What We've Been Waiting For

Seattle gets 150 days of rain per year, 300 days of overcast skies, and almost non-stop cool temperatures. So when we finally get nice weather after July 4th, it's a pretty big deal. Every one is outside, giddy with sunshine and the sparkling beauty of Pacific Northwest. It's like we put up with 10 months for the 2 somewhat-reliable months of summer.

That's not completely true- we get some gorgeous, warm days sporadically all spring, and September is like the forgotten summer month. And our penchant for fleece and gor-tex and boots helps us get out even in the drizzly grey. But there is a certain magic this time of year, when the days are loooong, when you can swim after work, when cherries and raspberries are rolling into the markets and the promise of tomatoes and basil and squash and peppers just around the corner. People can finally plan BBQ's, camping trips,  and weddings in this narrow window when it's warm and dry. Consequently, there are tons of trips and activities crammed in to each summer.

I for one already have every weekend planned until September 15th. Crazy! The past month has been a manic frenzy of work, gardening, volunteering, socializing, and getting out of town every weekend, and shows no signs of slowing down. I try to make sure I get enough down-time to cook good food, sleep, and keep my life organized. But at the same time, when you're excited to do something, do it! If you keep putting it off, it may never happen. For years I have wanted to see the fire lookout on Desolation Peak, peer inside Mount Saint Helen's crater, and hike in the Enchantments. I'm tired of putting those things off and am totally committed to doing them this summer. Carpe Diem!

My English teacher my senior year in high school was a truly incredible teacher, and I remember her giving us all little valentines with an Annie Dillard quote. It's about writing, but it makes me think about life in general, about trusting in abundance, and living to the fullest in these rich, vibrant summer days.

“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better.”

Another summer event I've wanted to go to for YEARS is Burning Man. I've never been able to go for a variety of reasons, but it is still there in the back of my mind. The man I'm dating has been going for most of the past decade, and seeing his amazing photographs made my interest resurface. Unfortunately there was a huge fiasco with the ticket sales this year and it's sold out. Just when we wrote it off as impossible to get tickets and had let go of the idea, two tickets basically fell into our laps. It seemed too serendipitous to pass up, but I had my doubts. Maybe we should wait until next year- it would give us more time to get ready. But I don't know what will happen next year! What I do know is that Burning Man would be a completely new experience and it's in my heart to go. It may not be the most convenient, restful, inexpensive, physically comfortable, or predictable way to spend the first week of September... but I suppose the best things in life never are.

Tiny Problem in Paradise

The 4th of July was a little strange this year, falling smack in the middle of the week. My sweetie had the day off so he suggested I take the day off too and that we head up to Mount Rainier for a hiking mini-vacation. Tuesday after work we drove up to the mountain to stay at Paradise Inn. The inn is a beautiful wooden lodge built in 1916, sitting at over 5,000 feet above sea level with a stunning view of Mount Rainier from the parking lot. I have a vague memory of being in this parking lot when I was about five years old, but other than that have hardly spent any time in the national park. We had been checking the weather for the past week desperately hoping that the clouds would pass in time for our ascent. After days of bad weather, we woke up on the 4th to sunny, blue skies and clear views!

The plan was to hike up to Camp Muir which is the basecamp for climbers attempting to summit the mountain. It's about 5 miles from the parking lot trailhead, and you gain 5,000 feet of elevation in the snow-covered hike. It was truly a gorgeous day, with clear views of Mount Saint Helens, Mount Adams, and Mount Hood to the south.

It was my first time ever getting up to 10,000 feet in Washington- I've been that high in the Andes in Peru and Ecuador, but never in my home state. We were super prepared for the day in what we had packed. We had the 10 Essentials for hiking, plus more snow clothes, trekking poles, and ice axes. I had slathered sunscreen on my face and arms and reapplied several times when we stopped for a snack.

We saw a lot of other hikers and skiers tromping up the mountain. We saw about 15 marmots which I thought were really cute. It's pretty amazing to see them appear out of nowhere and scurry straight up a vertical snowy bank.

As we got farther up the mountain, we had great views of several glaciers, namely Nisqually and Wilson. Did you know Mount Rainier has 26 glaciers, which is more than in any other single-peak system in the continental U.S.? In the hot, early summer weather things were warming up fast and more than once we heard loud cracks and saw an ice fall. You can see a little of the snow cloud here.

We made it to Camp Muir in the early afternoon and enjoyed lunch as we put more layers on. I looked out over the expansive view and felt so grateful to live in such a wild, beautiful place. This was my type of Independence Day, my own feeling of freedom and appreciation for this land.

Going down was much faster then coming up because we were able to glissade at least a couple thousand feet! If you've never heard of glissading, it's just a fancy word for slide down the snow on your butt. Since it was later in the day, there were some good glissade tracks already established. After we got below 8,000 feet or so, the snow started getting too soft to get much momentum so we had to walk. Then toward the bottom when we thought the fun was over, there were a few really steep, deep glissade runs.

By the time we got back to the parking lot, it was early evening. I was a little tired, but more just felt drained. I felt sort of dehydrated, even though I had been drinking plenty of water. It wasn't until I got home and felt my hot skin that I realized I was very sunburned in two totally new places. First was my knees, between my shorts and gaiters. I had forgotten to put sunscreen there, and now it hurt to bend my legs at all. Then there were my ears, which have never been sunburned in my life. By the next day they were completely swollen and forming blisters.

I realized that any time I'm ever in snow, I usually have a stocking cap on- not a sun hat where my ears are exposed. In all of our planning and preparations, I overlooked this detail.  I had to spend the next few days slathering on aloe and covering my burnt skin. Granted, it was a small problem in the overall scheme of things, and otherwise we had had a unique and incredible Fourth.

Goodbye Spring

Happy Solstice everyone! My season-changing festivities mostly took place last weekend, going to the Fremont Fair and Solstice Parade. The highlight of the Parade is of course the naked bike ride, where hundreds of painted cyclist kick off the parade. Luckily for them and all of us spectators it was a warm, dry day.

I'm really excited for the upcoming summer but it's been an awesome and productive spring. The last few months I've been working full-time, and also took a Master Composter training, went morel hunting near Leavenworth, started keeping bees, took an aerial arts class, helped in community gardens, went to concerts, visited friends in Portland, went to Breitenbush hot springs, and started dating a really sweet man. I ate out at some great restaurants in Seattle, like Delancy and Blind Pig Bistro. I also ate a lot of good home-cooked meals, like nettle pesto which was my kick off to spring, and more recently salmon with nectarines in one of our houses first outdoor meals of the year.

And I tried to get out into the backyard garden as much as possible. There is always so much more I want to or should do, but I suppose gardens always feel that way. The solstice harvest was kale, spinach, snap peas, and strawberries so I'm just going to be happy with that and not think about all the other things that could be growing. Luckily, there is still the whole summer to do work in the garden!

SWS Cooking Program

As the school year winds down, so did the after-school cooking program I've been volunteering with since September. It was an awesome program on Friday afternoons for middle and high school students from the Seattle World School. The SWS is a unique educational setting through the Seattle school district where recently immigrated youth can work on their English, get accustomed to the US, meet with mentors in their native language, and in general just be in a supportive environment for 1-3 semesters before going to a regular public school. Currently, most of the students are from Mexico, Vietnam, Mongolia, Somalia, Ethiopia, and China.

The class was held next-door to their school at the Miller Community Center on Capitol Hill, and it was there that Full-Circle Farm would drop off two boxes of organic produce and then the madness would commence. Sometime the menu was planned ahead of time; sometimes it was created on the spot based on what was in the produce boxes. Here were the main goals of the program:

* Work on English vocabulary! We would cover the names the of fruits and veggies before using them. Many foods I'm sure would have been new to a US-born student of the same age, such as kale, kohlrabi, and chard.

* Use proper kitchen etiquette and knife-handling techniques.

* Practice making vegetable-based, from-scratch meals. We wanted to students to realize that just because they were now living in America doesn't mean it's okay to eat primarily packaged or fast-food. We occasionally used flour, pasta, and meat, but for the most part meals consisted of fruit, veggies, whole grains, and legumes.

* Spend some time in the garden, identifying plants and seeing what they look like when growing. Luckily, there was a community garden right there at Miller Community Center that we partnered with. We would harvest foods such as beets, carrots, and spinach, and help students become familiar with using foods in the the kitchen straight from the garden.

* Encourage students to share recipes from their home country. Most students come from rich culinary traditions using local, whole ingredients, and especially the females have been cooking with their families since they were little girls. They had an incredible amount of comfort, intuition, and experience in the kitchen- a level that I personally probably didn't reach until the end of college. One week one student showed us how to make sambusas, and she had an expert proficiency at making dough and also how much filling was needed for the number of people.

* Let students get creative, even if the ingredients or dish is not something they are familiar with. They were always so enthusiastic and willing to just jump in. Of course this sometimes ended up with uncored apples in a fruit salad, or raw zucchini in a green salad, or lettuce on pizza, or a bit too much salt on roasted potatoes. But we let students experiment within reason.

* Just enjoy hanging out, cooking, and eating good food. I really loved being in the kitchen with all the students, and I think they did too.

House Dating

This post is a little late in coming, as I've been in my new house for a couple months already. But I have to write something, because house hunting for a rental in Seattle was quite an interesting process.

I had decided months back that I was ready to stay in the city for awhile, but wasn't really looking forward to the legwork of finding a place. See, in over a decade of paying rent, I've lived in a good variety of homes. I've lived in houses with anywhere from 2 to 5 roommates. I've house sat a cabin with a huge garden and two arthritic dogs. I've lived in an off-grid yurt in the woods with an outdoor kitchen. I've lived in trailer on on farm hidden under kiwi vines, in a friend's basement, and in a studio apartment in South Korea. I've lived on a sailboat in winter where we had to keep heaters on all day for it to get tolerably warm, then had to open the windows at night for ventilation for the alcohol stove.

Needless to say, I had a pretty clear idea of what I was looking for- a house so there would be yard/garden space, no more than 3 roommates, bedroom not near the kitchen, clean and tidy, bike storage, and in the Greenlake/Wallingford/Ravenna area. I was most drawn to Wallingford with its great location, cute houses, and solid commercial district. Then I remembered that I was born in a house in Wallingford, and maybe I was unconsciously trying to come full-circle in my life for my Saturn Return. How fitting would it be to have lived in so many places, only to move back to Seattle a mile from where I was born?

I started doing the Craigslist scouting, and over a couple months saw about 8 houses. There was always something that wasn't quite right. Maybe the house was beautiful but too expensive. Or there was garden space but the kitchen was a sickly green and the flat-screen TV was right next to the bedroom. Or the house was great but the roommates seemed odd. Or the roommates were nice and there was a hot tub but it felt too much like a college house. Several times I debated if I'd be comfortable living with the homeowner.

It was fascinating to see little glimpses into all these strangers' lives- but also tiring to not find what I was looking for. Then it hit me: finding the right house was a lot like dating, with roommate posts being like life personal ads! We are trying to match up the right age, lifestyle, hobbies, ideals, budget, and aesthetic appeal. In a way, looking for a house was even more intimate than dating, because how often in the first half hour of meeting someone do you directly ask them specifics about their hobbies, job, diet, sleeping habits, relationship status, and how much furniture they own? Then I realized that if you are incredibly drawn to a house post, you might be drawn to one of the roommates. I looked at one house that was awesome, but I just knew it wasn't right to move in. Turns out one of the roommates and I had a crush on each other, and started dating! It was sort of funny when people asked us how we met. Awhile later, I was at a house party and started talking to this cute guy. He said I looked familiar, so for about 10 minutes we did the name game of listing places we had lived, things we do, and people we know. Finally he goes, "Wait! You interviewed for a room in our house a couple months ago!" I ended up getting his number but we never went out. Maybe he was still miffed that I had decided not to move in.

In March I saw a post for a 4-bedroom house in Phinney Ridge. It had hardwood floors, lots of sunlight, roommates about my age who were into the outdoors, lots of basement storage, and was on a double lot so the backyard was big. They already had chickens, a garden, and a giant trampoline. Sounded great, so I went to check it out.

I walked up the stairs of a well-kept yard and knocked on the front door. A small sliding window on the door opened and a suspicious looking elderly woman glared out at me.

"Uh... I'm..." I stepped back to double-check the house number. "I'm here about the room... the Craigslist ad." My hopes of a wonderful house were fading fast.

"One block down!" she motioned with a jerk of her head and slammed the window shut.

Turns out that in some poor city planning, there are two houses a block apart with the same house and street number, the only difference being that the street changes from N to NW. I hoped for better luck the second try. I walked into the house, where 3 friendly faces greeted me. They gave me a tour of the house, then we sat in the living room to chat. The weird thing is, I already felt like I was at home. The house was definitely mostly what I was looking for, though not perfect. But for some reason, because I knew the house was a good fit overall, the minor details didn't bother me. This is also like dating, being able to overlook imperfections when you know you have something great. And so I'm now in a committed relationship with my home, falling in love more every day as I garden in the backyard, take care of the chickens, and hang with awesome roommates.

Memorial Day with Family

For as long as I can remember, my mom's side of the family has gone out to our family property on Stuart Island for a work party on Memorial Day weekend. Of course, that means I've always missed the other fun events that happen that weekend, such as Sasquatch at the Gorge or Ski to Sea in Bellingham or the Folklife Festival in Seattle. But I'm okay with that. It's usually my first trip of the year to the island, and I like how the family works together to jump-start to the summer. We do whatever needs to be done for the maintenance of the land and buildings, from fixing the cattle fence to cleaning the well to digging new outhouses to painting barns to cleaning gutters to changing the truck oil.

My step-dad picked up my sisters and I in Anacortes, and we had a nice sunny evening ride through the San Juan islands, spotting seals and bald eagles and porpoises along the way. 

On Saturday morning my mom had several French presses of coffee going and cooked up a big egg scramble for fortify our crew for the day's work. This year there was a group that cleaned out under the barn, find all sorts of scrap wood and old metal farm equipment.

My sister, aunt, cousins, and I scraped, primed, and repainted the engine room, a small outbuilding next to the barn that houses the generator and horse tack.

In the evening we had a delicious dinner at my aunt's house, followed by an auction. Family members hand-make or buy items to donate, then we bid on them as a fundraiser.

As long as we get all the assigned work done on Saturday, then Sunday is a play day. I went for a run and checked out my uncle's garden. Some family members held Sunday school on the point overlooking Boundary Pass. Then we have a late lunch/early dinner on the beach, roasting hot dogs and bratwursts and eating fresh fruit and salad and drinking beer, and it felt like summer.

Kids play on the beach, family and friends chat, and no one wants to go home. It's a weekend of clean, hard-working fun that I'm really grateful we do.

First Weeks of Beekeeping

It was three weeks ago today that I picked up my first package of bees. I walked up to the guy's house and my jaw dropped at the low roar of buzzing of all the boxes of bees, and the haze of passing bees flying around the driveway. I drove home feeling surreally giddy with a mass of bees in my backseat right behind me. They had already been in transit from California for a couple days, and I wanted to get them into the hive as soon as possible in the remaining evening sun.

My photographer friend Matt Freedman was kind enough to come over to take pictures of the event. The next two photos are by him- in this one you can see what three pounds of bees look like.

I spritzed the bees down with a very lightly sugared water, to help them clump together and not fly as readily. Then I banged the box so they all fell toward the bottom and I could remove the feeder can to take out the queen who comes in a small separate wooden box. Here I am checking that the queen is alive.

Her wooden box is plugged with a cork stopper, which needs to be removed (without letting her out) and then replaced with a mini marshmallow. Yes, a marshmallow. When I first heard that that was standard procedure, I felt like I was living in a Harry Potter book or something. The marshmallow keeps her in her box, which I hung onto a frame. Then you literally dump all the worker bees into the hive and put the lid on. The idea is that the other bees will eat through the marshmallow, releasing the queen.

So I left them to do their thing undisturbed for about 4 days. It was really really hard because I thought about them everyday and was so curious how they were doing. But you want them to have a little time to get used to their new home and get some sort of rhythm after the stress of travel.

I was planning to open the hive for the first time in the evening after work. That morning, I went out just to observe the hive from the outside and saw that there were no bees flying around or crawling outside the entrance. My heart started pounding as I was sure they were all dead inside and my first beekeeping venture was over. It was a damp, cool morning which is probably why they weren't flying, but I still worried about them all day at work. Is this what being a parent is like? I'm inherently not a worrying type of person, but I just so desperately wanted them to be healthy and okay.

When I finally opened the hive, I was relieved to see a lot of activity. They were crawling all around the frames, and had even built a little circle of comb about 5 inches wide! I checked the queen box and found the marshmallow and queen gone. Success! That was about all I could handle that first check, so I put the lid on and breathed a sigh of relief.

I opened it again a little over a week later, and was absolutely floored at what I saw. They had built comb on every single frame already! Perfect, pale, fresh comb. There was a lot happening in the comb too- pollen stores in different colors (red! orange! yellow! brown! amazing!), clear nectar, capped honey cells, and brood cell, meaning I could see larva! I watched the activity on every frame in total wonder. I knew the queen was alive and well since the hive was functioning and she was laying eggs. But it's good to actually see her, which I finally did after watching every frame patiently.

Since there was already comb on every frame, I decided to go ahead and add a second hive body a few days later. Here you can see what the boxes look like painted. There are four total though I will only add the third and fourth as needed.

The other day I was talking to an acquaintance about joy. I said, "Can I tell you about the most recent joy in my life?"

She said, "Sure! Is it a boy?"

I said, "No... actually, it's 10,000 girls!"

I am totally loving keeping bees and figuring out things as I go. I don't know exactly what I'm doing, but I'm having a great time learning. I'll check things again in a day or two to see how they've taken to the second story addition.

Getting the Nursery Ready

I don't remember exactly when I decided to start keeping bees. It wasn't even until 3 years ago that I saw into a hive, and realized how weird modern Langstroth hives are. Did you know that the hive consists of boxes, with 10 frames hanging down so it looks like a big filing cabinet? It was not the round, cartoonish image I had in my head, but it's easy for the beekeeper to pull out each frame, and it creates the ideal spacing of 3/8 inch between frames which makes the bees happy. This is a picture from inside a friend's hive on Orcas Island in 2009.
I took a class on bees on Orcas, and that was when I first realized what complex and amazing creatures they are. Fast forward a few years, and now that I'm living in Seattle, it seemed realistic to think about having my own hive. I took another class in March through the Ballard Bee Company, and found out that if I wanted to consider keeping bees this year, I had to order everything now. Most new packages of bees are coming from breeders in California, and they usually get shipped out in mid-April. So I called the Ballard Bee guy and pre-ordered one 3-pound package of Italian bees, which consists of 7-10,000 worker bees and one queen. (The Italian variety are the most popular for backyard beekeepers, known to be extremely gentle, good foragers, and hearty in the damp, cool winters.)

I gave him my credit card information and he told me he'd email me a receipt. That's when it started to feel real. "I'm so excited, I can't believe I really just ordered them!" I said.

"Congratulations!" he replied. "You're pregnant!"

Now, no one has ever said that to me in my life, so I was a little taken aback. But he was right- I felt like I was going to be a mama to these little guys. When friends get cats and dogs, they call them their babies, and their parents call them their"granddogs", so why not for bees too? I felt what must be a slight fraction of how new parents feel when they discover they are expecting a (real) baby- ecstatic and also terrified, knowing you've never done this exact thing and wanting to be as ready as possible.

That left me with about 4 weeks to get the nursery ready, so to speak. I bought a set of new, basic beekeeping equipment- four "western" or shallow boxes, top and bottom to the hive, jacket with screened hood, gloves, smoker, and a few hive tools. Here are the boxes, though they are missing the bottom pieces.

Then I had to paint the boxes. Usually we see white boxes, but in the cool Pacific Northwest, it's good to paint them a darker color to absorb as much heat as possible. I asked my step-dad if he had any opened cans of exterior latex paint around, and he said he'd look. I went over to the house and he had put a kit together for me of primer, stir sticks, brushes, and a dark red paint left over from the trim on their house. It was so sweet of him, and I liked the red color a lot. I painted the handles a dark purple, and ended up with a beautiful, very feminine hive. After all, it's almost all ladies living there, so why not make it a little girly?

There were a few other preparations to be done as well. I had to find the right hive location at my house- somewhere flat, not near a door or walkway or neighbor's house, and with plenty of sun, preferably as early in the day as possible. I picked the backyard corner behind a shed, which is south-facing and tucked away. I'd personally be fine with a slightly more accessible spot, but I think for now it's good to err on the side of caution and give them a wide berth for the comfort of my roomates. And it is a great spot in terms of sunlight, so that's the main thing. I had to clear the area though, dig out rocks and old plastic and level it.

You can feed the bees sugar water as a supplement to nectar and pollen. That way, if it's a cool day and they don't leave the hive to forage, they can still eat something inside the hive, and in the end make more babies and more honey. I made a couple gallons of 1:1 simple syrup to have on hand. I took another class, an intermediate one specifically about the first months with a new hive. I left class at least knowing conceptually how to get the bees from the transport box to their new home, and how to put the queen in the hive. That's a start.

One thing that surprised me and warmed my little heart was how supportive friends and family have been. I've never talked to most people about bees, yet they seem interested and at least curious. I sort of considered this first hive my 30th birthday present to myself, so it was awesome when my aunt sent me this birthday card.

A Canadian friend in Korea sent me these adorable cookie cutters from Etsy. It was so thoughtful, and they are probably the cutest things I've ever seen.

I get the bees on Monday and will install them immediately. More on that soon!

Spring and the Next Decade

Let's not beat around the bush: it was a hard winter. It was endlessly grey, as is to be expected. I was underemployed. There were breakups and heartbreaks. I was pretty sure I wanted to stay in Seattle but I often second-guessed myself, dreaming of joining friends on sailing trips in Panama or going back to Italy.

But winter changed to spring; first slowly, then unequivocally. For awhile it was only hyacinth, daffodils, hellebores, and tight cherry blossoms, but now petals have exploded on the magnolias, forsythia, rhododendron, camellias, euphorbia, rosemary, and many others. We have had some amazingly beautiful sunny days. The air smells sweet. The other day I was running around Greenlake and saw a family at the water's edge, and a little boy said, "Look at the turtles on that log, Dad! Isn't that cool?" There is a sense of wonder and newness and vitality and moving forward.

You know what else happened amongst all this change? I turned 30. For some reason, it seemed more fitting than ever to me that my birthday is in the early spring. I spread birthday festivities out over a few days, trying to process what it meant to say goodbye to my 20's. I thought back to my 20th birthday, when my gift to myself was a decade of selfishness. That may sound strange, like I'm some self-centered, indulgent, greedy person. But I meant "selfishness" more in the sense of doing exactly what I needed to do for me, and for my growth as a young adult. I wanted to have a lot of experiences and not regret not having done something. I knew I could not have children in my 20's, because that requires waaaaay too much selflessness. Even in terms of romantic relationships, I don't think I was ready to be in a committed partnership until just a couple years ago- again because I needed the clarity of knowing I was making my own life decisions for me. What resulted was an amazing, rich, fun, educational, adventurous decade of exploring the world and really coming into myself as a happy, confident adult. I put myself through college; welcomed a nephew and three nieces into the world; lived outside in northern California for 2 months; ran a marathon; discovered I loved gardening; learned how to cook; lived in an off-grid yurt in the woods; traveled to 26 countries; visited 28 U.S. states; lived abroad for a year, among many other things.

There were incredibly trying times of course, trying to figure out what paths and directions to take, and how to get from point A to point B. I don't know what I would have done without such supportive, loving friends who listened to me and were willing to share that process. In my early 20's, I had this sense of a blank canvas and desperately wanting to get the painting right. All of the empty space of the future felt freeing but also stifling in its openness, and I feared making a wrong brushstroke. Now I look back and realize all the times when I was just doing what seemed interesting to me or working a random job were actually the building blocks to becoming an experienced, well-rounded adult, putting more tools in life's toolbox. It's a cool age to be at, to be able to look around at friends who just followed what they loved, developed casual hobbies, and kept studying something- and see that they are now really good at what they do, or have their own business, or are awesome parents, or are running innovative projects, or are getting a Master's or PhD in their field.

And this whole process of growing up and developing is not stopping or stagnating just because we've hit the big three-oh. Of course not. I think we just have a different perspective on it now. I for one feel far less self-judgement and urgency about "figuring things out". I feel less stress about knowing "what I should be doing" and more willing to just work hard, do the things I love, appreciate each day, follow a framework of ideals, be a good friend/sister/daughter/aunt/cousin... and trust that life has a way of working itself out.

My 20's were wonderful but I wouldn't want to do them over. I'm happy to put them behind me and look forward. So, on my 30th birthday, I gave myself a Decade of Connection. I'm not exactly sure what that will look like, but I'm keeping it in mind and ready to watch it unfold.

A Hard-Earned 21st

Last week was my brother's 21st birthday. He is the youngest of six- the baby of the family, all grown up. It's a milestone birthday for any one, but I'm especially happy to have been able to celebrate with him. It's sort of a miracle actually.

See, six and a half years go, Joe was hit by a car while crossing the street and suffered a severe traumatic brain injury when he flew about 15 feet forward and landed on his head on the cement. He was airlifted to Harborview and in the ICU they gave him slim chances of surviving. He was in a coma with internal injuries and brain damage, with parts of his right frontal and temporal lobes so damaged they had to be removed. A couple days later they did a craniectomy, removing half of his skull to allow his brain to swell freely. He survived the surgery but remained in a coma.

The neurologists said if he ever did wake up, there would be no telling what his brain function would be. He may be a wheel-chair-bound-vegetable, possibly never walk or talk again, and we should be prepared for that.

He did wake up, 28 days later, though it was almost another month before he said any words. We took him home, where he slowly gained awareness, started eating, and built up his strength for a couple months until he could do 3-4 hours a day of intensive rehab therapy in a residential program at Children's Hospital. Of course, his skull was still off this whole time, so he had to wear a helmet continually since it was only a flap of skin covering his brain. Here he is with another brain-injured boy and some family members, when we participated in a 5K run-walk fundraiser for Children's.

Here are a few articles about Joe from that time. The first two are the transcripts from KOMO news reports, and the third article is from the Shoreline Enterprise.

We were told that the most brain function that is regained in TBI patients is within the first 2 years. The months after the accident Joe had a lot of standard therapies- speech, physical, occupational, cognitive. But my mom also had him try any other kind of therapy or healing modalities she could find, with such ferocious dedication I am still in awe.

The parts of Joe's brain that were affected are what control behavior, judgement, inhibition, and social awareness. Also with his injury, his body produced even higher levels of testosterone. So for years he was an extra hormonal teenage boy with very little filter for what was socially appropriate. That, coupled with short-term memory loss, and you can only imagine the kinds of crazy situations that ensued. He had to be told over and over what was acceptable to talk about, especially concerning women.

It was a trying few years after the accident: taking Joe to countless doctors and therapists, trying to find the right educational setting for him, being wary of taking him in public, and dealing with the subsequent medical issues. Because of his poor judgement and physical coordination, he had a lot more small accidents for years- bicycle crashes, tripping, etc. He also has had seizures fairly frequently, which is a common side effect of brain injury and can actually signify the brain healing. The seizures were really severe and scary at first, with frequent calls to the paramedics and trips back to Children's Hospital. But over the years they've gotten more manageable, and now Joe can feel them coming, sit or lay in a safe spot, and we can help him through them ourselves. He worked really hard to finish high school, and with a combination of public school, special ed, private school, and running start, was able to graduate at 19 which I think is amazing considering he could barely talk for most of his freshman year. He has developed strategies to help himself with his damaged short-term memory, such as writing things down, storing things in his phone, or calling a family member when he can't remember something.

One time in the spring after the accident, when Joe had barely gotten comfortable walking on his own again, I took him to Greenlake to go rollerblading. He had to hold on to me the whole time and go very slowly, but the exercise was good for him, and the right-left movement stimulating for the brain to form new neuro-pathways. It was so good to be out of the house with him, and see my little brother out of a wheelchair. We had probably gone about a quarter of the way around the lake when Joe said he was really tired and needed to turn around. So we turned around and I was just praying that he'd be strong enough to make it back to the car. A few minutes later, a passing woman shouted at us angrily, "HEY! You're going the wrong way on wheels!" Now, I'm all about following the rules of sharing a trail, as both a runner and cyclist. But I wanted to shout back at her, "HEY! The top neurologists in the country said that he might never walk again, so he's doing great, and going the wrong way for a few hundred yards is the least of my concern!"

It was a good reminder that you never really know what is going on with people, and not to be too quick to judge. Especially with brain injury, it can manifest so many different ways, from mild to severe, but not necessarily be obvious the way Down's Syndrome or a physical disability may be. I have seen strangers, as well as people who know Joe, treat him with contempt, suspicion, indifference, and distain. Of course, they don't always know his story or understand him, and he can be off-putting and unnerving at times. But he has a big heart, loves animals and children, and has a great sense of humor. I think his ability to be earnest yet not always take himself too seriously is a key reason he has healed so much. He has been able to hold down the same job for over a year, babysits our niece, and can take care of his daily functions like making food and doing his own laundry. He took a class at Shoreline Community College this quarter, and likes to write and woodwork. He's not able to live independently at this point, but possibly could someday. He seems to have come into himself a lot in the past year and matured, which of course takes time whether you have a brain injury or not!

This has been a surprisingly hard post for me to write. Not because it's an emotional subject, which it is, but more because there is just so much to say and I don't know how to approach it all. It may sound cliche, but Joe's accident was one of those turning points in life that completely changed him and our whole family irrevocably. Now that it's years later and he has survived the worst of it, it's easy to forget how far he's come. It's easy to get annoyed with him and lose patience. But I want to remember. Remember that he beat the odds, the dozens of times when it seemed like he might not make it at all. Remember that he is a medical miracle and it is a happy birthday for his whole family to see him grow into a healthy, happy adult.