We have spent the last couple of days on Orcas Island in a beach house perched upon a bluff above a pebble beach with a stunning view out across Puget Sound and various other islands. Deer wandered through our garden as I sat on the deck in the moist misty morning and completed a few more rows on my Knitted Veil. That's where the maths comes in - I am a quarter of the way through!!It was wonderful to get out of town although a bit stressful too with small children, especially making sure that there were enough changes of clothes to keep a certain little boy dry and clean (he stayed dry, not so clean but I've given up on that). Orcas Island was beautiful, as is the whole San Juan Islands area; just the ferry ride from Anacortes to Orcas felt like a cruise in itself. One thing that really struck Tim and I was the (to us) overwhelming private ownership of the land there, particularly the beaches. It just felt wrong. We had a private beach as part of our accommodation but were exhorted to not stray beyond the big white boulder or the pink survey tape. Pink survey tape? There may be some cachet in the exclusivity of a private beach but ah, not in pink survey tape.
I'm not sure whether I have written about this before but the main thing that has struck me in so many ways about the US since we moved here is the rampant individualism. I am currently sleep-deprived and a bit addled by a head cold/hayfever mix, so my skills of sociological analysis are not really up to the task of elaborating on this. I just eagerly await publication of E Unus Plures: American individualism and the shaping of the nation (I'm just making this up but in the event that such a volume does already exist, let me know!)
1 comment:
Going back a bit - oh yes, private ownership of beaches! How bizarre! Trespassers will be shot! It seems totally wrong that you can't just walk and walk and walk along a beach, well not along some beaches anyway.
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