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After a wonderful family vacation on Vancouver Island, Dave, Jordan and I rode the car ferry from Victoria to Washington state to fly home from Seattle. Driving along the northern coast of Washington’s Pacific Northwest, we stopped in Sequim to stretch our legs. We wandered out on Dungeness Spit, a long curved sand spit that extends to a lighthouse in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We didn’t hike all the way to the end–11 miles round trip–but we saw plenty of beached logs and massive contorted driftwood scattered along the coast.
Being there brought back memories. Not all of them good. I remembered being there 20 years ago, living in Puyullap, Washington for the summer, working with brain-injured patients in a rehab hospital finishing up the last externship of my Master’s program. It was exciting to live somewhere so different than the Midwest for 8 weeks, and I spent each and every weekend exploring a different part of the state. One particular weekend my Mother flew out to spend time with me. I was eager to take her tidepooling and arranged a B&B stay near Sequim. While there we decided to hike the entire Dungeness Spit. Climbing over so many logs, branches, sticks and rocks littering the coast was exhausting and demanded our full attention. Suddenly we noticed that the tide had changed and high waves were rolling in…pure panic set in realizing that we were the only ones waaay out there on that narrow sandbar. Would the encroaching waters swallow up the spit? And us on it? Rushing, I tripped over a log and fell hard, smack, face down in the sand. We did make it back to shore. But the panic and heavy foreboding stayed with me, foreshadowing the emotions to come later that night when my spouse called on our wedding anniversary to announce he had filed for divorce and was fleeing to Florida with his new love.
Maybe that’s why I felt like processing this bright sunny afternoon image in a rather dark brooding way…
24mm, f/8, 1/125 SS, 200 ISO