FROM THE LOWER LEFT CORNER
Opposites Attract
access to undev eloped areas isn't taken for
granted. Looking at the view, w alking north
along the beach, lugging a lunch, binoculars and
birding scope, we were aw are of our gixxl fortune
in liv ing so close to such a beautiful place.
But this beauty is only skin deep. The
distant green on the Willapa Hills is mostly tree
farms, ty pically monocrops of one or two
species, planted in neat grids, sprayed to keep
them free of alders and other less marketable
ty pes. Some people enjoy the tree farms' tidy
order, like lawns manicured by a greenskeeper
w ith ev ery blade and needle under the control of a
human hand. The messy div ersity of a natural
forest, with its young and old, growing and
rotting, large and small, evergreen and deciduous,
like our own human population, presents
problems. So much better to have ev ery thing
grow at the same rate, live the same way...better,
or jus, efficient.
The w aters of the bay are beautiful to
the ey e, but that too conceals a problem. As we
started dow n the trail, 1 read the posted notice: the
bay too will get its dousing with something
man-made to make it more suitable for our
intentions. During six months of potentially dry
weather, the bay will be sprayed with an
herbicide, but we're assured by the yellow sign
that we'll be safe. It won’t hurt us; the
manufacturer says so and so do the regulations.
There are a lot of people here who are
unemployed, but better to make a few passes
with a crop duster than hire them to remove the
interloper by hand and machine. Besides, it’s
cheaper and we've been putting this stuff on our
lawns for decades, hav en't we? And those tree
farms across the way have done well w ith it also,
hav en't they ?
That's the real difference in my
perspective: I know too much. On the Carolina
coast, I was just ignorant. I saw the superficial
beauty and didn't know what lay beneath it; they
don't tell tourists much about things like that.
It's only when you live in a place, or when your
job is to find out, that that wonderful face, just
like with the one you love, is just the beginning
of a relationship, and that the liv ing body has
scars, and pains, and flaw s and problems. As you
get to know it, your original perception is altered
and you can never gel back to it again.
Victoria Stopiello is a writer living in
Ilwaco, at the lower lefl corner o f Washington
state.
A Superficial Beauty
Victoria Stoppidlo
L ife on (he "O th e r" Edge
M tg Stiril;
Wc followed the trail through pines
down toward the bay. At the last dune, the trail
became a small wixxlcn platform, with steps
beyond that dropped to the sand. I was reminded
of other, similar approaches to other similar
waterside vistas—one in particular on Hatteras,
or was it Okracokc, or even more striking, at
Cumberland Island?
Reminded of those other places and my
first reaction upon seeing them, I realized I've
seen this view so many times. I've lost any idea
of w hat it looks like. Its familiarity dominates
my perception the same way familiarity clouds
my idea of what my husband looks like, and 1
have to think back to our first meeting and
remember the initial reality of his appearance; I
had expected something different.
Driving up Stackpolc Road reminded me
of the lonely roads that led to the North Carolina
coast in mid-July. Steamy weather, mosquitoes,
deep green, and roadways almost grown over with
vegetation led us to the ferry for the Outer Banks,
as the barrier islands arc called. Stackpolc (cels
similarly mysterious. Large spruce oversee a
tangle of vegetation: alders, twinbcrry, salai,
salmon berry , fallen trees, mosses and ferns. I
tried to imagine w hat I would feel and perceive
w ith fresh eyes, instead of w ith my blinders of
memory. I speculated about w hat I would think
of this peninsula if I were visiting for the first
time: the ticky-lacky towns, the shotgun scatter
of mobile homes, the gravel driveways
disappearing into the temperate jungle, the
historic v illage here and there, the open beach,
the old pastures riddled w ith manufactured homes,
the carv ed hillsides, and now the long curv e of
Willapa Bay reaching to a forested knoll, forming
Ledbetter Point.
The tide was up, the w ind calm and the
waters lapped the sand in rhy thmic soft curls.
Gray sand, gray water, and far across the bay were
hills, which would be called mountains in other
places. Too quickly we noted the clearcuts, the
bare places, the eroded shutes from winter
storms.
The Long Beach Peninsula would be a
treasure of solitude, a sanctuary for the harried
urbanite, a respite for the wildlife lover—if it
were located somewhere on the cast coast where
"Garan, he's horrible to me," I whined. For the last two
days. I'd been under a constant barrage of insults, always 3.2
seconds before 1 said it, from Stephen, my friend Alistair's
English exchange student For the last two hours. I'd been
complaining to Garan about Stephen. It wasn't bad enough
that he was insulting and sick-minded, he had to be stupid,
loo. Imagine thinking that Roger Moore makes a better Bond
than Pierce Brosnan!
"You know why he's doing this, right?" Garan asked.
"Yeah, he has no social skills."
"Don't be so mean, Meg! I bet he likes you," Garan said.
"I did the same thing to Jen when I first met her."
"Jen is the love of your life." I sulked. "This is some
freaky antisocial boys'-school British moron."
"Don't worry. They'll be gone in a week, anyway."
Quick recap: In November, my pal Alistair and I, along
with some others from our high school, went to London on a
student exchange. In April, our hosts came here, for 10 days
o f sightseeing in New York, which meant 240 hours nonstop
shopping for Eva, my counterpart. So when the chaperones
decided we needed groups of four, I agreed to go with Alistair,
his match Stephen and Stephen's friend. My ice-cream
scooping paycheck wouldn't have let me keep up with Eva and
her friends, even if I'd wanted to go clothes shopping.
I checked in with Eva, and then the four o f us set off. As
we tour the Intrepid, decide not to wait to climb the Empire
State, visit Chinatown and spend a few hours on a wild-goose
chase for a restaurant Alistair vaguely remembered, Stephen
and I swap bad pick-up lines and graphic insults. Although
Stephen is evil, horrible and completely lacks manners, I've
never laughed harder with anyone in my life. Not a bad bonus
for doing a friend a favor, is it?
Alistair asked me for another favor when he left me
responsible for getting the horrible Stephen home. "Are you
sure you know how to get there?" I asked him, lor about the
millionth time when we get off the bus. He insists he does,
and sets o ff walking. As soon as he's out of sight, my
nervousness kicks in.
"I'm sure he can walk a few blocks alone" Eva says. She
obviously has a much higher opinion of his intelligence than I
do. We're eating dinner when the phone rings.
"Hi, Meg, it's Stephen. I'm lost."
"You're what? Where are you?" My paranoia in fullblast, I
picture the hapless Brit wandering through the worst sections
o f Newark. "Tell me where you are. I'll come get you."
"Only kidding. Want to go to the pictures?"
One night, Eva came in sporting a nose ring. I thought it
looked good (well, except for the blood), but my mom, who
doesn t want me to get second holes in my EARS was less
than thrilled. Another night, some kids from the group made a
late-night pilgrimage to "this place in Little Italy where they
don't card you" and missed the last bus home from the city.
Then it was time to invent a visit to someone's fictitious
American uncle in the city.
Anyway, their time in the US speeds by. Friday night, the
English exchanges, American hosts, and a few friends we
conned the chaperones into letting us invite along, go on a
cruise/dance around the city. Stephen and I chose the cold over
a loud dance beat masquerading as music, and spent most
o f it on deck, leaning on the railing, with the city lights in the
background. It was like a scene from a movie, only freezing
cold.
“W e were talking!” I insist, when Garan teases me later.
And it’ 8 true, Stephen’s repertoire of blonde jokes rivals mine,
and his British pick-ups are brilliant. Still, after a few hours
mocking each other’s accents, the cold gets to me and I hit the
daice floor with Garan and another friend who needed a chick
to dance with. We inch closer to a casual run-in with Garan’s
Flavour-of-the-Month, but haven't made actually contact before
the final slow song starts.
The guys say "Stay here" and vanish. I’d sooner brave a
minefield than this dance floor of very attached couples, so I
sit on one o f the billion crates marked with the DJ's logo, who
seems to have hoped his expensive equipment would hide what
a miserable DJ he is. He failed.
Then I see Stephen coming down the stairs.
"Would you like to dance?" he asks, taking my hands.
Would I! "I thought you didn't dance,"
"Your friends put me up to it." Ok, so maybe having three
guys, all over six feet, strongly suggesting he dance with their
little M eggie might have had something to do with it. Suffice
it to say we spend the rest of the week together, arguing
violently or saying the same thing, at the same time.
Sunday afternoon, they left. I had to work. . Fine, I
admit it, I was more than pleased to avoid a teary airport scene.
I'd had a great lime with Eva; although we almost never hung
out together on the group trips in London and New York, we
would come home afterwards and talk it over until we were too
tired to make complete sentences. I knew I'd miss her. But
somehow, I wasn't as thrilled with Stephen leaving as I
thought I would be.
A few days later, Garan and I are in his Volvo, coming
home from the diner, just like every weekend. We ordered
different things.. then looked across the table and wished
we'd ordered the other, just like every other weekend. I've
spent my tip money on video games, we ran into Alistair and
the rest of the crew, like every other weekend. The theme
song to my life is playing again.
I’m realizing that Stephen is in another country, continent,
timezone. This, here, is my life, and right now he’s probably
sleeping off his jetlag, and reconnecting with his mates for
whatever their weekend patterns are. I have no place in that, as
he has no place here. By the time Garan drops me off, I've
filed last week under E for Events I'm Going To Put In My
Best-Selling Novel Someday.
The light flashes on my machine. Messages. I deliberate a
moment, do I really need to hear that my boss needs me to
work another shift? Then again, it could be the UMass
admissions office calling to offer me a scholarship.
"Hello, Meg. It's the crazy little Brit here Just thought I'd
ran up my phone bill saying hi to you."
Guess I’ll work an extra shift. After all. I need to get a
phonecard
Meg Stivison is a high school senior in New Jersey
who puts out her own e-zine, Violet Eclipse.
A
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