Part of adjusting to our home here in Washington has been getting our bearings about direction. Both my wife and I grew up learning to navigate and have relatively good senses of direction. We know how to take clues from the position of the sun to discern directions. We both have navigated rural areas and learned to find our way in cities. We both are fairly good at reading maps. We’ve navigated a lot of trips in our lives with one of us driving while the other reads a map and gives directions.

Somehow, however, there is something different about directions in this place at this phase of our lives. Like most other things in life, there are many different factors that come into play as we have been getting our bearings.

Part of the adjustment is the nature of roads and streets as they wind around physical obstacles. If you drive bay drive which follows the shoreline in our town, you could have the water to your north, west, and south without changing streets. The streets in our subdivision are curving. We turn right to go north onto our street and follow it to our house where we turn left to be going north as we pull into our driveway. Winding roads are not new to us, however, We grew up in and around mountains where roads curve and wind and change direction.

Part of the adjustment is that sun angles are different in a more northern location. This is the farthest north that we have lived. The difference between the length of days in the summer and in the winter is more dramatic than other places we have lived. In mid-summer it appears that the sun rises in the northeast and sets in the northwest. Because we use the sun as an indication of direction, our internal sense of direction is skewed by the position of the sun in the sky.

Part of the adjustment is that there are more gray days when overcast prevents seeing the sun. It is easier to lose a sense of direction in the fog, and it is easier to lose a sense of direction under a heavy overcast. We get more cloudy days here than other places we have lived.

Part of the adjustment is that we have spent most of our lives on the east slope of mountains and hills. The places we have lived have often had mountains to the west of our home. Here we have mountains to the east as well as to the north. It takes time to learn individual mountains to know which ones you are seeing. Heading towards the mountains on a cloudy day it is easy to begin to think we are headed west. To make matters even more challenging, there are high hills on islands to our west shaped like mountains. I’ve learned to ask myself, “is there snow up there?” when identifying what I’m seeing.

I’ve written quite a bit in my about shifting from a sunrise location to a sunset location. There is something to that shift in our lives. Sunsets are generally more dramatic here than sunrises. That is a big change from being in the hills with a view to the east over the badlands and prairies. The change is symbolic of retirement for me as well. I am learning to appreciate endings when other phases of my life have been more about beginnings.

One of the gifts of this summer for me has been the purchase of an electric bicycle. The pedal boost of the bike enables me to ride farther from home than was typical with my other bike. I have been exploring some new roads and streets and I have been looking freshly at the territory close to my home. Most days recently I have been riding out to the end of a spit of land that forms the western border of Drayton Harbor. With the harbor on my right and the Salish Sea on my left as I ride out the spit, there are dramatic views in both directions. Since I like to ride early in the morning, I have found myself pedaling out the spit at sunrise as the days are getting shorter. I know that soon I’ll have to adjust and ride later in the day for safety’s sake, but recently, I have enjoyed riding as the sun begins to appear.

I’ve been treated to the beauty alpenglow on the mountains to the East as a sunrise phenomenon. I used to think of alpenglow as a form of beauty to appreciate in the evening, but I am learning to appreciate it in the morning. Yesterday as I rode my bike, the timing was right for the mountains to be silhouetted by the rising sun. The snow at the tops of the mountains reflects the light in dramatic ways and the view is dramatic. I am aware that the colors are more dramatic because there is plenty of smoke form wildfires in the air, but the colors have been beautiful and I have found myself stopping to just look. I am reminded of so many mornings watching the sunrise from my canoe on the surface of Sheridan Lake in South Dakota. My exercise is spiced with moments of calm and quiet. An activity that is about motion gets interrupted for moments of stillness. Even though I am now retired and my stillness is not as rare as was the case when I was busy with many work responsibilities, I still find myself in motion most days and I am grateful for the moments when I can just stand or sit in quiet contemplation.

Being still is another way of becoming oriented. Taking time to carefully look and really see helps me develop the perspective to appreciate the subtleties and nuances of a place. If I pause long enough the sun will make its appearance and I am reminded of both my sense of direction and of the season of the year.

I may have moved to the sunset coast, but I am delighted to discover that there are still many sunrises in my life to delight me.