Oh to be here.
Japan in spring and cherry blossoms everywhere like the pink eiderdown in the nursery in Anacortes with its pink tufts. Twigs that stick out instead of goose feathers.
Father a fisherman but Mother collecting goose feathers and down on every outing to anywhere. Money saved and an eiderdown to sell perpetually in the quilting frame that got pulled up to the living room ceiling every night during fishing season. During the winter when Father was around not so much. No, the thread ends and bits that wafted down drove him crazy. Enough white water spray up in the Arctic, he said, with no need for a thread variety the rest of the time.
But a happy life with much joy and a shore to sit on. Different now. An important husband met at the university and a different life with dreams of living fish leaping onto wooden decks instead of ones on platters for dinner.
But some of it not as fun. Big dinners and piers to visit in summer. But not like the one in Venice with the aquarium and the dolphins that swam in a circle. Grandparents that lived five blocks away and visit after visit week after week until it was time for school and to wait for the fleet to return.
Not perfect, no, but close. The same ticket lady, the one who went to church with Grandmother and let everyone have a second free turn every other week. A treat it was. Nothing like that free now but who knew that then . . . a blessing to remember and something to never forget.
