Crushing and Coding

I stayed on the homefront the weekend. Still unpacking, somehow, from the month away. Still studying. Still getting my bearings back in the city. That has included a lot of running. Miles and miles every day. What the hell? I'm not a runner. I've railed against running since I was forced to walk the miserable mile death march in 7th grade. But something about medicine, all the new people and the numbers and the acronyms,  every part of this frightening and fascinating new path I've been shot onto, I feel like I'm filled up with gasoline and every new passing thought is a match.

 I started running down the cold, beautiful mountain road in Leavenworth after class every day just to get an hour by myself, to have a few moments to think about what in the world I was doing out there, if I was going in the right direction. If crushing down on on a man's chest who coded in the middle of a casino was something I wanted to do on a daily basis.  I decided it was.

I also decided I sort of liked running. I'd never choose it over a day on the river or on the rock, but I like that I can do it whenever, and all by myself.

****

We celebrated spring last night with the official Ballard Margarita Tour 2012. A combination of EMS and Boat world people. We got along just fine.

Ballard on a sunny Saturday evening, the first warm day of the year. We were brave just to venture out. 

 Today it's Easter, so they tell me. In the grand tradition of this Holiday, I'm having brunch. A liquid brunch of espresso, music, highlighters and once again, the chapter on the airway. I love this. I want so much more of it.  

And it's warm. Warm enough. This picture proves it. 

Happy Easter, y'all! Hope you are outside somewhere, with somebody you love, and a dog, studying something that makes you, in equal parts, want to fall in love and want to vomit. 

I love you, but-

It starts, as all Northwesterly adventures should, with iron sky and glassy water.

The Saturday afternoon ferry is mostly empty. There are a few tired families sitting in booths looking out the window, children stretched across their parents' laps. A few older men with long white ponytails sit opposite one another, playing cards on the table between them. They both look like ship captains, one eye on the game, one eye on the water. 

As Lisa and I walk through the cabin, I see a young man and his girlfriend in the very last row of seats. She is half reclined, resting her cheek against his chest. He is reading out loud to her, absentmindedly rubbing a section of her hair between his fingers. His own curls fall long across his forehead, she has her eyes wide open, listening. I pull on the hem of Lisa's jacket and make a small motion in their direction.

"If you had told me," I say as she opens the door and we step onto the windy deck, "nine year ago, when I moved out here to Seattle- I was 17, right out of boarding school, so excited and so optimistic - if you had told me that after almost a decade in this state, I still wouldn't have that for myself?" I lean my weight against the railing, feeling the cold metal press into my stomach. "There's no way I would have believed you.

"I would have said- are you kidding me? In this his huge city? In all of the people I'm going to meet in school and through climbing and ultimate and swing dancing and everything I'm planning on doing? You're telling me I won't have someone- in nine year I won't have found anyone- who will read aloud to me on the ferry? That boy with the curls and the carhart vest and a green knit hat who adores me and escapes the city with me each weekend- I haven't found him? You're nuts."

We're looking out at the dark cabins built on the edge of the water, at the end of long wooden docks, small boats bobbing slowly beside them. I wonder about the people who live there. If they have children. If it's their second home or their third home or maybe their only home.

"I would have told you you were totally nuts." I say again.

 "What about this-" said Lisa. "What if someone told us when we were kids: listen, you're going to do everything right. You're going to work hard all through school, you're going to make good grades, join all the right groups, play sports, volunteer, debate, model citizens, you'll take the SATs and never get in trouble and be nice to people, and drive carefully and recycle and brush your teeth. And then you'll get into college, a good college, and you'll study hard and make the dean's list, win awards, work a part time job, and you'll be smart and witty and well read and good. You'll never dream of taking drugs and never break the law and then-" 

As she speaks, my heart becomes an angry butterfly.

"And then you'll graduate. And then? The economy will tank. And there will be no money, and very little jobs, and no opportunities. Somebody in some bank made some bad decision that will have halted everything and there will be too many people and there will be nothing waiting for you."

Something about the leaden sky, the mid-May weather feeling like November, is making us think harder than we should.

So I think about it. All the job applications scattered around the city- half of them garbage, things on Craigslist that turn out to be scams- half of them real positions that I am so, so perfectly suited for. I think about the empty inbox and phones not blinking with any messages from employers. I think about the health insurance still out there with no answer, about men who say "I love you, but-"

And this is what I tell Lisa: "If someone had told me that when I was a kid? I would have just asked, 'then what's the point?'"

That's why we are taking this trip together.  To figure out, well, what is the point? Not in a bitter way, despite how this may sound. Not in a caustic way or a self pitying way. We have open minds and many questions.
 Life has changed a lot from the life we were told we were going to have. When I was younger, how could I have understood the intricate relationship between job markets and house markets and the economy in Iceland and banks and loans? How could I have known how dazzlingly complicated things could be between men and women- even for those with the purest hearts?

When we arrive on Orcas island- a little crescent of land in the San Juan islands- the town is shut tight. We are the only ones walking the quiet streets. The restaurants are closed. Dinner is peanut butter cream Oreos on the cold beach.

And the evening's entertainment is studying driftwood. And walking around.

 

We both wanted some place to be by ourselves. To sort a few things out.  And I think we found it.

What if, when I first landed as a teenager onto the tarmac at SeaTac someone had given me a glimpse of my life as it is now. There will be endless exploration, and adventures of all sorts, over a thousand different landscapes. There will be much freedom and incredible happiness. But those things you thought you'd have by now, the things that you think make you a real person- a career, an income, a house, someone who is crazy about you. You don't have those things yet.

Would I say it was enough? Would I stand up and shoulder my backpack and hail a cab into the city and say- I love you! I love the exploration and the adventures and the wild coasts and mountains and friends and photographs. This is all that I want or need for the next ten years.

Or would I creep backwards towards the airport. I think I need something more, I might have said. I don't think we're heading in similar directions. It's not you- you're amazing- it's me. Would I say: I do love you, but-

Eat Spring

Do you remember reading my post about Ordinary Things? Of course you do. You loved it so much you told everybody you know to read it, too.

In that post, I mentioned that I filled out the 22 page Washington State Health Questionnaire. Health insurance has been an ongoing battle in my adult life, ever since I left the safety of my parent's Cobra and went venturing into the dark waters of individual plans. Fear it! I've been rejected before, which, considering what a terrifically healthy gal I am, is quite terrifying. What would happen if I actually got sick? It. Happens.

Because of all the stress surrounding insurance, actually dealing with it is my very least favorite thing to do. I'd rather do something truly retched, like get a pap smear. Which is ironic, since I can't even do that until I get insurance.

So anyway, I felt like a million bucks the other day, the day I completed the 22 page Health Questionnaire and placed it smartly into the hands of the Postal Worker. The job application was in. The health insurance applied for. I'M A WIZARD AT LIFE AND I'M GOING TO WRITE A BOOK ABOUT HOW GOOD I AM AT DOING ALL THE THINGS!!

(I almost congratulated myself on my grown-up ways by trying a new  cake-pop flavor at the Starbucks next door- thank GOD I knew better.)

This past Wednesday was our weekly yoga and dinner meet up at the Garden House.

When I got home, stretched and rejuvenated and superior, I found a thick envelope lying on my bed. From the insurance people! An envelope! And thick! Yay! I'm a writer, so I know what a rejection letter looks like. Rejection slips always arrive in sad, flimsy, onion-skin thin envelopes. They ought to just send a postcard that says NO on the back.

But this- this was weighty! It was a Steak of a letter! I sank onto my bed, feeling a little thrilled at how neatly my life was falling together. Next up, I'd score an interview for The Job. Then I could get a place to live, bring my little dog back to the city.  Lose five pounds, complete a Triathlon, get a book deal, get married, pop out acouplakids. It all starts here!

I tore open the paper and pulled out the letter inside.

Dear applicant. Thank you for applying. We are unable to review your application....(eyes scrolling down)....the 22 page health questionnaire you filled out is invalid.....we realize you downloaded this 22 page questionnaire off our website....the place where it said 'download here to apply'.....but we are still not going to look at it....we've included a new 22 page questionnaire. Please go ahead and reapply.

The envelope also included my original 22 page Health Questionnaire with a big red X through all 300 of my neatly filled in scantron bubbles.

They really should have just sent a post card: Sucker! Fuck your time! Ha ha ha!
The pages dropped out of my hands and floated to the floor. I turned the light off. I curled up in bed in a little ball of frustration. I made up this song: Oh life, Oh life Oh! Why you gots to be so Hard....so HARRD....

At the very least, it's spring. It's still cold. It's still raining. But we know it's spring because there is evidence everywhere. Things are growing.

And Blooming.

And food is coming out of the ground. At dinner on Wednesday, we were flipping through cook books wondering what to make for dessert. Someone suggested a rhubarb crisp, so Ammen wandered right out into the garden and pulled some out.

This is how we know winter is over: swamped, quenched, resilient vegetables emerging from the soil. Otherwise, we might be fooled into thinking it's late November- dreary, draining, wilting, dark.

I wait to get health insurance, and for the person who decides such things to call me and offer me an interview. I wait for some financial security, the ability to take a deep breath in, and for the sun to comes out. None of this is a metaphor. I want some money. I want some flippin' sunshine. I'm 26. I'm experienced. I'm sharp. I'm educated. I'm nice. It's May. It's spring. COME ON ALREADY.

But all of us are waiting for something.

 And while we wait, we eat. We eat spring.

 

And if spring doesn't show up and we go right into summer, then we'll eat summer, too.

And if summer never shows up? Like last year? Well in that case, we're moving. All together. To a place where there are four true seasons. Where health insurance is guaranteed for everyone. Someplace like Vermont.

Hey reader, what are you waiting for?

Cloud Lift

Monday was Sarah's birthday. I wrote about it on her last birthday here and then, because there was still more to say, here. Sarah has been gone now for over three years.

Last spring, I lived in North Carolina. I woke up that morning knowing it was Sarah's birthday- it was important to me that I remembered not just the day she died, but the better anniversary as well. It was a sunny, beautiful, neon green Southern spring day. My girl friends and I went to Merlefest and watched the Avett Brothers sing Head Full of Doubt. It was about 90 degrees, we burnt through our sundresses and our snowcones melted into electric colored puddles on the grass. It should have been the perfect way to honor and remember Sarah, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't make that connection between she's dead and I need to celebrate being alive. I felt very sad. I felt like there was a horrendous hole inside of me.

Now that I'm back in Seattle, things are different. This is the city where I knew Sarah, where she was born, where she never left. I still see our mutual friends every day. I keep thinking I see her on the street, especially when I'm in Ballard, and I then I have to remind myself that it's not her and it never will be. But it doesn't feel so much like burning anymore. This is the way it is. She died of a terrible disease and the rest of us carry on. And each one of us lives with that much more appreciation for and fascination with being alive. There's something connecting all of us, and it's her.

Sarah's birthday came this year with terrible weather. It was pouring rain in the city. I was standing in the  living room at Greg's house, looking out across Lake Washington. He was washing his car in the  garage. We had plans to take the dogs to the dog park, but the rain was coming down too hard. It was late in the afternoon and I had nearly resigned myself to a day of watching animal videos on the computer reading. Then Greg came up the stairs and saw me there. I hadn't mentioned Sarah to him but I had said something about being homesick,  missing the country, craving small towns, wanting wilderness. "Wanna go hike rattlesnake?" He asked.

Driving from South Seattle to the foothills, Eastbound on 1-90 towards the looming, snow-spitting Cascade mountain range takes surprisingly little time. At least it does at 2:30 in the afternoon. Before long, the city and suburbs had eased away and the highway was surrounded on each side with darkly forested hills. The curtain of rain gave way to a gray swirls of mist as we cut through downtown North Bend. 

Seattle to Rattlesnake Ledge by way of Dairy Freeze: 

The mountain was green and wet and lit up with new moss. Greg's two dogs, Dante and Lucia, free from the leash and the car, were the happiest hounds in the world. We didn't see another soul as we switch-backed our way up the trail through the living watercolor. The world inside the forest was gem-colored, dripping, lush- each hue so exquisitely deep you could sink right down into it.

 At the top, we were out of breath and above the clouds. It looked as if you would walk right off the planet.

I think Sarah would have really loved the new song The Dog Days are Over. She would love Taco Tuesday and probably have put down 20 tacos long before we invented the 20 Taco Challenge. Remember, this is a girl who shaved her head for a pitcher of free beer. She would have loved that I sent a letter to a stranger at the climbing gym and failed miserably in that pursuit. She would have liked that I gave the shitty boyfriend I had back then the heave-ho. She would like that I'm writing this blog.
 

******

We thought we were running out light on the way back down, but it turned out to be just the trees and their filtering branches. When we burst out of the trail and onto the shores of the lake, we were met with the smooth, pearly light of evening and little patches of blue in the far corners of the sky. Blue sky is worth its weight in gold to a Seattle-dweller after a long winter. I think I've said it before: blue is gold.

In no hurry, we let the wild things play in the water until they'd exhausted themselves.
 

  There was one more stop on the way home. Fireplace, warmth, beers, dinner. Then a quiet drive home in the small, safe orb of the car. 

Sarah, I vow to honor you in my life by constantly doing cool shit with people that I love that way I love you.