Father's Daying

All photos courtesy of Photography by David L. Clark

So, not that I haven't been doing lifey stuff a lot lately, but yesterday we celebrated Father's Day and it was kind of perfect so...

1. Breakfasting: For breakfast I made vegan whole wheat and oatmeal belgian waffles and topped them with local raspberries that I pureed with some agave. Pretty, delicious, filling. Oh, and you know, chemex coffee.

2. Housekeeping: It always feels nice to do a little cleaning and care on a day when you know you get to do fun things as well. I did laundry, David tidied and vacuumed, and I cleaned the kitchen.

3. Treat Making: After some cleanup I made these raw lemon bars. They were really quick and simple to make, plus I managed to clean as I went so I had no mess afterwards (that's a huge deal, I make the worst kitchen messes).

4. Lunching: Friday night we were in Tacoma and ended up hanging out at my uncle's house pretty late, so we grabbed some vegetarian pad thai and sweet and sour tofu and veggies. It was a ton of food so we had leftovers for lunch.

5. Hiking: We headed out around 1 o'clock to the Twin Falls trail in North Bend. I did the trail when I was a kid and loved it so I thought it would be a fun, easy, spontaneous hike. Apparently every one else thought so to, it was really crowded but we really enjoyed ourselves anyways. Lorelei is a little pro! We brought our carrier backpack thinking she'd love it as much as last year, but girl's got too much energy and independence going for her, and a HUGE sense of adventure. We hiked about 1.8 miles with her hoofing more than half of it. She took lots of spills, saw a gardener snake, chased a much older ginger boy, tried to befriend a chipmunk, got blisters on her heels, peed on a rock, and made me a nervous wreck. I think she's pretty much the coolest child I could be lucky enough to know, let alone gestate myself and spend every day with ( I love her, my little "very best friend").

6. Coffee Drinking: After our hike I mentioned that we still needed to get Huxdotter coffee sometime, because it was the first coffee stand I ever went to, as a small child, and they have lots of milk choices. So we found ourselves there. David and I opted for iced lattes with hemp milk, him a double shot, me a single, and Lorelei a cake batter frappe. It only cost us $9.00 and it was pretty darn good, so that was worth the detour.

7. Dinner and Movie Watching: For dinner I did what I usually do and pulled some ideas out of my head into a perfectly executed, new favorite dish. It was a cashew cream and rainbow chard lasagna. David said it was restaurant quality and possibly his favorite dish I've ever made. It really was delicious, and EASY and I only dirtied 5 dishes making it! We watched The Company You Keep with Shia Lebeouf (good, good movie) while we ate.

8. Coffee and Desserting: So this is where we eat dessert, with more coffee (this time iced aeropress with coconut milk). The lemon bars were ambrosia! I'm convinced that I would be completely okay with eating all raw. I can't even begin to describe how delicious they were, just, if you like coconut and lemon, you would LOVE them.

So that was our Father's Day. It was just what we needed and we all went to bed pretty contentedly. I hope you're all having a lovely day celebrating the dads in your life, those guys are pretty darn important!

Place To Be

"Now I'm weaker, than the palest blue. Oh so weak in this need for you." - Place To Be, Nick Drake
Photo courtesy of Photography by David L. Clark

There is something about places, the significance, the nostalgia, the memories, the beauty, that elicit so much emotion in the human spirit. Maybe a place holds significant because it feels like home, maybe you fell in love there, maybe you found out something about yourself there, or perhaps it just stirs something up that you can't explain. This waterfall is one of those places for me. I was born and lived almost half of my life in Snoqualmie, Washington the place that this beauty falls from. A lot of my fondest memories of my life come from this place, along with a romanticized notion about my father's young life, and my grandfather's. My family lived in "The Valley" forever. 

Yesterday David and I took Lorelei there to just jaunt around a little bit. I was struck by this oily, woody smell in the air the other day while I took my dog outside that reminded me of the train depot I used to visit regularly with my grandmother and aunts, and I felt like I just needed to go home. Sometimes it's so gratifying to go back to where your life started. 

So many memories, buried deep, sprang forth while we walked the streets. Memories of picking up fallen apples to take a bite, as we walked past my great, great grandparent's old home that once had an apple tree in the front yard. A home that also housed a very tiny me and my young parents for a while. Where I could remember the smell of the garage. A place where my aunt later lived and fed me Cookie Crisp for breakfast, baked lemon cakes, and let me try to jump on her water bed. I smiled at the Railroad Museum at the memory of the feeling of the brick walkway under my own stroller wheels when I was Lorelei's age, a sensation I didn't even know I remembered until I was there. Seeing flashes in my head of the sights on the train ride from Snoqualmie to North Bend. Remembering the festivals and parades that I attended on those streets. Hearing the music played by 90's folk and grunge musicians, including my dad's various music projects. Smelling the river. Pointing out houses I loved as a kid, and noticing charming ones I never took notice of before. I had this overwhelming sense of familiarity, security, and of being rooted there. Seeing, hearing, and feeling the spray off the waterfall made my heart flutter. It's like this every time I go back. I feel like I'm home, but it also feels like magic.

Sometimes I catch myself dreaming of raising my own daughter there. It still feels so wholesome and welcoming to me. I would have been incredibly happy to grow up my whole life there. Even as a child I imagined myself going to middle school and high school where my parents did. Maybe it feels so happy to me because I was still young and oblivious to the crap that happened there and threatened to tear my family apart, but I can't help but think maybe those things could have been worked out without leaving. I will never know, and that chapter is behind me, but I can't help but wonder...Maybe there are more chapters for me to make there...

What places have special significance to you?