Dark Winter, Snow's Bright.

The winter closed like a door quietly tugged shut out of politeness and momentum. This is not to say that all was gloom and darkness, rather, the bright yellow glow of the sun on the snow faded and the crooked wooden slats of the cabin reflected nothing anymore, at least until tomorrow. Ralph sat on the edge of the neat, antiquated bed in the corner of the cabin, trying to think of what to write. It wasn't that writing was imperative, or even necessary given the circumstances, but he thought in light of the physical weariness the days chores dealt him, he ought to exercise a bit of intellectual muscle and pen something half decent. Writing was always so cathartic, removed from the sweat and delicious fatigue he felt most days, whether the gym,the backcountry, or the simple chores of daily existence, labor was never at standstill. Rather, it was a constant companion, by choice and need, something to savor in times of uncertainty.

Uncertainty framed the current situation quite well, as the last stray bits of amber sunlight filled the myriad cracks and inconsistencies of the little wooden cabin. Spartan, but not a dump, he mused. A dump implied no class, and how could a 19th century fishing cabin on an island in the Puget Sound not have charm? He had lived in dumps, oh that he was certain of, with embarrassing clarity. The 1970's movie set mirage of Beverly Hills did little to belie the fact that a tiny fraction of UCLA students could afford to live anywhere close to campus, and he felt like an Anglo-Saxon archeologist, exploring the ethnic neighborhoods of south central Los Angeles during his 5 1/2 years there. 5 1/2 years, and all he had to show for it was a BA in english and Art History, he thought. Art History ought to be capitalized, even in thought, he insisted, because while it had been bastardized by the common suburban hipster, at its core it represented something noble and meaningful. 5 1/2 years, an urban refugee exploring the gritty, addictive streets of LA; the sketchiness, the sexiness, the I-might-be-Next-iness.

He recalled with uneven clarity the broken strips of sidewalk and leaning palm trees outside his shack of a house at Venice & Empire, the heat sizzling on the pavement like a gritty urban sort of mirage on summer afternoons. The fetid chaos of the city was escapable though, and driving out to Zuma Beach with his wetsuit and board, he felt like a refugee seeking some sort of solace from something both necessary and unspeakable. He loved how cold and raw the Pacific always felt, scarier and deeper than the Maine coast even, a welcome escape from the LA gridlock. The ocean up here was wild as well but also mysterious and ill-defined, the Puget Sound a maze of channels and islands connected by some sort of common ecosystem. Gone were the handsome blonde surfer boys and celebrities of the Orange County beaches, the garish beach chairs and umbrellas under the palm trees. Instead, nature here demanded a sort of stoic resiliency against the unpredictable tangle of water, mountains, and rain, all competing for attention. He liked the thought of this damp outpost in Washington somehow being connected to the sunny beaches of the O.C, the currents flowing upcoast carrying thoughts and ambitions across the continent.

In the incessant rain and gray, thoughts of southern California increasingly distracted his focus away from work at hand, and the tug of the palm trees and surreal white houses was painful at times. LA has always been a pitstop though, a wayward diversion for the satisfaction of society and parents and programmed ideas of success; he knew this from the start. No house party in Silverlake or beachside bonfire in Malibu was going to invalidate this. However alluring or spontaneous life could be, it didn't have the consequence of chopping wood in the cold rain on an island in the Pacific. The real wild was always over the next mountain, behind the setting sun; ethereal and hidden. He caught the edges of it in the wild stares the bums downtown would give you, the way they descended on the steel and concrete jungle of LA at night like the penguins coming in from the sea, that was wild, but only because it was real. Real like the thousands of undocumented sweatshop workers they wanted to deport because they didn't have papers, real like the riptide at Topanga Beach, real like the professor they fired because he spoke out about "dont ask, dont tell." These things made him seeth, boil with anger but also recoil in fear, scared to face something so immediate and impossible.

Impossible, that was the real modus operandi in LA. As his parents said, it was a great place if you had money, and not so great if you didn't. They had money, to be certain, to where money was not something discussed out of politeness, yet the hollowness of LA resonated with them too, cause god bless them, they were smart. On paper, he fit the young urban Angeleno model quite formulaically: well-educated, clad in slim jeans and pastel striped t-shirts that hugged his smooth frame, sharp angles of black polycarbonate ray-ban's rakishly askew on his well-structured face. He had that build all the girls seemed to yearn for these days; all sleek rounded shadows of muscle on nothing, toned without being beefy, slim without being scrawny. You panned upwards and the rounded shadows met sleek angular lines of a northern european jawline, bright hazel eyes lit under thin blonde tangles. He was good-looking without being cheesy, somehow he kept just enough of that middle school goofiness to render an air of aloof distraction which people found so endearing.

He loved straddling the barrier of what people found acceptable and comprehendible; the myriad identity boxes Americans loved to squeeze themselves into. He thought with envious intensity of how little he remembered of the first six years of his life in Stockholm, but felt like the freedom and openness of Nordic culture had somehow helped shape his current nonetheless. He could dance for hours with the hipsters and weirdos in some dark, warm night space, clad in leg-hugging jeans and rakish neon stripes, then go rock climbing in Malibu Creek the next day with the guys he liked to call "the alpha-bros." Not that these stereotypes of masculine intensity understood his duality of purpose, to them he was just a buddy to swap belays with and maybe a beer or two after. Like a Venn diagram whose spheres just begin to overlap, juggled a mixture of purposes and ideas. None of this affected his current plight, or destiny as it might be; however, only the achilles heel of his vacant narcissism could bring him down out here, among the fallen green logs and pebble beaches. An owl landed on a distant branch, its stoic hoot-hoot-haw a perfect soundtrack to the dull gray drizzle, the sun of the northwest. The general monotony of the weather here was a sort of distant comfort, something predictable after the vicious Santa Ana winds and choking morning smog of LA.

The cabin was perfect, flawed in just the rights ways, livable but also a constant project. An inheritance from his mother's father, one that had surprised everyone; Angus and him were always close, to be certain, but with a dozen other grandchildren, the sole bequeathment of his prize cabin has come out of left field. Somehow it didn't surprise Ralph, however, he took the news like a quiet investor who waits for just the right moment to revenge the loudmouth masses and cash his check. They had talked about what came next, what came after LA, and agreed the logical progression was a retreat to make Thoreau and Hemingway proud, a soul journey but also a re-focusing of priorities and purpose after the material mirage of Los Angeles had faded in the north coast fog. Chopping wood was pedestrian and also brilliant, he thought, something so foreign to the flannel and trucker cap clad 20-somethings that constituted his confidants in LA, their lame approximation of the blue collar ethic humorous in comparison. He thought of all the strange and divergent memories that framed his time in LA and the one he settled on, sitting on the edge of the warm quilted bed, surprised even him.

It was last June and he was piss drunk stumbling to the men's room of the El Ray, one of the many indie-esque theaters populating this barren stretch of Wiltshire boulevard. He settled on a vacant stall and as he sat on the cold, filthy toilet seat, the drums pounding on the other side of the wall and fluids on the floor he dared not think about, something struck him like a frisbee to the forehead. The handle on the wall next to the shitter; it was silver, not just silver but brilliant metallic white, and he envisioned a world where everything basked in a metallic glow, thoughts and intentions bouncing off each other in space like x-rays. Suddenly the reality of being alone and drunk at another obscure show faded and everything radiated cool silver brilliance, slow motion across the dancefloor as the singer wailed on about something arcane and lost. Sometimes he would daydream about this alternate silver universe, imagine god dropping a gazillion gallons of gold paint on LA in the middle of the night and everyone waking up shiny and reflective. In a way, he lived in an alternate color dimension now, but the gleaming metallic luster of LA was replaced with the simple, predictable grays and whites of the ocean, the forest, the brooding sky. Everything was primal and regular here, even the extremes like the rogue waves in from Japan or the distant rumble of the earth's plates struck him as so much more tolerable and necessary than the reflection on a bathroom stall handrail in LA, hollow and cheap.

He missed sushi, he missed waking up and finding the girl next to him to be even more intoxicating than she was the night before, minus the intoxication. He missed the smiles of the Mexicans who served him Carne Asada tacos at 2 in the morning, he missed the smell of the chilly fog burning off in the valley in the morning. This was all a trade off, though, for the beauty and rugged simplicity of the northwest; perhaps tomorrow he'd motor in to Bellingham on the little skiff, he though, after all, it was only 20 minutes away. The wild tangled mess of the Puget sound reminded him of the Maine coast he'd grown up sailing, but here the jolly pastel lobsterpots and granite-rimmed islands were replaced by the shadows of massive, brooding volcanos, and mysterious depths choked with kelp where sea otters played.

The view from the little front porch was the best in the whole channel, and on the rare clear days, the whitecapped summit of Mt. Baker loomed on the horizon, an omniscient eye over the ocean. The lights on the nearby islands focused and crystallized into little yellow dots and Ralph tugged at the knitted covers and slipped off his worn workpants, the bed quietly sighing as he slipped in. Tomorrow was so beautiful and possible, and for the first time in his life, he cried for no reason or consequence, only because he was so damn happy the future was now.