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🌸
It was May 19, 1980, the day after
the mountain blew up. We, all six of us, had recently moved out of the Ballard
district of Seattle. It was time for a change or something.
My husband worked with five guys who lived on Tulalip Bay, on the Tulalip Indian Reservation north of Everett, WA. They all worked at a boatyard on Lake Union, right in the middle of Seattle, and they rode in to Lake Union together. DH thought it sounded like fun, so we sold the house in Ballard and bought a rather primitive summer cabin on leased land on the Res. That’s the setting.
The day before, the day of the eruption, early Sunday morning, had been one of those once in a lifetime experiences. I was up first, per usual, and was in the bathroom which had a steel shower stall. Anyhow, I heard the strange long deep sound come up the water from the south. It made the walls of that shower stall react with a kind of heavy wubba wubba sound. I had never heard anything like it. I couldn’t imagine what it was. But, just like on 9/11, you turn on the radio or the TV, back then and then we knew. All the ashy stories followed. The stories of escapes, and also tragedies.
Nobody in my family liked cold water, but I did. One of the attractions of where we landed was that we were two blocks away from a bay that was part of Puget Sound. It wasn’t very large. It was easy to swim across. And swim it I did, rain or shine. I would leave the kids with their father if he wasn’t working that day and head down to the beach and walk in. It would be cold at first. It never varied much from about 43℉, IIRC. It took me a few minutes to acclimate to it, then I would go paddling out there. My signal to get out of the water was when my fingers got stiff. That meant I had been in the bay long enough.
I remember swimming during heavy downpours. That is quite an elemental experience. Huge drops of rain splattered the surface of the water all around me. I had a crazy dream about being an otter once. I did know how the surface of the water looked from a quietly swimming creature’s eye. I had ducks paddle around me, mostly ignoring me. Neighbors thought I was nuts. I even felt something touch my feet underwater a few times! I sure wondered who that was! However, nothing ever bit me. Thank you, whoever, whatever.
The 19th dawned sunny, but chilly. PNW weather is unpredictable. My family were mostly still sleeping. I decided to go out swimming while they slept. I didn’t wear swim suits out there. Just shorts and a t-shirt. I left my flipflops on the beach and waded into the bay.
Some of the tribe set nets in the bay when the salmon were running. I was careful to stay away from those nets. I had a possibly somewhat irrational anxiety about getting caught in a net, as if it were a real danger. I’m not sure now that it would have been that hard to escape. But anyway I didn’t want to get caught!
Sometimes I would hear a seal barking, echoing over the water. And sometimes I would see a seal’s head bobbing around out there too. They kind of looked like swimming dogs in a way, just a brown animal’s head moving around.
There was a kind of odd energy in the bay that day. I didn’t let it stop me, but it was different somehow.
I noticed a swimmer’s head a few yards away, toward the north. It was brown like the seal’s, but I began to realize that it couldn’t be a seal because it was much too big. I wondered if bears ever swam out there. I didn’t even think there were any bears left on the Res. It didn’t look like a cougar. There were cougars. But cougar’s heads aren’t all that large. Then the head disappeared when the swimmer dove under the surface. I began to be a bit apprehensive and was thinking of going on home, when the head popped up again within a few feet of me.
I hadn’t believed the stories one hears growing up. I thought it was imagination, delusion, drunkenness or whatever. But there was this head in the water not six feet away.
As it bobbed up and down a bit, I saw a broad face, mostly hairless. There were deeply set brown eyes, very human. The skin was almost grey with some pink inside the nostrils and around the eyes. His nose was like ours, but wide like a Negroid nose and just a little flatter. He had a rather wide mouth, with a normal male pattern of moustache and beard around it. In fact, he had kind of a Fu Manchu look to him. I observed all of this very quickly.
In spite of all of that, I was not terrified. I was curious. I had the crazy notion that maybe somehow the disruption in the earth had brought him out into the open. Surely, this creature should not be out in daylight where anyone with a boat or swimming could see him.
“Well, now, who are you?” I said, daringly. Heck, how did I know, maybe he spoke?
He tipped his head a bit. Then he went down again. I waited to see what would happen next.
What happened next was that he emerged again, and showed me his right hand, with a forefinger through a smallish salmon’s gill. The fish, though doomed, was still fighting. The swimmer displayed the fish for me to see. Then he observed my face closely. I saw something there. Natural but disconcerting.
He turned his eyes to the big trees up on the beach beyond the row of houses. He looked back at me, then kind of did that thing like when you meet a cowboy or something, that greeting where they kind of nod upward with their chin. He did the very same thing, like “let’s go!”
I shook my head “no,” and I looked down. “I can’t go with you,” I said quietly.
He said a word, in a deep, gruff voice, just one word. So, he did speak, but not in any language I knew anything about. It probably meant, “your loss,” or maybe, “as you wish.” I will never know.
Then he dove under. I didn’t see his head again until he was almost out of sight.
Well, I figured it was time to go home then.
It was May 19, 1980, the day I met himself, the forest man, wild man, or unknowable being, out in the middle of Tulalip Bay.
Until this day, I have never told a living soul my story. But there it is, the best that I remember it.
At home, dried off and warm in the heat of the woodstove, and cooking pancakes and bacon for the rest of the clan, I had to smile a little bit to myself. For, in some wild corner of my heart and soul I had to admit that I was not disgusted, but a little charmed.
I bet not many of you have had to turn down a proposal like that one!
My husband worked with five guys who lived on Tulalip Bay, on the Tulalip Indian Reservation north of Everett, WA. They all worked at a boatyard on Lake Union, right in the middle of Seattle, and they rode in to Lake Union together. DH thought it sounded like fun, so we sold the house in Ballard and bought a rather primitive summer cabin on leased land on the Res. That’s the setting.
The day before, the day of the eruption, early Sunday morning, had been one of those once in a lifetime experiences. I was up first, per usual, and was in the bathroom which had a steel shower stall. Anyhow, I heard the strange long deep sound come up the water from the south. It made the walls of that shower stall react with a kind of heavy wubba wubba sound. I had never heard anything like it. I couldn’t imagine what it was. But, just like on 9/11, you turn on the radio or the TV, back then and then we knew. All the ashy stories followed. The stories of escapes, and also tragedies.
Nobody in my family liked cold water, but I did. One of the attractions of where we landed was that we were two blocks away from a bay that was part of Puget Sound. It wasn’t very large. It was easy to swim across. And swim it I did, rain or shine. I would leave the kids with their father if he wasn’t working that day and head down to the beach and walk in. It would be cold at first. It never varied much from about 43℉, IIRC. It took me a few minutes to acclimate to it, then I would go paddling out there. My signal to get out of the water was when my fingers got stiff. That meant I had been in the bay long enough.
I remember swimming during heavy downpours. That is quite an elemental experience. Huge drops of rain splattered the surface of the water all around me. I had a crazy dream about being an otter once. I did know how the surface of the water looked from a quietly swimming creature’s eye. I had ducks paddle around me, mostly ignoring me. Neighbors thought I was nuts. I even felt something touch my feet underwater a few times! I sure wondered who that was! However, nothing ever bit me. Thank you, whoever, whatever.
The 19th dawned sunny, but chilly. PNW weather is unpredictable. My family were mostly still sleeping. I decided to go out swimming while they slept. I didn’t wear swim suits out there. Just shorts and a t-shirt. I left my flipflops on the beach and waded into the bay.
Some of the tribe set nets in the bay when the salmon were running. I was careful to stay away from those nets. I had a possibly somewhat irrational anxiety about getting caught in a net, as if it were a real danger. I’m not sure now that it would have been that hard to escape. But anyway I didn’t want to get caught!
Sometimes I would hear a seal barking, echoing over the water. And sometimes I would see a seal’s head bobbing around out there too. They kind of looked like swimming dogs in a way, just a brown animal’s head moving around.
There was a kind of odd energy in the bay that day. I didn’t let it stop me, but it was different somehow.
I noticed a swimmer’s head a few yards away, toward the north. It was brown like the seal’s, but I began to realize that it couldn’t be a seal because it was much too big. I wondered if bears ever swam out there. I didn’t even think there were any bears left on the Res. It didn’t look like a cougar. There were cougars. But cougar’s heads aren’t all that large. Then the head disappeared when the swimmer dove under the surface. I began to be a bit apprehensive and was thinking of going on home, when the head popped up again within a few feet of me.
I hadn’t believed the stories one hears growing up. I thought it was imagination, delusion, drunkenness or whatever. But there was this head in the water not six feet away.
As it bobbed up and down a bit, I saw a broad face, mostly hairless. There were deeply set brown eyes, very human. The skin was almost grey with some pink inside the nostrils and around the eyes. His nose was like ours, but wide like a Negroid nose and just a little flatter. He had a rather wide mouth, with a normal male pattern of moustache and beard around it. In fact, he had kind of a Fu Manchu look to him. I observed all of this very quickly.
In spite of all of that, I was not terrified. I was curious. I had the crazy notion that maybe somehow the disruption in the earth had brought him out into the open. Surely, this creature should not be out in daylight where anyone with a boat or swimming could see him.
“Well, now, who are you?” I said, daringly. Heck, how did I know, maybe he spoke?
He tipped his head a bit. Then he went down again. I waited to see what would happen next.
What happened next was that he emerged again, and showed me his right hand, with a forefinger through a smallish salmon’s gill. The fish, though doomed, was still fighting. The swimmer displayed the fish for me to see. Then he observed my face closely. I saw something there. Natural but disconcerting.
He turned his eyes to the big trees up on the beach beyond the row of houses. He looked back at me, then kind of did that thing like when you meet a cowboy or something, that greeting where they kind of nod upward with their chin. He did the very same thing, like “let’s go!”
I shook my head “no,” and I looked down. “I can’t go with you,” I said quietly.
He said a word, in a deep, gruff voice, just one word. So, he did speak, but not in any language I knew anything about. It probably meant, “your loss,” or maybe, “as you wish.” I will never know.
Then he dove under. I didn’t see his head again until he was almost out of sight.
Well, I figured it was time to go home then.
It was May 19, 1980, the day I met himself, the forest man, wild man, or unknowable being, out in the middle of Tulalip Bay.
Until this day, I have never told a living soul my story. But there it is, the best that I remember it.
At home, dried off and warm in the heat of the woodstove, and cooking pancakes and bacon for the rest of the clan, I had to smile a little bit to myself. For, in some wild corner of my heart and soul I had to admit that I was not disgusted, but a little charmed.
I bet not many of you have had to turn down a proposal like that one!
🤎
(Oh, but I would like to send it in! lol!)
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