December 2016
Happy holidays.
Dear _________,
Happy holidays, my dear(s)!
How are you?
Can you believe that it’s already Christmas time again?
Have you picked out a tree? Is it a Douglas Fir? Or maybe you went with a Noble. Did you spiral a quiet strand of bulbous lights around the trunk that’s sticky with herbal sap? Have you festooned its branches with glittery dill pickles and impossible paper snowflakes and a Roman Candle explosion of metallic tinsel? On the top of your handsome tree is there a gold star? Hark! An angel? Or maybe a bow?
Is there a fire burning in your fireplace? Crinkling and crackling and popping piney smells of good tidings and cheer and sounds of the cozy season into your living room?
How about outside?
Is it snowing?
What are you eating?
Is it Gingerbread? A candy cane? Roast beast?
Wherever you are – a walk-up in Brooklyn, a cafe in Paris, the Washington woods – I hope that you’re happy and that you get everything on your list and more.
And me?
Oh, you know.
I’m good.
This Christmas I’ll be in Santa Barbara with Tim.
On December 25th we’ll wake up in a bright house of doors blown open wide by Bougainvillea breezes to let in the warm sun and fresh California air and on the kitchen stove hollandaise sauce will be warming for Gravlax benedicts. My mom will pour us big mugs of black coffee that are topped with leaning sprays of melting whipped cream and then she’ll slice up a couple of Harry and David Royal Riviera Pears and spread them out on a plate that’s next to the tree.
She’ll insist that we open the gifts of chocolate coins and chocolate oranges and raspberry chocolate bars that she’s wrapped up carefully in holographic snowflake paper and tied up tightly with delicate silver ribbon. Then I’ll insist that Tim and I take a nice long soak in the jacuzzi.
Surely, my mom will want to take a walk on the beach, and so will we, so we’ll hop in the car and roll down to the shore where we’ll roll up the ankles of our jeans and wade in the shallow water to poke at the clusters of blue and green sea anemones in the pools of still water left by the lowering tide so that they’ll close up and wrap their sticky tentacles around our fingers.
I’ll pick up pieces of frosty green beach glass half-buried in the sand and leave the brown ones for the next collector. Back in Seattle I’ll arrange the shards in our bedroom window with all the rest of my beach glass and seashell and driftwood finds.
I can’t wait.
I love Santa Barbara.
I really do.
Did you know I went five times this year?
Well.
I did.
And after this trip Tim will have been with me three times.
On our first trip to Santa Barbara Tim met my dad. We went to dinner at Pan e Vino in Montecito where we used steamy, crispy-crusted bread to sop up green-yellow olive oil that was so fresh it tickled our throats and made us cough. Tim drank two bottles of fuzzy Italian lager beer and in the middle of dinner I spilled a full glass of red wine across the table and onto his favorite grey polo.
I marched him up the Spanish-tiled stairs to the top of the courthouse and from the bell tower we sipped on rosé views of Riviera rooftops and foothill sandstone. I contemplated the ease of vacation and Tim seemed happy to be in the sun.
Our second trip to Santa Barbara was in August and on a hot Wednesday we splashed around in salty Santa Claus Lane ocean water that sparkled in the 1:37 p.m. sunlight. Tim chained a boogie board to his wrist and he and my brother Sam took turns belly riding pushy waves to the glossy shore. I swam out to deeper water where I couldn’t reach the bottom with my toes and then I floated on my back where I contemplated the ease of vacation and Tim seemed happy to be in the sun.
In September I went to Santa Barbara without Tim to surprise my dad for his birthday party at Ca Dario Pizzeria and when I landed I found that I had lost my driver’s license. At the D.M.V., in an attempt to replace it, I learned that my license had actually been suspended for the past two years because I had been involved in an accident on New Years Day 2014 and never reported it. Between phone calls to Progressive and chair sitting at the D.M.V., I treated my dad to breakfast at Renauds. My fingers pulled apart a sugary almond croissant and his mouth chewed at buttery bites of egg and melty Gruyère. At lunch with my mother, at C’est Cheese, I cried and cried into a dish of dill marinated olives that I loved her a lot and that I miss her always and that I wish I could always be home. Seattle isn’t it. She gave me a hug that I could feel from the inside and I’ve never loved my mother more than right then.
I rubbed my tear-crispy face and after a deep breath we talked about the name of my nail polish color and remember that one time when we went to Palm Springs and Poppy introduced my mom to his physical therapist as his “cigarette smoking” daughter?
When I was done crying I drank a goblet of sour beer with my friend Nelson in the funk zone who drove up from Simi Valley to see me. The buzz from the beer bubbles made us giggle wide in selfies and splurge on Parmesan, bleu cheese, garlic, truffle fries at Seven Bar. We smoked weed on the beach and joints in his car. Clouded in smoke and dipped in lager, I contemplated the ease of vacation but I missed Tim and how he glows in the sun so I boarded a flight bound for the Pacific Northwest.
Back in Seattle, Tim was babysitting Lars in the house that we all live in together.
I moved in with Tim in late August.
Did you know that?
Well.
I did.
Our house is in Columbia City. It has three bedrooms and a fireplace and it’s always freezing inside. In the window, four potted cactus plants collect pieces of dim daylight. There’s a record player and records. There’s books. And DVDs. Two hundred and nine DVDs all arranged neatly in alphabetical order. There’s no more room to squeeze Me and You and Everyone We Know in the shelf between Match Point and The Messenger, so it rests lazily on top of other titles. There’s VHS tapes, too. One hundred forty-one VHS tapes. In the kitchen there’s stacks of tea cups and white Pottery Barn plates and a French press that we use every morning to make coffee. We drink water out of mason jars and we eat our meals in the living room.
The three bedroom house smells like a hardware store.
Like soil fertilizer.
And lumber planks.
Sawdust.
One aisle of seasonal candles.
And men shiny with sweat.
A month ago I found us a beautiful new couch. Cream colored and heavy, it had deep cushions that we could comfortably sink into side-by-side. When we got it home we learned the hard way that it was too big to fit in the house by one inch.
Tim cursed in frustrated anger and I sighed in annoyance and we left it out in the garage.
Tired of sitting on cushions that we arranged on the floor, I got us a new couch last week. Again. It’s being delivered on the 10th. It’s the first brand new couch that I’ve ever bought. I like that the cushion covers zip-off and are machine washable. And the fuzzy burnt sienna color of the couch reminds me of the trip that Tim and I took to the east coast this past October.
We landed in Boston.
I love Boston.
And we had a great time.
Tim held my cold hands as we walked through the yellow Common and the willowy Public Garden, across the brick Back Bay and along side the muddy Charles river. I nostalgically chewed on a prosciutto sandwich from Bricco in the North End and jumped up and down to New Radicals songs with my girlfriend Olivia on 90s night at Common Ground.
On the Cape we took a short walk down a windy beach where the wild waves almost swallowed our feet. We slurped Wellfleet oysters in Wellfleet. In P-town we poked our heads into an old house that had been converted into a bookstore called “Tim’s Books”. He thumbed through old editions of rare comic books and I adored the classics bound in genuine leather. The sun was bright and the air was cold and the buildings were salty and uneven.
In Newburyport we loaded up .25 cent hotdogs with spoonfuls of onions and squirts of yellow mustard at Richdales.
We went to Maine.
Drove up along the scenic coast on Highway 1.
Through Ogunquit, Kennebunkport and Camden.
Up up up.
Though Belfast and Stockton Springs and Bucksport.
In Surry, we stayed in a forgettable cabin with track lighting and for two days we hiked though Mount Desert Island’s Acadia National Park. Vast views, see-through water and crispy leaves were too breathtaking to sufficiently capture in photos. In the early morning, at Sand Beach, I found live clams the size of my head and in Bar Harbor we contemplated buying some taxidermy at a curiosity shop.
I thought I wanted to move back there. That I was going to take Tim to the East coast and give him the grand tour and say, “SEE!? Don’t you just love this brick? And these ye old cemeteries preserved between Dunkin’ Donuts and Chase Banks? And the history! Don’t you just love it?”
When we got back to Seattle, though, I realized that I actually don’t want to move back to the East coast. I just needed some closure. To say goodbye and to take Tim and say, “SEE!? This is where I came from before Seattle and it’s a big part of me and just acknowledge that I love it a lot please.”
And he did.
He discovered and acknowledged and enjoyed.
And I am content with that.
Besides, There’s other places we could move.
Tim loves Oregon.
I could maybe love Oregon.
I like that Bend feels deserty and that Portland seems clean and young and delicious.
We went to Portland in September and I tried to imagine myself as a resident of the city. There’s bookstores and coffee shops and rose gardens and waterfalls and bridges. It’s nice. My cousin Lauren lives there. Tim bought records and postcards and we had a great time.
We also had a great time in Austin.
On a thunderous hike through the Green Belt we saw fireflies glow in between sheets of rain. Lightning cracked furiously. And then, almost instantly, the clouds melted away and under big blue Texas skies we splashed and splished in secret swimming holes. I bought an old horseshoe at a shop on South Congress and Tim ate octopus at Elizabeth Street Cafe. I loved watching the bats fly out from under the Congress Ave. Bridge and the way the air felt sticky warm and wet. We line danced in a honky-tonk and ordered tacos from a truck.
My brother and his wife live there. If we moved to Austin, we could maybe be happy.
Here, in the meantime, I am happy.
We are happy.
My cat Lars is so fucking cute. We call him Fat Head, Sugar Plum, Mister Sister, Meow Mix, Fat Boy, Mr. Big Squeak, Sweetheart, Sugar Snap Pea and Baby Boy. He likes scratches under his chin, to sleep on Tim’s legs and meowing for kibble at 6:20 a.m.
All the time Tim and I walk hand-in-hand to our favorite neighborhood cafe called Mioposto. When we come in they say, “Hey Kate! Hey Tim! Glad to see you guys! Bone dry cap and a black cup of coffee?”
We say yes, sit in our regular spot at the window that looks out to the park and ask for menus like we’re going to order something new. Then Tim orders his usual and so do I.
On Wednesdays we hike. To Heather Lake. Barclay Lake. Bridal Veil Falls. Mirror Lake. Rattlesnake Ledge. I love finding secret places.
On the weekends I work at a restaurant that sells pork belly and blasted broccoli. I can wear whatever I want and we get to listen to unedited Drake playlists. I make good money and have flexible hours that allow for constant travel.
I wish my kitchen had a dishwasher.
We have HBO and Hulu and Netflix and cable. iPads and tablets and laptops and phones. Tim is in the market for a new camera.
I like to cook for Tim. For his breakfast sometimes I scramble up eggs with asparagus and English peas and wrap it all up in a flour tortilla. Other mornings we just have coffee. For dinner I melt gorgonzola and pears on to flatbread doughs and reduce garlic cream sauces on the stove for bow tie pasta with salmon. I bake chicken breasts with butter and lemon and capers and pies with apple and pumpkin fillings. I always whip my own cream.
I try to keep vases full of fresh flowers around the house and Tim tries his damnedest to keep the floors swept. I light the candles and he makes the coffee.
This year I read Bill Bryson’s At Home, Julia Child’s My Life in France, Jacques Pepin’s The Apprentice, In Evil Hour by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, Bill Buford’s Heat, Wilkie Collins’ Woman in White and David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day. In August I started Moby Dick and in September, after only 121 pages, I put it down. Today, I’m reading The Crack-Up, a book of personal essays, letters and notes by F. Scott Fitzgerald. When I’m finished I’ll read Wishin’ and Hopin’ by Wally Lamb.
In 2017 I want to swim in some clear blue ocean water. Tim wants to explore the Southwest. I’d like my family to visit me in Seattle.
I should probably cut back on all the weed smoking.
Because every morning I smoke pot.
Like how you drink coffee or walk your dog or check your email.
After waking up to the sounds of dog paws scratching on the floor above me I pull back the heavy weight of our soft, grey sheets and sticky tiptoe with bare feet across clammy cold hardwood floors to the living room across the house where I get high.
A deep inhale and I blow a wispy cough of translucent smoke out the window so that the smell of musky marijuana won’t somersault into the bedroom and wake up Tim from his gestures of, “No, not right now, I’m not ready to get up yet”s.
But it’s starting to bore me.
This routine of inhale, exhale, sit, wait, sleep, text, inhale, exhale, order dominoes, inhale, exhale, text, inhale, exhale, four weddings, sit, wait, text, inhale, exhale.
It was risky and fun and naughty and powerful to get high when I was 20. I think now it might just be called an addiction. But I’m going to kick it.
I’d also like to get a goldfish in the new year and master the art of stacking cakes and covering them with fondant.
And, really, I hope I get to see you in the next coming year.
But for now, I hope that you’re healthy and productive and happy and right where you’re supposed to be. That your holiday season is as magical as you anticipated it would be from the beginning of August.
And for Christ sake, lets get you to get back to your merriment and decked halls.
Is that egg nog in your fridge? Are those chestnuts I smell? Mulled wine in that crock pot? This year, were you naughty or nice? Which Christmas movie are you snuggling up tight to tonight? Will you go see the houses drowning in lights on your neighborhoods candy cane lane?
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
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