The Enchanted Forest

There's something out there, or maybe we should say "in there." I don't know what it is, but it's warm and hairy and non-verbal, and it's there.

The road in these parts takes you through places with strange and ancient names. Dosewallips. A river of the same name runs through it.

Shades of our recent but thankfully now former president echo in the name "Duckabush," a little further and deeper into the remoteness beyond Dosewallips. A mountain bears that name, as does a river that runs beside it.

Finally you reach the heart of greenness, at a place whose name is a sound like one that comes from a heart: Hamma Hamma. Of course, a river runs there also.

After that you leave the enchanted forest and its aura of mystery, and the feeling derived from travelling there, that it holds other, deeper worlds which crowd in closely on this one, threatening to push it aside like a toy.

Beyond are places with common, boring, un-magical names: Hoodsport, Union, Belfair. Dreadful civilized places, full of chaos and cacaphony. And then the mind returns to the deep, audible quietness of the Duckabush Trail, and the bend in it where softly at first, then with gusto, the sound of the nearby river rises through the leaves.