Gratitude
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Seeds
I woke this morning with a basket full of seeds and a head full of plans for where I’d plant them all. Sunflowers on the west side of my kitchen garden. Corn, peas, zucchini, squash and pickling cucumbers to the left of the greenhouse. Shasta Daisies to the right of my brick path, in the spot the cats have claimed for their own. Maybe if a thick cluster of daisies grew there, they’d stop rolling in my dirt. I saw myself pulling back the earth, and plunking those hope-filled seeds … just as I do most every spring. And that was the plan for this windy-but-sunny day. And then, a…
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Snow Tracks
We’ve had no snow this year, and I can’t begin to tell you how heartbreaking that is for me. But last week, my sweet husband took me up to the mountains. Valentine’s Day was coming, and we needed a few days to ourselves, and he knew I was missing snow. So he surprised me with two nights in Leavenworth, a Bavarian village tucked up past Stevens Pass in the Cascade Mountains. We packed up the car and drove east to Monroe, where we stopped and bought gas station coffee to go with the cranberry-orange dark chocolate bars I’d brought along. Once we left Monroe behind us, the Skykomish River…
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Beautiful Day (Part 5)
It’s hard to beat the beauty of Seattle Center’s south fountain lawn during Winterfest, especially at night. Thousands upon thousands of white lights encrust the trees surrounding the expanse of grass, making you feel you’ve stepped inside a wedding, or coronation, or Camelot. The grown-up me kept walking, but the girl inside stayed behind. She ran to the center of the circle, spread her arms wide, and spun herself dizzy before dropping to the grass below. I think she’s still there on that lawn, still staring at all that white delight. At the far end of the lawn sits a carousel. We stood for a moment and watched the blurry…
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Beautiful Day (Part 4)
We stood at a crossroads. If we walked straight, we could window shop along Seattle’s Fifth Avenue. If we turned right, we could walk down to the waterfront. Who wants to look through windows when you can walk yourself closer to the water? We went right. On the nine-block descent water-ward, we passed Fisher Plaza, which houses our local ABC news station. We passed a construction site, and railroad tracks, and the Old Spaghetti Factory. With every step, Puget Sound and Pier 70 came closer. I wish I could describe the smells that tag along on such a walk. I wish I could post a link to those salty portals,…
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Beautiful Day (Part 3)
He didn’t see us enter Key Arena or traverse the stairs to a pair of close-up seats, but I saw him. There was my boy, warming up on Ray’s home turf. He looked good. He looked natural. He even looked comfortable, though I couldn’t imagine how he pulled that off. Thousands and thousands of stadium seats –17,072 in all– faced that court, looking like an enormous avalanche of red plastic, frozen in mid free-fall. I think the seats alone would have unnerved me. But there was so much more. The backboards, clear and backed by nothing but space, gave the shooters no reference point. Instead of a gym ceiling overhead,…
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Beautiful Day (Part 2)
I had looked forward to the day after Christmas for a couple of reasons. First, the 26th of December loomed as the first day of a much needed rest. It meant the shedding of several great weights: I’d be finished with a lengthy academic book edit and the writing of that book’s study guide (the deadline of which coincided with Christmas Eve). I’d be finished with the transcription of another book. I’d have set my needle and thread aside, because the three sheep costumes I had offered to make would be not only finished, but already-worn and already-packed away. That meant the Christmas play would be behind me, and Christmas…
