Postcard from the Northwest
July 2025, a confusing time to be alive
Summer morning, I can hear a young Cooper's Hawk calling from one of the trees on our block through an open window. There was a nesting pair a couple of blocks away during the spring but I didn’t see much of them in June. I wasn't sure if the Crows had displaced them so I'm glad to hear the sound of its voice amid the morning traffic. Before they’re able to maintain sustained flight, Cooper’s Hawk do a thing called ‘branching’, where they venture out of their nest and climb around, exploring the nest tree for a few days, before progressing to wing flapping, and finally, flight.
I have a bit of whiplash, having just returned from a long weekend in the Northwest, July having become our customary month to visit Kwame's parents. In years past, we've made a big road trip out of visiting his family in Washington and Wyoming, with camping and sometimes gigs in between, but this year family visits have worked out to be a series of weekends involving planes, trains, automobiles and ferries. On Friday, I flew up from the Bay Area and went straight from the airport to the ferry dock, taxied by a driver from Punjab who said his wife worked for Microsoft. He told me he drove from 9am to 11pm six days a week.
I didn’t ask, but imagined he sent a lot of that money home. On my long-ago trips to India, I was always struck by the culture’s emphasis on collectivism and kinship ties, a sharp contrast to my own experience. Many of my blood relatives are ghosts which doesn’t mean the relationship ends (or the work around them if one is so inclined!), so re-entering the world of familial ties, origins and patterns, even by marriage, is always a bit of a shock. Human relations 101.
The beauty of the Northwest is truly breathtaking, especially this time of year. The ferry ride from Seattle to Bainbridge Island was scenic as a postcard, Elliot Bay framed by the Olympic and Cascade Ranges. Blue blues, green greens, including minty green pine ones, freshly formed, sitting on branches like bric-a-brac. Each morning, I sat outside in the yard with my coffee surrounded by dozens of birds: Pine Siskin, Violet-green Swallow, American Goldfinch, Nuthatch and more.
The Olympic Peninsula was bustling with human visitors and activities as well. One afternoon, we drove to Quilcene for the Concerts in the Barn series, laying on the grass with dozens of other picnicking music-lovers to enjoy the sounds of a string quartet wafting over the meadow, an occasional Bald Eagle drifting overhead in the distance. The program detailed a story about the barn’s original owners, Japanese-American, who lost it when they were interned during World War II. That history cast a long shadow, but years later, the concert founder reconnected with one of the original owner’s sons and some sense of reparation was gained.
On the drive back to the ferry with Kwame’s brother and niece, we talked about our respective, early-American familial lineages, those to be proud of, and those that were more dubious. How to respect and understand the lives and choices of all those who led us to our lives, and how not to repeat the same mistakes, if possible? How much of the quandaries and contradictions in our familial micro cultures were reflected in the larger divisions wracking the nation right now?
On Monday morning, we were back in Seattle. Kwame had work to do before we flew home. I went for walk, passing a French cafe near the hotel, and realized it was Bastille Day. Was there something to be learned by reflecting on French revolutionaries storming the Bastille to protest the monarchy's abuse of power?
After spending a couple of hours at the hotel on email and review for an upcoming bird walk, I walked back to the cafe, where customers ordered at the counter before taking a seat at one of the cafe’s round, Paris-worthy tables. There, diners were presented not only with the menu but with a case full of patisserie. A trio of tourists stood before me ordering what seemed like one each of the cafe's many berry, chocolate and meringue-topped tartlette, which I steered barely clear of in lieu of the quiche.
I’ve sometimes had the fantasy of moving to Paris for six months or so, to live and write, and I decided to play a bit of pretend at the cafe. I broke out an almost-new sketchbook and an easy-flow pen and spent a sweet hour, eavesdropping on the couple at the next table splitting a baguette sandwich while discussing their next move. A trio of teens sat at the window seats picking at their croissants while their mom appeared to be trying for her own pocket of escape. I felt like a younger version of me, a more carefree one, who lived in a world before the constant stream of social media, or sleep-wrecking worry about the end of democracy and climate change, or bone-deep knowing that wherever you go, there you are. I wrote a bit, I sketched a bit. I added a small, perfect chocolate macaroon to my order. The quiche was delicious. It all was. Vive la France!