Methow

I don't believe this- I have not written of Methow yet. A little place, across the cascades, near Wenatchee. Even the names are interesting, na?
I stayed in a little cabin, in a valley that seemed to have walked out of an Andrew Wyeth painting. a valley of sagebrush and snow surrounded by gentle hills, with pines and boulders. I reached there on a moonless night, and it was dark ,and the snow was so white. I have no idea what light it found to reflect, but it did. white and crunchy, and the only thing one could hear was the steady crunch of our footsteps, and, i am afraid, the occasional 'oops' or worse from yours truly.
In the morning, it was an O'Keefe painting before me. I always thought she painted those purple shadows for art's sake, but no! shadows in the snow are really, truly purple-blue. And the sun was so, so bright! The air smelt of sagebrush. and it was warm, and quiet, and the colours! a limited palette, but all possible hues of purple and yellow with the green of the pines.
And at night, the stars came out. like I have seen them only a handful of times. Once each at sawantwadi, hari-hareshwar, and Dive-a-ghar, and twice at sulibhanjan. it was cold, and we were standing on the deck wrapped in blankets and looking up,up, up.
I was reading Isabella Bird, and at one point she mentions of a peaceful night ," I was woken up only once by gunshots, but after that the night was quiet and I went back to sleep." That sentence was always to me the epitome of travel. Well, here I was woken up only once by coyotes, and after that the night was quiet, but I did not go back to sleep. Instead, I went out to the porch again and stood looking at the stars.
There were deer tracks, and coyote scat, and we saw a chipmunk, and a hawk.
Everything was perfect. We walked, and read, and cooked, and played scrabble, and I was happy.

Spring!!

has sprung.
and i have never lived through this explosion before.
At home, it is a gentle awakening. it is green. the tangy smell of mango blossoms (i miss them, miss them), new leaves, the desperate-for-a-mate magpie robins.
Here, it is pink. cherry blossoms, other fruit blossoms i have not been introduced to, magnolias, camellias that are exuberant but strangely disappoint with the lack of fragrance- like a goodlooking person who is not interesting.
So home, it is green and sharp- like kairi chutney; and here, pink and sweet, like strawberry icecream. do i prefer one over the other? one is home, the other is mine. one grown with, the other reached out for. hmm.
but it snowed. And while all of Seattle was deploring the return of winter, yours truly pulled on a coat and went out. think of it, I thought I had said goodbye to Seattle snow- and then it palated. how could I not run out and hug it?
But here is a link to pinkness..