A Good Hard Rain.

I got myself a cup of coffee and I'm sitting in the Otter Lodge before I go hitchhike into town with Alicia. It's pouring down rain and the tide is out. Brad the Doe Bay handyman is wearing his red Steve Zissou hat and is drilling away at some project upstairs in the cafe.

The dark mountains are enveloped in a greyish fog that make them ghostlike against the equally grey sky. Everything feels spongy. Like it has the possibility to burst into flowers or mold or tadpoles.

A damp and fluffy golden dog named Ollie strolled into the Lodge with his owners, shook himself out, and began to lick my hand. Jill, our on-staff yoga instructor, kombucha-drinking and never-disappointing high-maintenance chick looks at me, plugs her nose and tells its owners that they are in a no-pet zone.

"Can't you smell that?" she quietly asks me.

"Smell what?" I say.

"Wet. Dog."

Poor Ollie gets tied up outside in the cold. Doe Bay is quiet today.

I finished The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho yesterday, after taking a two hour nap on the point that overlooks Rosario Strait. Brenda has recommended it to me forever (hyperbole), and I finally had the opportunity to read it. Coelho's ability to name what every human feels--our hunches, intuitions, emotions--was most interesting to me. He uses terms like "Soul of the world", "omens" and "personal legends" to explain what a lot of religions avoid identifying. I really appreciated how he didn't avoid using terms he felt fit simply because of his Catholic religion. There is a connection between listening to God and listening to yourself that I hadn't heard written before. I loved it. Written similarly to St. Exupery's The Little Prince, this book wrote about people, their resiliency, and the courage we can find within ourselves if we ask of it from Higher powers. Thanks, Brendabulous.