Why I am Writing

Why I am writing

It must be rolling off the boat from side to side and the people, determined, arms clamped at their sides, walking deliberately forward, five steps to the left, five steps to the right, sometimes colliding with ship's furniture, always managing to pursue their destination as the swells rock the ship.

Maybe it's the thought of heading into a country where the mail is on strike and there isn't any means of communication that appeals.

I watch a beautiful woman, physically stunning, told at a young age that the turn of men's heads was meant for her, but her eyes are fishlike, cancer eyes. There is death in her eyes, those half-lidded mouths never smile – their blue chill has spread to her viscera, and the marrow of her bones freezes.

Someone said that Port Townsend is the clitoris of the Olympic Peninsula. The M. V. Coho cuts a large swath – a seam in the watered silk itself that spreads from Port Angeles to Victoria, B. C. After a rain, the only clear patch of sky is located directly overhead, and the moon glows like a cat's high. Five steps forward, and five steps to the left, the body obeys the surges and swirls of the sea.

A friend of mine is kayaking from Seattle to Juneau. He called from a payphone in Ketchikan. Last time we heard from him, was a postcard saying his kayak needed mending. He hopes for patches will hold. After being so close to the sea for so long, he becomes depressed when he's away from it for more than a few hours, and he doesn't want to come home. I know that feeling.

In the seat behind me, a man is teaching his young sons how to navigate by the flashing beacon lights. To the west, the light flashes at 10 second intervals, and the one to the north, at two second intervals. Swells rock the ship. The inland passage is unprotected here. Breakers roll in from Japan carrying glass fishing floats across the Pacific.

A group of men sitting across from me, scruffy, the boys in the process of imprinting – a rough society of males looking insolently about. As they were engaged in conversation I detected an accent slightly German and my opinion of them changed. It's funny, what will forgive in foreigners that we won't forgive in natives.

As we pulled into port, reflections of the Houses of Parliament parliament are lit up like Disneyland, and  their reflection is distorted by our way by our wake.

7/8/1981?

This was a previously typed version I had found. Not from my raw notes like Parkville
added 10/16