Portrait of Peninsula Woman

<i>Portrait of Peninsula Woman</I> is a collection of stories written and published September 2001 to June 2005 in the Chinook Observer on the Long Beach Peninsula in the state of Washington. While living in Nahcotta a tiny little community on the east side of the peninsula overlooking Willapa Bay I discovered I was actually living next door to stories.<p><p> I picked up stories among the ninety-five mailboxes at the Nahcotta post office; twisting and stretching with stories in yoga classes; listening to stories played on a grand piano in the little church where the preacher was preaching story; sniffing out stories served up with breakfast lunch and dinner in a half dozen restaurants up and down the peninsula.<p><p>I brought home stories garnered from among the cantaloupe in the grocery aisle and from the copy center next door; scratched out stories among the chickens in the organic garden down the street; heard stories being sung around a campfire burning for children whose laughter sometimes sounds like crying.<p><p>Peninsula Woman comes and stays loves and learns leaves or doesn't. Her stories are in the wind among the grains of sand in the spray from the ocean in a sky whose stars are not blacked out by too many neon lights in the sunrise over Willapa Bay and in the sunset sinking its fiery orange into the Pacific. <p><p>What Peninsula Woman gave to me I give back to the Peninsula. Her generous gift is story story story and I am forever grateful.