that you were surprised that we had done so much together. Just a ride between Port Orchard and Poulsbo can bear that out. We've ridden that little ferry to supper, and have worked over that corner of Wheaton and Sylvan Way to death. I've waited for you to make your way up the street from that school your girls once attended, and we strolled the aisles of the Orowheat store in search of good day old deals. We sipped coffee at the Starbucks that I saw over one shoulder and shopped for curtains at the Walmart I saw over the other. We parked at the Target to conserve gas on our way to meetings, took my tire in to get fixed at Sears, took in coffee and tea and discount books at Barnes and Noble with your daughter, and did our best to look busy at The Central Market before the Audubon Kingfisher group met. We did our best, no doubt, to make time stretch, to make it turn to plasticine. It didn't always work but we tried.
No, like Yoda says, "don't try, do". We did. We stretched our stolen moments out like Silly Putty and made those suckers bounce. We took life and that route and those shops and stores and highways and made them ours, turned them into our very own Outlaw Trail, roads where only true loves travel. We were gypsy lovers and nobody, not nobody, could shut us down.
Nobody but us.
Today I traveled by ferry and bus to Poulsbo. But in reality I took a time machine back to our times and in my heart of hearts I knew that you, too, were along for the ride. Like my buddy told me today at lunch, we don't choose love, love chooses us. We don't have a say in the matter, it just is. We love for life, my dear, just like geese or swans. I may not be with you, my love, but that's okay, for I know that you and I love each other anyway. We said that to each other when we saw each other last.
I am a fence rider. I have my north forty to ride. I will see you, my love, whereever the sun meets the horizon. Yeah, M, I'll see you at sunset. Or maybe someday, once again, in the dark of a Kingfisher meeting, downstairs in the Poulsbo meeting room. I know how to get there. See you then.
Love, your WHMB
Love, your WHMB
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