I woke up after finally having what I would consider a good night of sleep. I have been tossing and turning for several days, experiencing odd, stressful dreams and awful fits of just lying on my back, seeing the lights of cars come in through the blinds.

This morning I walked a familiar path that follows the Strait and looks over it to Port Angeles. This morning I was able to see not only America but the magnificent Olympic mountain range, pink in the morning and jutting up so far away. The fact that I can look at my home country and yet feel so distant is darkly hilarious.

There were quite a few crows out this morning. It was cloudy and dark, feeling much earlier than it actually was. I kept my headphones out this morning- there were too many songbirds hidden in the bushes that kept making beautiful sounds.

The seabirds here are amazing. I only have a prime lens on me at all times, but I think it’s time to hoist the behemoth, awesome zoom lens that Helen, a family friend who lives in the Netherlands, generously gifted me. The birds here on the Strait are too colorful and interesting to be ignored, but they are skittish and stay far from shore. If I get enough work done today I might go out tomorrow morning and make pictures of their oceanic cavorting.

This morning geology and garbage alike caught my eye. I mostly walk on muddy or asphalt covered paths but this morning I found myself collecting garbage that had welled into some of the holes in the multi-colored, exquisite rocks along the shore. My cynicism towards humanity swells into a massive crescendo in my head when I see Pepsi cans and cigarette butts and pieces of Styrofoam (which doesn’t decay in landfills for over 1,000 years, curse it’s artificial structure) littering gorgeous granite and sharing space with seaweed and lichen. We are, frankly, vile creatures. We may bemoan pigeons and seagulls as “rats with wings” yet we, really, are just rats with opposable thumbs and large brains. The fact that we find other animals disgusting is ironic.

Regardless, I had a great time. When it’s cloudy, which is most of the time here, my eyes can appreciate color better, and the muted greens, purples, reds, and lovely black and browns all bounced out today, lush and inviting. I even admired the fearsome, dense thorn bushes that crowd on the cliffs above the sea. I finished my walk by hopping on a bus to campus to begin attacking the never ending readings that underline most days, feeling ready for any and all dense prose, for I had been invigorated by all the quiet flora and fauna around me.