A Port in the Fog

  I grew up in a bunch of islands, where there were always rocky promontories, boats to hit them, and a bit of fog. For a number of years as a child, I would often hear a foghorn blowing somewhere off in the distance, its exact location unknown to the present day. It was a double horn, two identical notes broken by a short pause. It sounded lonely, even creepy, marking the passing of time like some inexorable, slow heartbeat, and the threat of unseen rocks; it was also familiar, a steady presence. Not as solid an entity as the islands themselves, however, its note waxed and waned in its strength each time as the fog drifted through the archipelago and distorted the sound-carrying capacity of the air. This lent a further mystery to the foghorn, which Mom helped my young mind decode with cool logic and the scientific process: Aided by the kitchen clock's second-hand, we timed its intervals at half a minute. First it came through clearly, then grew quiet and murky, before popping out again to startle me; but it was always there.

  One year, I don't remember which, the double foghorn ceased to sound, departing my younger years forever. But such things enter the mind of a child and never leave, becoming part of the fabric of life. A cartoon of a triangle-shaped marine depth marker with a cartoon face calling "Oooo..." joined our early refrigerator art, and I still listened for it years later on soft gray days.

  Today I woke this morning to a double-noted foghorn shockingly familiar to the one I used to know, like a cousin of a quiet, gruff old man I once knew who had long since passed on. Surely not, I thought. But I pulled back the curtain, and sure enough! The soft white haze of fog-laden air, rare around here in the city. We do have waterways out there near Portland, if only a river and not the sea, and a foghorn is a foghorn is a foghorn -- or so it seems.

  Now, after more than two and a half decades have elapsed, I've spent nearly a third of my life in this city, a state away from my home islands, and compared to them it's still not home. I'm at the mercy of a string of landlords and will have to move again this summer. My childhood rotary phone is long gone, as is the house where we could watch the thick white blanket of cloud explore the inlets and bays offshore, and here I am typing my reminiscences on this sleek little sci-fi thing. My job lets me work any time, any place, but also requires that I put on headphones and vanish from the world. This morning I weighed my deadline, and chose to wait longer to work than I planned. I didn't want to blot out the world and its sounds quite yet. I had never thought I'd hear a double foghorn again.

  It's out there now, at nearly noon, parsing time ... or is it still? Yes, there it went. Like the foghorn of my youth, it has slipped in and out of my morning soundscape like a wraith, first waking me up at 9:30ish, fading away for a bit, then starting up again at about 11:00. Its notes are slightly longer than the ones my youthful brain recorded, making me feel like time is rarified, drawn out. Wait; now I really am not hearing it anymore. It's gone. The fog may have cleared. It's late morning, and life awaits.

  As for me, I still feel at times like my old self, like a child, drifting on an uncertain future tide of everyday pain, longing and discovery. My career isn't in full swing yet. And I hate moving. But there's a comfort in knowing that here -- in this still-new town, in this sometimes impersonal life where I've learned all you really have for support in your deepest and quietest moments is yourself -- when the fog rolls in, the double note of reassurance may very well sound again.