Yesterday I e-mailed my manuscript to the publisher. According to Mark (my contact), the paperback and e-reader versions of Tiger Tail Soup should be out in four or five months. So … I’m thinking March. Good!
I said goodbye to Mark and hung up the phone. Then I turned off my computer, and as I walked out to the mailbox, I saw my neighbor Dorothy striding down the street looking even more energized than usual. She told me she’d been on a windy walk along the waterfront. “The kite-surfers are out,” she said. Ah, kites! I thought. Surfers leaping over the waves on this sunny fall day!
I had to go. Quickly I changed into some walking shoes, grabbed my hat and gloves and headed for the Edmonds waterfront.
Sun and wind on the Edmonds waterfront
Like Seattle to the south of us, Edmonds is on Puget Sound. The Olympic Peninsula shelters us from the Pacific Ocean, so we usually don’t get big waves. Yesterday was different though. After months of calm seas, the waves were kicking up, splashing on the sand, exploding against the breakwater.
Everywhere I looked, people were snapping pictures of the waves. And me without a camera. To the north Mt. Baker was shining soft-ice-cream vanilla white against the clear blue sky. And the water … oh, my gosh! Between the white caps, the water was a complex moving pattern of shiny sky blue and seaweed green. A tapestry woven anew every split second. Waves hit the beach and erupted into gorgeous displays of wet sparkly fireworks.
Remembering that the weather report had called for another day of sunshine, I consoled myself, thinking I could come back tomorrow with my camera. And sure enough, the following day was sunny. But there wasn’t a whisper of wind. Then my car broke down, and the Nissan garage didn’t have any loaners.
Missed opportunities
What a fantastic picture-taking opportunity! And I’d missed it. Oh, well. Things like that happen. Nothing to do but forget about it and move on. Usually that’s just what I do. There is, however, one missed opportunity I keep coming back to. It’s the Balinese painting I didn’t buy almost forty years ago.
photo courtesy of Brian at shallowend
My friend and I had taken advantage of a very special deal that included a round-trip airfare from Manila to Bali and five days at the Denpasar Hyatt for $300 (if I remember right). On one of the afternoon tours from the hotel we rode past rice terraces on our way up to Ubud, an artists’ colony where we strolled past dozens of beautiful paintings–only one of which was exquisite. It was reasonably priced too, and I would have bought it, except … I didn’t bring any money.
I did bring my camera that day though. Heading back, I snapped a few pictures of the rice terraces. I later used them as models for a Chinese brush painting.
Two days later
My car is fixed now, but the sun and the big waves are gone. All that’s left down at the beach are bubbles and big piles of seaweed and kelp.
I am so glad I inspired you to go down to the beach. It was a beautiful day. Hopefully we’ll have another this fall and you will have your camera.
Congratulations on having your book published.
Dorothy
Yes, it was a beautiful day at the beach. Unfortunately, the kite surfers were gone by the time I got there.
So happy your efforts are rewarded!
Thank you, Sunny.
Such a lovely little landscaping vignette of Edmonds’ beach. And at long last, your novel will soon be making its way into the world. Congratulations!
I’m excited to finally see your novel in print. It takes a long time to get to a finished book, doesn’t it?
You beat me to it. Your novel, Somewhere Upriver, is as fantastic as I knew it would be.
I was at Ocean Shores for those beautiful fall days 28th,29th left on the 30th. Don’t have that good of a camera but got some pretty sunset pics.
I don’t have a good camera either. I used my i-pod for the two photos at the end. My sister Sue is the photographer in the family.
Hi Nicki,
I love your tiger painting. The tigers look powerful! The Chinese calligraphy is absolutely beautiful! 不惮怒涛迎风暴 (Bùdàn nùtāo yíng fēngbào). I’m sure these are your calligraphy? If I’m right, your calligraphy style is the Li style 隶书 in this picture.But for the Rice Terraces, the calligraphy style is cursive. Your rice terraces are so vivid. I just came back from Exhibition – Masterpieces of Chinese Painting 700 – 1900 – Victoria and Albert Museum two days ago from London. You would have loved the magnificent display.
The calligraphy was done by my professor in Manila, Prof. Chen Bing Sun. He has since passed away, but there will be a retrospective of his work this month at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Most of his non-Chinese students couldn’t do their own calligraphy. One of my friends, Homoon Chung, was an exception. She still paints, and her calligraphy is beautiful.