Whidbey Island

Wherever you roam, is there a vista you call home? Not a specific address, but a familiar landscape? For me it’s a mountain valley. I grew up tucked close to a coastal mountain range that gave me a feeling of well being and sense of eternity.  In the chaos of life, I could literally look to the hills and find peace.

These days I perch in the Sierra Foothills beneath the towering granite peaks of Yosemite. For a change of scene, I migrate to a desert retreat where the White Tank Mountains play innkeeper to my need for the comfort of a mountain range.

This week I’m visiting my daughter and my grandchildren, happy Bainbridge Islanders. April, her friend Lia, Joel and I crossed the bridge to Poulsbo and drove to Port Townsend to ferry over to Whidbey Island.

Whidbey is three times the size of Bainbridge with a little more than twice the population.  Residents call the island interior the prairie. It is a protected agricultural area that serves the farmers markets and restaurants.

The island is also home to a busy naval air station. F-18 Hornets flew over our heads in much the way the F-16s fly streak across the skies above us when we are in the desert. Because I grew up in the flight path of Moffett Field, military planes flying out on training missions are also part of my landscape.

Pier at Coupeville

Walking on the pier in Coupeville gazing down at the mussel beds; walking through town feeling the breeze coming off the bay; driving past farmhouses, spotting a child exercising her horse in the pasture just outside her front door; at every turn my eyes searched and found the glistening bay waters.

Borders; I think that is the special feature of this place. The desert is vast and borderless. The San Francisco Bay Area is also vast, the borders between communities indistinguishable. On an island, borders are visible and known. The pace is slower here. Getting on and off an island takes time and planning. You feel contained, but not necessarily constrained.

A definition of containment is to have or hold something or someone within. I suppose it’s a choice whether you cherish and savor the available resources or feel constrained, restricted by your borders, beckoned by other vistas.