I walk onto my deck. The air in my head is made up of Camp-Sealth-waterfront-morning smell, green and brown and blue and potent. The tide is half out and gives me mud smell and seaweed smell and salt.

The Bonaparte gulls are back, beaks bobbing as they swarm and fish behind the ferry. Their heads have turned from winter white to summer black. They are small, swift and susurrant.

Gray sky sits north, pushes, prods. It is a cement wall of rain. The light running behind is watered and wanness. Squalls overrun us. We are clean.

Sunlight, seldom seen, warms stone and sand alike. Feet crunch gravel to the creek. The Muscovy duck hacks out a territorial protest as I walk by, as I stand my ground. Slapping through the mud now, my feet carry me down the road.