DAY 19...

Goodbye La Conner, i have to pay Anacortes a little visit.  i have to see an old friend about a fish.

Anita's living room.  waking up to this is pretty nice. i can haz a cup of coffee?  2 sugars please.


1. now i had told anita i'd probably get up around 9, but i woke up around 8ish and had to go back to sleep.  my doozy headache kept me up for a little and had drained me.  so i slugged back to bed and woke up after 10.  she was working in her home office so i got up and went back out on her porch to do some writing.  i love this patio.  there was a little kitten out there, playing in the leaves and trying to catch bugs and birds.  Anita's not a cat person, so it took a bit of strength for me not to just grab the thing and toss it into Anita's office and close the door.  my family does things like that with animals.  we tie balloons to their tails and lay in bed, and eventually, a balloon floats into the room.  it's awesome.





2. i'm out there and Anita brings me breakfast on a tray! how wonderful is this woman?!
i shall miss my writing studio at Anita's.3. got ready, packed up, and headed out to Anacortes to visit an old friend.  he said to come back at 6:30.  went back to Anita's to kill time.  she had to go pick up her granddaughter and would be gone for the rest of the afternoon so we said our final goodbye and had our last hug.  i did some laundry, some writing, organized my luggage.  i went outside to sit on the porch and have a cigarette.  i sat down and was placing my phone down next to me when i heard something.  i looked up, and it was a fawn.  a couple months old, all scruffy and little.  it saw me as i slowly stood up to go inside and get my camera but it didnt run.
mom, this lady is taking pictures of me!
excuse me, bitch, you gotta problem?  back off my baybayi came back out with my camera and saw its mama.  these things were about 6 feet away from me, just munching away on Anita's landscape.  i took some pictures and talked to them.  they stayed in the yard for about a half hour.  it was a nice visit.  they say seeing a deer is symbolic of gentleness and sensitivity and a connection to the Earth.  perhaps it's time to be gentle with my heart and keep my feet on the ground.  perhaps it's hunting season and the deer were hiding for their lives.  either way, they were cuter than Bambi.

4. drove back into Anacortes.  i was there to see an old friend that i met five years ago: Bandana Mike Staum, the man that gave me my lotus tattoo.  Jess and I went to see him while on vacay in Samish Island in 2007 and he and I had an immediate spiritual connection.  i tend to get along and have a better rapport with men.  maybe it comes from being so close to my dad.  i don't know.  but from the very start that i shook the man's hand all that time ago, i felt in sync with his energy.  he did my tattoo, and a few days later he did jessi's.  and the entire time we were with him, we talked about spirituality, being a good person, love, how we are all one.  very eastern philosophy.  he inspired me to look even more into that direction and i am grateful for that.  he is an amazing man and a phenomenal artist.  and once again, he has inspired me further.


i can't even tell you how happy i was to
see this sign again.father, you won't like this part, but you know that i am an honest person and i am sharing my experience of this trip.  sorry.

i went to see mike to get another tattoo.  i had been thinking of getting a koi fish for years and only decided more recently that it would be the right time to do it on this trip.  so i found two beautiful pictures that i couldn't decide on.  problem was i couldn't decide on what color i wanted the koi.  although i like black, black koi are there to attract bad luck so it doesn't get to you.  when a black koi dies, it means that some major bad luck was coming at you but the fish absorbed it instead and saved you from it.  i didn't want anything on my body to absorb bad luck and die.  so i decided on just a basic outlined koi.  mike drew it out perfectly, took no time doing it, and it is perfect.  so perfect, that i think i'm actually going to name it mike.

kois are symbolic of swimming against the stream, going against the grain.  i am not a traditional person, especially in the city i live in.  i subscribe to eastern thought and philosophy and medicine.  i am NOT conservative.  i am an artist.  i am 33 and unmarried with no children and in Bakersfield, that makes me a pariah.  i've heard it for years.  and i am proud of all of this.  so i wanted to mark this occasion of this trip to the North and this last year with a koi swimming upwards, against the stream.  thank you Mike, i love him, he is perfect.  namaste, old friend.

i've taken better pictures, but Mike wasn't in any of them. 
so here you go.5. drove back to Kayse's, back to Kent.  she and Brian were already in bed, so i hung around online, and went to bed.

i feel like it is time to go home.  i feel like i got everything i could get from going that far North.  i achieved what i hoped for.  i shed some grief, i saw some sights, i tried new beers, saw some killer whales, got a tattoo.

Bye Bye La Conner, for realsies this time.
 all in all, a very pleasant weekend.  i'm coming home, now.  i hope i bring all this peace back with me.