dare to be naive...

It seems to be that whenever I am somewhere or in something that naturally lends itself to poetry or beautiful words, they fail me. Maybe it is the overwhelming beauty of this place that renders it indescribable. Maybe it is that beauty suffusing my spirit that renders me speechless. Maybe it is both and many more things.
Last night, while out fishing in the channel, there was a faint rainbow forming over the mountain; watching it, really watching it, grow brighter and deeper, I realized that peace and simplicity have come easily to me here. I haven't had to seek it, it has found me. Granted, it is much easier to be slow and still and simple up here than it is in "the real world", because life here demands it. There is not much to get bogged down with up here.
Since I arrived, I have noticed that each time any of the village elders come into the store, they tell stories. Short stories, sometimes the same ones, to me, to each other, to the kids. There really are still story-tellers! It has been so interesting to hear some of their stories about their families first coming to Kodiak Island, about all their history, about the economical and environmental effects they experienced from the Exxon spill 20 years ago (an eery foreshadowing to the next 20 years in America's economic and environmental landscape). I am trying to soak up each bit of history that I can from their stories, and am eager to hear more.
I feel like a child at this time and place in my life. Spending evenings riding my bike from one end of the bay to the other, going fishing until well after I would normally be asleep, creating art from bits of rubbish on the beach. It is as if this is all a dream. Ahhhh.