the darkness lit up the sky

on a monday

We drove through misty rain, past clouds that wanted snow, and hills that promised nearby mountains. Weaving down highway two we came upon small train stop towns and all the scenes and views I spent so much energy trying to see even while in sunny Georgia. The characters in the piece I've been writing walk along these streets and watch these very trees turn in the fall. They stand on these porches and look out towards the ends of these roads.

It's good to be back.

too-hot cider and snowy trees

our coffee shop

The way the baristas know our names and we know theirs. How the coffee changes ever so slightly from week to week and I can tell the difference. How on the other side of the window walls the same people pass by every day - the woman with the cremoline slips and high heels, the plastic bag man, the bony runner with the jamaican flag slung around his shoulders. I know the details and thereby cherish a sense of possession despite my place as a simple observer.

Fog builds up on the windows on sharp days; the days when everyone buries their noses deep in their collar or wears their thickest socks.

While the long commute - two hours one way most days - can feel like hurtling into the great swirl of a storm where unpredictability has control, I can know that once I get down the hill, through the biting wind, and behind the door, it will be warm in the same way it was the day before. Even though my headphones are the little between me, cat calls, and screaming, the sleek shelves will still hold the same mugs and the tip jar will still be sitting on the counter. There will still be smiles and hullohs of recognition - deeper than obligation.

december

last month
> make an SCD yellow cake with chocolate frosting Dad wanted a trifle for his birthday so I made Comfy Belly's yellow cake, "frosted" it with lemon curd, and then layered it up in a trifle bowl. Still needs some fiddling, but I was delighted by the results.
> read A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis (nope.)
> Gerard Manley! A collection of his work is finally sitting on my bedside table! Here's to future reading and quotes most likely showing up here.
> successfully photograph a wedding Here are my favorites.
> photograph more of Seattle Because it's so beautiful!

on the docket
> Start reading Gerard Manley Hopkins (but really)
> Write more letters
> Finish preparations for moving into an apartment in Seattle
> Experiment with apple cake

not restful but full of peace

The trees have lit my walk to work these past few weeks through drizzle and mist. An old woman dressed all in black walks hunched against the wind, her black bags strapped to a pull-cart, yellow leaves wrapped around the wheels. People tumble into the shop glad for the warmth, the dry, and something good to eat. 

Thanksgiving is not a restful time for small bakeries. We're inundated with those who are desperately trying to please their inlaws and want someone else to blame and those who have found themselves alone for yet another holiday and have decided that they would rather it be by their own choice. But, even as hectic as it becomes, I find that there are endless things to be thankful for...from the woman who needed something for her vegan brother and I had just the thing she wanted to the man who told me a joke as I rung him up. The woman who sat down and had coffee on me because it was the first time she had gotten to slow down that day and the look on our bread baker's face whem she heard how excited people were about the loaves she has worked so hard to develop.

pears

So many memories from my growing up years center around fresh fruit in the house or the delicate balance of eating a burstingly ripe peach in the car. Pears especially have always tasted like a luxury to me. They take vigilance, patience, and care to eat or pick at just the right moment but oh how worth it that moment is. 

One pear tree sits in the row of apple trees behind our house and this year we got them before anything else did. Then there they sat on the counter, sweetening, and softening, and then they were gone. We didn't try to make anything out of them -- they were too delicious all on their own.

the yankee clipper

Earlier this summer I boarded the Yankee Clipper, a forty foot Sea Scout's gaff-rigged sailing ship from Ballard, Seattle, and set off for the San Juan Islands -- through the locks, past the mountains, under Deception Pass, and across the water.

The Sea Scouts, an off-shoot of the Boy Scouts, is a program in which middle to high school kids learn the art of ship handling, navigation, and, on the way, leadership. Lucky for me, they needed adult female volunteers to chaperon. 

The days were filled with long hours of hot cooking, chilled sailing, and watching with great delight as the crew members grew into their own skins. As a ship's mate and galley cook, I didn't spend much time on the islands themselves as hikes and landings were generally undertaken right before meals while I was cooking. But oh how I enjoyed the quiet of the ship while the crew was gone and the shouts, calls, and stories that followed their return.

Not to mention the great reward of bringing warmth and nourishment out of limited food supplies in a galley boasting about 6' feet. Also the joy of learning the quirks and foibles of Princess, the galley's three-burner propane gimbaled stove.

While July and August usually have little wind to offer here in the Sound, there were a few days when the sails were unfurled and the galley was stowed and emptied. One day we even exceeded our motoring speed under sail, quite a feet for the Yankee Clipper, originally built as a troop-transport (essentially a large, motored canoe). Her lines are not ideal for sailing, but that hasn't kept me from falling in love with her spunk.

seattle

I already knew I loved Seattle -- the brick and mortar feel of odd corners and old streets, the way that alleys aren't hidden away even in downtown, and the bury-down-deep-somewhere-warm instinct of the locals. Once you've survived a winter here and breathed in the crisp-leaf air of fall or stood stock-still on a windless day to try and feel the warmth of a stray sun beam, it begins to make sense that Seattle is carved out by the mountains and weather around it.

What I did not yet love about Seattle is its depth of history, its habit of leaving the traces and grime of age, how it doesn't hide behind Plexiglas windows or perfectly smooth concrete sidewalks. And how you need only walk down-hill to get to the water.

settled in and working on breathing

I am now back in the Pacific Northwest.

It is wonderful to be back. That is most certainly true. I can stretch out and perhaps bump into a family member.

But all my words are gone.

So much of me has been left back in the little patch of the South that became my home. Yes, loved ones are here, but so many of them are there, soon to scatter themselves. I'm working on making lists to keep myself busy with books I've always wanted to read, resumes I need to update, possibilities to explore. All good things.

All wonderful things.

But also lonely and difficult to articulate.

So I boxed it up in six words and hope it's enough.

to bainbridge!

tree day

On Black Friday, my family runs for the hills. For us, the day after Thanksgiving is for tromping around in the mountains searching out our Christmas Tree.

For the past several years we've gone to Mountain Creek Christmas Tree Farm, a small family-owned place under Mount Si. With friends, family, burning hot cider, and gingerbread, we head up the valley sides evaluating each tree for form, trim, and character.

This year we stumbled over our tree in a back corner, surrounded by other, perhaps more impressive trees. But we knew he was ours because of the eccentric curve in his trunk and his balanced unsymmetricallity (not a word, but I like how it flips off the tongue). 

Little Katie counted his rings to be about sixteen. He was just waiting for us all those years.

flying in