Sequim Sweet Home

We have landed in Sequim, Washington, "The Sunniest Place in the Pacific Northwest", "The Banana Belt", "The Rainshadow of the Olympic Mountains" . . . like me, it is a place with a lot of names.

We've been here a little over a month. After living in the homeless shelter for three weeks, we have found a little cottage to rent. I call it a cottage because I am a writer and I nearly always see the glass as half full. Some might call it a hovel. It is a cozy place, the smallest house I've ever lived in - about 900 square feet, but it is home. We are number seven of eight tiny cabins. Lucky seven, the lady who studies numerology told me at my writing group. There is a horseshoe turned the "right" way over our front door. There is lavender growing out front and I can play my music as loud as I want.

Yesterday, I cried and sang several verses of "Take Me Home Country Road" on my way up here to Sequim, after retrieving my household goods from storage in Olympia. This morning, it is 5 a.m. and the French roast is brewing but where are the mugs? Cardboard boxes are stacked like building blocks in my tiny living room. Mostly boxes of books. My books are my fortress, filling four floor to ceiling bookcases as well as donating some and putting some in storage.

A big part of my security in life comes from the things I surround myself by. There's the old wooden washboard that Grandma Finnegan used to clean my Dad's clothes, the old moonshine jug that Dad dug up on a job, my yellow clay ashtray made in the first grade. Why did they let kids make ashtrays? These things are my touchstones - the security blanket wrapped around my life.

The coffee tastes especially good this morning in Nana's bone china cup embossed with daffodils. I can hear Tate's easy breathing in the next room. I feel secure like a locked room.