Audrey Sutherland Quotes

I went out to the area of drift logs on the shore, looking for dimensional lumber or plywood to repair the cabin’s wood box. Ninety-eight percent of driftwood is logs. They have their own beauty; shades of blond and gray, curved and hollowed and sleeked like a human body – or perhaps we’re like them – aged and smoothed by years of tumbling in the seas and on the rocks.

It was partly sunny, with light winds from the west. The mind and body absorb these things. There was no thinking process like “The wind is blowing the trees. They are bending toward the east. It is a west wind.” Instead, it all osmosed into the subconscious, and the body walked on, skin moist from the air and hair ruffling like an animal’s fur in the wind.

To the east the land was darkening. Night does not fall. It rises from the earth as the sun sinks low, sets, and embraces the land with its shadow. How could I describe this place? Words could only be read and the scene imagined. Even a photo could only be seen. It would not include the sound of the water on the stones, the scent of the spruce trees, the coolness of sea wrack under my hand, or the weary satisfaction of just sitting there after paddling six hours that day, and six weeks before that. The size of these islets and their details of sand, shell and rock beach, grass, driftwood, and flowers, the small woods back of the shore – these are proportioned to kayaks and close-ups, not big cruise ships or ferries. Those get a far outline of the shore, but their only close-ups are of the docks and the towns. This country is made for the pace of a kayak.

Adventure. The word is ad-venture, to venture toward. No big declarations of peril, challenge, daring, conquest. No guarantee of making it. Just trying toward.

The only real security is not insurance or money or a job, not a house and furniture paid for, or a retirement fund, and never is it another person. It is the skill and humor and courage within, the ability to build your own fires and find your own peace. —Audrey Sutherland (1921–2015)

Go simple, go solo, go now.

It was strange to see my bare feet again. They usually went from boot to bed to boot again, without taking off the socks. They looked quite fragile. My hands, however, are tools = pliers, carabiners, vise grips, antennae, turnbuckles. I should spray them with Rustoleum. No sense trying to grow long nails or putting on polish. Only my toenails are painted pink.