Tag: pnw

3/365
Gratitude

3/365

Ruby Pipes4 Comments

I started at my local community college today. I’m taking a mathematics and a symbolic logic course. I am so grateful to be at a point in my life where I have the support I need–both mentally and financially–to try something like this.

It has been really cold here the last few days. I mean, Seattle cold, not like midwest cold. But still, these temperatures make me realize how lucky I am to have the right clothes and a cozy apartment. I’m about to go running in 29-degree weather and that’s only possible because I know I have someplace safe and warm to return to.

When I was driving from school to work this morning I looked in my rearview mirror and saw our beautiful mountains. I’ll never think of anywhere else but the Pacific Northwest as home and if I’m going to live like that I’m sure glad she’s so pretty.

Tonight
Autobiography · Poetry

Tonight

Ruby Pipes3 Comments

We dance and scream and get sweaty.

We forget everything happening
outside of those crackling speakers
in that tiny basement club.

We remember what it feels like
to be safe in our own skin.

We become a unit, an undulating mass
of hands and arms and stomping feet.

We do not exist outside of this.

We are invincible.

We are free.

Photo courtesy of Hannah Rodrigo .

Neighbor
Autobiography · Relationships

Neighbor

Ruby Pipes3 Comments

The only time I ever hear my roommate is when she’s laughing. That loud, full-bodied laugh that makes my lips turn of their sides no matter how I’m feeling that day. When I’m outside smoking a cigarette the woman across the street comes over to talk to me. I lock myself out of my house and go sit on the porch with my upstairs neighbor and talk until Sevnaz comes back to let me in. I never miss living downtown. Never miss people with blinders on who don’t notice they share the world with people around them. That we all have rich, vibrant lives full of heartbreak and lost loves and beauty and resilience. I do not miss being surrounded by people who are always seeming to forget or ignore that.

Finally in a neighborhood that feels like home. Finally home.