Comfort & Joy

I draw in a deep, calming second breath and release it.

“Now,” she goes on, “where are you?”

“A logging town on the coast. About an hour from the start of the National Park. What if I don’t find this place I’m looking for?”

There’s a crackling pause before my sister says, “You will. ”

“How can you believe that?”

“Because you do. ”

Her words sink in and settle. They give me something to cling to, remind me that though I may be crazy, I’m not alone. “Thanks. ”

“I’ll be sitting by the phone, you understand that, right?”

“I’ll call. ”

“Where’s your first stop?”

I glance down at the map. “Amanda Park. ”

“That sounds promising. ”

It rings absolutely no bells in my head, but then again, my head is clearly unreliable. “Yeah. Talk to you later. Bye. ”

“Bye. ”

I hang up, return to the road and drive north.

As I near the start of the Olympic National Forest, the view changes. Here, the landscape is unexpectedly shorn of trees. The area along the highway has been logged and replanted, but in the distance, I can see the white-capped peak of Mount Olympus rising into the gray sky.

There are hardly any mailboxes along the road, and the few homes I see are mobile or manufactured, set back on clear-cut lots with no hint of landscaping. Perhaps this place can’t be clipped and claimed and domesticated; it can only be taken by force and held onto by luck.

Amanda Park is a quaint town on the shores of Lake Quinalt.

Neither of which I recognize. I drive up and down the streets but nothing is familiar, so I return to the highway and continue north.

A sign welcomes me to Queets. I follow the old, poorly maintained road toward the town and through it. Nothing is familiar.

Back out on the highway, I take a sharp turn to the right, and there is the Pacific Ocean. Endless gray water, dappled by a sprinkling of rain; white, roaring waves. I pull off to the side of the road again and get out.

The driftwood is exactly as I remember it. So are the wind-sculpted trees. Only the sand is different. On my beach night, I stood in ankle-deep California pale gold sand to dance with Daniel.

In reality, the sand, like the sky and the sea today, is a shade of gray.

The entire coast is a riotous band of emerald green—huge bushes and stunted trees and mammoth ferns. I recall from my reading that it is the longest wilderness coast left in the world. Then, I was captured by the word “coast. ” Now, standing here, I see the word that matters is “wilderness. ”

As I get back into my car and drive back onto 101, I am tangled in my own emotions. Amazed by the parts of my dream that were accurate, and heartened by them, and disturbed by the pieces that were wrong.

Several more towns welcome and disappoint me. Though the landscapes are familiar, none of the towns are the one of my dreams.

As I leave the wild gray shores of the Pacific and head inland again, the landscape becomes wilder and more primitive. Here, the trees are gigantic and straight, blocking out most of the sunlight. Mist clings to the old asphalt and gives everything a mystical, otherworldly feel. I drive through town after town and find nothing that speaks to me. By late afternoon, as the golden sun sets into a cache of thick, black shadows along the roadside, my faith is beginning to fade, too.

Then I come to a sign made of sculpted metal that welcomes me to Rain Valley.

Rain Valley.

My foot eases off the accelerator. There’s a nervous flutter in my stomach that I haven’t felt before.