Sitka

They are delicate, slender people, easily chilled: they wear droll curls, and shiver in sweaters and hoodies while I sit comfortably in my T-shirt. I watch their quick smiles and bird-like movements with some envy, some desire. Though truth to tell, I am comfortable in my florid bulk: I like my solidity and deliberation. Wind and tide are nothing to me. I hold my own, without effort, in the world.

These two now, they huddle in their clothes, and lean towards each other over the table, so that their heads almost touch; their gleaming hair almost brushes the table. When the waitress comes they fall back, like startled cats, but having ordered, they gain confidence and lean together again. They are so young, so young. They bounce in their seats, when they laugh. Their voices rise in bubbly little strings that tickle my ears.

They prop themselves on their elbows: one shoulder goes forward, and their heads roll over the other one. They peer at each other, with their heads on one side, as if they were birds peeking through branches. Are they in love? I can't tell. What does love look like, when you're that young, and that nervous? Would they even know?

I stretch, and take a breath into the huge slow bellows of my chest. We saw a sitka spruce on Cape Meares that was already old when Chaucer was picking out rhymes for the Parlement of Foules: I feel ancient and gigantic, like that tree, with a momentum of life in me that could not possibly run down in mere century or two.

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Yesterday, Martha said, "I think you better take me walkies." So we went to Bridal Veil: