Seattle, misting at night. October 2021.
I like the seasons here.
Unlike the minimal change in Florida where you go from summers of torrential downpours and suffocating humidity to a point where you're drenched whether it's raining or not — like you step outside your air-conditioned home, right into a heated indoor swimming pool while the feeling of a hot, sticky summer is suspended around you in the still air. To fall offering a slightly cooler version of the heated-indoor-pool scenario with less rain, but hello hurricanes! And still with the mosquitos, fire ants, and all sorts of other critters creeping on you or banging into you mid-flight.
In Seattle, the summer sun is so bright and clear and blue, there's little humidity, the days last from five to nine, and the temperature settles around seventy to seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit. And there are no bugs.
When fall rolls around here, as if on queue, the day fall begins the temperature drops to the mid-to-low sixties, the daylight shortens and the sun tucks away its intensity. The streets are often damp when you wake up, and you might get the promise of a light mist at some point during the day. The leaves begin to change color, and there are still no bugs.
My favorite times are when my husband and I get an evening date, especially during fall. The dark sky may let loose its gentle rain, and the city lights create a vibrant Michael Flohr painting across the wet pavement — brushstrokes of red and yellow and green across varying shades of black and gray. Headlights highlight the drops in an entrancing play of light, sound, and color.
Brian and I step outside our apartment building to the wine bar on the ground floor. We take seats outside and order a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape or Vacqueras, and watch the rain and the few cars and all the people of various shapes, sizes, ages and colors laughing and talking as they pass.
We clink glasses and nuzzle up against each other, letting the wine warm our insides and lubricate conversation.
We watch countless cars bump and straight-up hit a jutting curb protecting the start of a bike lane and strip for car parking, and we repeatedly mention to each other how nice it is to have chosen to be car-free.
We know the weather will get cooler, and our dates will have to move inside, but in these moments, the beauty of life is just so overwhelming.
For a few hours every Friday or Saturday, we get to enjoy some peace and a break from the day-to-day.
And the enchantment of a painted city of light and color, with the soothing sounds of people enjoying life, and the satisfying crawl of tires on wet pavement; alive, we relish in a place we can enjoy being outside nearly year-round, instilling such contentment and gratitude in me.
No matter what happens during the week, we know we always have our date night to look forward to, to ground us and give us much-needed time together.
It’s the simple things in life that make it worth living.
My best,
My best,
Sara
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And here are 4 more things this week:
- I’m reading Drama Queen: One Autistic Woman and a Life of Unhelpful Labels by Sara Gibbs. I was misdiagnosed BPD, OCD, Bipolar II and more before finally getting the correct Autism diagnosis last year. Drama Queen is a comedic take on one woman’s journey of self-discovery and contentment with being on The Spectrum.
- Burnout is a broken promise by Whizy Kim on Refinery29.
- How to be a woman on the Internet, an infographic from Aubrey Hirsch on The Audacity via Substack.
- “I marveled at the beauty of all life and savored the power and possibilities of my imagination. In these rare moments, I prayed, I danced, and I analyzed. I saw that life was good and bad, beautiful and ugly. I understood that I had to dwell on the good and beautiful in order to keep my imagination, sensitivity, and gratitude intact. I knew it would not be easy to maintain this perspective. I knew I would often twist and turn, bend and crack a little, but I also knew that…I would never completely break.” —Maria Nhambu, Africa’s Child