As I've been enjoying these past few days of clean crisp fall air, I can't help but to feel so refreshed, alive, ready for anything that is thrown my way and, most of all, an insatiable hunger for projects, work and creativity. With every season change, comes new feelings and sensations associated with the sports, the colors and the foods of that season (a reason I could never live in Southern Cali or any place that doesn't experience four distinct seasons a year). However, I can't remember a time when I felt so refreshed and ready to work...I mean REALLY ready to work. The only thing I can attribute this to, besides having a slow year and needing to bring in some dough quick, is the most amazing summer I have had since I was 11 years old.
I think back to elementary summer vacations that were filled with endless days-turned-evenings swimming at the pool, long road trips with the family to Minnesota, a week of summer camp sleeping under the stars and sailing on the lake, riding bikes in the evening and not wanting to go to sleep until all the pink in the sky had turned to black and, my favorite, rewarding your play with the sweet cool taste of ice cream at your local dairy barn/shed/shack/Queen. Those summers we relinquished our brains from any thoughts of textbooks or standardized tests and from the pressures of completing homework in the evening when we'd rather be catching lightening bugs. We completely turned off our brains long enough to let the pressures of our everyday lives melt away, thus rejuvenating us in the Fall for another nine months of spelling tests, math quizzes and social studies reports all slightly harder than those we'd completed the year before.
Perhaps my boundless energy and desire for a challenge is because my summer wasn't a whole lot different from when I was 11. It all started at the end of May when my parents came out to Seattle for a visit. For three days, I lived like a tourists, taking them to wineries, having long leisurely lunches along the water enjoying the best views in the city, and humoring them by shopping for postcards and quirky souvenirs at various shops inside the Pike's Place Market. Their trip was to continue for another 10 days as they made their way their way down the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco where they were to visit friends and enjoy a few days in wine country. Well, when I also had to make my way south to Portland to meet with an EP, I decided to crash their 40th Anniversary trip and accompany them on part of their journey.
We packed up the car in Seattle complete with kettle korn, granola bars and a cooler filled of diet sodas and made or way South on Highway 5. When we approached Portland, they dropped me off for my meeting (yes, my parents dropped me off for an interview, it was very "first day of school-ish") then circled the city, picking me up after a lengthy 2.5 hour lunch meeting. Then we proceeded West toward Pacific City. It just happens to be a beach that, three years prior, I'd been to with some friends of mine and a very handsome smart, humorous and very buff surfer friend of theirs which led to one of the most fun and romantic weekends of my adult life. Ahhhhh...okay, I digress.
We made our way to Pacific Beach where we posted up in an adorable beach cottage for two nights, just 300 yards from Haystack rock. Our days were spent touring the flight museum, shopping for antiques, eating ice cream at the Tillamook dairy, walking along the beach and dipping our toes in the water. We were model tourists, just like in the 80's when we visited Itasca State Park in Northern Minnesota and walked across the Mississippi, then bought replica Indian headdresses reaped from vinyl instead of leather, synthetic feathers and magic marker. After a lenghtny stop in the gift shop, we would continue North to Bemidji to have our pictures taken in front of the larger than life Paul Bunyon and Babe the Blue Ox as photographed in the opening credits of the original National Lampoons Vacation.
From Pacific City, we ventured South along the 101 stopping at various landmarks along the way including, ironically, a larger than life Paul Bunyon and Babe the Blue Ox, the Redwood National Forest and a log cabin replica that sold Americana treasures including synthetic Indian headdresses and Atomic Fireballs (another former road trip favorite). 15 years ago I swore I would never spend two days in the car with my parents again, and here I was, chillin in the back seat, bracing myself from car sickness, enjoying the majestic sights passing by and daydreaming about what my life will be like when I'm an adult and who my future husband would be. Sad thing is, that at least when I was 15, I had a boyfriend to superimpose his head on a taller, more buff male figure.
I survived that trip and went onto enjoy many other summer luxuries that summer. A friend and I developed a ritual of morning swims in Lake Washington. In the mornings when there was still dew on the ground, I'd swoop her on my scooter and we'd make our way to the other side of the Hill and dive into the frigid lake water. We'd spend an hour our so performing various strokes, lapping back and forth along Madison Beach. I even became so bold as to dive of the low diving board, then gradually upping my skill set until I successfully landed a back flip off the low board and flailing nose-grabbing hurl off the high dive. Exhausted from the swim and hypothermia, we'd grab a snack from the local bakery and make our way home. It's just like the mornings i'd spend at swim and dive team practices at Parkview swim club, riding my bike two and from the neighborhood pool, barely able to peddle up the hill on the return.
This summer also became dubbed my cross country ice cream taste test adventure. Every city I stopped in San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis, Columbus, Dayton, New York...I'd sample a bite of the best that city had to offer. It was an indulgence I've tried to keep on the wraps for fear my thighs would never forgive. But once I gave into temptation, the creamy texture felt more amazing on my deprived taste buds. And for all those who are wondering, Jeni from Columbus Ohio knows her shit. The Goat Cheese and Dried Cherry is what I will be eating for my last meal on earth...or any other planet for that matter.
My summer extravaganza rounded out with a trip to, of all places, Minnesota. When my favorite client asked me to help them with an event out there, I was thrilled. Not only had I not been there since I was 15, but also, my childhood best friend now lived there with her dotting husband and three (yes 3) energetic yet adorable boys. While out there for a venue scout, I decided to extent my stay a night and made my way out to the suburbs for a night reminiscing with my friend. The best part of the visit was the mini road trip we took to Stillwater, MN. It's an old factory town along the river just across from Wisconsin. The town was identical to those in Northern Minnesota that my mother and grandfather would drag us to in search of old treasure, or in my mind...junk. However, this time around I was able to appreciate the quaintness of such town and even purchased 5 blue and white Austrian plates to add to my mother's already too large collection of them. And, just like when I was little, we grabbed and ice cream cone just before getting back into the car and heading to home base.
The parallels could go on, but what it amounts to is that this was a summer that I will never forget. Although it was a summer like so many years before, this one was filled with an appreciation that I never had when I was younger. An appreciation for the nature around me, an appreciation for cows and the yummy dairyness they provide us, and appreciation that I wasn't in Minneapolis on that -20 degree day, and an appreciation for the friends and family in my life that offer some familiarity and comfort in world that is ever changing, sometimes lonely and constantly has me on my toes.
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