During the week of the Great Rant-Out, the week that the Revolution was declared---when women in the United States were declared non-beings by the high court, and then began the long process of rising up to overthrow their hateful oppressors, yours truly spent the week at the most progressive redoubts of the entire nation---the resort at Doe Bay, on Orcas Island in the San Juans of Washington State.
We had gone up there with a bunch of Red's family in celebration of her having finished medical school. On the day we drove up to the Anacortes ferry, while passing through downtown Seattle I noticed the Space Needle was flying a giant bright rainbow flag in honor of Pride.
There are rainbow flags too above the porch in the little wooden structure that serves as the office and general store for the Doe Bay Resort. All three flags are heavily faded from the sun, and one is frayed at the edge. They have been flying there a long time, beside the water, and the cove that opens out to towards the Rosario Strait, and the islands to the East.
The view in the evening is heavenly. This evening at dusk, the shimmering water of the sound, in different dark hues on the shade side of the island, towards the tiny twinkling lights of Bellingham, made a tableau that I joked reminded me of the perfect blue stream, in the old Hamms Beer signs in bars back in the old days, the ones that looked like an animated running stream. Except it was enormous in scale, filling one's entire field of vision.
We occupied two cabins all in all---eleven of us at one point, when Red's cousins showed up from Vashon Island. There was soaking the clothing optional tubs by some. There was a whale watching cruise by members of the group, and a hike up Mount Constitution, the high point in the San Juans, where one can see to Vancouver quite easily (one can also drive up the mountain too).
Internet connectivity allowed me to do my job from the cabin during the day, and from the wooden deck chairs the faced the cove. I felt like I was in an Bergman movie. I even squeezed in some sea kayaking today. We got a free forty-five minute trip because we had to turn back due to white caps out in the open straight. Forty-five minutes was perfect, I said. Just enough to enough it and feel the strain in my arms from paddling.
We cooked our own meals in the cabins each night, having loaded up with food at the Costco right before we boarded the ferry. They were showing both the live World Cup and the recent Super Bowl on the televisions in the Costco. Costa Rica was winning, and the Seahawks were up by five touchdowns on the Broncos. Before we left Portland, I had bought a Costco membership, and joked at the time that I felt like I'd become a citizen at last.
Tonight as a farewell here on Orcas, we dined at the Doe Bay cafe, which is behind the general store. It was pizza night. It was also the night before the Fourth of July, the true start of the season. The crowds just coming in and filling the place up.
It was alo open mike---the true opening of the summer season. We sat on the patio under the heaters and listened to the music as we dined. The first singer strummed a guitar sang a loud and somewhat profane protest ballad about how he had attended the 1999 Riots in Seattle, and how he had not thrown the rock through the window of the Starbucks, but that he wished he had, and thought himself a wussy liberal instead of a true anarchist.
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