A few notes
1. My baby is currently fighting her morning nap with admirable endurance. Over 25 minutes of moaning, wailing, making her glow worm sing its little song, and chanting “puppy puppy puppy.” These sweet litanies crack me up and grate my nerves. Her phases are moving so quickly now I miss them before they end. I’m already worried that tomorrow she’ll wake up and not call for her puppy first thing.
2. J I went for a walk with our backyard neighbor and her son this morning. She showed us the fancy neighborhood with stately old homes and enormous magnolia trees tucked just a few blocks away from our Cape Cod lined streets. I wondered who lived in those houses when they were built and who lived in them now and the phrase “old money,” and how what’s a silly term to me might be an ominous and unpleasant one to some people who call this town home. Because old money in Virginia, well, it might have been grown the old way.
3. Staying home with my girl has been a complicated endeavor. I feel so unbearably fortunate to have had this time with her (and Allen) and that her first year of life has been such a whirlwind of activity and adventure, but that her parents have been her constant and her center. Especially when she was new, gracious I’m so glad I got to be home with her. But I’ve struggled too. I’ve felt bored and lonely and frustrated and professionally unfulfilled. It’s gotten better as I’ve picked up some freelance work, and I have a couple of (potential) opportunities to keep building. It means June will need more care, which is great and a little scary, but she’s ready. We’re ready.
4. Spring is coming, and each budding tree feels like a high five. Winter is not my season, and I have been filling my house up with green things to combat the gray skies and brown lawns. But Allen tilled the garden last weekend, we scored some free Adirondack chairs, and yesterday I bought a pair of shorts.
5. Oddly enough, spring’s nascent return has me in full weekender mode. I know it would have made more sense to escape when the weather was crummy, but I’m feeling refreshed and invigorated and interested in hikes and beer tastings and general wandering with my dude and my babe. I’m plotting trips to Maine and North Carolina, and we need to figure out our passports so we can shuffle off this country for a while.
Moment to Moment
I never know when the feeling of a tiny foot, burrowing its way under my rib
will result in mild annoyance
or stinging eyes and a gratefulness too heavy to bear
Commuter
I’m a corporate stooge again, which means that each hour-long drive gives me ample tme to consider all the overlooked and underappreciated aspects of working from home.
1. The commute, from bed to couch, was enviable. If I was feeling particularly professional, I might take a seat at the stool at our table. But that rarely lasted much longer than it took for my entire rear compartment to fall asleep. A delicate disposition, I have.
2. The ability to make myself a smoothie, or an omelette, or dang PBJ at exactly the moment I wished for it, using utensils I knew were clean and a fridge that rarely smelled.
3. Leggings forever. I will never speak against them.
4. Willis. Admittedly, the alarming closeness he and I developed was one of the first indicators that I was definitely not seeing humans regularly enough. Reader, I preferred him to most any other. It became an issue, which means I miss him fiercely at my cube.
But oh, the drive. Once I break through the traffic in the mornings, and before I hit it in the afternoons, 90 unrolls at my feet. The Sound to Mountain Greenway is almost too much to look at while operating a motor vehicle, and I’ve noticed new things every time I think to look to the side. I’m not sure if what’s happening around me are petite mountains or overgrown hills, but it is a world of greens and heights and twists and clouds hanging low and shabby old houses and so many other reminders of my newness to this place. I am overwhelmed by it twice daily at least. And that is no small thing.
Last night I left the bar and walked the wrong way. When I realized it, standing under a gracious awning as the rain pressed harder, I turned and jogged back, glancing into the bar as I passed it again to see if anything had changed.
I made it to the bus stop on the corner of Leary and 15th, properly wet. I’d missed the first bus, so I slid onto the bench and fiddled with my phone in the bright light from the construction project next to me. A guy sat down, tattoos peeking out of his sleeves and big, cheerful teeth.
He eventually noticed the sign stating that, because of this construction, this stop was closed. Another woman had shown up, nearly swallowed by her coat, so we three walked up the street to the makeshift stop in front of Miller’s Paint. We met a couple on the way, heading home to West Seattle. They were new to town from San Francisco, and the tattoos guy was happily telling them all the places he’s been robbed or known people to get stabbed in Seattle. “The whole city is really dangerous.” He unfolded his concealed carry permit from his wallet, and told us about how his old gun was stolen, and how he went into stores all the time with his new gun, whether it was allowed or not.
The guy in the couple remarked how this makeshift bus stop inspired conversation, because something had changed and we’d all figured it out together. I looked over at the woman in her coat, standing 8 feet away from our small group, looking up at the sign for the paint store.
The tattoos and gun guy told me his girlfriend would never believe that the bus was taking this long. He swore every other word, talked about shopping in “freedom-loving” stores and giddily assured you that no neighborhood is safe. He was a little exhausting, but his smile made me smile nearly every time.
The bus showed up and we all cheered. But as we climbed on, scanned our cards or inserted our bills, we separated, one by one. No more eye-contact, no more sharing. I wasn’t even sure where they all sat down. I’m oddly grateful for those 10 minutes with them, for the unlikeliness of it, even though I never learned their names. We just stood in a circle, phones away in our purses or pockets, and talked to each other. In the rain.
Today I:
- went for an early walk
- talked to my sister
- ran fast
- put a “soft hold” on a date for my wedding
- reached out for help at work, and got it
- talked to my cousin
- bought a new (to me) couch
- scheduled a happy hour with a college friend
- drank a lot of water
- smiled at the rain
- put six pears in a glass bowl on the table
- ate pho
Am grateful.
I’d already planned to move here, but now I’m flat-out giddy about it.
Tell 17 Year Old Eliz
That she’ll someday be on the cusp of moving to Seattle, just like she’s dreaming.
But that for four years before she moved there, she lived somewhere else entirely. And those years, in that place, were some of the most important of her life. She learned about fear, about loneliness, about biting disappointment, about how hard it is to forgive, about the price you pay for selfishness. She found the distance she needed to see just how beautiful and priceless her family is, and she never missed them more. She found confidence, freedom, some of the best tans of her life, and enough noise and light and joy to break the endless stream of worry inside her own head. At times.
She became a connoisseur of $5 wines, and she found bars and libraries and trees and pools that seemed as though they’d been waiting for her the whole time.
She tried to be good to people. To listen to them more often than she advised them.
She met some of the best people she’s ever known there.
She failed at some things. She fell short in her duties to others and disappointed them and tasted it in her mouth for days afterward. She tried to get better. After that, she sometimes failed again.
She stood on stages there. She stood in front of stages there. She wrote things and even let people read them. Every bit of it lives inside her.
She looked for God there. She found reason to keep working on it.
She learned to live with another person, to start fights and make peace and grow closer each day. This prepared her for love, as much as one can be prepared for that sort of thing.
She loved here. Can she even imagine?
She sat on her front step one famous night, cursing at everything she could think of. She watched the cat on the fence across the street, saw its ears flick, saw the trees inhale and exhale all around her. The live oaks themselves helped her finally fall asleep that night.
She sat on her front step one famous morning. She answered a question that scared her deeply, but with an answer that filled her with peace.
She learned that she will be okay there. Or at least, that being okay is a process. And that Seattle will be wonderful, but it will be wonderful, in large part, because of there.