I went to Fred’s to get some ingredients I needed for Scotty’s annual birthday carrot cake. I got to the spice section and found a man of about my age scanning the shelves – I could tell he was looking for something and was coming up nada. I started scanning for the “allspice” that the recipe called for, but didn’t see it right away.

“This isn’t shelved alphabetically, is it?” I asked the man next to me – I now considered him my partner in the spice search. He laughed and observed that the spices seemed to be shelved randomly. I asked him what he was looking for, and he said he was looking for “sesame seeds” – but he thought maybe he should try the Asian food section. And just as he said that, I found the sesame seeds! I told him I was looking for “allspice” – and, in the next breath, I found it. I picked up the jar, looking for the ingredients – “What does allspice have in it?” I asked, and my teammate in the spice aisle said, “Cinnamon, I think, and cloves, and nutmeg.” I told my teammate that I already have all that stuff at home, so I guessed I didn’t really need to buy this. He pointed out that I was saving myself $12 by leaving it there.

Cool! “So are we all good here?” I asked him, smiling. He smiled back at me and said, “Yeah! Teamwork!”

(Edit: I now know that allspice is an actual spice all of its own – I love learning new stuff!)

As I was walking down the center aisle to the produce section a tall young Black man with dreadlocks and a ring through his nose locked eyes with me and there was just such joy in that moment that we both broke into big smiles – like we were old friends seeing each other again. We passed each other, smiling, and that smile from him is still buoying me up.

Scotty and I went to Chuckanut Manor to celebrate his birthday tonight. The sun was just starting to set when we got there and I asked the hostess to be seated by a window to watch the sunset. As we were sitting at our table we noticed half a dozen bald eagles playing tag with each other near the water. One of the servers saw I had my camera out and told me that the deck is always open and I could go out there to take photos if I wanted – and she led me to the door that opened onto the deck. The eagles flew by me and one of them landed in a tree near the restaurant. I could hear the eagles chirping to each other. I love that sound.

I came back in after taking a few pictures, but then went back out when I saw the eagles were up to their hijinks again. There was another customer out there when I went out the second time, and he told me what he’d just seen with the eagles. I pointed to the tree where the eagle was sitting and he turned to take pictures of it.

Scott and I had a lovely dinner, and when we were leaving I passed the man who had been watching eagles with me and thanked him for sharing that magic with me. He smiled and agreed that had been cool.

And now we’re eating carrot cake made with carrots from our garden, and apple sauce from Scott’s orchard, and spices I already had in my cupboard. And the best thing I brought home from Fred’s were the smiles I got there.