Kingston Nostalgia
Soapy gave me some photos about a year ago, and I just finally got around to scanning them. They were taken shortly after I graduated from Evergreen (around 1997) and was living back in my hometown of Kingston. I believe Soapy had driven all the way out into Kitsap to see a production of Deathtrap that I was performing in.
Back then, Carrie and I stayed on my family's acreage in an old double-wide mobile home, where we installed a woodstove, built a woodshed and a compost bin, planted a garden and turned the two extra bedrooms into a music studio and a meditation room. It was my first experience trying to mold a home into the lifestyle I craved. Looking back on it, I was proud of that place... and it was sad to see it change after we left, even though we knew the new tenants would put their unique stamp on it just as we had.
We spent so much time there, cooking food from the garden, entertaining friends, working on projects. I remember recording sessions when Justin Madsen would come over drinking poppy tea and sing beautiful melancholy songs into my undeserving mics. And we'd have Spectrum kids over to sit on the floor, watch movies and eat Doritos. I remember afternoons when Carrie would go off to volunteer at an organic farm on Bainbridge Island and I would oil up my dad's chainsaw and slice fallen logs into foot-thick rounds.
I'm not sure I've really had that "home-building" experience living in Seattle. In a series of apartments, where painting the walls isn't even allowed, I haven't been able to shape my surroundings nearly so much. I think Olaiya and I have started to conceive of our place in these sorts of terms... which is exciting. I've missed having a home that feels like I own it.
Wandering outside in my morning socks, drinking coffee on the porch... with the overgrown gardens behind.
The sun-drenched music studio, where I played with my guitars and four-track.
Labels: Dear Diary
posted by John @ 4:30 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
It was a wonderful place and you gave peace to all those that were lucky to visit. The Spectrum kids learned much more from you than they did in school.
I remember Dan there and singing Lenny songs with you and playing hearts. Yes yes, I won, but you were sweet about it. That time of peace retrieved me from a dark place. ~p
I don't think I was back by then, but I remember visiting a winter or two before (whenever there was that terrible snow storm that shutdown Seattle for nearly a week). I had come to Seattle to escape the Midwest winter, only to find it was even worse here. At the time you lived in the little cabin in the back of the property. I remember staying with you one evening in the cabin and you cooking up a wonderful pasta dinner and introducing me to the Gypsy Kings while a foot of snow outside brought the entire region to its knees. That night is a fond memory and one I'll always treasure.
-A
I know what I'm about to say doesn't relate to this very habitation of which you speak, but rather the acreage... and the little house you had before you finished at Evergreen: We spent my first heartbroken summer catching up on must-see-this-lifetime films... you saved me from extinction. It might have been that summer, or another one before it, but we took a blanket out into the field with a bottle of wine and watched the night sky. One of the best evenings I can remember, feeling safe and happy with a good friend.
Wow... you guys are making me all misty-eyed. Each of those occasions was a lifetime highlight for me as well. A thousand blessings on you all.
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