My Summer Vacation

My husband says nothing but stares at me with one of his variations on “a fool and his money are soon parted” looks. I've seen all of those looks over the years and I've deserved most of them, I admit. We have that nonverbal communication thing down pat, but I have a need to explain this one. “Yes dear I know she's lying, but she's so good at it for someone so young. I admire a good salesman. I mean, last year she could have been wearing a little badge sash and selling me thin mints.” He's got nothing to say as I zip up my almost empty wallet, the one that had $20.00 in it this morning. I can't tell you where it all went but I just gave the girl three dollars and I'm about to give the street performer my last two. I pointed to the group of pierced and tattered street kids sleeping on the plaza beside us and gave her a tiny lecture, the price of my gift. “Just don't sleep out here tonight, okay?” She swears her dad is waiting for her to come home and I know she's lying and she knows I know.

The next morning is Sunday and I go alone to a tiny coffee shop across the street while my husband sleeps. It is the best cup of coffee I've ever had, dark roast with a little chocolate on the side to melt into the hot brew. With my wallet down to coins. I drink by virtue of plastic. No wait, plastic and virtue don't belong in the same sentence, but you get my drift. The Cafee D'Arte is on the corner of 2nd and Stewart, only a few blocks from Pike Place market and the harbor. For me this menage of strangers is my perfect isolation, the best way to be alone and think, a place where nobody knows my name. Seattle charms me more on this visit than the last. It reveals itself to me, shining towers and dark underbelly alike, and I take a more contemplative look at the place where my grandson will grow up.

I am suddenly startled when a man goes by the window wearing a yellow and white shirt with a matching parrot on his arm. As I puzzle over this, another passes with a jaunty hat and a large cardboard suitcase plastered with “Free Ballard” stickers, and one dignified gray bearded man wearing what appears to be an old tuxedo stoops to pick up a discarded cigarette from the ground. It is the morning parade of Buskers and homeless heading for the plaza to make their living. My husband and I discussed the proliferation of panhandlers yesterday and we both agree that cities draw the brilliant and deranged in equal measure, and perhaps this city more than most. But I only need to turn my head slightly to see Elliot Bay that leads into the dark cold waters of Puget sound, filled with ships of every size from the giant cargo containers to tiny kayaks.

Although not without it's seamy side , Seattle is a city of amazing beauty, but tuned to a cadence I find difficult to step to. My husband does not want to step at all after the first day, but he goes with me, knowing I will go alone if he stays behind. I am like a puppy running off from him and back again trying to see everything. I do not slow down enough in the Aquarium, but we compromise between spending the entire day there and my need to race through it all in an a half hour. A visit to Fremont, advertised as the Left Bank of Seattle, is less than stellar as the shops do not open until noon and we are there at 10. We walk to the top of the hill and see the troll under the Aurora Bridge and down to the statue of Lenin, posed leaning forward in a rush to get on with the revolution. After lunch at a whole foods market, we brave the bus back downtown. At night we tour the restaurants and pubs, finding mostly tourists like ourselves, and in the daytime ,when we do not tour the city ,we visit the wee babe, the reason for our trip.

We meet my children's friends for tea on Sunday morning, the baby's first trip to the outside world. They are a diverse and talented group and I instantly like them all. My oldest son says later that he wishes he could have come to Seattle years ago when he was young and single. I know what he means. It's no place for the old, for despite the beautiful sunny days we enjoyed, fall, winter, and spring are sullen and damp. The weather this week makes people giddy with cheerfulness and causes every person we meet comments on how lucky we are to have blue skies. Despite how rare these days are, every restaurant seems to have a sidewalk cafe and screenless windows that are so big and open they startle me as I walk along the street inches away from someone else's dinner plate.

The last night comes before we are ready, but such is my unknowing timing. We are there for Salon of Shame, a singularly rare treat of embarrassing moments from total strangers. They read excerpts from their journals going back to awkward childhood, gangly adolescence, and those intense college years. The readings by the original authors are delivered with high drama and they tell the audience things that make us laugh because we all identify with the painful immaturity that produced them. I am unsure how many people were turned away from the small venue, but two hours before the show there is a line going around the corner. Tickets are not sold and no seats are reserved, well none except for special guests like visiting family. We were inches from the mike as my son read excerpts from his Dungeons and Dragons phase, one I'm not sure he is completely over.

I asked him before I left if 5:30 was too early for him to take us to the airport. He stares at me with the glazed look of perpetual lack of sleep, one that I expect him to keep for many months or years to come. “Mom,” he says “There is no early, no late anymore.” We glide through Pioneer Square, old original Seattle as we head for Sea-Tac. After some confusion about tickets we check in and eat breakfast. Despite all the meals we have purchased on vacation, my husband is constitutionally against paying for food in the airport. He eats a granola bar from his bag while I have eggs. He finished off the fried potatoes I refuse to eat, not objecting to eating airport food, only buying it. I get a bottle of water and a diet coke for him which he grudgingly accepts. On board the plane he goes instantly to sleep after takeoff and I chat with my charming seat mate, a retired professional cyclist with a taste for literature similar to mine. We quote poetry, share stories, exchange email addresses so I can send him a link to a poetry website I like. The time goes quickly and we are changing planes in Philadelphia, then storming down the east coast naming rivers as they flow into the Chesapeake Bay. When I finally lie down to sleep exhausted, I dream of flying in a clear blue sky, clouds below me like a child's drawing, with cotton balls glued on generously.