007 - Foggy Mornings

This morning I stepped out of the YMCA with my complimentary cup of coffee (because we're in Seattle and coffee is an essential part of the Pacific North West workout routine) and was absolutely STUNNED by the beauty of this perfect morning. A combination of fog and general greyness in the sky made everything look crisp without the hurtful glare of harsh sunlight forcing you to shade my eyes or even squint. The temperature was a perfect level of just barely above the point where you can see your breath, so a t-shirt and sweatpants were plenty of clothes. And the air... oh the air! Moist and dense like some incredible Devilsfood cake, cool and refreshing like how your mouth feels after you've eaten a candy cane. Air that made each breath feel like the first one you had ever taken! I decided that my morning would be best spent standing there and just appreciating this fine and perfect morning.

As I stood there, I was reminded of my Dad and the way that he would force me out of bed and make me help him do MAN THINGS on morning like this; Man Things I never appreciated till i was older. We'd drive off to some guy's place in the middle of nowhere to clear a fallen tree and take the wood home. We'd rush off to Coupeville for an early bout of Clam Digging. We'd get to clearing out the blackberry vines before it got too hot and/or started raining. We'd go fishing. We'd go camping (well okay, we actually went "Parking" with a trailer at a campground, but still)...

I took it all for granted, but every time we went out on one of these mornings - EVERY TIME - he would say "I've been to a lot of the most beautiful places in the world, and you can go check this for yourself some day and see if I'm right, but there is NO PLACE more beautiful than *right here*".

ANd because he said that, I have never, ever wanted to live anywhere other than right here. There's no place more beautiful.