Almost every day we tell each other how happy we are that we decided to live in Birch Bay. How, when we couldn’t get a house on the beach or on the ridge, we settled for a cottage on Terrell Creek where we are happy with a view of the bay and the wildlife that entertains us on the creek.
Once in a while there is something special like the nesting gulls on the roof of the cottage across the creek, whose chicks are now walking about the steep roof and testing their wings – soon they will be flying.
We were watching them from our deck last Sunday evening when a rubber raft appeared in the stream. Unlike kayakers who padded vigorously, the occupant was mostly drifting. The combination of blacks in the pink raft was stunning When the boat turned we saw that she was writing. After watching a while Al got up courage to call out: “Novel or short story?”
Rather than be perturbed, she smiled, and before long she was reading to us. Here is a segment from her journal:
“I had some thoughts about humans and their experience of love while I was driving today. The gift of love is the act of feeling it. This is the only love we experience. It is our own love. So why do we place so much on whether or not we are loved? Where did this confusion come from? It is so simple. And we may take solace in knowing that we may love something or someone whether or not we are with them or they love us back or they want us or don’t or whatever.
“The only love for us is the love we get to experience for another. And that has nothing to do with attachment or reciprocal feelings or anything whatsoever! With this knowledge comes the responsibility to allow others to love us. We may have the ability to offer that – or make it somehow easier for being a genuine person in the world and being able to invite love. This may help others to have an experience of love that they may otherwise not have. The duty comes with this knowledge of love.”
Her name is Shannon Maddox. She has been coming to Birch Bay for 33 years, first to visit her grandparents. "I miss my grandparents very much and the wonderful memories of my Grandma teaching me to gamble with her while we played cards and she drank wine, and my Grandpa’s quiet strength as he took us to the beach to play and build castles. And of course the C-Shop where we were always buying candy with coins that my Grandpa would save for us in a sock drawer. They are some of the best parts of what makes me who I am today."
Shannon now lives in Seattle where she works with people who are homeless and well as in a psychiatric hospital. In September she begins three years of graduate school.
Once in a while there is something special like the nesting gulls on the roof of the cottage across the creek, whose chicks are now walking about the steep roof and testing their wings – soon they will be flying.
We were watching them from our deck last Sunday evening when a rubber raft appeared in the stream. Unlike kayakers who padded vigorously, the occupant was mostly drifting. The combination of blacks in the pink raft was stunning When the boat turned we saw that she was writing. After watching a while Al got up courage to call out: “Novel or short story?”
Rather than be perturbed, she smiled, and before long she was reading to us. Here is a segment from her journal:
“I had some thoughts about humans and their experience of love while I was driving today. The gift of love is the act of feeling it. This is the only love we experience. It is our own love. So why do we place so much on whether or not we are loved? Where did this confusion come from? It is so simple. And we may take solace in knowing that we may love something or someone whether or not we are with them or they love us back or they want us or don’t or whatever.
“The only love for us is the love we get to experience for another. And that has nothing to do with attachment or reciprocal feelings or anything whatsoever! With this knowledge comes the responsibility to allow others to love us. We may have the ability to offer that – or make it somehow easier for being a genuine person in the world and being able to invite love. This may help others to have an experience of love that they may otherwise not have. The duty comes with this knowledge of love.”
Her name is Shannon Maddox. She has been coming to Birch Bay for 33 years, first to visit her grandparents. "I miss my grandparents very much and the wonderful memories of my Grandma teaching me to gamble with her while we played cards and she drank wine, and my Grandpa’s quiet strength as he took us to the beach to play and build castles. And of course the C-Shop where we were always buying candy with coins that my Grandpa would save for us in a sock drawer. They are some of the best parts of what makes me who I am today."
Shannon now lives in Seattle where she works with people who are homeless and well as in a psychiatric hospital. In September she begins three years of graduate school.
