Life, Work & Wonder

Tag: Seattle

  • How much I love sunny Seattle July mornings.

    How much I love sunny Seattle July mornings.

    They are magical in that they transport me back to my youth before I graduated college, not so much in the memories but in the feelings which then also elicit some memories.

    I remember waking up as a kid, pulling on shorts and a t-shirt, eating a bowl of cereal, and then feeling like the rest of the day was mine. When I was younger I ventured out into the neighborhood (which we could do in the 70s), and when I was a little older we’d play baseball or basketball. Sometime around 4pm, my parents or grandparents would take the cover off the pool and then we’d all swim.

    In college, July was a break from classes. I’d usually work a meaningless hourly job that ended when my shift ended. And then two things would happen: either I’d love that job and would have a terrific summer, or I wouldn’t like the job and that would make me look forward to returning to classes again.

    But those are the memories. And it’s not the memories that make July mornings awesome. It’s the feelings.

    July in Seattle is sunny. And not usually too hot. So much of the year in Seattle is gloomy. Which creates heaviness and foreboding in my spirit. But in July? In the morning? I’m rested from a day of sleep. And the sky is clear. And the sun is fresh, and still behind the trees.  And my spirit just feels sooooo free. And suddenly I feel like anything good is possible. Anything I want to accomplish is possible.

    For me, July is hope. It’s a happiness drug. And I love it so much. Like a drug.

    Sometime soon the summer will start to come to a close. But for now we’re in the heart of it. It’s a sunny mild morning in July. And the world just feels so amazing.

    I’m so happy right now.

  • If I could live anywhere in the world, it would be in Seattle

    Writing Prompt: If I Could Live Anywhere In The World, Where Would It Be?

    With the exception of two years away in college and part of year lived in Oregon, I’ve lived my entire life — five decades and counting(!) — in Seattle. My parents too have lived their entire lives in Seattle. My mom’s mom? Lived her entire life in Seattle. My other three grandparents? Lived their entire adult lives in Seattle, too. Clearly, Seattle is in my blood and has been for generations. 

    The irony is, although I love Seattle, I also dislike Seattle. 

    I don’t love the over six months per year in drizzly gloom. I don’t love the dysfunction of our city government that has always been true for virtually my entire lifetime. And I wish that Seattle as a whole was more extroverted. 

    Still, five decades later, and despite the ability to arguably live anywhere in the US and maybe a lot of places in the world, I’ve always lived here. I doubt I’ll ever leave unless we relocate to California to be closer to Larissa’s family. 

    Why? 

    Because it’s where my roots are settled and it’s where my family is. Because I’ve learned in life that no matter what we think about our current situation it can always be worse, and all things being considered I’d rather deal with what I know rather than undertake the tremendous hassle of changing cities. But more than that, there must be something about the city I love. 

    I do love that we are close to mountains. And creeks. With bountiful water. And mostly mild temperatures. 

    I love that we are a metropolis with a healthy job market and lots of eating options that mostly don’t include large national restaurant chains. 

    I love that there are libraries and theaters and universities, and public transportation, and no shortage of things to do, all the while being very close to one of my favorite things to do in the world — embark on day hikes. 

    So clearly there is something I love about Seattle that is deep in my soul.

    So, if I could live anywhere in the world where would it be? The answer is obvious. It’s Seattle. Because we are what we do, and I CAN live anywhere and yet here I am. And because wherever we go there we are, and I believe that happiness should come from within and not from exterior forces, so why not try my best to be happy here, where my parents and sister are, where my kids are, where there is so much to like, and where I’m lived most of my life. 

    Maybe that’s the real answer. If I can’t be happy in a city with mountains, forests, salt water, bookstores, libraries, great restaurants, and the people I love, then changing my ZIP code probably isn’t going to solve much. Wherever I go, I’ll still be taking myself with me.

    So if I could live anywhere in the world? I’d choose Seattle. Not because it’s perfect—it certainly isn’t—but because it’s home. And after all these years, I think I’ve finally realized there’s a difference.

    #Seattle #Home #Place #Family #Happiness #Reflection #Life #Pacific Northwest #Identity #Contentment #WritingPrompt #Writing

  • A Magical 4th Of July On The Greenwater Lakes Trail

    Yesterday we went hiking on the Greenwater Lake Trail. It was, in a word, magical. It was, as Larissa described it, “Liked attending a forest cathedral.”

    Yesterday was, of course, July 4th. An exciting day for a lot of people, a big day for America, a day off for Larissa and I. Three years ago we’d gone on a day hike in Alaska for July 4th, two years we’d gone on a day hike in Washington for July 4th, and both days were fun, so when we woke up in the morning and were discussing what to do for the day we decided it would be fun to go on a hike.

    So over coffee we searched for best hikes near Seattle and within a couple of hours drive, not too crowded, not too long and not too strenuous. After passing on several options we discovered The Greenwater Lake trail not too far away from Crystal Mountain (skiing) outside of Enumclaw so close to the foot of Mt. Rainier, a 100-minute drive from our home. We left at noon.

    And oh my goodness.

    A three hour not too strenuous hike, a few people but not too many at all, and just one beautiful scene after another:

    A church cathedral, with towering old growth forest where the real world seems a million miles away. Honestly, it reminded us in a way of one of the most awesome I’ve ever seen: a natural version of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. How old were some of these trees that welcomed us into their midst???

    A trail along a bubbling river that crisscrossed one footbridge after another.

    A spot where suddenly the river stopped, collected itself into a tranquil sun speckled pool that cast shimmering light into the rocks again.

    A magical lake embraced by luscious green grass. In Seattle, all our lakes are populated with boats and people and geese. Here? Just nature at its best. And the only sound to be heard are birds. Was this heaven? No. But probably it was close.

    A waterfall where the river just chutes over sheets of rock like some kind of oversized Japanese garden creek.

    The hike was 2 hours and 45 minutes and 12,000 steps. But honestly it felt like 10 minutes, just a quick in and out, because it was so peaceful and breathtaking. It was a pretty amazing day.

    I’m so very grateful for the many many great July 4ths I’ve had over the years. Fun times with friends and family at mom and dad’s Whidbey Island place. Fun times traveling. Fun times with friends on their boat last year watching the fireworks. And, this year, a almost-religious time hiking along Greenwater Lake Trail.

    Here is wishing that everyone else had some joy too, if not yesterday than today and tomorrow.

  • Last Night I Made Soup: The Recipe Was Delicious

    I never liked to cook. Eventually, I hated to cook. Finally, I refused to cook.

    In the beginning I cooked because I needed to eat. But I didn’t like it very much. It was just a chore I tried to get through as fast as I could.

    Then I had kids. And kids needed to eat. So for the better part of 20 years I cooked breakfasts, prepared school lunches, and made dinner. And since my now-ex was often gone, I was doing this while also trying to work, tend to the dogs, get the kids to their events and helping them with their homework. It was hell. I became pretty worn down, actually, and I remember in the late 2000s every night in the late afternoon sitting down with an espresso and a cocktail trying to motivate myself to cook yet another meal.

    Then my now ex started medical school. And somehow I was expected to cook for her (and her classmates) too. And to be supportive I did it. And that, among other things, broke me.

    For more than five years, I’ve all but refused to cook. I’ll be an assistant cook (“Rob, would you turn the oven on to 400”), I’ll prep cook (maybe), I’ll clean up, but otherwise I want to eat out at restaurants, eat take away food (note: I’m American but prefer the Brits use of Take Away over To Go 🙂 ), or warm up food, but I all but refuse to cook.

    But yesterday Larissa had a super busy day that went until the early evening. I knew she was tired, and didn’t want to go to a restaurant, and didn’t want to think about cooking food (she normally likes to cook but has been so busy the past few weeks), so I decided to take it off her plate.

    And I cooked.

    I spent half an hour researching “healthy hearty simple” soup recipes. I found one that seemed very very healthy and tasty, and had a prep time listed as 10 minutes. So I went to the grocery store, purchased all the spices and vegetables and broths, came up, turned the music up high, and started cooking.

    Did it take much longer than 10 minutes? Heck yes! These prep times assumes someone has a commercial kitchen with vast amounts of experience dicing and slicing things. But that’s okay. I got into a zen moment, did what needed to be done, and when Larissa got home a delicious soup was waiting for her.

    The recipe was amazing. I will use it again.

    Anyway, sometimes in life we have to break through our resistances. For me, that is cooking. I’m happy I cooked last night. I hope to do it again soon.

    RECIPE: https://www.loveandlemons.com/vegetable-soup/

  • Budgeting: A Tale Of Two Lives (Then and Now)

    Write about your approach to budgeting.

    Over the decades and over the years, my approach to budgeting has changed.

    Partly because of the times, but mostly because of the circumstances.

    Time was I had to budget to the penny every single month.

    Part of this was because my mom was a CPA and budgeted to the penny every month so that was normal for me. But mostly it was because I was broke.

    I was in graduate school with rent to pay, then I was a lowly-paid teacher with a mortgage to pay, and every single month money was tight. Exceptionally tight.

    At the time, I used a chart on graph paper to keep track of every necessary bill (mortgage, electricity) and reconciled the checkbook to the penny, and if a bill didn’t arrive on time I called to ask how much it was so I could pay it and not worry about it showing up unexpectedly. Every month was down to the dollar, and more often than not the last week of the month was a reliance on broccoli soup since broccoli was cheap. I remember joining a mail-order coffee club because they gave a free coffee machine, and that was the only way I could afford a coffee machine. Adding to that was the city of Seattle, of course, which had exceptionally high license renewal fees/taxes each year for car renewals despite the fact I was driving a very basic and aging car, so every August when that was due I’d moonlight a second or third job to cover that expense so I didn’t have to fret about it.

    But overall it was hell.

    Today budgeting is easier.

    I have some money in savings, I am steadily building my retirement savings for 10 or 15 years down the road, and we’re good about not living beyond our means, and all my financial obligations except credit card* are on autopay, and my daily expenses go on credit card, so I don’t have to hyper manage my budget anymore. In fact, although I religiously check every expenditure that goes out, I don’t budget per se, and I don’t fret per se, although if we have a big expense coming up (trip to see family, house repair) I’ll put the money for it aside in a separate account.

    It’s hard to be poor. It’s exhausting to be poor. It’s stressful to be poor. There is absolutely no margin for error to be poor. So for me when I was part of the working poor (much of my adult life, actually, given that I gave my 20s and part of my 30s to teaching) I relied heavily on a budget, had no room for extras, and kept track of every single penny.

    I’m grateful that in recent years I can be more re-active and less stringently uptight. It makes life more enjoyable. And it also gives me compassion for the people who are part of the working poor like I was.

    NOTES

    (*) Not having credit card on autopay forces me to go through the bill each month in a timely manner to comb for errors and/or fraudulent charges while also keeping an eye out on my spending habits for the month so I can adjust if necessary.

  • Super Bowl Not An Excused Absence? (AKA Where’s The Humanity)

    Two.

    That’s how many Super Bowls the Seattle Seahawks have won in my lifetime, and I was alive and well during our first season in 1976. (It’s also how many Seahawks games I’ve watched over the past 10 years — the NFC Championship and the Super Bowl — although I do root from afar and read about them every day in the sports journals).

    So it’s a special occasion for a city to win the Super Bowl, and there are projected to be a million delirious Seattle-ites at the Super Bowl Parade today.

    The Seattle Public Schools announced that schools will be open as scheduled and the Super Bowl Parade is NOT an excused absence.

    As someone who attended Seattle Public Schools as a student for 13 years (K-12), then taught in Seattle Public Schools for a year as a substitute teacher and administrator, and who now volunteers for a charity that helps deliver food to kids in need at schools, I think it’s AMAZING they’re keeping the schools open. Because there are families and kids who need the schools to be open as a safe space for eight hours.

    But wow oh wow. To not EXCUSE attending the parade? Making kids miss a memorable experience? Or making them fight through overpacked busses or closed streets to get to school? Where’ the humanity in that? Why not keep the schools open but also be understanding if kids can’t make it to school that day because of the parade? That would be the double-awesomeness of humanity.

    We live in a world where there is increasingly less humanity. Where wealthy people lay workers off while pocking more money. Where companies lay off human beings for robots. Where people hate on each other over political beliefs? Why not show a little extra humanity when we can by having a place kids can go to but not expecting them to be there on what is a special day for their city?

  • A Peaceful Morning Coffee Outside Makes Any Day An Ideal Day (AKA What Is My Ideal Day End To End?)

    Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end.

    My ideal day is sunny.

    Maybe it has rained overnight, maybe not, but in the morning when I wake up the sun is out, the windows are open, and I can hear the birds singing. The temperature is pleasant, and of course the flowers are in bloom.

    My perfect day involves leisurely coffee with Larissa. We’re dressed and sitting outside sipping coffee. It’s still on the early side and the day is still fresh. Maybe we’re on our patio, maybe we’re with family, maybe we’re on a rooftop deck somewhere. Maybe we’re near a blue ocean, maybe we’re in view of the mountains. None of that matters. As long as it’s sunny and mild, and the air is fresh, and we’re sipping our coffees together outside, it’s all good.

    Meanwhile, we have some savings, our bills are paid, we no debt, our families are healthy and happy, and we’re not rushing off to some mandatory situation that day. Basically we don’t have any major worries at the moment. I’m not saying none of the situations don’t exist right now, but any ideal day must have these situations going on (or not going on) in the background.

    After that? I don’t care. Because already it’s an ideal day.

    Life is hard. But if we can carve out any moments of joy during the day, and we can start out the day with a peaceful coffee, and we have no significant worries (health, financial, safety, famine, drought) at the moment, then that is a terrific terrific day. Anything else is just gravy IMO.

  • Had To Make A Difficult Choice Of Choosing One Bid Over Another

    We needed our deck completed, so I sat down one day and called a variety of contractors with good Google reviews, and we ended up entertaining for bids from three of them.

    One of them was easy to dismiss. The person who arrived to build the estimate was a little cynical about everything before delivering a too-salesy pitch that more-or-less touted the saintly qualities of both the company and its founder. Thankfully his bid was twice as much as the other two, so it was easy to sweep that bid aside.

    But the other two bids were terrific.

    Both the contractors had great reviews and were highly experienced while exuding a tremendous amount of know-how as they talked through everything with us. Then as we asked for clarifications and modifications during the decision process, both were incredibly responsive and patient, and basically easy to work with. To top it all off, they were the same price almost to the dollar.

    Who to choose?? And, worse, who to disappoint?

    Sometimes it’s challenging to pick someone because they’re all terrible. But even worse is when there are two (or more) who are sublime, because in the end we only have one deck but two deserving people which means one person is going to be disappointed.

    In the end, I explained the situation to the contractor we didn’t select. And he was very gracious in his response, which I’m thankful for.

    There’s that great line in Amadeus, where he can’t decide on wigs so wishes he had more than one head. And so it was with our deck: I hated to disappoint someone, and wish so much we had more than one deck to build.

    It’s hard in life to be a people pleaser. Because in the end it’s impossible to please everyone. Such is my cross to bear.

  • A Walk In The Rain

    This morning during my early morning walk it rained.

    Typically a Seattle rain is a drizzle, but today it was actual rain, a rain that I wasn’t actually expecting (for some reason I forgot it was supposed to rain this morning) and by the end of my 35 minute tour of the neighborhood I was drenched. My jacket was wet, my sweats were wet and my shoes were drenched enough that my socks were also wet.

    In a perfect world, I would have changed clothes and had a warm cup of coffee. But I arrived home just in time to drive my daughter to class, so rather than changing into dry clothes I hopped into the car with my drenching wet clothes to battle traffic for an hour.

    It was fine. I was fine. I eventually dried and am at no risk of dying from pneumonia or anything, but it was unpleasant driving in my wet shoes and socks, especially since I kept thinking how nasty my feet were going to be by the time I got home in an hour especially since I’m a week overdue for my pedicure 🙂 (note: I get a pedicure Thursday, thank goodness).

    I grew up in Seattle. Which means I went to school in Seattle. Which means I walked many many days to school in the rain, especially in grade school, since in the 1970s and 1980s kids still walked to school and NO kid back then wore rainproof clothes unless they wanted to be teased (no Seattleite wore rain gear back then. Why? I don’t know. A misguided badge of honor, maybe).

    Most rainy days in Seattle are mostly damp days, wherein it’s not dry but it’s not really rainy either. But I do remember some of the soaking rainstorms that accompanied me to school as a kid, and I do remember quite a few days arriving at grade school pretty drenched. We didn’t think too much about it I think, but now I’m realizing how unpleasant it must have been to sit in school all morning with soaking wet clothes. How does someone learn their multiplication tables and how to diagram a sentence when their clothes are wet?

    Then, after school, we often played in the rain. I remember the countless days of playing basketball where there was a puddle just underneath the hoop, and we knew to watch our dribble around that puddle since the puddle more-or-less served as an extra defender. Then, after we were done playing and soaked to the bone, we went home. And no one I knew changed their clothes when we got home — we just let them air dry as we continued on with our evening

    I think of all the distractions we had in school back then. There wasn’t really snacking back then so I remember my stomach growling in that final hour before lunch. I think of the 60 minute oneway bus rides that commenced at 6:45am because I was part of the district’s busing program during high school. How sleepy I was so often throughout the day at school after my 5am wake-up time. And I think of all the days I sat in class with soaking wet clothes and feet. How in the heck was I able to concentrate through all that?

    I’m grateful we live in a different world now. A world where I don’t think kids have to walk to school in the rain, and sit in the classroom with soaking wet clothes. A world where when we get wet, or when our kids get wet, we change into dry clothes. And I’m grateful I have a life in which a big deal is wet clothes or a long bus ride — there are people in this world who’d give anything to have a life where these are considered problems at all. I’m grateful to live in a world where my problems are first world problems.