Seattle... A Mnemonic
Until I sat down to write this blog post, I was convinced that I hadn’t been to Seattle in almost ten years. Then I remembered that, in that time, my father and I had been back to Seattle to settle some family business, but it was kind of a blur.
This time around however, I was practically having flash backs, like my brain had geotagged all the accumulated memories. Each local haunt and strip of city street had a story in tow.
Back in college, a professor of mine taught a class on oral traditions – we were taught a mnemonic exercise where you created a physical structure in the mind, usually in the form of a home, in which to store information. You could theoretically store lines for a play on shelves in a study or recipes in the cupboards of a kitchen. In that regard, Seattle was acting out this very premise. I had left in 2007 and never looked back.
Good or bad, it was all so suddenly familiar. A great deal of my formative experiences took place in Seattle. It is the coming of age part of my story, and in my haste to forget the unsavory truths of my youth, I had also forgotten much more. Memories, like cobwebs, are connected with countless tendrils of smaller more insignificant details that hold it all together, and all together I swept them from the rafters into the dustbin of forgotten memories.
We arrived in the wee hours of the night, and Savannah and I had to catch the last ferry to Bainbridge island. The ferry ride was a leg that I was looking forward to with great anticipation. I love the ferry, despite my memories of riding on it, which were usually expeditions lead by our drunken mother. She was always trying to escape and we were always trapped. Ironically, she’s gone and I’m still on the run. She and I shared that ultimately. Like sharks, we can’t stop swimming. Phil Larkin had it right in This Be the Verse.
On board and underway, the waves slapped the hull of the ferry in syncopated rhythm, and the steel reverberated like a colossal drum. It was hypnotic. As I leaned over the railing on the second floor of the bow, I could feel it — a smile. The feeling of atonement. Here I was traveling on the ferry for the first time without fear and without uncertainty. Before, we never knew where these expeditions would end. This time, on the other side, was hearth and home — my father, his wife, and my sister were waiting for our arrival.
Bainbridge was a dream. We were blessed. The house my father and Maarika had rented was positioned directly across the water from the Seattle skyline. Inside it was toasty and welcoming. My Dad broke out the midnight charcuterie — salami, prosciutto, queso manchego, and an assortment of others.
My sister and my niece slept soundly in the bedroom above as Savannah and I shared the play-by-play of the journey punctuated with quiet laughter, sips of cold beer, and slivers of salted meat. Satiated, we whispered our good nights and hugged with full bellies. Our pull-out was positioned in front of almost floor to ceiling windows, each panel painted with a segment of twinkling skyline as the brightly lit ferry drifted off into the night.
I woke to a rustling above my head, and at my feet the fog pressed its face to the glass. Somewhere there was the deliberate and muffled bellow of a fog horn. As to the rustling, I was startled by the little silhouette of a wild haired head hanging directly above. Kenley giggled and I wished her a good morning. “Come say hi to your Uncle Poodie,” I said, referring to myself in the third person. She slid down the stairs, her hands and legs flopping against the carpeted steps all the way down.
Knees first, she landed right on top of me in the bed. Savannah woke and asked Kenley to give her some lovin’. The three of us lay there catching up in hushed tones. We asked her all kinds of questions and she obliged. There was a restless shyness in her replies. She was weathering the formalities of our questions. All the while, she was waiting to ask us questions of her own. With the formalities out of the way, and intimacy re-established she engaged us in all forms of imaginary games. Before we knew it, Savannah and I were pupils in Kenley’s imaginary school.
With her locked on to Savannah, I slipped away and strode up the stairs to wake my sister. Still in her clothes, she had fallen asleep waiting for us to arrive. I patted her back, which startled her. She surveyed the room and shook off her surprise and mild irritation which was replaced with a hug and warm welcome. “Where is Kenley?” she asked and kept asking all weekend as she kept track of the precocious six-year-old.
Kenley and I spent a portion of the morning combing the beach, while the tribe prepared themselves for a day in the city. I felt like the smartest person in the world. She would point to all manner of things and ask, “What is that?” Much of the trivial knowledge we take for granted is revelatory to a child, especially one that had never seen the sea until that moment. The pebbled beach was a trove of shells, driftwood, and stranded sea creatures.
I felt like an ambassador to the treaties of life and laws of nature written right there beneath our feet. On the point, we startled a coyote that was combing the low tide for morsels. I drew my camera, but just like that he was gone. His paws moved surely across the pebbled beach, stone to stone, never taking his eyes off of us until he disappeared into the underbrush. Kenley clung to me like the mussels on their stony perches. I explained that he was more afraid of us, and that she had nothing to worry about. Later on when she was being a bit reckless, I admittedly reneged on my assurances and told her she ought not stray, lest that coyote come back and snatch her up.
The fog was thick, but the ferry moved with a confidence that bordered on arrogance. The foghorn bellowed with conviction. I imagined what lay buried in the mist and sealed below the sleek surface of the sound. I had never seen orcas in the wild, but with every crossing I remained as naively optimistic.
Pier pilings stood sentry at the ferry terminal, with enormous buoys tethered to their waists. Behind them rose viaduct and skyscrapers cleaved in half by low hanging clouds. We wandered down the waterfront, eventually landing in Pike Place Market among the mongers — fish, flowers, cherries, and cheese. The color of the market, seasonal, and a sea of heads flowed up and down the boardwalk. A smorgasbord straight out of fairytales with every imaginable treat pulled from the land and hauled from the deep. We stopped and indulged in creamy clam clowder, smooth coffee, and sweet Parisian pastries. We bought flowers, king crab legs, baguettes, and chocolate covered cherries. A deluge of goodies that lasted us late into the night.
The next day we explored the island as a family. In the moment all you felt was overwhelmed. One person was hot, the other cold, one hungry, and someone always had to pee, but we roamed as a family. There was safety and comfort in our numbers, each of us circulated among the group to spend time one on one. Local cups of coffee in hand, we strolled through the farmers market and admired local shops hosting local artists and craftsmen.
In the afternoon we split up. My sister, Savannah, and I toured the island in the car, looking for anything of interest. Goal: see the island. You can’t get lost on a small island, even when you are lost. You can revel in your lostness. Winding roads crisscrossed Bainbridge’s rolling hills and dense forest. Fall was in full swing with rich hues of red, yellow, and gold hanging from trees clad in blankets of deep green moss.
“Whoa! What?” I exclaimed as I brought the car to a stop on the nonexistent shoulder of the road. It was like I stumbled upon a forgotten life — an amnesiac revelation. The sign nestled off the side of the road read, Islandwood. I looked around trying to understand. “This is where Islandwood was?” During my high school years, I had been a counselor at this camp. I remembered Anna. I remembered Sarah. Was Marlon here? It was there that I first smelled hops on the vine. I’ll never forget it, but I did forget it. I remember the experience peripherally every time I talk about my favorite IPA, but I would have been hard pressed to tell you the time or the place.
A tide of memories rolled in during the night. I sat up in bed and stared at the city lights floating on the horizon. Me, a nomad, a stranger to my own life, but intensely grateful to sit there years later and to feel it all coming back. Some good, some bad, some funny, some tragic. I wished that I could remember it all — a long life. When you are running you forget. As of this writing, only a small fraction remains open to me. Leaving Seattle, a volume of my past was placed back on a shelf inside the house of memory to be dusted and revisited next time I wander through.
