Year Three

I've been writing this post in my head, typed out half of it two nights ago, and purposely deleted it just now.  Maybe I'm putting too much pressure on myself to write something grand.  Maybe nothing I've ever written is that grand.  That isn't the point.  We were watching the Olympics this weekend, and I thought, to get that perfect score, you just have to block your mind out, and not think about anything you're doing.  Only wake up a little bit later and realize that you were semi-conscious.  That's with anything: music, writing, working under pressure, and most of all life.  Because, when you really think about what you're doing, you're getting rid of all that natural stuff. 


Tonight I wrestled with just reading, or blogging, or reading blogs.  I'll end up blogging in my head when I read, or drive, or work.  Then it disappears when I put it to pen, or record it outloud.  Lately, there is a disconnect with what is flowing in my mind and what shows in type.  Which makes me think that I'm probably doing a good job witnessing my own life, becoming more self-aware, and putting into practice what I'm trying to accomplish.  Or, my mind is just too busy that I'm not able to achieve that sort of back of the mind writing.  Its like playing the piano.  If I close my eyes, and not think ahead of the notes, it all comes back to me.  The fingers connect with the brain, or maybe the memory of how I use to play.  If I close my eyes and type, and not think about the mistakes that I'll make with spelling or punctuation, then I'll just write from the soul and not second guess what I'm trying to say. 


There are moments when I purposely do something so that I can write it down and share.  There are others when I think, stop taking pictures and just record this in your mind.  If its really important, you'll remember it someday.  This blog is the middle ground for all that.  Sometimes its about adventures that I commit to online, other times its about memories that I can write about and save for a later memory.  But, most of all, it is an atlas of 24 through 27.  Important, significant years, full of mostly average days, lessons, celebrations, and travels. 

Today, I witnessed one achieve a milestone in age, while another slipped far beyond this world.  Across the hall, she donned with pink balloons and flowers, and she with a wash cloth across her head and Sinatra singing her into Heaven. It wasn't something that I haven't experienced before, but I was just taken back at the comparison of the day.  I knew cake was being served any minute, and I also knew that a soul was preparing itself that same afternoon.  What a cross-road of life.    We all are responsible for our own lives and how it will be carried out.  And we are responsible to inspire others with their own.  

I started this blog because I was homesick and incredibly depressed.  And by writing mostly about my dogs, an often glamorized version of my homestate, the things I wanted for myself out of life, and the feelings that I experienced along the way, I have transformed.  Depression isn't even a consideration anymore.  It isn't seasonal.  It isn't a diagnosis that I'd consider to put down.  Instead, I know that most days, I push myself to be ever present, whether totally conscious-to-the-moon-in-love-with-life, or that semi-conscious, you're doing a perfect job without even realizing it. 

Because maybe I want the balloons and the Sinatra at the end.  It might just be that kind of life. 

Happy Anniverary Blog. 

Road More Travelled

Tonight, I walked one block over to my very first home.  We use to be able to cut through the trees and walk into the past.  The trail is long gone now. 

And of course, when you happen to walk onto a street that's connected to any kind of your past, you start thinking.  First, how everything looks the same; second how everything looks different.  That's a little bit of what we experience daily here.  The streets are the same, some wider now, some connect to others that they didn't before, but they are still familiar.  The mountains are the same mountains, but boy do they look better now after you left them for a little while.  The trees are taller; some have grown so tall that they lean.  But, in each and every leaf, you can find a memory. 

As I walked that lane tonight, past neighbors houses and a field that is taller than I ever was when I lived next door, I couldn't help but think about where we've been and where we're going.  We're not entirely sure about the latter, and we still process and reprocess the former.  While we may not have a clear cut plan in place for the next six months, other than work, work, work, we can agree on one thing.  We have come far.   In nine months, we got married, got another dog, quit a job, lost a grandparent, put a house up for sale, said good-bye for now to friends, moved across the country, got a new job, moved in with my parents, learned all we could about a new community, and everything else in between. 

Through it all, we remained rock solid.  K is intent on making this place his home, and that really makes all the difference.  He is positive, he is determined, he is patient, and he is willing to give this a try.  He's a pillar of strength.  This has given me the freedom to rediscover this land that I love.  He is much better than I ever was in Pennsylvania.  But maybe I'm happier here, and that makes it easier on him. 

When we look back on this time in our young marriage, I know that we will realize what a challenge this time may have been.  We have only the rings on our fingers and a box of wedding photos to tie us to that day.  Every other memento of our love is still on a Pod in PA.  Daily we stand in disbelief at the amount of dog hair around us, consuming our tiny living arrangement.  We still have not figured out how to store our clothing so that we can find what we need.  I still feel like I have to tell my parents what time we'll be home in the evening.  And no matter how many times mom goes to bed at 8, I know that K will never get his fill of Sports Center here. 

 

Someday, we'll walk down a similar path.  We'll reminisce and reflect on this experience.  And, much like that old, brown house that use to feel so big, it will look so small in comparison. Important, necessary for the life that we will one day grow into, but still smaller than we remember. 

The Fourth: An Instagram Post

This weekend will be spent at work, but that's okay.  Maybe its because the last two days at home were kicked off with our favorite holiday.  Or maybe its because today I dug around in the dirt, met the ice cream man at the end of our driveway (Summer list!), sat in a beauty parlour for two hours catching up with my mom's stinkin cute friends, and then came home and took a dusky stroll with the dogs.  I'm getting good at putting quality in my days off, which makes the next three days already seem like a piece of cake. 


But, back to the holiday.  As a fellow pyromaniac, I love the 4th the best.  Maybe its the Americana-ness of it all: the waving of flags in front of houses, desserts with only red white and blue decorations, and people quoting "Proud to be an American" on facebook all day.  This holiday has always stuck out in my head.  When we were younger, we'd venture to a family friend's house, eat fresh steamed clams with lots of butter, and watch our engineer fathers create makeshift firecracker dangling devices over the sound, knowing we'd have to rake them up the next morning.  In highschool, I distincly remember sitting on a canoe with two of my guy friends motioning for me to cover my ears and watch out as they launched mortars into the sky above us.  And lately, it was as simple as a caulde-sac performance of ten dollar fountains as we sat in lawn chairs in front of our house. 


That's all I wanted this year. So, I was very honored when my dad handed me money for fireworks and clear instructions. 

No spinners. No Pistol Pete's.  No Bees.  Fountains.  Dog friendly? Sparklers.  Parachutes.


This year it was my job to gather the goods. 

And let me just tell you it was good.  Until it wasn't.  We brought four chairs to the circle, I ran back and forth lighting fountains.  The parachutes went in the trees, of course.  The neighbors gathered around, eager to shoot off their own goods, which in no way compared to my haul. 

Everything was going fine and dandy.

I lined the fountains up in order, saving something called "Pink Diamond" for last.  I shot off this tall fountain, which showered blue and white sparks overhead.  It was beautiful.  It was buy one get one free.


Save that one for the finale!  My family shouted.  The neighbors continued to shoot off lousy bottle rockets.  Most of them didn't fire correctly.

So Pink Diamond was lit second to last. 

For the finale, I lit the tall one and ran back.  Camera on phone ready to capture some of those beautiful blue and white. 

Boom, shower. Boom, shower.  Boom, nothing.


It was good until it wasn't. 



The damn thing tipped over. 

Boom, neighbor to the right's garage. 

Boom, up the street, past the neighbors with the faulty bottle rockets. 

Boom, into the forrest. 

And, Boom, neighbor to the left's garage and almost their children. 

Sigh. 

(This was Boom #3)

We can all laugh at it now.  No one got hurt.  It rains here and so the trees did not burst into flames. We cleaned the scorch marks off neighbor to the right's garage door immediately with bleach. 

And we went right inside after that. 

A little while later, we sat around a controlled fire in the backyard, listening to the fireworks in the distance.  K was amazed by the noise.  It was a bit of a culture shock. 

To me, it was comforting.  Familiar.  And, all pending lawsuits aside, so very Fourth of July. 

Bring on the Rain

July.


I mean, really, its July already? I just mean, wow, we've made it to July.  In January we packed up a house and in February we drove across the country.  In March, we started to settle into a groove; in April we started to explore; May we started working; June we started saving and planning, and now its July. 

That's unbelieveable.


Right now, it is 100 degrees where we use to live.  As I type, rain falls for the third day in a row outside.  It is no where near the Summer that I have experienced for four years.  This time last year, we were jumping in the Atlantic, dining on cannolis and soft shell crab, and generally wondering what was going to happen.  It was hot day and night, and it was so quintessential Summer.  Brightly colored umbrellas on the beach, salt water taffy, walking the boardwalk with sand caked sandals as teenagers on bikes rode by, Guidos with funnel cakes and corn dogs, the same top 40 song playing over and over, and the ocean horizon in the background.  We are certainly in a different reality right now. 


But, do not misunderstand me.  I am not complaining.  That experience will always be with us and there will be plenty of opportunities to have that back again.  Someday we will find our own version of Ocean City on the West Coast, and although I can guarantee it won't come with a B&B two inches from the boardwalk, it will have its own characteristics. 

In fact, not only am I not complaining, I have said outloud that I do not care if it rains all Summer.

Because it doesn't matter if it does.  We will work around it. 

It started raining on Friday, as I had just arranged chairs around the perfectly prepared fire.  Instead of moving the party inside, we improvised.

And as it turned out, chairs moved under a maple leaf canopy made things even better. 


It is still somewhat of an out of body experience being here.  Most of our belongings are sitting in a Pod in Pennsylvania, and I can only pray the warehouse is properly air conditioned.  We dream about how we will make our mark in this new land, but know that we have to pace ourself.  We are eager to branch out immediately, to have a place to call our own.  Its tempting to jump right in, but this economy and the uncertainties that come with life are slowing us down a bit.  Someday we will pat our old, younger selves on the back for this kind of responsiblity, but right now it can be frustrating. 

Still, we improvise again.  Clean off a couple of shelves in the makeshift room we've habitated.  Make that small space our own.  Or spend a Sunday afternoon tucked inside the room, with one dog who agreed to join us.  Rainy days make it easier to get away with this kind of behavior. 

It may not look like we expected it to in July, inside or out.  Gosh, it went by so fast.  We probably never expected it to look like this for us now when we sat in white rocking chairs, drinking god-awful Bud Light with lime, last July.  The idealistic bride in me probably figured we would have a new couch, wedding linens adoring our bed and the guest room, dinner on our new plates, and wine poured in our stemware.  We would go to concerts and travel, come home each night and talk about our day, and pop in the latest television show that we were catching up on.  We'd have dinner parties with themes, get to buy nice clothes when we wanted to, and have the careers we always dreamed of .  And for sure, we would be spending this weekend at the beach, with that elderly couple who makes a reservation a year in advanced for the ocean view room with the balcony.  For sure. 

This though, this is better. 

It makes us appreciate all of those little things more.  Like a Sunday afternoon nap, or how great it feels to wear a sweatshirt at night this time of the year.  We don't have the ocean in front of us, or sand between our toes, but seagulls are a daily sighting and I much prefer skipping rocks into the Puget Sound. 

And bigger than that, it will make us grateful when we can make a home and spend an entire weekend doing nothing.  I will love my stemware even more that I will drink orange juice in them. 


It does rain a lot here.  But here's the kicker:  we know why that's an important thing.  It makes the earth greener, it hushes the world around you and forces you to take your talents inside (or under the trees).

And above all, it makes you remember the sunny days even more. 

Summer with Sweaters

The first rule of blogging is this: if you promise something will be done by a certain time, it will (at least) take you double that.  For instance, I promised a Summer list AND new header last week.  Here, I sit, finally typing. 

When I lived on the East Coast, I always felt that Summer was rushing me.  It is a little pushy out there.  As the Summer goes on, it becomes almost a bully, what with its swealtering days and stormy nights.  I do miss the Summer storms, but all along, I missed this late June cold streak that I left behind in Washington.

The rest of the country celebrates the start of the season at the end of May, but for us Washingtonians, we know we need to wait a couple more weeks.  As I type, I pull a sweater over a night gown, because the window is open and it lets in a chill.  We embrace that chill, look for it, get a little anxious if its replaced by a humid heat. 

So while I put the Summer List off for a couple of days, and weeks by everyone else's standards, I know that I have plenty of time to type.  Its not quite here yet. 



But, it will be. 

(Last year's)

Weekly backyard fires with beer and pizza.  And smores from a smores basket. 


Freeze the dogs toys in water and watch them play with a giant ice cube all afternoon.


Run for the ice cream truck if it comes around.  Even if it is like three bucks now. 


Find your Summer song.


Visit La Push.


Jump in a lake fully clothed.


Eat a year worth of fresh tomatoes.


Try growing something from a Summer crop.


Camp at Larrabee.

Find a place on this side of the water that is almost as good as Larrabee.


Go clamming.


Lay on a near by soccer field and stargaze.  With boxed wine.


Buy these  and these.   Its about function, not fashion.  And those Keen's better not give me a blister.


Start running again.


Try a class at the Y. 


Pick some dahlia's and carry them like you did in October.

Throw a Bloom party.

Do the Puyallup.



Hike a mountain.


Take a nap on the porch swing.


Grill an entire salmon, filled with lemon and dill.


Go to the Lavender festival.  Or was it blackberry?  Let's do both.


Become a bocee ball champion.


Have a ridiculous tan line because I don't have to worry about a wedding dress this year.


Write my three year post.  Make it extra special.

We won't have fireflies this year.  That will be tough.  There will be rainy days when we look to the heavens and ask if they got the memo that it's July.  We will spend most of the Summer indoors working.

But, there will be moments, and I promise this, when Summer feels like it was originally created in Washington.  It happens every year.  And this year, I get to be there. 



Tell me friends, what are you going to do this Summer?

Recap: Spring List

So far in our cohabitation with my parents, I have moved my computer all over the house.  In hopes of inspiring writing, the late night variety preferred, of course.  Upstairs in my brothers old room, lilacs in a mason jar next to me--I am hopeful and sassy, but then I forget to write and the lilacs die and I don't go upstairs for a week because I don't sleep on a futon anymore.  We move downstairs, in the old office, on the mattress that I use to sleep on in Seattle.  I set up at the dining room table, a window cracked, rain falling behind me.  Headphones plugged in, I feel reflective and sensitive.  But, it feels too exposed, not intimate enough.  There are no doors to shut and the dogs keep bringing me throw pillows. 

Now, I clear a space in our room, the laptop rests on a makeshift drawing table, drawers consistently poke at my right knee.  It seems like the room is rushing me to finish.  And, I like that, because it prompts me to write and not think about it. 

We have now been back for four months, give or take a week.  Tonight is the Summer solstice, which I think deserves an extra spectacular time.  I have no idea what that means.  I have no idea what that looks like.  One of these Summer solstices-es, I'll figure it out.  Instead, I'm going to reflect on the Spring.  Our first Spring back.

I might say, this has been the most successful List to boot.  The lack of work and abundance of energy to constantly push myself to do better has inspired me, to well, push myself to do better.  You can see this computer position is really helping. 



 Plant lettuce, peas, beans, onions, beets, and herbs.  I did all of this.  I'm not going to say I did it well, but I did it.  I'll blog about my frustrations with Washington gardening a little later. 

Make one of those pea vine teepees.  Even though you're too tall to fully enjoy it. It still looks cool. See above. 

Read this book. Check.  It was a riveting story of a redheaded girl who fell hard for a man who's butt looked cute in Wranglers.  It also made my own relationship feel very dry and boring.  I think I actually was resentful of K during the time I read it.  Especially since I once wanted to marry a cowboy myself. But, I liked it. 

Get a legitimate pair of rain boots.  Not from Target, those ones don't keep their shape well. Not done.  Its not like if I buy them in August I'll have to store them. 

String lights in the backyard, like you use to back in PA.  Check. 

Spend an entire day at the Tulip Festival in Skagit County. Never again. NEVER AGAIN.

Have a date with the city, all by yourself.  Oh baby, I did this.  I did this right. 

Take her hiking, she's ready.  Didn't get to that.  But, we walk a lot.  And she doesn't know Spring is over.


Take her to the water, she's so not ready for hiking.  Yup, did it. 

See this movie on your birthday.  Don't judge, that shit is adorable.  And it was.  No seriously, don't you dare say anything until you go see it.  Tim Allen narrated.  A baby monkey tried cracking nuts.  K made three references about hierarchy and leadership using scenes from that movie. 


Read this book.  Actually, lay on the porch swing and finish it in one afternoon.   Oh, this was my favorite three days.  I couldn't wait til my birthday, so I bought my copy the day it came out.  And then later for my best friend. 

Swoon. 



Finish late wedding present thank yous.  And move on with your life.  Done! Except for one more.  Dang it. 


Make a new Easter tradition.  Check and check.

Have an epic wedding video showing in April.  Did it, epically.

Veto any future showings of this.  Enough is enough. Washington, you can officially thank me for no more snow. 

Participate in May Day.  For the first time.   I feel that I should clarify this.  I meant May Day as in the drop-tiny-pots-of-flowers-on-love-ones-doorsteps, not the one involving Nike and bricks. 

Fill the room with lilacs.  (That may be for the Summer List ). See above.  I also need to clarify that this does not mean leave them to die by themselves in a room with a futon. 

Start making a name for this new blog.  I'm on my way. 

Meet my best friend for a dog park date or dog walk once a week.  This was a fail, and something that I really want to work on in the next coming months.



I give myself an A.  But, I'm biased and there's a heavy curve.


Tomorrow, I promise you a Summer List and maybe even a new header.  This tiny desk arrangement actually works for me. 

In The Woods

In the woods,  bright green maple leaves mix with coarse pine needles.  Moss grows beneath your feet, up a branch, along fallen trees, and over your trail.  Sun peaks through the mixture, revealing pockets of golden light.  Shadows are created further down, adding to the feeling that you are hidden, covered, in nature. 

In the woods, muscles regain their memory. Once again can you hop over trunks knocked over from old age.  And climb hillsides leading to unbelievable treasures.  They remember how to control your ankles up and down the slopes.  They ache in warm delight. 



In the woods, everything makes sense.  Thoughts are clearer, problems are solved, paths are forged.  Writing is inspired.  Minds are rejuvenated.  Out there, you rely on your own instincts, learn to trust what you know, and promise yourself you will keep trying to discover more. 



In the woods, I'm back.  I feel like I did on my happiest days. Everything clicks into place.  Dew hits my shoulders and streaks my hair.  Cool pockets of air covers my skin.  Fingers glide over coniferous trees, their bark so different than back East. I am grateful to reach out and touch, even if it means an encounter with sticky sap.  Twigs snap at my feet, which are often covered with sturdy hiking shoes, but occassionally sandals as the woods are so close now.  That snap is satisfying.  I am alone in the woods, except for a puppy companion who eagerly runs ahead, then back to me, then ahead again.  Rarely do I see wildlife; they are deeper in than I'll ever be.  A hush follows around me.  I don't speak, and sometimes I don't even think.  Instead, I'm transfixed on the next step, not having to look around because I'm embedded in foliage.  I emerge from the green, covered in tiny leaves, whispy webs, and dirt.  

In the woods, I'm home.