Autumn Leaves

The weather changed this week. Last Saturday was probably our last mild evening for eating out on the deck. Tim and Sarah, friends of mine for more than twenty years, arrived early with their three small boys.

“Give me something to do,” Sarah said as she followed me into the kitchen. Together we shaped the meat into patties, and Sarah told me how she and Tim had finally gotten together. I knew them both back in college, and Tim studied Arabic with Todd and me in Jordan.

“I didn’t even like Tim when we were in college,” Sarah said, laughing. A tiny version of Tim pulled at Sarah’s leg and asked for a drink of water. I half-filled a plastic tumbler, and little Tim carried his water with him as he pushed open the back door and went out to find the other children.

Bill and Amy arrived next, with their younger daughter and a huge fruit salad. Of all the friends who came Saturday night, Bill is the one I’ve known longest—since I was a sophomore in college and he was a freshman. My old friend grinned at me.

“Look at you, Bill, all middle aged!” I teased.

I think it was on Bill’s twentieth birthday that petite, spunky Amy planned and hosted a party, baked a cake. Did she know then what was so clear to the rest of us? I remember as vividly as if I had photographed it: the long moment Amy held the cake out before Bill, candles blazing.

Jeff and Deanna came with chips and fresh salsa. Jason and Holly brought potato salad and extra deck chairs. Todd slapped burgers on the grill. We set up long tables on the deck for the adults, a picnic mat and an extra table down on the grass for the children. My seven-year-old taught miniature Tim and his brothers how to roll down a grassy hill. They couldn’t roll straight but kept veering diagonally down the hill over dry leaves fallen from the aspen tree.

Our children played together like cousins, staying out in the half-light after the adults became chilled and retreated indoors. I looked around the room at these old friends who’ve welcomed us back after twenty years away, yet there wasn’t time for my heart to feel full. Not then. I was too busy, serving and cleaning and wiping down tables and saying goodnight.

The next morning is when I felt it, alone in the kitchen thinking of all the children who look like we once looked, when we were very young. I felt it as I stood with steaming coffee and saw the autumn leaves that had fallen on the deck overnight. I felt it as I watched the sun rising over the cedar trees, and I felt it especially when the light shone against the back door at just the right angle to backlight the small handprints left behind.

Changing Seasons

Yesterday I stood at Boiler Bay on the Oregon coast as waves crashed against the rocks and the salt spray speckled my glasses. After eighteen years away, I'm back in the Pacific Northwest. I left as a newlywed with my life all mystery and possibility. I'm returning having lived on the East Coast, in the Middle East, in Texas—having birthed four children and written a book and cared for a mother-in-law right through to the end of her life. Whether I'm reuniting with old friends or becoming acquainted with new, I'm keenly aware of how much my Oregon friends do not know about the life I've lived.

Just past the whitecaps I saw a spray of water—could it be? A whale surfaced, turned, then waved a fluke and was gone. We got back in the car and drove south to make our coastal pilgrimage, stopping at Devil's Punchbowl (more whale sightings and a bowl of chowder at Mo's), and the old Newport bayfront (salt water taffy from Aunt Belinda's and a meet-and-greet with the cranky sea lions on the docks), and of course we dipped our bare toes in the cold Pacific. These are the holy sites I paid homage to as a girl, as a college student, as a newly married woman. And now, after so many years away, I thank God that I am still strong enough to hike the bluffs and touch the water. Though I wear bifocals now, I can still see the whales. I am grateful to be back and to be teaching our girls to love this land, too.

Before driving inland, we stopped one last time. Several other people stood on the bluff, using binoculars or the zoom lens of a camera for a better look. I stood back, so the whale watchers formed a frame at the base of my naked-eye view out toward the waves. There—spouting, you see? Just past the whitecaps, where the birds fly low. Yes, he's come up again!

I breathed deeply of the day. Out past the breakers the gray whales surfaced and dove again. The whales will journey south, day and night, moving to warmer waters to birth their young. They will return again, bringing their young back up the coast in due season.