Wait, We Just Had a World Cup?

I know soccer isn't for everyone. While being forced to watch a Sounders game with me a couple years ago, my friend Scott declared the sport "ass-numbingly dull" and proceeded to groan every time the ball would switch directions after not being scored. Some games are less exciting than others. I get it. I do. But after the US women won the World Cup this past weekend in Vancouver, I received excited phone calls and texts from six different people who ordinarily have as little to do with soccer as they possibly can. This game broke scoring records and viewership records. It's going to inspire a whole new generation of empowered female athletes. It's a big deal.

And so, I bring you my ten favorite story lines/moments of and about this year's tournament.


10. Helen Mirren narrates a recap of the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, set to Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends.

9. A dog after my own heart.

8. Nigeria fights back twice to tie heavily favored Sweden. (I am also a sucker for a good underdog. And the Nigerian fans. So adorable.)

7. President Obama's phone call to the US women after their victory. My favorite part in the video was when he asked, "And Carli Lloyd, what have you been eating?" Coolest president ever.

6. This delightful, amazing video clip in which Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers defend women's sports. I love when Amy finishes with, "And no more tweeting, Benoit. You're too dumb."

5. When the US women fell to Japan on penalties in the 2011 World Cup final, Japanese midfielder Aya Miyama made a point of seeking out every American player she could find and hugging them while her teammates shrieked and leapt in celebration in the middle of the field. Her country had just won the World Cup for the first time in its history, and right on the heels of the tragic tsunami. This year, when the US defeated Japan in the rematch, American midfielder Shannon Boxx found Miyama and returned the favor.

4. Carli Lloyd, Abby Wambach, Megan Rapinoe, 'Nuff said.

3. This recap of Carli Lloyd's breathtaking third goal of the final. I have no clue what they're saying, but, incredibly, I know exactly what they're saying. It's glorious. (Oh, and the goal's not too shabby either.)

2. The overwhelming fan support for England's Laura Bassett after giving up a game-winning own goal in the dying moments of the semifinal match against Japan. I cried when I watched her, inconsolable, after the final whistle blew. I cried when, in her first interview after the game, she said she wished no one knew her name. And I cried during the player procession of the third-place game against Germany, when fans waved "Proud of Bassett" posters high above their heads. Her one mistake ended England's storybook run at the World Cup, but she will still be welcomed home as  a hero. Sometimes people are pretty great.

1. Oh yeah: WE WON!

Lessons from Travel: What NOT to Do

Another article up, if anyone is interested!
(Casey, I think you'll enjoy this. And happy anniversary! I love you.)

Lessons from Travel: What NOT to Do

Where I'll Be

The other evening I went for a walk to the cemetery. From the top of the hillside you can see down into the valley, across acres of pasturelands with their grazing cows and August-thin creek beds. Though I want to be cremated when I die, if ever there was a graveyard that made me believe in belonging to one plot of earth for the rest of eternity this would be it. It is a quiet, humble place. Solo cups once full of wildflowers lie toppled, the water long evaporated, the brittle flowers fanned flat against the headstones like decks of cards. A scattering of American flags dot the stiff grass. Small pots of plastic roses and daises that won't ever wilt, won't ever decompose. I sat on a bench there for close to an hour, watching the sun scatter through pine needles and shift across the fields. I don't dwell much on my own death (which is odd, really, because I'm scared of such ridiculous things as banks and earwigs), but it's not something to which I'm particularly looking forward. This place, though, this hillside of the departed, makes death look peaceful and golden. It's an unexpected comfort.

After a while I made my way back to my apartment, stopping at the West Beach farm stand at the end of my road to pick out a bunch of basil and a zucchini for dinner. The air was warm and heavy with the scent of blackberries, and within minutes of arriving back home I was on my tiptoes in the shop yard, dropping the berries into a colander cradled in the crook of my arm. Penny was in the studio with the door open and I could hear her laughing at a book on tape. I walked up the driveway to Syd's house, checked to make sure I had no work in the shipping room, and headed up the basement stairs. When I opened the door, Syd was on her recliner watching the U.S. Open. She didn't ask what I needed, or even say "hey," which would have been an acknowledgment that I hadn't always been standing right there. She didn't look at me like I was rude for barging into her house unannounced. She simply turned away from the TV and said, "Come here, quick! This fifteen-year-old girl is about to beat Cibulkova!"

As I write this I am lying on my bed with my window open, listening to Janet give a customer directions to the bakery. It strikes me how much I need this, the sound of her watering the roses as she explains that you take a right out of the driveway and then a left at the hardware store at the top of the hill. These are the sounds that I've come to know as a part of me. The bell-like clink of Syd stacking bowls straight from the kiln. The raven that perches in one of the firs outside my window and wakes me every morning, with its emphatic pitch, three minutes before my alarm is set to go off. How I pass through the studio one minute and Matt is trimming mugs to heavy metal, but ten minutes later he's switched to an episode of This American Life. It's amazing how much a sound can feel like home.

I miss my friends and my family, and I'm a shell of a person without my cat, but this place is my heartbeat. I have taken so much away from my years here--several days of bitter loneliness, yes, but also more happiness than I feel I deserve. There haven't been many times in my life when I've truly felt I belonged somewhere or to someone, but I belong here, to these people. No matter what happens to my physical body when I die, this is where I will remain forever.

Why I Adore My Job

Sure, there are days when I wake up and would rather wedge bamboo shoots under my fingernails than go into the shop. There are days when I'm homesick-hollow, days when customers make me feel so small that even I don't quite believe I exist. But then my coworker calls to tell me about some pancakes she just made, or my boss walks in quoting Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and I recognize how lucky I am--that there is not a single place on this planet I would rather be than right where I am.


Several months back, Janet had to call a customer to tell her that her order was complete.
*The phone rings and a man picks up*
Man: Hello, Rosie?
Janet: No, this is Janet at Orcas Island Pottery.
Man: Well this is Ralphie!
Janet: I'm calling for Sonja.

I walked into the shop the other day directly after returning from the mainland. Janet was at the desk, slouched down over her book, and she practically jumped out of her seat when she saw me. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "I'm so glad you're home! I have to show you the worst decision I ever made!" She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with the latest issue of Kinfolk, a lifestyle magazine for "young food enthusiasts and adventure-seekers." "Have you seen this before?" Janet asked. With a look of disgust she plopped the magazine onto the table in front of me. I flipped through a few pages. There were a lot of photographs, some of them pretty decent, some recipes, articles with titles like "The Art of Weekend Drinking" and "Swimming Holes in Upstate New York." "I can't figure out who would find this interesting!" Janet said. "I mean, it's just ridiculous. Who reads this?" I'd rarely seen her so animated. "No," she added after a moment, "I'll tell you who this is for: young California beach computer." I truly have the best coworker in the whole wide world.

Janet: It's so hot.
Me: Take off a layer.
Janet: ...I don't do that.

*The phone rings*
Me (seeing Janet's name on the caller ID): Hello!
Janet: This heat.
Me: Yes.
Janet: It's like Hell.
Me: Yes.
Janet: Okay, that's all I had to say. Goodbye.

I walked into the shop one day after getting back from a bike ride into town. "So you went for a ride this morning," Janet said, a statement rather than a question. "And you went to the library." "How did you know I went to the library?" I asked. (It had been, as a matter of fact, the only place I went in town.) Janet laughed. "Because you always go to the library!"

*During a phone call with Janet*
Me: It's been so slow that I spent an entire uninterrupted hour picking blueberries this morning.
Janet: Oh, you sweetie.
Me: It was fun! I felt like I was living in an Anne of Green Gables novel.
Janet: Well aren't you a delicious little person to have around!

Janet: The bike group is here.
Me (looking around and seeing no one): They are?
Janet: I'm probably hallucinating. I think I have a brain tumor.
Ann: Or maybe they're just very small people.

*I sniff Janet's kombucha*
Janet: It tastes like fizzy orange juice. You should try some. Pour yourself...no, actually, don't--you may catch my brain tumor.

Me: A couple nights ago it was cold and I could snuggle under my comforter! It was lovely. But then last night it was hot and thick and gross again.
Janet: I've been thinking a lot about lamb stew.

"I've got a case of the Slows." -Syd

Classic Janet one-liners:
"I'm deficient. And I can't grow corn."
"I added tax when they were shipping. Then I was writing the wrong date on the receipts. Then I sprayed myself with water. You know what, it must be the brain tumor."
"Doing work makes me tired."
"It takes a lot of work to keep the woods in order."
*On the phone* "I bought cream to make peach maple ice cream. Oh, the rooster just walked into my house. Oh dear, and he just pooped."

So That Happened

Welcome to the 1st edition of So That Happened on Orcas Island, 2014. I fully expect to have significantly fewer friends once I post this, but it's a risk I'm willing to take! Here we go:

Baxter is unimpressed by Matt's enthusiastic rendition of
"Hit Me with Your Best Shot."

1. The other night I introduced Matt to Sporcle, an astonishingly addictive website featuring hundreds of educational games in categories ranging from history to geography to literature. We may or may not have taken actual, quantifiable time out of our lives to play a game where we had to identify a series of animals based solely on pictures of their tongues. Even more astonishing (perhaps alarmingly so) was the fact that we were actually pretty good at it.

2. Last summer my coworker Janet and I left photographs for each other every morning on the shop desk. They were pictures of everything: doors (we both love doors), barnyard animals, golden evening light absorbed in a mushroom that looked like a melting candle. This year, after discovering our mutual love of words, we've decided that we will exchange words and definitions rather than photos. After a morning spent running errands in town and smelling every lilac bush I passed for way longer than any sane person might consider normal, I decided that such a scent needed a word of its very own. I got back to the shop and announced to Janet that I had invented the word wispent. "I love it," she said. "That is a great word." Not only was she supportive of its creation, but we even engaged in a nearly two-hour debate about how exactly it should be spelled. When I suggested an i instead of an e, the sound that escaped her lips was what I imagine she might exclaim if I were to volunteer to set fire to her house.

The Lilac Fairy left these on my steps yesterday morning.

The shop from Syd's porch. My apartment is the tall
building on the left.

3. I received two orchids for my birthday this year. I am utterly hopeless when it comes to caring for finicky plants, by which I mean that I research proper care procedures and usually just follow the one that says, "Water every two weeks." That I can handle. Shockingly, the orchids don't seem respond well to my blatant inattention. I brought them, one with its leaves shriveled like a grandmother's skin, with me to Orcas with every intention of repotting them in the proper soil and the proper pots. Last week I rode my bike to Island Supply, the hardware store just down the road. I was discouraged, though perhaps not surprised, to learn that they sold only orchid food, not pots or potting bark. I did, however, run into a family friend who suggested that I talk to Lorna, who owns The Driftwood (a nursery) in town. "Or Ace," she said. "Ace has everything." The next time I was in Eastsound I strolled into Ace and headed to the plant section. It was a veritable emporium of potting soil--potting soil for dahlias and potting soil for roses and potting soil for shy flowers with self-esteem issues that only bloom at sunset every other Thursday--but nothing for orchids. I asked the guy at the counter and he pointed a finger toward The Driftwood. "I'd go check with Lorna," he said. This Lorna certainly has the market cornered, I thought as I crossed the street and headed toward the nursery. I looked around for a while before asking for help, knowing instinctively that I would leave empty-handed but wanting to savor my last moments before disappointment. When I finally approached the famous, all-knowing Lorna and presented her with my request, she scrunched her nose and offered an apologetic smile. "You're just looking for the bark?" she asked. "And the pots," I said, nodding. "I haven't got any of that here," she said, "but you should try Ace." Of course I should. I didn't tell her that I was being bandied back and forth between hardware stores and her nursery like a ping pong ball; I simply thanked her for her time and, bowing my head down,  trudged away to the tune of the Charlie Brown Sad Music.

I love this place.

     Several days later, on a whim, I went back to Ace. To my delight, the shelves had been restocked and there was the elusive orchid potting soil staring right back at me. I grabbed a bag and, overjoyed, practically pranced to the counter to pay. When I got home I parked my bike outside my apartment and yanked the potting soil from my backpack, leaving my perishable grocery items to stew in the hot sun while I ran toward the shop and threw open the studio door. "Janet!" I shrieked, and when she lifted her head from the tiny clay chicken she was sculpting I triumphantly held up the bag of potting soil as if it were a trophy. Any other person would have furrowed their brow or shrugged or asked, "...potting soil?" as if it were a punch line to a joke that went over their head. Not Janet. "Oh!" she said, "you found it!" I felt like the smartest person who had ever lived. (And it is just now occurring to me why I was never popular in school.)

4. The other day I received an email from my friend Meaghin with the subject line, "Uh..." that reads as follows: "Can we please discuss the fact that there is currently a show on the Smithsonian Channel called 'Hippo Ganglands'? K, thanks." Best email ever.

Stay tuned for more. Or don't. The Don't option is probably a smarter way to go.

Some Things Before I Go

I'm leaving for Orcas in less than two weeks, and before I go I have a list of requests that I would like (both of) you to consider while I'm gone. Please and thank you very much.

1. Don't die. Seriously. Do not.

2. Don't suffer an emotional breakdown--or a breakdown of any kind--that cannot be remedied over email or Skype.

3. Don't wrap your car around a tree (even if it is the tree's fault) or decide to jump off the roof of a four-story building just to see if you can recite the entire alphabet before you hit the ground.

4. If someone could pop over every couple weeks to make sure my parents are clipping my cat's claws, that would be great. Thanks.

5. Stream Netflix on as many devices as possible simultaneously. I may have the world's most temperamental internet that goes down if I so much as stand up to turn on the light, but I will sleep a lot more soundly at night knowing that the people who mean the most to me have full access to everything I want to watch.

6. Photoshop me into all your pictures.

7. If you hold auditions for my replacement, I don't care what she looks or acts like--she could be a pyromaniac with, like, seven arms and a necklace of human teeth--but please, for the love of God, make absolutely certain she's not a Timbers fan.

8. Please let me know when Orange is the New Black starts up again.

9. Brace yourselves for long, rambling letters from the shop that feature such quaint touches as a running tally of the number of people who comment on my being left-handed, as well as ink splotches that result from the phone scaring the bejeesus out of me as I'm writing. (Meaghin, who has the misfortune of receiving my most inane island letters, can attest to this.)

10. I'm going to just miss the lilacs blooming in my yard (a fact that devastates me), so please go out of your way to smell every lilac bush you possibly can.

11. Forgive me for not responding to missed calls and texts in a timely manner. Due to some cruel, totally unhilarious cosmic prank, my phone will ring and I can receive texts at my apartment, but when I answer the line goes dead and if I try to text back the messages don't send. I will do my best to catch up on non-computer correspondence whenever I'm in Eastsound, where my cell service is (mostly) reliable. If it's an emergency, hang up the damn phone and call 911, you crazy person!

12. I will be spending a lot of time by myself in my apartment, so I welcome any and all TV and movie and music suggestions. That's a lie--I welcome most TV and movie and music suggestions. I can only watch glaciers melting so many times on Planet Earth before my poor little polar bear-loving heart implodes on itself.

13. COME VISIT! Pleeeeeaaaaase! I'll have plenty of room and I promise to ply you with chocolate muffins and garlic parsley walnut bread and picnics on the beach.

I think that about does it. I love you all and I will miss you so much. If anyone needs me for any reason, just say the word and I will be on the next ferry home. Truly.

A Reflection

Juliet was my best friend in elementary school. She had wild blonde hair and this infectious happiness that was such a presence in itself that I felt utterly desolate and empty whenever she was absent. Jules and I were absolutely inseparable. We auditioned together for our school's annual musicals, made daisy chains and jumped rope, ran cross country. We were the third and fourth legs of our school's relay team and once the bell rang for recess we would sprint to the gym to borrow a baton, spending entire recesses practicing hand-offs on lower field. We timed each other on the fifty-yard dash; crept through the bushes by our classroom when the recess teachers weren't looking and searched for tiny cylinders of colored plastic that we called Indian Beads. We watched The Newsies like girls possessed. Eager to make our marks in the literary world, we co-authored a book called Thanksgiving on Mars, in which a young man is sent into outer space to give thanks among the curious life forms (Puffalumps) of the Red Planet. One summer while blueberry-picking with our moms, we found a sign with an arrow directing people to an unpicked row. We flipped the sign--the most disobedience either of us had ever exhibited--and proceeded to crouch in the blueberries, doubled over with laughter, as one after another people followed the sign into the bramble of blackberry thorns and chest-high grass, not stopping for a moment to consider how very un-blueberry-like their surroundings were. Every fall our families would drive north into the Skagit Valley to the home of a friend who owned a small apple orchard. We would climb up in the trees and jump on the branches, shaking the apples loose onto a giant blue tarp that covered the ground below. We would go for long walks on the tidal flats and race kayaks--me and Jules in one boat and her sister Sara and her friend in the other.

Our birthdays were five days apart and we protected each other and intuited one another's feelings as though we were twins. The only fight we ever had--and to this day have ever had--was when we both auditioned for the same role in our school's production of A Comedy of Errors and one of us got it. After witnessing our quiet, sour moods for an entire afternoon, our teacher, Mr. Watson, pulled us aside. "I've never seen anyone with a friendship like you two have," he said. "Whatever's going on right now, is it really that important?" Of course, it wasn't.

I spent most of yesterday with Juliet at her house baking cookies. Though we live less than five minutes apart, it's been years since we've both been in the same place at the same time. Driving to her home, past the old peacock and llama farm, past our beloved elementary school, made me feel like I had pulled out of the driveway of one home and was pulling into that of another. As kids we spent hours playing in the woods behind her house, picking salmonberries and building forts, pretending we'd been deserted like Karana from Island of the Blue Dolphins, stranded like Brian in Hatchet. We created a make-believe family in her playhouse, played endless games of badminton in her front yard and tetherball in her cousins' (they live next door). We made up routines on the trampoline to our favorite songs. In so many ways, for most of my life her home has been an extension of my own. Both are places of love and laughter; the walls of both will forever ring with every line of The Princess Bride.

Our friendship, though no longer fueled by daily whisperings in class, is an easy, unflappable thing. We are bound by the hikes our families took together, by the dance we choreographed to the version of "Mamma Mia" sung by the ABBA tribute band The A-Teens. We are bound by the laps we ran in P.E. to No Doubt's "Don't Speak." We are bound by those ridiculous inside jokes, the origins of which neither of us will ever remember: "Charles Barkley in a can," addressing each other by the name of Uenheimer Smith, and our puzzling--yet masterful--musical creation entitled "Sour Cream and Happiness." They are small things, trivial to anyone else but the kind of moments that make you fear who you might have grown up to be if you hadn't had them.

It's easy to forget, when someone is so much a part of you, which parts of you are you and which parts are them. After a while, there's no clear delineation anymore. I would argue that in elementary school, Juliet knew be better than even my parents. She was--and continues to be--a calming, encouraging presence, and though she rolls her eyes when I claim to have brought back bell bottoms, she always assuages me with a loving, "Okay, Liv." I am so lucky to have someone who was such a wonderful influence on me in my formative years, and who continues to be a major presence in each consecutive stage of my life. I'm so lucky that of all the friends in the universe, mine are the very best.