Peregrine

I don't quite know what to say when people asked me if I'm all  moved yet. The weekend before last, the movers took almost all my furniture up north, leaving the old Queen Anne place echoing and lonely, but still cluttered with papers and closets full of clothes. The room in Ballard is entirely empty, though I have a key now at least. I'm getting quite a collection of keys. 

Up in Bow, Tom is clearing out the mini-barn, the greenhouse, the weeds in the flower beds. I pile boxes on boxes and still need more boxes for what's left in Seattle. There is finally balsamic vinegar in the kitchen and the rice cooker does work to steam artichokes but there are no water glasses, only mugs. More than anything, I just wanted to be able to sit on the couch and watch a movie, the dog at our feet and a late late dinner on our laps. Someone asked me if I had taken a bath in the new bathtub yet, and I haven't, but that wasn't the thing for me. The thing was the movie. 

Sometimes when the boxes in the house get to be too much, I get in the car and head towards the Skagit Co-op for groceries. There is always something more to need. There are infinite routes there, it seems, past little farms, the alpacas on Avon Allen Road, or the strawberry fields on Cook Road. On Saturday night I met this guy there, a peregrine falcon and his falconer. How is it that I never asked his name? He's kept falcons since he was 14 and had lost a new one that day, was getting things arranged so that he could go up in a small plane the next day with tracking gear, see if he could find her that way. Someone else had lost a falcon to a great horned owl the day before, and they have to look out for the many bald eagles that patrol the valley as well, always a threat. 

The road I met them on is the one I drive on most, next to my own. It leads right to the highway, which is always in view from there. I like the other roads better, though it's hard to find a place where you can't see where you're going. It's all flat where we are, clear views and late afternoon sun and roads that take you back to where you started from. Even when I try to get lost in the Skagit Valley, it feels like being found.