Mike and I took Teddy down to the Snoqualmie Falls tonight. Magic. First, I found Mike's silhouette in the stones. He just happened to be standing there when I saw that the boulder right behind him had his profile. Did he do that unconsciously or did I see what I wanted to see, a face I loved reflected in stone?
Then more magic. The rainbow. Okay, it's true that if you walk down to the falls on any sunny evening, you're likely to find a rainbow in the spray, but it's still magic since I've only seen it twice. I love watching the roiling red mist and on the bottom side, the narrow band of purple haze. It never surprises me that the Snoqualmie tribe holds the falls sacred. There is energy there, pure, clean, and surprisingly powerful.
I wasn't done with the evening's magic yet. Mike had walked downstream while I scrambled around the big boulder to look at the rainbow as close as I could without slipping on the wet rocks. When I followed him back downstream, I got stuck in the sneaker-deep creek that joins the river just below the falls. Wet feet be damned. As I made my way through, I tried to get to the other side through tall grasses, not the kind the grows in your yard, but the kind with wide green leaves that grow thigh-deep in shallow water. I was about to crash through a web with a large spider in it. I stopped just short and there, to my right, was a Pacific treefrog. He held his blade of grass and waited. I leaned closer to see the black stripe that runs across his eye like a mask. I looked at his tiny toes, not webbed, but I couldn't see the disks that helped him hold on. I told him he was beautiful and though I could see he was about to leap to safety, he didn't. He might have let go of a held breath as I passed between him and the big spider web and trundled away to higher ground.
One more. When we went up the other trail, we passed over a large felled tree that had a chunk carved out of it so travelers could step over without having to scramble. Growing there was an artist's fungus - yes, that is it's real name from a book - a large semicircular fan with concentric brown and gray circles drawn onto the top and white as paper flesh on the bottom.
I think I met the artist down at the falls.
Thank you for listening, jb
Then more magic. The rainbow. Okay, it's true that if you walk down to the falls on any sunny evening, you're likely to find a rainbow in the spray, but it's still magic since I've only seen it twice. I love watching the roiling red mist and on the bottom side, the narrow band of purple haze. It never surprises me that the Snoqualmie tribe holds the falls sacred. There is energy there, pure, clean, and surprisingly powerful.
I wasn't done with the evening's magic yet. Mike had walked downstream while I scrambled around the big boulder to look at the rainbow as close as I could without slipping on the wet rocks. When I followed him back downstream, I got stuck in the sneaker-deep creek that joins the river just below the falls. Wet feet be damned. As I made my way through, I tried to get to the other side through tall grasses, not the kind the grows in your yard, but the kind with wide green leaves that grow thigh-deep in shallow water. I was about to crash through a web with a large spider in it. I stopped just short and there, to my right, was a Pacific treefrog. He held his blade of grass and waited. I leaned closer to see the black stripe that runs across his eye like a mask. I looked at his tiny toes, not webbed, but I couldn't see the disks that helped him hold on. I told him he was beautiful and though I could see he was about to leap to safety, he didn't. He might have let go of a held breath as I passed between him and the big spider web and trundled away to higher ground.
One more. When we went up the other trail, we passed over a large felled tree that had a chunk carved out of it so travelers could step over without having to scramble. Growing there was an artist's fungus - yes, that is it's real name from a book - a large semicircular fan with concentric brown and gray circles drawn onto the top and white as paper flesh on the bottom.
I think I met the artist down at the falls.
Thank you for listening, jb
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