Absorbed

Maybe I’ll start with that night my cousin & I met halfway on bikes to get to Swim Club where everything was hip from her black dress to the staff with their neck scarves to the pate to the Tecate with the hot sauce on the cylinder. We met a beautiful woman that night, new from Alaska; the kind you don’t have to impress, like letmebreatheyouin you’re not maintenance and together, because, we ended up at the renovated cabin tavern, which I was against, because with renovation comes removal of seedy, a change in creep, taxidermy, old art, that sweaty dew that shivers down the windows, and especially the box of stale donuts half eaten, that I would help myself to in a state of careless necessity. For years I swore it off in fear that it had changed. And yet, us three ended there with margaritas in boots and that fine box of sad donuts was still there, and I ate one.

The Vancouver Sun Run, Eugene 1/2 and many others when I was racing back to back to back. Sun Run was nice because I was able to overcome the curse of never performing there, and actually hung on for a PR working in a pack of powerful, wonderful women; Eugene was nice because it was a chance to rewrite a previously disastrous story of overtraining, poor performance, gut bombastic where Red did not have a good time driving my white-faced, heaving self home from E-town post race a few years ago. It also came with a PR, but what meant most to me was spending the weekend with LB, her fiancee, her mother (who treated us to endless Dutch Bros) and his family. Mrs. Breihof is le champion when it comes to race support. Her and Red should get paid for what they do. The big buffalo Brad Pitt of running that is N. Simmonds ran his final 1/2 there, and I got passed by my youtube infantile baby faced crush R. Trahan. So I'd say running is going good.

Thereafter was LB’s shower, lemon french, like living mag spread material. Baskets of grapes and thickly dripping olive oil from Queen Anne, baskets of bread, lemons, brie. Silver dollars in contrast. Homemade vino, bottle and grape-shaped cookies from some kind of miracle manbaker. Lemon curd squares, white chocolate dipped strawberries, various sorbets with meyer lemon cookie thins. Almond biscotti. Guessing love games & embrace. The flick of a gold curl against her skin & her white lace dress. In that living mag spread room with deep deep & bonded love, generations of strength, celebrating a woman who I feel fortunate to have known & blessed to continue knowing.

Then there was probably several steak dinners made by Red to try to keep my iron up because my body's trying to rid itself of all its eggs.

A lot of cat harassing.

A check in the mail from Eugene.

Yoga outside as the sun sets over the bay; this wonderful woman who brings yoga to the city’s life because she enjoys it, encouraging no-fee, who says things like, “butt stuff,” and the only person who makes me laugh as I stretch and bend, which is entirely soul-filling.

 If you can’t tell I’m relaying just a few moments in my life over the course of the last half year, because, because I’ve been soaking and thinking and reading and way too busy and full of too many yes’ and not enough no’s to write, and though it does feel like a piece is missing, it has felt good to just absorb as much content as possible and not process it in time.

 There was a day Red mowed the front lawn on the last legs of the electric mower, and set himself up a table with a ceramic bowl of ice and a bottle of sour beer, that I remember fondly. Because, resourceful. And, you might as well make every monotonous, unthankful task more vivid and wild.

Then, in May Red & I went to the San Juans, to Friday Harbor, to Duck Soup, which we’d always wanted to dine at - a friend & client of Red’s - for an Amavi Cellars pairing featuring the lovely & sensually Swiss accented Jean-Francois Pellet. I had the fortune of drinking and eating myself silly alongside Jean-Francois’ wife, a very elegant woman. It’s a testament to Red’s graciousness, that I can empty bread baskets and drain wine bottles at fancy places in the company of his clients, without any of those after-conversations of, Youneedtogetittogether. When we entered Duck Soup, him in dinner jacket and I in red, I saw a cat so majestic I thought it was fake, until it turned its head deeper into the sun. A restaurant cat at a place so regal it serves foraged cocktails & has been featured in Bon Appetite & Gourmet. *Did you know there’s a 1933 Marx Brothers movie called “Duck Soup?” To start - crab & octopus ceviche with lime shallot & cilantro paired with Amavi Cellars Semillon ’17. Then, pink scallops with rhubarb, rose syrup & wild flowers with Amavi Cellars Rose ’17. Embedded in endives an olive, smoked almond and garlic confit with Amavi Cellars Syrah ’14. Lamb coated in coffee, black garlic and chocolate over Amavi Cabernet Sauvignon ’14. Rabbit lion, lions mane, fiddlehead sage and hazelnuts with Pepper Bridge Merlot ’14. Quail, quail egg & sun choke dressed in brown butter hollandaise with Pepper Bridge Trine ’14. To conclude the orgasmic mouth rage of tantalizing tannins and panty-dropping locally procured foodie flavors, there was rosemary ice cream with fermented green strawberries, pistachio and caramelized honey. The night ended with a glass of wine in bed at our favorite b&b, Juniper’s.

Ski to Sea happened. As it does. This time to me, like some out-of-body thing. Do you know that feeling which is more of a season when someone is not a part of your life, but once was, and its anticipatory, too much memory, a thing of what you were and how. My brother was like that, maybe still, each time his father would come into his life. S2S is like that for me. I fish for a reason to say no, but it feels weird to stop a thing it feels like you were made to do; a perfect blend of passion and pain. I blew my own mind, which is something that I believe only happens a few times in life. Which seems weird too, to feel about such frivolity. Though it’s 100 years old. Though my gold spray-painted shoe is one of my prized possessions. It’s, in the end, not that important, but a thing I do. Also, I really really love racing alongside local, gangster superfemales. And I really really love how happy it makes Red to watch me.

 LB’s bachelorette. Which deserves its own.