the air from here

All critters created by the LBJ Conser-clay-tion Club.

As I was last year around this time, I'm breathing Pacific Northwest air right now, remarking nearly every single time I step outside at how incredible it smells here, how you really forget that when you live here, how invigorating I find it, all this mountain-ocean-pine-ancient-glacier-freshest-coffee air. My husband usually breathes in deep and agrees, even though he has heard at least one hundred iterations of this monologue since we stepped outside at SeaTac and I exclaimed how even the airport-adjacent air, not traditionally known for its ability to invigorate, is better here. And it is!

LBJ Conser-clay-tion creation.

Better even than airport parking lot air is San Juan Island air, and that's what I've been fortunate enough to breathe these past few nights, gaping up at what seems like all of the stars between nearly all of the pine trees, dumbstruck by the beauty of this neon-mossed, pine-studded, sea-whipped island, wondering at how lucky we are just to get to walk around on this planet, and when we get to breathe in air that makes us feel especially alive it seems like too much almost, too bracing to keep even for one split second in our lungs.

LBJ Conser-clay-tion creation.