Forks, WA - or Twilight -

Thoughts on Forks, Washington

If I was going to write a book, filled with lovers, vampires, us and them, it would take place in Forks, Washington. Oh yeah, already been written! But if it hadn't, this is what I've learned, and imagined about Forks.

Small town, one stoplight. Quinalt Indian reservation, fishing village, logging trucks. Clearwater correctional center is down the road.

A Sunday afternoon in a laundromat provides a view of the transients - a couple of middle aged folks traveling down the coast, too clean to wear dirty clothes or smelly underwear, but claiming they are on an adventure. Two people, middle age, sitting in their 90's era car, playing on their 2016 era phones, waiting for 3 washers of bedding to finish spinning. A red bearded and Bradbury tattooed man enters and Notting that the extra large heavy duty washer is full, leaves. Two fine specimens of youth, clean, bearded, not shaved, with duffel bags stuffed with clothing (smelling, even from afar of hard dirty labor) tightly compressed into the heavy-duty extra large washers, with soap packets strategically tucked into their all-in-one batch of dirty smelly clothes. A week's worth? One with a black tattoo, forests, mountains, cloud, and "Ask who wasn't are not lost," wandering through the scenery. A young couple, late 20's with a small bit and a baby on the way. Laundry in two baskets, quickly paved in two washers, returning to their red pickup which didn't start on the first or third try. An older couple, appearing as if they are skilled st laundromat laundry - complete with TV tray opened up, deli dinner pulled from white bags, and the two dine on deep fried and cold sauced  from shared Styrofoam containers. The red bearded man's makes a week timed return, claims the heavy duty machine, and begins to fill it.

Road signs with names such as Hoh, Quillet, La Push, Rialto, Quillam, Kalaloch, Aberdeen, First, Second, Third beach, Quits and Sol Duc Rivers. Signs advertising twilight wood, ho hum lodging, Sully's Diner, Guard dogs on duty, and Home off the Chitwins.

Rain forests, giant trees bearded in moss with ferns and clover and ivy at their bases hug the beaches, and the bones of these trees claim the sand as their graveyard. Rusty mailboxes filled with brown and rotting newspapers,

Misty mornings settle below the tree line blanketing the area, burn off as the day becomes to brutal bright clarity with hot dusty days and settling again into eerily covered evenings.

Shape shifters - what is apparent isn't. Roads to nowhere open up; Indian villages rise from the sand; a town full of transients, who stay. Restaurants with welcome and open signs suddenly closed, unwelcome, and the lights go out throughout the town. Only one place twinkles in the dusk - BBG's, burgers bar and grill. Overflowing with folks wanting a warm dinner and a friendly beer. 

Motels and homes, ready to say amen and east find themselves not only without power to break bread but without power to pump water to rinse the day's dirty from their hands.

Little ones cry from hunger, mother's search through pantries, hungry men our their boots back on, workers turn on their flashlights, and the adventurous put their packs back on, dodge the ravens guarding their meals, and with no gps or stars to guide them, take the right fork and join the caravan with twilight leading the way.