Seattle 13, or Warmth

I was supposed to get trained to do my job yesterday, but only two of us bothered to show up for the training, so they paid us for two hours and sent us home. I was mad, but not too mad - the sun was out, and it was close to 70 degrees, and the city seemed to be sprouting color from every available crevice. I came home to find Jason curled up on the back porch with a glass of tea (he always has tea - he's got entire cabinets devoted to bags of loose tea. pineapple green tea. hibiscus lemon. chamomile.)

I joined him with my lunch: yesterday's leftover stewed black beans and greens, served with a fried egg, wrapped in a tortilla. We didn't say too much at first; we were busy basking like lizards. This happens in Seattle - when the sun appears, people get out, as though they've got solar panels in their shoulderblades that need recharging.

I spent the whole afternoon on the porch, emailing work to fix my schedule (it's fixed - I've got more work now, and I have the dates for retraining) and on the phone with friends, family and the insurance company. (For the record, I'm not going to be pursuing physical therapy here - it's just too expensive. I'm good with what Deb gave me before I left, and Jason's keeping an eye on my knee, working on it when I ask him to.) By the time I left for writing class, I even felt a little - dare I say it? - golden.

Writing class was hard this week - hard edits, hard prompts. I'm hitting a bout of writers' block for the first time since arriving here. Luckily, writers' block here means I'm still held accountable to writing something, which is far healthier than my usual writers' block diet of kvetching and junk food. I did some grocery shopping after class, came home on the late bus.

As I walked up the driveway, I smelled smoke. When I opened the high fence door into our patio/backyard (there's no grass; it's all terra cotta bricks), I saw Jason had made a bonfire in our outdoor fire dish. It was roaring, hissing, spitting (he was burning pine), and he'd set up his laptop with a projector, and was projecting a Margaret Cho video on the wall of the garage. (Margaret Cho is an excellent comedian.)

"I've been waiting for you, little one!" he cried when he saw me come in. "What took you so long?"

After I put my groceries away, I came outside and pulled up a chair next to him. We turned off the video and talked for a good two hours, just curled up there by the fire. He's a Vermont boy in his bones, all woodsmoke and maple syrup. After working on the fire, his shirt smelled like smoke and boy and pine, and I breathed deep while hugging him. He smelled like summer nights in Canada, like all the men I've ever known who loved fire.

We sat under the magnolia tree, next to the forsythia, watched petals fall into the fire and onto our heads. I collected forsythia blossoms, made a circle of them in my palm. We burned bags of raspberry tea, breathing deep as they puffed and vanished.

I said I wished I could've taken a picture of this moment and sent it to myself six months ago, as reassurance that I would get somewhere wonderful. "Me too," said Jason. We both said "hmmm" and watched the coals, thinking about other fires and other places, feeling grateful and scared and entirely blessed.