... from the Inside Passage

On the Marine Highway Ferry

Don’t let the barrenness win, says Anaïs Nin. Only the baroness, i say. Everyone’s having conversations on the ferry, the dreamer’s ferry, the watcher’s ferry, the blue collar ferry: parents with their children, solo traveler with solo traveler, retired couple with retired couple. Fricke’s Samsara last night in tent, downloaded from The Hard Drive. This kayaker dude with an iconic look: folded up short rim bucket hat, dark wraparound glasses, big descending goatee. I think it’s raining outside for a second — the urge to triple check my tent fly, the arrangement of contents, everything off the ground, the weighted corners — but it’s just a window cleaner. Suds between me and the humpbacks. Two weeks on, two weeks off, this crew, I hear on this rear deck morning from vibrant woman traveling with her son talking to an older man from Colorado dressed in camo (and the son is attached + trying to please her, and she laughs at his comments with the stranger, the two of them). It’s camo’s 4th ferry in 20 or so years, her first. She lives in Bellingham. Hubby probably a pro skier. Her hair is short and blonde-brown held back in a single plait beneath a mesh trucker cap. Games of dice and dominoes. Last night, a little jam session kumbaya. Lion King remake, they’re doing that with all the old Disney classics, apparently, Taylor Swift or something. The ferry is united on some things: anti- cruise ship tourism, pro- nature, taking the slow way, eating affordably, living somewhere in the northwestern quadrant of the lower 48. I don’t remember names. They fly in and out until they stick, and that takes a while, temporally, emotionally. Write it as the honey toasted grain, the sugar grain, the raspberry jam, slide down the gullet, write it wanting coffee and thinking that one crazy face splatter scene in Samsara was a nod to Joker and even more After Hours plaster encasement, which we never watched. The child. The adult. Anaïs, the liberated artist, life of extemporized delight, conspiring with kin, living off the fumes of dreams, running failing printing presses. Lots of readers on board — mainly outdoors novels, “liberal” American history, John Grisham. A few writers, journalers, diarists, etc. Conversation rises and falls in the snack area. Less than 24 hours to go. Water levels on shoreside rock, culminating in dark green fir/spruce/evergreen mass. Water flat now, boat making up time. Rob of the bucket and glasses leans forward on elbows, coffee at his side. “Military friends”… “It all works out”… “the economy”… “duplex”… come from behind me. Strangers who seem to know each other. Little girls walk past the glass, curious + glancing. The scientist holds up crabs in an information display on ocean acidification. No mention of climate change,,, tact. A family pours puzzle pieces out onto a table.