Robbie came home from Oregon yesterday, mid-afternoon, gave me a hug and then worked the rest of the day. I feel like I haven’t seen him for such a long while.  I was gladly toiling in the garden, pulling fat carrots from the soil, picking onions, collecting squash and tearing up all the lettuce that has bolted for the sky.  I took the harvest into the mess hall kitchen and began to clean it and scrub it all at the sink, exposing the bright and gleaming skin that home grown veggies have beneath all that righteous dirt.

One half of the mess hall is currently the sew shop* — rows of industrial sewing machines line one wall and the hum of solid kevlar stitches landing in tight succession is the music I make lunch to lately.

There I was, scrubbing carrots, when I heard the fellas put on some Bob Dylan.  One by one, they all began singing along to the music, while snipping threads, setting grommets, loading bobbins and pushing thick cordura past sharp needles.  I stopped what I was doing, looked over at them, and simply enjoyed the sight of them being together, being manly, being quirky, being sweet, being capable, being themselves.

And my heart felt so full.

I thought to myself, “Run.  RUN and get your camera.”  But I knew the moment wouldn’t last forever, and so much of the beauty was locked up in the feeling of it, so I stayed and simply enjoyed it for what it was; I witnessed brotherhood, from the fringes, and didn’t feel left out for a single moment.

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I’m thinking a lot lately about what to give and what to keep.  What to catch and what to set free.  What to hold onto and what to release.  I’m thinking about how to share my life and my work and my learnings in a honest and open way while still retaining some special little secret things for the most special people in my life.

There’s a line here, scratched in the dirt, painted on asphalt, and to one side of it is “too little” and to the other side is “too much” and I keep on walking it.  I keep on moving forward and my feet keep falling where they may, where they might.

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I made a fabulous pesto for seashell noodles last night with sides of roasted squash and greens.  Everything came from the garden.  I felt rich.

Fresh Garden Pesto (roughly): olive oil, walnuts, lemon basil, pepper, salt, garlic and a smattering of romano-esque sheep cheese.

Dig it?

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*The North Cascades Smokejumper Base was built in 1939 — the first base in the program.  The buildings are historic, somewhat primitive and unevenly distributed between beautiful lawns, gardens, aspen groves, elms, ponderosa pines and locust trees on the edge of the airstrip.  It’s a beautiful base.  The buildings with air conditioning are the office and the mess hall.

When the weather is hot, the sewing machines are moved into the air conditioned space of the mess hall.  Actually, I think they sew in the mess hall in the winter, too, when the weather is cold and the loft is hard to heat.

Did you know that smokejumpers are master seamstresses?  They draft their own patterns, sew their own packs, travel bags, jump suits, and patch their own chutes…among other things.