So, here "we" are. Two years into Seattle life, and oddly enough, still where I was in my last post: "I am an air plant, suspended in a glass globe amongst the Seattle morning fog. It is good, for now." We are still looking for our piece of earth. A lot has happened in the mean time but that is still our goal. Portland may be our home, we both feel it.
For now, I am still working at the barbershop. Rae is teaching gardening at an alternative school on the South end. We live in North Seattle, where we feel grossly out of place, other than our close reach to the Puget Sound. This city is polished, new. Tech industry is blowing everything out of the water and if I weren't biking to work every day I would probably have gone out of my mind by now. My bike has become my main mode of transport as well as enjoyment.
I like lists, so here's the compilation of my riches right now:
- P-patch: my personal garden space at our apartment complex where I find my most cherished alone time. This year I am growing strawberries, carrots, beets, turnips, chocolate cherry tomatoes, basil, overwintered garlic, flowers, and first attempts at Star of David okra and national pickling cucumbers. Hoping to pickle everything this year!
- Beekeeping: I got in here after Rae started in April 2014, beginning Cooperative Bee Company. I tagged along until he invited me to maintain my own hive this year. Our new hives this year are named after my grandmothers, Bette and Emma. Mine is Emma. We are up to five hives now after a hive split and Rae catching a swarm, both within this past week. I am so proud of Rae in this venture. He has always wanted bees and now he is catching swarms and caring for the ladies that give us food. It's so blissful and humbling. He has already made his first round of salves from the wax we harvested from last season.
- Home: we moved to a one bedroom apartment. Rae works a lot and I quit my bartending job back in March so I could have more self care time. This apartment has become my space. Bright, quiet, filled with plants and books and food. I invest everything I want out of my own walls into these and I'll carry it when we move on.
- Pets: Rumi and Frankie. Enough said. ;-)
- Relationships: I recently began writing to loves. The winter was hard, and I wrote letters for Christmas gifts because that was all I could manage at the time. It was a release, a comfort, to communicate with family in ways that I don't feel free to do on Facebook. I continued my writing to friends and am working on being more intentional with the relationships that feed me.
Of course I have a million more interests and loves but those are the biggest recipients of my energy recently. I am now writing from a different computer so not many of my photographs have been transferred, but I can't leave a blog without one! So, here's what lately has been looking like...
Cheers, friends!
