Salt of the Earth

Salt covered windows on our first small sailboat, Esperanza, in the Salish Sea. (circa 2016)

Somehow everything I hope for Via Idaho to be can be simplified down to an age old adage, to be salt of the earth.

1. a person or group of people of great kindness, reliability, or honesty.

   example: "your old man was the salt of the earth"

The saying is as old as it is true —

The essence within it makes it rich in character. It comes from a place of seasoning and wholesomeness. My personal, deepest passions in a single phrase. One that holds meaning so deeply with me because I love both salt, and the earth very dearly.

My fascination with salt begins somewhere around 2016 in the San Juan Islands, WA. On sailboats with salt covered windows. There, we pick up weekly provisions from artisan markets. There, we begin this ongoing love story with salt and the earth that I write today.

Summer in the islands is the only other place that comes close to a summer in my home state. The only places that tastes just as great for a single, wonderful season.

There is a sweetness in the Islands that begs you for an afternoon glass of rose and lovely adventuring — That is the essence of everything worth savoring about them. The delicateness that sips you up at the edge of the sea and takes you beyond the mainland. It is a culmination of forces that will compel you to unwind and live deeper. To think most people would just call that “the tides".”

I have watched my parents whisk us off to somewhere we had to be well provisioned for my whole life.

A lifestyle I came to know as rare enough. When our first boat was packed for a two days journey over land, then a days journey through the sea, I didn’t bat an eye for what would come next. A week of island adventuring. Looking back I am so very grateful for the little tastes of the world we have shared.

We’d always been hunters and gatherers. We’d always hiked mountain, after mountain, after mountain — and we’d always carried our meat home on our backs.

Where I come from, we live off the land. And if I ever had to describe my old man, or his old man, I would say they are truly, salt of the earth.

I think about the generations of people that came before me. I think about our futures and the traditions and stories we will tell our grandchildren. I know that I want to preserve this way of life. I always have. I wish to capture its essence, celebrate it, share it.

My wishes are that you will walk away from this experience well seasoned, hopefully better provisioned. May your home be filled with thoughtful tables and inspired gatherings.

May your lives be filled with the salt of the earth.