Work has slowed down. Waiting for comments on my manuscript. I’m trying to write a film script but the harder I work on it the harder it seems to get.
I’m headed to Sitka tomorrow for a celebration of a friends new job. Jan was going to come with me but she was feeling poorly and I started worrying that she would have a hard time with the travel. So I’m just going up for two full days, a party, a short visit to my old home town and then back to the Carmel Valley.
Word is the weather is good in Sitka. Blue sky and calm days out on the water. The town is sad because a local young man flipped his boat while working on a fishing charter and all hands were lost. One body was found and four were never found, including the young captain. Such a thing sends a chill down everyone in a small town. The weather had been bad the day of the loss: high winds and steep breaking waves. I don’t know the details of the investigation as to why or how the boat rolled over. It was found off the north edge of Sitka Sound near a place called low island.
Death is a part of life, and small towns absorb the brunt of the personal suffering which come with some regularity. Wild country has it’s dangers… but there are dangers everywhere. Its just in a small town you are likely to know the parties involved.
The first person I knew who died was a kid in my sixth grade class named Jeffery. His dad had taught him how to fist fight and most of my friends stayed away from him. His dad also bought him a little motorcycle called a “Tote Goat” and I was green with envy. It was the only time I ever wished I was someone else. I wanted to be feared… just a bit. I wished my father had taught me how to fight. But he hadn’t.
Jeffery was hit by a car while he was zipping around on his motorbike. We lived in a small town then and there was kind of phone tree of mothers passing on information about Jeffery’s condition. I will never forget the moment she old me that the doctors had drilled holes in his skull to relieve the pressure from the swelling of his brain. I was very conflicted and sad about his death. I didn’t go to his funeral because we hadn’t been friends… I didn’t really like him because I had watched him once beat up a smaller boy in the parking lot of the public swimming pool… but I certainly didn’t think he would die. The thought that death was always possible and could touch down like a tornado without warning, was a life changer for me.
My mom would evoke Jeffery’s name anytime there was any talk among my siblings about riding a motorcycle. My mother never forgot or forgave these kind of tragedies, and for a strange reason this small town view of tragedy became a part of my psyche. I say strange because although I life in a small community now I don’t feel tied in to the workings of fate the way I probably should now that I’m a Californian. This is my fault, probably because I came here looking for a bunker to protect me from ill health and bad luck. I’m less likely to slip and fall on the ice here, I’m less likely to attend friends funerals because I have fewer friends close by. Having fewer tragedies is a good thing, but I have to think that I’m poorer for it.
I’m looking forward to being in Sitka, and I’d like to stay longer but I don’t like leaving Jan alone. Finn and Emily will take care of her the four days I’m gone. But I don’t want to budget anymore time away.
I will take photos and give you a full report here when I get back.
Here is a poem I wrote a few years ago about the summer I worked on the South Creek Forest fire near Twisp when I turned 17.
