A whale showed itself on Friday, unexpectedly, off the side of the ferry. Not an Orca, but other than that we really can't be sure what sort of whale. Gray, perhaps. The ferry passengers all united in excitement for a few minutes. I missed the first appearance, but I looked back in time to see it spyhopping, probably just as curious about us as we were about it. It was a good omen for us, but I'm not sure that the same is true in reverse.
I think about all of these trees along all of these coasts, locking up their years in rings. Growing more dense or less dense depending on the pressure of the world outside. And all of the things that they have seen locked up in there too, all of the first explorers and the last whales, all of the animals coming and going and some of them never coming back. All of the ones that never knew people, growing remote and then falling before anyone had a chance to come through, recording only simple histories of rainy years and dry years, fat times and lean times. If those trees could tell stories I'm sure they would choose not to, holding them instead deep in their bones.
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