Pike's Place Market

The search for rice milk for Paul's coffee led us past 8 Starbucks, two independent coffee houses, a Seattle's Best and landed us in Seattle Works. Hands down awesome. I even charged my cell phone that will be un-useful soon enough.

We fly all night and land in Miami tomorrow morning. One more use right before we board the plane to Costa Rica to check in with the kids before the phone working ceases for the duration of our trip.

We have an almost ten hour layover in Seattle, so Paul and I took the train (electric, btw) to Pike Place Market. A nine-acre conglomerate of historic buildings, indoor markets, outdoor markets, vendors, farmer's markets and artisans. And food.

And flower markets. (Gorgeous! I've never seen such brilliant and huge blooms.) And O.M.G.-How-Hilarious-There-Are-So-Many-Coffee-Shops. Seattle is definitely the birth of the coffee shop.

I've found AMAZING handmade journals that I really want to go back for, but we haven't even left the country!! Part of me wants to wait until Costa Rica before I buy handmade art, but another part demands I go back and support the local artists here! :) See how I'm trying to rationalize?

There was a burgundy buffalo hide, handmade cotton paper journal with black leather binding that I was particularly drawn to.

Sigh.


Here's me being responsible and not going back to buy it. If Paul asks me if I want to -- I don't think I'll be able to withstand it. I'll break under the power of suggestion.

We found Indian food at a food cart and walked down to the waterfront to eat lunch and listened to an Asian busker playing a string instrument I didn't know the name of.

Paul is holding my hand and rubbing his thumb across my knuckles while he reads his novel and I've finished my 2nd latte today (it is Seattle after all) and listening to Ingrid Michaelson over the cafe's sound system.

We've found ourselves browsing in an anarchist bookstore, Seattle's own Left Bank Collective, and watching (with tipping some) buskers that ranged from guitarists covering Monkees and Beatles favorites, an organ player, awesome gospel singers, a banjo player, and one guy that played guitar, sand, blew on a harmonica and kept a hoola-hoop up all at the same time.

We read in cafes, took photos, talked about the type of city architecture that Paul misses from New York and bought applesauce bread and oatmeal raison cookies from a gluten-free bakery called Cinnamon Works.

A walk to the other side of downtown revealed the Science Fiction Museum Hall of Fame, and the Experience Music Project entrance fee to be $15 a piece, and closure in a half an hour. We opted not.

"I've been to Seattle a few times now and never been to the Space Needle," Paul said.
"Well, let's go then."

We get so far as taking pictures of ourselves outside of it, but don't actually ride up it. I don't actually mind this as it seems uber-touristy (which I don't want to be) and I'm slightly nervous of high places, which is code for:

"Shrek! I'm lookin' down!"

But I was trying to gird myself up for the canopy tour/zip line that we'll undoubtedly do at Osa Mountain Village.

I'm resting now in Seattle Center's Food Court that looks and feels (and therefore is) a depressing facsimile of a mall, but without the shops. And in a few minutes we will go in search of a real Chinese food restaurant and then to the airport for another round of security and waiting for our flight.

My Wheels are Spinning

Paul says my wheels are spinning. They are. I'm obsessing about something and I've been purposely not posting on my blog about this because I didn't want to upset anyone, but part of my draw to this thing I haven't been posting about, is that it would give me a whole new market of people to write to. To sell to. To build audience and platform for. So I'll just write it now. Possible side effects for the reader have been noted.

You've been warned.

Before I start explaining, I should say here (as purely a reminder for myself so I don't get lost in the edginess I'll feel writing this post) that:

Whatever's meant to be, will happen. We will land right where we are supposed to.


So. Now that that message is plastered to my psyche's bathroom mirror, I shall continue.

We've long wanted Paul at home with us. He works many hours away from home and all of our relationships suffer for it. The children forget to consider him, I (on bad days) feel like a single parent, and Paul is lonely and misses his family. And we all miss him. The children beg for family game nights and one-on-one time with Paul and I, and with Aubrey turning twelve earlier this week, Paul and I worry that the window of time when the kids will want to connect with us may be closing up and we don't want that to happen. Or if it has to -- like some child psychology books say-- we want to be prepared for it with lots of loving quality bonding time under our belts, to stay the execution of us, as parents, on pedestals. Fuck. Us, as human beings.

I remember as a teenager thinking my mom was afraid and cornered and didn't understand. And that was with a good relationship with her. I had a non-commital relationship with my dad. He was just there around the fringes. ( I don't want that kind of relationship for Paul and our kids.) Imagine how I would have felt if I'd had a bad relationship with my parents.

So it is against this that Paul and I want to secure ourselves. And we think the best way to do this is by him being home more. We can't do this if he's at his current job, with us living in our current house, with the current state of our budget (like we have one) and our bills. So, Let's get creative.

On a previous post, I spoke about selling this place and buying a smaller home in Eugene. We figure the mortgage would be a smaller sum, or non-existant, if we move our assets around judiciously. Without a mortgage payment, we could wrangle ourselves into living off my income -- freeing up Paul to open up his own business, buy an existing one, or working part time at .... Blockbuster. :)

Sounds good, right?

Enter Scary, Exciting, Life-Altering, Alternative Plan.

We move to Costa Rica.



We've been researching for months now and have been in contact with a land developer from the States that's moved there full-time and married one of the locals. It would cost us $150/month to feed our family of four. Homegrown, organic food. All living expenses wouldn't exceed ... $1300/month? We wouldn't hardly have to work. Though without the competition, we could open our own bookstore and coffee shop that most certainly wouldn't thrive here in Eugene.

So, a cool kick-ass job for Paul (one he owned), I'd still get to write as my chosen profession and Paul would be home. We'd finally get to hang out as a family on the weekends! Something we've never been able to do because of the industry Paul works in. And we'd get to do it all in a paradise Southern Pacific Costa Rican location. With waterfalls, wild animals, zip lines, river rafting, canopy tours, and jungle.

We'd live in a sustainable community that grows and raises 80% of their own food, and would be off the grid within three years. That in and of itself is dear to my heart.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCXGUL9cP3gOsa Mountain Village video

But.
I love Eugene.
I love the communities we've been a part of, or still are.
I love the friends I've made and the connections that are still very dear to me.
I don't make friends very easily. (Maybe the universe is giving me the opportunity to get better at this.)
I live a unique and alternative lifestyle/sexuality that may not be accepted in the Osa Mountain Village community, whereas I am (and it is) here in Eugene.

And that brings me to my relationships. I have a couple of long-distance ones that wouldn't technically be altered by my moving, but -- but -- somehow I fear that by living out of the country I wouldn't see them as often. Which is silly, really. And most likely inaccurate.

I worry about the kids' friendships and connections, and their school experience. I worry about Robert's special needs being met.

I lose my writing community.
And what would we do with our dogs?! :( Most likely we couldn't keep them.

And there's so much more to think about .... it's flooding my brain.

But, I'll stop here. Paul and I are going to Costa Rica on a "vacation" to scout out the area and see if the village is compatible with our dream. So we shall see. Most likely we will be making a decision over there, and I will be able to come home and tell you what we've come up with.

We'll return the last week of October.

Wish us .... Clarity.

:)

"Living in Truck, Need Dogfood"

On the way to dropping off my kids to school this morning, my son sees a man on the corner with a cardboard sign. "Living in Truck, Need Dogfood." I didn't even see him. We were at a red light and I was frantically trying find something before the light changed.

My son is mortified. He is heart-broken that this man lives in his truck and that the beautiful black dog at his heals needs to eat. My son begins weeping.

I promise him that I'll pick up some dog food and bring it back to him before I go back home.

This settles him down a little, but he is still affected. 

"The man was so skinny, he'll probably eat some of that dog food, too," he says.

My heart swells at his compassion.

As promised, after dropping them both off, I swing around to Market of Choice and pick up some apples, bananas, and a small bag of dog food. I drive around for a half an hour trying to find him. He is not where he was before.

I scan the park under the bridge across the street from where Robert reported seeing him, and where a lot of homeless people live and visit. And I think I might spot him. I circuit up the bridge, off an exit, and back on the bridge three times before deciding that it most likely is him. Remember I never actually saw him?

I just don't know for sure though. And I'm leary of walking into a group of homeless people (maybe twenty?). That's far different than handing something out your window at a light. That's right. I'm chicken.

I get almost all the way home before I know with certainty that there is no way I can pick up Robert at school today and tell him I didn't help him. And the stuff is in my car. Reminding me I had failed. So I turn around again and had back over the bridge.

I park across the street and carry the dog food and bag of apples and bananas to the group of people.

I don't see a dog anymore.

Shit.

What am I going to say to these people?

A couple have noticed me, one shielding his eyes from the morning sun as I advance.

I call from about 10 yards away.

"Were one of you guys on the corner with a dog earlier?"

My heart is pounding.

A series of 'yeah's' follow and a sweetie of a dog (black lab something) comes out from the middle of the group.

"My son saw you and wanted me to bring you this."

"Aw, thank you."

"That's so good of you!"

"God bless you."

"That's sweet."

"I'm sorry there's not more of it," I said.

A shook someone's hand. Another offered me a free concert -- he would play me his guitar. Another asked me to pray for him.

I pet the dog and tried to tell them how affected my son was, but I don't know if they heard me. They were all exclaiming and thanking so loud. 

It felt good.

That Feeling

That feeling before you leap

of exhilaration, anticipation, fear and ecstasy.

That feeling when you think it might happen

and you're terrified and shaky and oh so blessed.

That feeling when you know it's best for you

but that one -- or ten -- niggling feeling won't leave.

That feeling of what if you're wrong

and sickness settles in the space under your lungs.

And that feeling you get when you just do it anyway.

Writers Block

I've got it.

It will away soon.

But not today.

Next week.

I promise.

Bistro

            He was seated at one of those rickety bistro tables that try to look chic in some part of town that tries to look French, or at least multi-cultural.

            He had a pipe with him, un-lit, because he thought it might make him more distinguished, but he didn’t know how to hold the damn thing in his mouth. On the side? Sticking out perpendicular to his nose? Or at a jaunty angle to his jaw? And how did it stay in? You couldn’t press gently with your lips like with a cigarette. But pursing his lips made him look like a fish. An angry one. He tried biting down on it to hold it in place and that worked for a time – but his jaw started aching from the clenching.

            He set it down on top of the paper he was reading, and looked around the other outside tables again. The street in front of him offered people to watch and laugh at and the noise was a gentle hum – as cliché as that seemed.

            He repositioned the pipe at a more pleasing angle and picked at a stray thread on his sweater. He rumpled his hair and rubbed his face with both hands, then sighed.

            She wasn’t here yet. Did he want her to come at all? He hadn’t seen her for eight years.

            And then.

            Before he could re-live the past, as he’d done countless other times, and pondered the what ifs and if onlys, she walked up the street.

            He saw her before she saw him. A confidence he remembered shown in her walk, but her lips betrayed a nervousness that delighted him. No. But that was un-charitable. He only meant that it was gratifying to know that she was nervous, too. That she’d been thinking of him, as he had of her.

            He’d known near nothing of her life after they’d moved on from each other. And that seemed so strange to him. For, once he knew the locations of the freckles on her shoulders and of that one to the left of her right kneecap. That one killed him. He always missed it when her left leg would cross the right and the freckle would be hidden for a time.

            He knew what brand of cocoa she liked and what movie reminded her of her drunken uncle. He knew her. Ah. But she knew him well.

            It occurred to him that the café he’d picked, because of – what he considered – its Frenchness, would absurdly pale from Lydia’s reality in France. And she’d see through that gesture. It was stupid to have picked this one, and she’ll see the shabbiness in comparison and transfer it to him.

            He will now be shabby, and not as good as she remembered.

            She approaches the line of black wrought iron tables and scanning, she sees him.

            She smiles and warmth floods to his elbows. Her bag slips to the floor and she sits in the chair opposite him, all in one graceful motion. Her short blond hair swings about her jaw when she sits back up. She pulls the sleeves of her tee shirt down over her hands and wraps her arms around her legs, her knees bent up under her chin.

            “I like this place. It reminds me of France,” she says. But she doesn’t look around as she says it. She only looks at him.

            This might be a good day, he thought, and cleared his throat. His hands trembled, unseen, under the tabletop. But whether from excitement or trepidation he could not tell. But then she often made him feel that way.

            “A pipe?” She raised her eyebrows.

            Fuck. He shouldn’t have brought the thing. He didn’t even smoke it. It just seemed writerly. Like it would lend credence to his three published articles and the lone manuscript he’d edited twenty-three times and still remained agent-less.

            “Oh this?” He flashed what he hoped was a comically conspiratory grin. “It’s nothing.” And he swiped it off the table clattering to the ground. He moved it over with his shoe until he was stepping on it. Invisible now. Like it had never been.

            She tilted her head at him in question. Though this also seemed cliché. A waiter came by with a coffee cup, which Lydia nodded at, and a water goblet. He pulled a menu from under his arm, placed it on the table and then expertly disappeared.

            The man opposite Lydia – sometimes he thought of himself as Adam, but other times Matt, though neither were very scholarly – just smiled and tossed the quizzical look back.

            “So tell me. Where did the world take you?” he asked.

            Her answer was slow coming, like deciding where to start with 800 puzzle pieces spread out on the table in front of you. He really had no idea what she’d say, or why, really, she’d called. She’d shared no particulars, only that she was back from some travels in Europe and wanted to see him.

            Her finger traced the rim of her mug, and she offered another smile. A coy one this time, but he saw through that right away.

            She was terrified.

            “It’s brought me back to you,” she said.

The Woman on the Floor

The woman on the floor was young. In her thirties. Her bandana kept her brown curly hair, that was only hinting a few strands of gray, out of her face while she scrubbed the kitchen floor.  The smell of oven-roasted free range chicken from the Market of Choice grocery store down the block permeated the house and the woman’s stomach growled. But hunger wasn’t the only thing distracting her.

            Normally her two children fighting with each other over somebody touching somebody, or not sharing the computer echoed through her brain – combined with the two dogs racing across the hardwood floors and growling in their play – prevented complete thoughts. But today one was upstairs reading and the other was sick and taking a nap. The dogs were sleeping on the couch, each with a head resting on one of the arms.

            The woman scratched at her forehead with her wrist and sniffed. The dishwasher hummed its sloshy hum and she continued scrubbing apple cider and dirt-encrusted dog drool off the walnut floors.

            The other thing distracting her was her unsettled, restless thoughts. They ping-ponged and pinballed around the desire in her mind.

Unsettled because there was so much she craved that didn’t seem  available to her, at least right now, and she felt guilty for wanting more when she already had so much – she didn’t deserve any more blessings than she already had. She had enough. And she was filled with gratitude for those things. A loving husband; beautiful, funny, unique children; a gorgeous house; friends and food.

But restless because maybe she did deserve more. It was every person’s birthright to pursue his passion and happiness, right?

The woman dumped out the dirty water from the pink washtub and re-filled it with new, hot water after squeezing out the dishrag she knitted last Fall.

She thought of the French language books littering her office floor that begged perusal and the European cruise she longed for. She tallied up the number of friendships she’d started over the years that had faltered and dribbled into nothing. She craved the solitude of writing her novel and the peace and enjoyment she received from reading. And then she thought of all the responsibilities and self-imposed obligations that prevented her from any of those things.

Going to Europe by herself would be lonely, and she’d miss her family, but if they came with her it would be too costly, and afford no time for writing. Or reading, for that matter. And some of the people she felt drawn to befriend were ones that her family disapproved of. Sort-of. Actually, that was hardly fair and untrue to boot. Her husband didn’t disapprove of her friends, just the type of relationship she wanted, and how much time that it would take away from the rest of the family.

She craved closeness and intimacy from many people and worried and wondered again why it was that all her closer relationships petered out. She was sure she was the common denominator in this pattern, but what was it that happened, what was it that she’d do to pre-maturely end these friendships?

The woman sat on her butt and extended her right leg to give it a rest from kneeling on it. She struck out at the blackened floor again. Her elbow ached, too, and she wondered if the chicken were done yet and if she should start the rice yet.

Was it fear of closeness, despite her desire for it? Did she back away from the friendship right as the potential for closeness was realized? Was it too high of expectations for the friendship and when she was disillusioned by her own hand, she’d drift away and then think it was the other person that had done the drifting? Was it a craving for a characteristic the other person showed that was lacking in her own self that attracted her in the first place, and not any real common interests that could hold a friendship together, so that without any contributions of spirit and conversation, the friendship faded?

The woman dumped the water again and washed her hands. She rinsed out the sink and dried it with a polishing cloth, then checked on the children and let the dogs out, then back in again.

 She poured herself a mug of blackberry tea and turned on the movie “Anna and the King” with Jodie Foster and dreamed of travel because it was easier than answering those other questions.

She’d been asking them for many years; they could wait for a couple more hours.