Washington Suburbs: Op-Ed

End of summer rant plus cookies, ice cream and healthy habits

Hello from Chelatchie, or Amboy, or Yale. I can’t get a straight answer out of Google as to my actual location. Doesn’t matter because I’m not going to talk about this completely delightful, rural location. Instead I’m going to tell you about the last few weeks in the Washington suburbs, via a cluster of mixed feelings, ice cream, cookies, and apparently coping with sugar.

Last week we were in Kirkland, Washington, birthplace of the cultural icon, Costco. We drove there from Port Orchard, a place not named for its orchards nor where you’ll find any fish at its port; instead, you’ll see there are droves of visitors headed to the naval shipyard in nearby Bremerton. Like me, you may begin reading the history of the area on your phone while on your way to the antique mall, and quickly learn that there are 720 nuclear missiles at a nearby naval facility and you’ll be glad that you aren’t eating the local fish. After a twenty minute dive into the “Puget Sound is home to around one-third of the nation’s active nukes” story, it will be challenging to shake off the doom, even though you’re visiting Washington during the summer months when locals stave off the doom & gloom diet because the sun is shining!

And so, in solidarity with vitamin D3, despite some unappealing qualities of the surrounds that I may mention, I dedicate this post to this gorgeous local statue covered in vines because if I were actually a Washington aesthetic commentator, I would say, like this one, a grey stone wall with climbing foliage is the apex of my visual agenda.

Since I bought a Kindle two weeks ago and once I downloaded many free books from Libby, one of which was Maggie Nelson’s newest collection of essays, Like Love , I have felt the gentle hand of fate flick me on the nape of my neck. In the introduction, Nelson says that her writing practice can feel like courting a nervous breakdown (wow, relatable!) but then she adds, “I don’t know if the term “breakdown” applies unless you’re chasing after a rock of crack in the carpet of a hotel room or being involuntarily shipped off to Bellevue.”

Ahem. The beginning of our suburban stays in Washington began last month in Bellevue, so I’ll call it *fated* that I read Nelson’s apt comparison whilst in neighboring Kirkland, albeit voluntarily, amidst one of my most notable mental doom spirals of our trip.

Maybe it started with the heatwave in Bend, OR, and vibes have not lifted since. Maybe it’s the news headlines, my phone, the unabashed traffic of the PNW or maybe it’s the suburb blues—likely it’s all the above. Downtown? Let’s call it a “business park” and put a coffee shop inside its glass walls and charge $11 for a latte. Buckle up, baby, you’re in Bellevue/Kirkland now. Then, add towering trees, winding roads, treetops encircling the sky, expansive properties shrouded in woods, private docks and iron gates, Google playgrounds and soundless car engines—aka the perfect setting for a true crime nightmare, and suddenly it’s slightly less whimsical, optimistic traveler and more a mid-thirties dog sitter, inhaling the urine of three poodles, refusing to shop at Fred Meyer, in the middle of nowhere, Washington, because I must subconsciously desire to test the limits of my stability by adding liquid flames to my personal conviction laboratory. I told you, doom spiral!

But don’t worry, we are out of the woods, figuratively, because we are actually in the middle of the woods, currently— and after a day of kayaking, swimming in clear waters, shoving our faces full of blueberries, and enjoying the chocolate chip oatmeal cookie recipe I perfected, our spirits have been reinvigorated. Our intention to make ourselves uncomfortable and to evolve our perspectives of places (including our long held opinions of suburban complexes) is being actualized. We still love you, Washington, but we’re never going back to Bellevue.

There is a plus side to the suburbs of Washington— and it’s not how eerily conservative it feels/is. Nope! It’s the running trails! Each day either early morning or after work, pretending like we’ve lived there all along, we’d wave to all the friendly suburban families, gangs of children on their bikes, the elderly man hobbling with his walker that tries to get me to slow down to have a 30-minute conversation with him. True, we mostly ran in the opposite direction of the people we’d see.

In any case, running lately has been feeling good (after it feels awful) and in the Washington suburbs there are endless miles of shaded trails connecting manors and parks, meandering along streams and lakes, millions of moss covered trees and mildew in the air. And Trever signed up for a full marathon on December 15th and I agreed to try to keep up.

Back in Burbank, when Trev decided to start running again (he started as a gangly cross-country adolescent) I decided it would be hilarious (I started running as a top heavy 33-year old woman with family history of wonky joints) if I went along and tested my ability to run only 1 mile. It was fall, cottonwood trees glowed orange and yellow at the equestrian park near our apartment. We ran along the concrete path of the LA River to get there. My knees hurt immediately. Ankles screamed. To keep my chest from bouncing and dropping with the drama of a yo-yo, I had on a heavy duty restrictive bra; my breathing was taxed, I might actually die. I’d run for less than 2 minutes. By the time we reached the park, horses trotted by and I imagined hitching a ride, grabbing onto a flowing mane and thrusting my body over one, bareback, with a strength I was desperately trying to summon whilst my inner saboteur screamed for help. Two miles later I was alarmingly red and my knees were buckling. Trever glided up to me, wiping the little beads of sweat from his temples and “could keep going”. Sigh.

Until this year, I never thought I’d actually be able to run long distances. My body is not built to run, running is actually bad for me (and you, if you’re asking), knee replacements?! No thanks. The (legitimate) excuses were piling up after years of never attempting to do any kind of running, but I knew that in truth I was scared to try because I had smoked tobacco for 15 years and didn’t want to approach the reality of my lung capacity. Since my move to Los Angeles I had also become a victim (not sure if I’m the victim or perpetrator here) of the vaping trend, which more or less stamped and sealed my anti-runner psychological narrative.

Alas, human, full of contradictions, I started running whilst vaping (not simultaneously, but during the same period) and eventually my attachment to the fabricated sense of calm induced by the smoke inhalation was subtling replaced by a sense of panic that I may be jeopardizing my ability to achieve *true calm* while running and transformation began to work it’s magic within me. At the start of summer in White Salmon, I ran uphill overlooking the Columbia River Gorge, completing a 4.68 mile loop with 1000 feet gained. It was raining. I got back to my car, drenched, dopamine flushed. Two vapes sat in my cup holder, quietly pleading to replace my runner’s high with something a little more sinister and robot. Why be alive if you’re not going to be dramatic? I hurled myself out of the car, rain pouring, vapes in hand and threw them into the trailhead trash— not before puzzling over whether they went into the recycle or trash. Trash! I got back into the car and drove back to our cabin.

Eighteen hundred packs of chewing gum later and my lungs are nothing short of miracles, allowing me to run 5/6 days per week, 5 miles at a time. I drink electrolyte packets and can basically eat ice cream whenever I dang please because running allows this. Not that you can’t have ice cream anytime, but if you are, like me, monitoring your sugar intake because it’s the one thing you have left to feel temptation’s long nails scratch the impossible itch of your soul’s cry, then ice cream becomes a bit of a holy allowance that must be offset with some good old fashioned suffering. Last week I ate ice cream that fell off of my cone onto the public sidewalk, after I dusted it off with my napkin.

And now it’s August. My, how time is a tricky little hamster, hoarding weeks and months in its elusive wheel-spun cage, snacking on memories, spitting out entirely chewed up years. We are trying to slow down as much as possible. Recap our days at the end of each one. Talk about last week. Replay yesterday’s jokes. Don’t plan too much ahead (my greatest challenge). We’ve been living rent-free for only four months and have paid off more than half of our debt, and have saved a couple thousand dollars. *Shakes fist at the sky*

This experience and all its hard days are outmatched by the incomparable joys, freedom and space, including reliving the pleasures of suburban life, reminding us of our time as kids, when the slog of midday hangs over your body and restlessness builds. You must get out, jump in the water, sprint through the sprinklers, get after the ice cream truck. Older and slower, still we run, run run!!!!

Below is my Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie recipe. Enjoy!

• 1 cup all-purpose flour

• 1/2 tsp baking soda 

• 1/2 tsp salt 

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter —room temperature soft!!

• 1/3 cup granulated sugar 

• 2/3 cup brown sugar (light or dark, your preference!)  

• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract 

• 1 large egg

• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats 

• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips 

• parchment paper for cooking sheet

1. Mix together butter and sugars on medium until light and fluffy.

2. Mix flour and baking soda in separate bowl

3. Add egg, vanilla and salt to sugar/butter mix and mix on medium until well combined.

4. Add flour mix. Combine.

5. Add chocolate chips and oats.

6. Preheat oven to 375 F

7. Chill batter for 30-mins or as long as overnight.

8. Bake for 9-15 minutes depending on size. I used an ice cream scooper to make rounds, so it was about 2 large tbsp of batter and I baked them for 13 minutes / six cookies per standard baking sheet, lined with parchment paper.

   

   Me and my beloved girlfriend, Kindle Jenner. xo!