I would bring an oversized Lazy Boy recliner, a kegerator full of Hop Valley beer, and a Rob Allen speargun. I couldn't choose between my wife and kids, so I'd have to bring Wes Anderson or Tom Robbins or Louis de Bernieres--any one of them would do, really. I just need someone to narrate away my insanity.

Blunt rain drops swept into the little peaked ends of my open-fingered gloves and wicked slowly into the layered edges of my collar. They dimpled the river with a steady fervor. It seemed they would not let up.

Out of all this liquid arose the otters, a family of four, eyes wet with wonderment, glidding along a smooth, invisible current. They were only a few feet from the boat. Chins held aloft in an aristocratic pose, they pivoted their erect heads in unison, propped up effortlessly above the water by buoyant, vertical, submerged, and impossibly still torsos.

Droplets of river accented and announced whiskers positively twitching with life and purpose. They pivoted my way, sharpened their already sharp little eyes, and plunged. They slid into and out of water and air, sepentine, pouring themselves up and down like slick, furry streams of a fountain. Forward, away, and along they went, all at once, all in motion, wending and weaving their way.

I watched them until they wrapped around and through a bend in the red willow edge. Sanguine, kinetic heart beats left gentle ripples sloshing in their wake, reverberating amongst the thin stalks, clinging to wet and branched memories of the morning.

There were always spaces between the flakes of falling snow. Sliding in silence and sounding only at the stop, they hushed to her feet, held fast, and remained only a moment in the unmuted lamplight. Then the next flakes landed, pressing down and holding fast, obfuscating what came before.

She stood below the lamp's yellow halo, contemplating her next step. It seemed a shame to shatter the silence and risk setting all sorts of temporal wheels in motion when she could simply choose to remain frozen.

Yet somehow it just wasn't possible. There was too much warmth to be had, too many handsome smiles, too many crackling fires, too many steaming hot cups of what ever she please. And always there was that tropical breeze; she could smell it in the coldest of places.

We all have our mornings. I prefer the foggy ones, dreams that stretch filemented fingers around roosters and clocks to sudenly flick my eyes open. I want to wake into, not out of, a dream. Knowing what happens next tastes like death to me. I don't want to know behind which bush the bunny rabbit hides. I want it to pop out and surprise the hell out of me.

So I court the round edges of sleep deprivation. Jetlag is my best friend, waking up in Tahiti. Napping in a duck marsh is my favorite, warm and waterproof in thick neoprene waders, amid the perectly random and punctuated staccato popping of shot gun fire, light rain on my smiling, bearded face.

Cabin mornings, tangled sleeping bags and limbs, a blur of love, a pile of dogs and sleepy-headed children, wishing the dream and the moment could breath as one, always--it makes me miss Seattle, our wives sipping their morning coffee, smiling in the effulgent yellow kitchen. Is there anything as beautiful as a groggy mama in the morning?