Something thenarrator wrote got me thinking about feeling safe.
I remember going to Goldmeyer hot springs with some friends. I’ve written about it before, but Xanga won’t let me find it.
We all hopped into a rented Subaru Outback and drove the two hours of bumpy forest service roads up the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie, and forded the river and… Met our friends. Our friends were acting as caretakers up there.
It was a lovely late summer, probably almost exactly two or three years ago. We hiked up the trail to the springs and soaked in the warmth and the lithium, until we were slugs. I just wanted to fall asleep, and so I took a nap in the attic/bedroom of the caretaker’s house, accessible only up a ladder-like stair and trapdoor, as I remember it. Note that this is really a no-no. If you go there, don’t ask for this favor.
Dozing off on little more than a futon pad in a mostly-empty, roughly-finished cedar house, my friends laughing downstairs, waking up a few hours later with a tiny shaft of sun that had found its way through the forest canopy and through the window, feeling a sort of rested I don’t usually feel, my friends still laughing downstairs, climbing down and being offered some soup or gumbo or whatever it was, eating, playing a card game with J while X went up to the springs….
Not really caring what time it was, whether we’d be there only another hour or a week but wishing I’d brought a tent…
Eventually J had to go check the water level in the creek, for the record-keeping. I followed him through the campsites. The trail was scarcely wide enough for your feet, through glowing moss gardens that came up to your shin. It was late afternoon, the time of the ‘golden hour,’ everything ringed by golden light, and I kept wishing this could extend forever, just stay like this.
Water level readings were accomplished by standing on a rock at the top of a hundred-foot cliff, the channel of the creek. Down at the bottom, a gauge painted on a pole sunk into the rock. Use binoculars to see, write in book. Try to talk over the roar of the white foam below.
We left that evening, and since D was so completely saturated with the lithium of the waters, I drove, which pretty much un-does all the relaxation. But the point is not to be relaxed, though that helps. The point is to be around these people, in this setting, and discover that letting go of that moment is just as important as receiving it.
(The photos are the ‘changing room’ at the springs, which is a lovely piece of architecture in itself. They’ve also apparently finished the footbridge across the river, so fording is optional. I really should get up there before the summer ends. Someone come visit.)
