Settling

Anacortes ferry terminal

As I write this I'm sitting upstairs in my apartment watching the angriest cloud I have ever seen slither its way shopward over the water. Out one window I can hear Luis, the Chilean gardener, weed whacking in the back. Out the other, a woman I've never seen before is doing something I don't understand to the gravel pathway with the non-prongy side (official terminology) of a rake. Ole is replacing the rotted steps from the shop out into the yard. (I swear this will be the year I finally place his accent.) Syd's son Matt, having arrived yesterday afternoon from LA, is hauling boxes of pots into the studio. Penny is in the shop. Syd is waxing pots and glazing pots and checking her kiln and throwing the ball for Baxter with one hand while she, I don't know, juggles meat cleavers with the other. (The woman can do anything, and does.)

The cabin and part of the shop yard from my window.

I am the only person in the thriving ecosystem of the shop--the only person on the entire island, it feels like--with nothing to do. There are no orders in the shipping room for me to package and Syd isn't leaving for Europe until May, so what my mom's friend Sharon calls my "Boss Mama duties" have yet to kick in. I don't like having no responsibilities when everyone around me is busy. I feel useless, and that's something I've felt enough already in my life. I've tried making little lists for myself, but when you have nothing that needs to be done those little lists don't serve much purpose. I'm remembering that I felt this way a lot last summer, that people were always coming and going, mowing and sawing and raking upside down, while I squirreled myself away upstairs and pretended that I was a contributing member of society. I lived--and will again this year, I'm sure--for five o'clock, when the shop closes and everyone has gone home and the quietness finally validates my inactivity for the day.

Where I am right this second.

Later, if the weather holds, I may ride my bike up the hill to the hardware store to find something for the planter on my balcony. Or maybe I'll head down to the beach to look for rocks shaped like hearts. Most likely, though, I'll stay exactly where I am, drinking tea and reading and watching episode after lead-heavy episode of Breaking Bad.

Things will pick up--probably not until the middle of June, but they will pick up--and I will carve myself a little place in the general goings-on here.

Until then, though, you know where to find me.

No apartment of mine is complete without a Sounders poster.