Letter 46

North by Northwest

“Someday, someway aww, Someday, someway, yeah yeah, Someday, someway

Maybe I’ll understand you”.

- Marshall Crenshaw

Dear Reader,

We can learn a lot about ourselves and the world when we show up alone, by ourselves.

I know people who can do this comfortably - attend functions, restaurants, sit quietly on their porch. While having another’s company to share the experience or conversation is great, there is something so sacred about doing something alone. Stripped of any social decorum, or pretense, you show up. What happens depends on what you do, not what the other person(s) want to do.

Last month I took a trip to Seattle by myself to see Jacqui. I will get to the alone-solace part in a minute, but first a note about seeing Jacqui, who started as my supervisor, then teacher, then mentor and now, dear friend.

Jacqui

I was intimidated by her at first. She won the Pulitzer Prize in Feature writing in a brave series that humanized AIDS In rural America that still remains an important and powerful project.. As a reporter at big dailies she has covered the Olympics, the famine in Sudan, reported from Antarctica and coached and edited dozens of highly successful journalists and writers over the years. I had the good fortune of her selecting me for a fellowship a the University of Missouri School of Journalism and saw how beloved students waited outside her office for a feedback session.

Beyond her journalistic talent she is beautiful, and very tall.

In graduate school I took her feature writing class and absorbed her tips on narrative writing and felt like I was there when she talked of her career and life stories of travel to so many places.

In recent years we have exchanged Christmas letters and she often shoots me a kind note after reading Errant Daisy. On social media she lets us in on a bit of her life at the mountain cabin east of her Seattle home.

So when she mentioned over the last few years how I was welcome to join her there (knowing how much I loved mountains and hiking), I asked her if this summer would be all right. This would be my “solo” trip this summer, like Boulder was last year.

She could sense I need some time away, alone. I was blessed with hearing her reporting stories, her mountain stories, her tales of an adventurous life and impactful journalism. She was gracious enough to let me visit and spend a few days hiking and breathing in the world around her cabin. She also fed me and I nearly cried eating a sandwich someone else made for me.

I find it increasingly difficult to get motivated for a run in the Kansas City humidity. Even in the early morning hours it can be 79 degrees (feels like 85) with zero breeze and jungle-like mugginess.

But on that dirt trail to Mazama, Washington I ran like I had been training for the last several months. It could have been a sense of freedom. It could have been the crushed pine needle dust along the path. This is the scent that always gets.
I learned that this feeling of relaxation and awakening could be because of the chemical makeup of the crushed material, which contains Pinene (C₁₀H₁₆). It is found in other herbs as well, like rosemary and basil.

But the secret properties of the scent, research suggests, can open up airways. It can act as an anti-inflammatory, an anti-fungal and has positive cognitive properties. The oxygen thinner up at altitude doesn’t matter when wafts of this scent come through the sun-warmed air periodically cooled by a mountain breeze. I was taking in deep breaths, just managing my own needs at the time.

The trip to Seattle to see lovely Jacqui is a reminder to find people who meet you where you are, with positivity and warmth, and encouragement. And perhaps to set out alone every now and then to meet up with them.

I live in Kansas City now, but a fun fact I like to tell my kids is that I lived in downtown Kansas City after college, my first job, and did the reverse commute to a weekly suburban newspaper. It was a time of much growing as I only knew a few people in Kansas City at the time and didn’t really have any friends.

I was into catchy pop music at the time and picked up two tickets to see Marshall Crenshaw at the Granada in Lawrence, Kan. I called a handful of people hoping someone could go with me. A few people declined. They hadn’t heard of him and didn’t know me that well (Or I guess didn’t like me?). I decided to go by myself.

When I arrived I gave my GA ticket to the ticket booth and said to pass it along to the next person needing to purchase a ticket.

I entered and sang along and danced through the entire show. I am hopeful whoever was given my extra ticket had a good time too.

Here’s wishing you take time for yourself to do what you like to do.

Thank you for reading,

Traci