I don't really know how to phrase this, but I'll do my best.
People can talk about jobs easily enough; marriages and re-marriages are easy, too; and -- I guess it depends on the person, but the rule generally holds -- missteps can be discussed frankly and honestly, time permitting.
There's something, though, that's different about childhood. Time has no way of diluting the pain of growing up. I still remember the shame of the day, now 10 years ago, I was too skinny for the size "medium" soccer shorts my high school soccer team issued me.
"I guess you're a 'small,'" said my coach with a chuckle, the elastic band drooping from my waist.
Small.
And seeing again now the photograph I took of vendor of the week Tina Clark, the eyes are the things I'm noticing. She's young -- I mean, just look at her. Is it my place to write her story? I doubt it.
I will say that she moved here with vendor Sean Hall, that they live with her old man in his house, that she calls her mother the best ever, that she and Hall want to move back to Grays Harbor.
"It's beautiful there," says Clark of the town where she's spent the last nine years. "Ocean, beaches. We want to go back some day. When we're retired."
And there was a whole lot in between that. A whole lot. But it's still a little fresh. You can find Clark at her turf at the Trader Joe's in Burien, and she'll tell you herself.