Notes from
Ketron.

There’s something special about watching the island slowly grow larger from the ferry. On a clear summer day, green against all that blue, the approach feels like part of arriving.

I bought this rhododendron at Flower World and planted it here with my mom. There isn’t much more to report, except that it seems happy. New growth, new buds, glossy green leaves. It appears to have decided this is a good place to be.

Pacific Northwest summers can feel almost unfair: long evenings, calm water, and enough light left over to make the ferry ride home feel like part of the day rather than its ending.

I’ll miss this view when the evenings begin closing in. Still, I’m ready for fall—the cooler air, the returning weather, and the island becoming itself in a different way.

Sometimes mine is the only car waiting at the landing. The scale of the response never stops being funny: a whole ferry crosses the water, lowers the ramp, and takes me aboard.

By evening, the day’s list has usually proven optimistic. But each season my little corner of the island feels less like a project and more like a place. On the late crossing, if the timing is right, the sunset appears over the water and makes a pretty convincing case for having stayed so long.