Transcript
Speaker: landing.
Speaker: while your eyes were shut tight and your fan was under your mask, when distraction was stowed and endurance remained. Then we descended, and under the bright ceiling of clouds I saw blue forests, the hackles on the back of a creature with its head buried in the water, kept under a blanket of clouds and rain, where the fog and mist ran its fingers through the trees.
Speaker: And I saw the water, gray and flat, the sternness of its depths, its cold mass the realm of Wales.
Speaker: I knew we'd found much more than just overcast skies or the feel of a rainy day back home. This was shipyards. It was salmon. It was the smell of dead kelp and crab shells. It was where the sea poured itself inland and the people and the forests crowded around to take a look. But the sun was not invited.
Speaker: I didn't see switchgrass or scrub oak or the pounding headaches of summer. Instead, I saw only surfaces. The forest was a single mass, a wall of trees knit together. The clouds filled in the air if you looked too far in a slow motion flow.
Speaker: And the water allowed fairies and kayaks to sit atop, but to go no deeper. And each of those surfaces promised more. Come into the woods, and as far as you can come you will find more woods, wealthy with moss and fern. Come into the fog and the mist will surround you. It's hiding something.
Speaker: Mountains with no feet and no summits. Only a trail hugged tight by green and wood. Then the ground became real. Your eyes opened. The fan came down. You'd made it through.
Speaker: Seat belts unclicked, people stirred and jostled. We had come to Seattle to find a town with good weather, with gray skies and green trees.
Speaker: I squeezed and held your hand, excited because we'd found it. And because once we'd worked our way out of the airplane, out of the airport, out of the garage, out of the desert, out of the summer, out of everything else but each other, then a painting of cool and October waited for us.
Speaker: And you squeezed my hand and then we jumped in.
