Portrait of Peninsula Woman

I picked up stories among the ninety-five mailboxes at the Nahcotta post office; twisting and stretching with stories in yoga classes; listening to stories played on a grand piano in the little church where the preacher was preaching story; sniffing out stories served up with breakfast, lunch, and dinner in a half dozen restaurants up and down the peninsula.

I brought home stories garnered from among the cantaloupe in the grocery aisle and from the copy center next door; scratched out stories among the chickens in the organic garden down the street; heard stories being sung around a campfire burning for children whose laughter sometimes sounds like crying.

Peninsula Woman comes and stays, loves and learns, leaves or doesn't. Her stories are in the wind, among the grains of sand, in the spray from the ocean, in a sky whose stars are not blacked out by too many neon lights, in the sunrise over Willapa Bay, and in the sunset sinking its fiery orange into the Pacific.

What Peninsula Woman gave to me, I give back to the Peninsula. Her generous gift is story, story, story, and I am forever grateful.