I have noticed that in preparing to leave the place I have lived all my life, I am celebrating my surroundings with a renewed sense of appreciation. Perhaps the cream rises to the top when we know it will be the last time for a while or perhaps these beautiful treasures have been here all along and I just got too busy “doing” to notice.
I want to remember this feeling in each place that we land, so that it is not in the eleventh hour that I am full of gratitude or only during good-byes that I savor eccentricities. I want to appreciate each moment of each day that I inhabit a particular place.
Since we have decided to use the world as our classroom and head out for some “long term slow travel” this fall, I have been thinking about the Northwest and the beautiful images that will always be with me having been lucky enough to grow up here, such as:
- Salty dormant fog
- Earthy cedar groves just after rain
- An Orcas Island hay loft in August with a sweet, overgrown blackberry tang
- Syrupy lupine fields at Mount Rainier that make you feel small and powerful simultaneously
- The rush of the North Fork of the Snoqualmie River when the spring breaks
- The feeling of waiting for ferry boats to arrive only to have time completely suspend once on board
- The audible burst you can hear when the sun shines, followed by soulful basking
- The nesting rain and how it centers everything
- The sweetness of wild mountain blueberries mashed together with huckleberries and a dash of honey
- A cloak of emerald green that is loyal year round, if you just look up
- The moss floor of the national forest in March, when you sink in versus spring back and you feel so safe and protected
- The contrast of an Orca whale against the ultramarine sound
- The blue of the cracked robin’s egg in the seagull’s beak
This is home. I am sorry for not appreciating it more all along, but I promise to take the beauty of the place with me and to arrive open to appreciating the splendor in each new place with a renewed sense of wonder and tenacity.
