I miss the ocean
all the time. Last year, fall season, I was missing the ocean, and Daniel whisked
me away to Antelope Island for our first anniversary. It was a surprise and a treat in that I’d recently read a short story by my favorite author set on the
same shore, not knowing before that day that we were so close! I love reading about a place, seeing it and
assuming my own memories and attachments to details.
On approach, I
saw only water and light, white streaks in the sky, the contrails of jet
engines. Now, looking back through pictures, I see light in the snow-topped
peaks of the bordering Wasatch and Oquirrh mountain ranges, in that same snow reflected on the flat water, in the bright
rocks along the shore, in the clouds, in the pale brush and, eventually, in the
moon small and far away.
We drove along the causeway sometime in the afternoon and parked at the trailhead of Frary Peak, elevation 6596 feet. Coming from Cache Valley, the space felt open. Dry grass and sagebrush crouched low, no competition for sky. I wonder now about the tremendous difference it would have made to have visited in the late summer for the Stampede Festival when kites and balloons transform the sky into a circus of color. By November, the scene was painted in nearly all blues, grays and the color of dust. In contrast to the healing rich colors of the Pacific Northwest, this place offered something else.
We saw some buffalo (introduced in 1893 to breed and feed on the grasslands) but no pronghorn antelope. The carrying capacity of the island is said to be somewhere around 700 bison. I wonder, if packed on a scale, what those 700 would weigh. And what about my own carrying capacity? What can I carry physically, and what can I bear emotionally? I feel strong. Hiking brings about a head change in me, a feeling like starting over, like making room, like taking a load of things to the goodwill or organizing a drawer.
I didn't wonder at what Daniel was carrying. In his day pack, it turned out, he had hauled up sliced cheese, crackers, dark chocolate, a miniature bottle of red wine, a corkscrew and 2 emergency candles of which he packed into the dirt and lit for effect. We picnicked just below the windy summit on a blanket--a rainbow of fabric purchased back in San Francisco. At the end, it had been a tiny scramble to the top. And now, we were kings of the mountain. Kings of the salt-loving brine shrimp soaking below in constant motion. “Sea monkeys” living wild and free in our reign, while elsewhere they would be sold as novelty aquarium pets advertised to parents as "so quiet and small." Here they are part of a magnificent system, beginning on a microscopic level as they feed on green algae and extending to the birds. Bird watching is popular here at the Great Salt Lake.
We heard coyotes
at dusk and tried to spot them but couldn't. We say that they direct their howls to the moon, but I wonder if coyotes even notice the moon as they lift their heads. All the images I can conjure up have eyes squeezed tight, thin-lipped mouths in the shapes of O's. This reminds me, I want to buy Daniel a t-shirt with a coyote howling at the moon. He'd like it.
I don’t remember Daniel and I bickering on this trip the way that we have done out on the trail a few times, between the silence and awe, shouting at each other in nature’s company. Louder because we can. Missing the silence the moment we start. I don’t remember dark undercurrents that afternoon. Only the light and lightness. The majority of the hours spent climbing above all that water were done in the day, but still I feel especially interested in those last bits of time toward dusk when we heard the howls.
More recently,
we attended a Gregory Alan Isakov concert. During "Suitcase Full of Sparks," in the audience, our heads were raised, lifted like coyotes beneath the soft blue light, mouths open, singing along with the four huddled at the front of the stage, each paired with their
stringed instrument. One long lullaby. We rocked, me with my hands clasped like
a prayer to a cello, an acoustic guitar, a banjo, and a fiddle.. or violin. I
forget which is which. I hear "it’s all in how you hold it."
There are photos from the start of our Antelope Island adventure to the end. Those from the evening are dimly lit, fuzzy photos with sky and water, blues merging. We hung a clear one of the ridge-line from earlier in the day in our hallway. As I look at it, I am still missing the ocean, but I keep finding the light without having to look very far. And I'm holding onto it with all my heart.
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