Two days straight of report writing and not seeing the outside of my house, I finally got fully vertical this afternoon and went to traipse along the shore at Alki. It was a blissfully self-indulgent afternoon, filled with: one necessary cappucino and one unnecessary mint green tea chocolate chip cookie, seventeen photos of my surroundings and my self portrait smiling in said surroundings, three of which I boastfully uploaded to every social media account I own, one long stroll up and down the boardwalk with First Aid Kit and Glasser playing in my ears, twenty nine adorable toddlers and baby-types playing in the sand, countless über-hip moms, dogs and their owners and one hairy butt crack show from the overweight cyclist who could not find it in himself to buy the appropriate size spannies. And a partridge in a pear tree.
I smiled a lot, without effort. I relished in the glory of my Raybans reflecting such bright sunlight, and my coat deflecting the wind, and I gaped at the Olympics to the West and the Cascades to the East. The sun and the wind put a rosy glow to my cheeks that we Seattlites otherwise have to cultivate from a tube of blush (natural minerals, mind you), or a tanning bed, for those who haven’t learned yet about skin cancer. That will totally come in handy when I go to the bouldering gym tonight. Nothing better than a locally-earned sun-worn ruddish complexion and windblown hair to excuse you from nonchalantly failing repeatedly on the cave routes when all the crushers are impatiently waiting for you to clear their proj…Bro.
Days like this make me feel rich. They are spectacular and priceless every single time they happen, and they never get old. They remind me to always be grateful and to keep moving forward. That money is just money in the end, and when you die, it’s still just cotton marked with some dead president’s face in green ink. But you can be a millionaire a billion times over, if you have the right perspective.
