“The heart and brain and body….”
If you are, like me, a Gen X woman, then you might recognize this lyric.”You don’t have to guess.” It’s from one of my favorite songs from Schoolhouse Rock: Three is a Magic Number.
Three really is a magic number. It satisfies. Something happens? That’s a fact. It happens twice? It’s a coincidence. It happens three times? It’s a pattern.
That’s why I’m calling this mid-week newsletter for you Three is a Magic Number.
(Also, I love Jenny Rosenstrach’s “Three Things” column on her Substack, which I highly recommedn. I love the easy-breezy feeling of it. But I couldn’t use her title!)
My husband and I stood in front of a small wooden box filled with purple potatoes and let out matching happy sighs.
We were strolling through the West Seattle Sunday Farmers’ Market, on California Avenue, for the first time since we moved here. We both agreed — our bodies felt uplifted and filled with nostalgia.
If you’ve been reading my work since the early days, you might remember that my husband and I lived together in Seattle from 2006 to 2009. We lived in the city with joy. Our food inspirations always came from going to other chef’s restaurants, buying everything we wanted at Uwajimaya, and going to farmers’ markets. We lived in the city and in food. We loved it.
After our daughter came, and then our second kiddo, going to the city felt more and more difficult. When COVID hit, driving onto the ferry and going to the Columbia City farmers’ market weighted us down as a NO WAY. Everything loomed large as a no those days.
Now that we’ve returned to the city — and we’re done with going back to Vashon for our daughter’s marvelous high school musical — we are home now.
We strolled slowly through the small amount of booths. It’s still only early April. By summer time, the market might stretch 3 city blocks. But that day, even the small clutch of booths made us grow grateful. A Black man selling his own gluten-free cookies. A Mexican-American woman handing us a bottle of her mango-orange kombucha. Enormous frozen pork chops in a cooler. And the purple potatoes from Olsen Farm, which we used to buy for his restaurant in 2008.
We were amazed to see so many familiar farmers. And of course, new, excited and exhausted young men and women, selling their joy.
Afterward, I wandered through Pegasus Used Bookstore in a daze. So many books. So many good books. So many good used books. I required myself to not buy anything. I will be going back soon.
After all this, a jaunt through Easy Street Records. I would love to have a record player and stereo system again. (I still think this is how we should be listening to music.) So many actual record albums. Posters of all the early 90s bands. And the Beatles. And a café for brunch inside?
I think we’re going to like it here.
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