Deja Vu

We did all kinds of touristy things over the past 2 weeks while my mother was in town visiting - but one of things we saw was so very reminiscent of a past life - it sort of gives me the creeps to look at the picture. The Alaska ferry Columbia was docked in Bellingham when we visited. This almost could have been the view out of my upstairs window in Wrangell - only in Wrangell it would have been heading into the dock instead of tied up to it. I know every inch of this boat. I know its sounds and colors and smells. I got my first true migraine from the thrumming of the engines on the Columbia. And its sailing schedule? Hasn't changed in all these years. Of course it was going to be right there in Bellingham. It was Friday afternoon. It would be in Wrangell on Sunday.

My first ferry ride was from Prince Rupert to Wrangell on the Malaspina ferry - which looks just like the Columbia except it only has one row of windows above the hull line. Todd was only 6 weeks old and I was so afraid of somehow losing him to the dark waters that I couldn't easily bring myself to stand out on the deck. It was cold anyway - to me at least - in July. And even though the boat left Prince Rupert in the late afternoon, there was light in the sky during the entire 14 hour trip.

During 15 years of living in Southeast Alaska there was plenty of opportunity to ride on the ferries. There were little vacations, and sports trips to play other teams when Todd was in Little League and city league basketball. There were more times than I care to remember that I had to catch a ferry in Ketchikan or Petersburg or Juneau after trying to fly home and having the plane not be able to land in Wrangell. But our direct encounters with the ferries were more about greeting guests coming to visit than about taking trips ourselves. And selling garnets to tourists, of course (see this blog posting for that story.)

There were wonderful times and just plain awful times during all those years. Now when I look at that ferry, and the water and islands around it, I am glad to be done with all that. I don't know why I have this natural 'bent' to remember so much negative stuff when, really, I have made life to be just what I want it to be, but... I just do. Even knowing that, it surprises me that seeing the Columbia again brings a lot of anxiety to my head. I should never have been stuck on an island for 15 years!

OK, so, it's been kind of a tough week. Mark has been out of town. (In Detroit, of all things. Other people in his group travel to Europe, but Mark goes to Detroit - where some actual customers are.) My mother left on Tuesday morning. The weather, which has been simply spectacular, has now started to turn toward fall. And fall is always hard for me.

So I am posting this picture of the Columbia in the hopes that putting it out there will help me turn my attention to better stuff. Deja Vu isn't really a good thing.