Timing

I had just finished teaching a daylong workshop in Port Townsend, which meant I now had a ferry to catch. It was already dark as I started out along the wooded coastal roads that wound through the Olympic Peninsula. It was a lovely drive, and it had been a good class, but I was glad to be heading back. Sometimes coming home is the best part of a journey, all that exploration and adventure helping you appreciate anew what is so familiar. I was looking forward to that – but first, I had a ferry to catch.

I normally worry a bit about such things. It’s the timing. It was night, so it wouldn’t be crowded, but I might be just a little late, and then I’d have to wait in my car in a lonely parking lot, which isn’t such a terrible thing except that I might be accompanied by that feeling of having missed something. On this night, I wasn’t worried, or I forgot to be, distracted as I was by moonlit treetops and thoughts of home and of everything being okay as it is.

As I came around the bend, I could see in the distance the blinking lights of a waiting ferry. I rolled up to the tollbooth, and glanced at the lot. Something was odd. There was only one other car, which was driving at that moment up the onramp and into the boat. I stopped and unrolled my window and reached for my wallet. “One to Seattle.”

The man in the tollbooth began ringing up my order.

“Wow,” I said, nodding toward the parking lot. “Quiet night.”

The man shook his head stoically. “Nope. You’re just the last one. It’s leaving now.”

“Hey, hey! How about that? Perfect timing.”

He handed me my ticket, and in a voice of utter world-weary certainty, intoned, “It’ll never happen again.”

Oh, it must be tough being stuck in that booth all night, I thought as I drove straight to the ferry, its ramp extending from the deck, the whole ship, at that moment, waiting for me.

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William KenowerWriting, William Kenower, Timing, LuckComment