On Saturday afternoon--which felt like very early morning to me--as I gazed sleepily out the window of an Asiana jet that had just crossed the Pacific, I first saw coastline. Not just any coastline, I realized with a start, but that stretch of rocky Olympic Coast beach just off Lake Ozette. I had walked the boardwalk trail out to that stretch of coast last summer.
There was Cape Alava, and Lake Ozette, too, sliding beneath the plane's wing. I knew that Wedding Rock would be below us, too, with its mysterious petrogylphs, far too small to be visible from that height.
Soon, the plane was flying over the mountains south of Port Angeles, where my brother E and sister-in-law L live, and the high ridgeline where we had scattered our father's ashes a few years ago. As we banked to begin a turn towards Seattle-Tacoma airport, familiar silhouettes came into view: first Mt Hood, far to the south, then Mt Adams, then the huge bright-white bulk of Mt Rainier, and finally Mt Baker, far to the north, shortly before we landed.
I made my way through Customs and then through the airport to the light rail train that took me, along with some excited tourists, into downtown Seattle. Then a two-block walk to the bus stop, a few minutes waiting for a bus, a half-hour ride, another short walk, and finally there I was opening my own door to my own little condo near the north shore of Lake Washington. None of it seemed quite real.
Since then, I've been slowly adjusting to my change of time zone and circumstances, glad to have had a long weekend and few immediate agenda items. Each morning since arriving, I've awoken to find myself relaxed and peaceful but also completely disoriented, wondering where on Earth I am. After a few seconds, the smell of the tatami mat under my futon tells me, untruthfully: Kyoto! Then I realize, no, that can't be; I took a plane from Kyoto recently. A moment or two or three later, I'm finally awake enough to know where I am: home again at last.
