In September 1959, a U.S. Navy Martin P5M Marlin aircraft was ditched in Puget Sound off Whidbey Island in Washington state. The unarmed nuclear antisubmarine weapon lost with the aircraft was never recovered.¹ My wife and I spent last weekend visiting the island, and, with an estimated quarter of the U.S. nuclear arsenal stored and maintained about 20 miles from our home as the crow flies, were not troubled by the torpedo that went missing offshore 60 years ago. Still, it is remarkable that inactive military ranges within the United States comprising an area the size of Florida are filled with unexploded ordnance. The Navy today is the largest employer on the island, but we were there to patronize smaller businesses unaccustomed to handling or occasionally losing nukes.

National Book Award winner Pete Dexter has lived on the island for years not far from the Clinton ferry dock, which is where we arrived ashore. Scenes from his 2009 book Spooner are placed on the island (and in the surrounding water). He explained the attraction in an interview years ago while reflecting on his experience working as a newspaper columnist. I’d been writing them for 15 years. What are you trying to achieve? It still goes out with the garbage every single day. He moved from Sacramento to the island shortly after first visiting it. It just changed everything for me, he said. As I think more often about retiring, I begin to accept that the work I have done will disappear into the trash (it is, after all, nothing other than electronically mediated thought‐stuff) and wonder whether I would live longer on an island. Especially on this one, surrounded by cows instead of traffic.

We planted our flag at the Boatyard Inn in Langley in a room filled with precisely the sounds one wants to hear when sitting fifty feet from the water: gulls, surf, and whatever music that is when light is dancing on the waves. Then held a footrace to determine which of us would arrive first at Prima Bistro for dinner, because anyone who has ever eaten at the Bistro knows to run, not walk, for a meal whenever near. We are also always certain to buy a bag or two of beans from Whidbey Coffee, which disappear shortly after we return home. We found a beach and wandered around until it was dark, and the rain drove us indoors.

One of our U.S. Senators lives on the island. In this political climate there are some who might think that is no recommendation, but I believe she is one of the good guys and that her choice of neighborhoods is difficult to question. We do not visit this neighborhood as often as we would like, and, as a madeleine dipped in tea, each occasion recalls the temptation to make permanent the decision to act upon the farrago of sensations, recollections, and dubious expectations that brought us to it. Last weekend was no different, and our home is our sanctuary, so returning was no hardship, but there is no substitute for a little time away.