The other day my daughter called and asked, “Can we go to Craft Island?” Craft island is a beautiful NW gem located in Skagit County. The turn off is right next to another gem Snow Goose Produce, Gifts and Ice Cream. It was one of those hot days last week and the water certainly sounded refreshing!
My answer to spontaneous play during the summer is typically, “There is so much work to do!” But this time, I chose a different path. Craft island while beautiful, is a bit of slog to get out there and you need to time the tides to maximize your visit. Worth it, but at 2:30pm, I pivoted and offered Oso and the Stillaguamish river. She accepted! And off we went with a few friends in tow for a couple of hours on the river.
Oso is where my dad is from and my aunts, uncles and cousins still call home. I have been making that drive up Hwy 530 for 5 decades, essentially my whole life. Off to grandma Opal’s and Granpa Dick’s. Summer after summer and year after year our family would return to the farm and river property. Grandma had 12 brothers and sisters, and pretty much all of them made their way up to the river property annually. The gatherings were huge, wall to wall tents. What memories!
Well time has marched on and the gatherings have gotten less frequent and quite a bit smaller. I am grateful to have moved closer and just downstream in Stanwood. But for some reason, proximity doesn’t always mean connection. So, combining play and an Oso visit to see Aunt Linda, Aunt Addie and Uncle Terry, was the perfect combination. Maleah and her friends enjoyed a lazy afternoon on the water as did my youngest, Joanna and me, but I also got to connect with family.
The farm work, the home maintenance projects, the laundry… all still needed to be done, but there will always be work to do and making time for some spontaneous family fun with family was the right call.
There won’t always be time. My dad’s generation has now become the old guard and somehow Joelle and I and my cousins, (who I swear just yesterday) were teenagers, became the middle guard and our children and grandchildren will carry the mantel forward.
We had a good time and 5 hours later we hopped back into the car, tired, but connected to something bigger, something that is now going on 5 generations on a small piece of ground with a river running next to it.
-Tristan Klesick