goodbyes.

a song to set the scene // send me on my way by rusted root

It didn’t hit me until the schedule was published.

The same schedule I’ve been posting for the last eight years as Manager of Brew@602.

Except this time, somebody else was posting.

And for the first time: I had no more shifts.

It was an inevitability I’ve been avoiding since first venturing into my new business (more to come on that later).

For months, I’ve been putting off what I knew was coming, and when I saw that schedule posted, with my name not on there, the reality hit me.

It was happening.

One door was closing as another was opening.

Sniffling and sobbing, I realized that this change was no longer an apparition in my head: it was happening, and my life would never be the same.

For the last eight years, I have poured (literally) my heart and soul into this business.

When I think about no longer getting to wear my “train crew” denim shirt and run hot chocolates to eager kiddos, my heart aches.

When I think about our closing playlists and jamming to Hamilton after a slow winter’s day, my heart aches.

And when I think about no longer being able to hop in and help during a busy rush, my heart aches.

But when I think about how significant this chapter on the train has had on me, my heart soars.

My regulars became friends I now say hello to at the grocery store.

My employees became a part of my family.

I became known as the brew mom, and I laughed, cried, and caffeinated my way through a good chunk of my 20’s.

Despite shifts that left me crying in the walk in, and despite days staring depressingly out the window when it was slow, my time there was more impactful than I could’ve ever imagined.

Working there grew me, shaped me, inspired me, and I think it placed me exactly where I am now: in front of a new train door.

As Pooh once wisely pondered: how lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard?

Well, saying this particular goodbye was very difficult.

Ask the multiple people who witnessed me putting it off for months and then saw me unravel when my name wasn’t on the schedule.

But I have to remember why the goodbye feels painful, and cherish my mornings and afternoons spent there.

On the bright side, my “long-distance” move is across the parking lot.

So for the foreseeable future, I’m not actually saying goodbye.

I’m saying “see you later” for that afternoon coffee.

Cause it’s still home. And it always will be.

cecil’s mark.

a song to set the scene // passion by milky chance

She looms over Cooper Landing, tall and formidable.

Taunting us with her views, she teases us with a good time, trapping unsuspecting innocents within her ragged landscape.

We curse ourselves whenever we’re foolish enough to be tempted back, yet eagerly insist upon conquering her every year once summer rolls onto the Peninsula.

Haunting and present is Cecil Rhode Mountain.

Drive through Cooper Landing, and I guarantee you cannot miss her.

Proudly placed in full view, Cecil’s statuesque peak is the pinnacle of my hiking season.

I can only hike her once a year though, she’s that fatiguing.

Driving up a steep unmarked dirt road, parking at a ROAD CLOSED gate, and finding a not noticeable trailhead always makes me question whether or not Cecil wants us there in the first place.

She is, after all, rather hard to find.

Climbing through thicc brush and over freshly fallen trees, we begin wondering if we are too early in the season to hike her.

Are we the first ones this year?

Our doubts are quickly answered when we come across the first (of many) snow patches.

Interrupting our follow of the trail, the snow doesn’t validate our too-early attempt at summiting, but rather confirms our timing, as we see fellow footprints meandering through the snow field.

And so we continue on.

Toeing our way through the exceptionally toasty snow (did I mention it was our first extraordinary summer’s day?), we inch our way up the mountain.

Looking to our left, we climb higher and higher over the striking glacial blue of the Kenai River winding its way through Cooper Landing.

To our right is an endless expanse of mountains, whose fellow snow capped peaks shine brightly back at us.

Above us, the sun beats down, reflecting off the snow and onto our poor un-sunscreened bodies; and below us, our hiking boots make slow and steady improvements up, up, up Cecil.

It’s a hike you curse when you’re on it. The kind of journey that always makes you question why you’d risk climbing something so damn steep.

Your knees hurt, your thighs hurt, your breath hurts, it all aches and groans and pops and moans.

But it’s also the kind of hike that takes your breath away, with unmatched views that are breathtaking and endless.

And to think that our bodies and their one-foot-in-front-of-the-other movements can conquer such a peak?

It’s a feeling like no other.

Which is why we return to her slopes year after year.

And on this particular, unseasonably hot 70 degree day in Alaska, Cecil leaves her mark in another way.

Remember those snow patches, and their red-hot reflective rays?

Did ya read the tiny detail about our un-sunscreened skin?

Well, late winter snow + AK sun = you guessed it: sunburned.

Who knew Cecil could leave her mark in more ways than one.