On the island

My husband and I met in Seattle many moons ago. Our love felt serendipitous from the start and one thing we found out early on was that his parents and my parents (my mother and stepfather) lived a few miles apart on Whidbey Island. This is so random but has been such a blessing over the years. We married on Rosario Beach in Deception Pass State Park (which is on the north end of Whidbey Island on the way to Anacortes where you can catch a ferry to the San Juan Islands) and have since taken our girls every year. I love the island - the coves, the windswept trees, the long stretches of beach and the ferry crossings. It is home in my heart, more home than I have ever felt in my native California. When my mother passed away in 2016 she was buried on the island and now it really does hold everything dear to me. Every time I'm there I get anxiety...it's not long enough. I can't take the smell of the pines with me. The salty air I can't capture in a bottle. It's a nostalgia that is happening as life is happening. So I sit. Carve out the day and watch my girls play happily in the tides. And then I relax into it and become part of the island. It lives within me and I know it lives within my girls. I hope each of you has a place in your life that is just as dear.  

There is a special song that we sang the whole road trip - Paulette William's My Island - that now feels like it's ours in relation to our island. Here are the lyrics - and the song is fantastic for little ones!