Leaving Skylark

I sit in the dark just before dawn.

The old leather sofa beneath me sags toward the wood floor, its central support long gone. Pillows are tucked behind my back and beneath my arms so that my body rests just right, my gaze landing naturally on the twinkling lights of Tacoma across the water.

Candles glow beside me on the coffee table. Their small flames flicker gently — the only light in the room besides the city across the bay.

Out on the water the ferry moves slowly back and forth in its steady passage to and from Vashon. I watch its quiet rhythm, the familiar glide across the dark water.

Morning has not yet arrived.

A cup of coffee warms my hands. A hot water bottle rests against my belly. I sit and watch and allow my mind to wander — the gentle drifting that begins each of my days.

My own form of meditation.

I am grounded here.

Grounded by Skylark.

For the past two years she has been my place. I was mysteriously guided to her then — my life in turmoil — a place I did not know I needed until I arrived.

She held me.

She comforted me.

She soothed me.

She allowed me to rest.

In many ways, she saved me during one of the fiercest storms of my life.

She has been my reprieve.

Within these worn walls she has witnessed my tears, my fear, my anger, my sleepless nights. She has held the weight of my grief without asking anything in return.

Skylark herself is a little tired now — worn in places, weathered, quietly falling apart. But that has always been part of her charm.

And surrounding her is beauty.

Kingfisher flashing across the water.

Eagles circling overhead.

Hummingbirds and chickadees in the trees.

Seals — whom I have always called my friends.

Dolphins. Sea otters. Orcas. Even a humpback whale passing through these waters.

I have become a familiar presence on Skylark’s porch, often sitting beneath my string lights, wrapped in blankets on another broken sofa. The salt air moving gently around me. Waves lapping against the shore. Seagulls gliding past on the breeze.

Here, Skylark has been the eye of the storm.

And in this quiet refuge something within me has slowly begun to return.

Healing.

Opening.

Remembering.

Even as my body has begun to whisper new and unfamiliar stories — the early tremors and stiffness of Parkinson’s — Skylark has held me in a quiet space where I could listen, soften, and begin to make peace with what is unfolding.

I have softened here.

I have learned to listen again — to my soul, to the quiet truth of who I am beneath the noise of the world.

And slowly, gently, joy has begun to reappear.

Skylark has been my place.

And now the time has come for me to leave her.

I do so with deep gratitude for all she has given me — safety, silence, beauty, and the quiet comfort I needed during this stormy chapter of my life.

Soon I will say goodbye.

But Skylark will always remain with me — my small haven by the water, the place that held me while I healed.

The place where I gathered myself again.

The place where I remembered who I am.

Skylark taught me how to rest.

And now, like the bird whose name she carries,

she releases me into the morning sky.