i am in seattle, and i am falling rapidly in love with it. yesterday i walked around with zoe all day and we saw a lot of things that made me fall deeper in love. like:
a) the buses have rollercoaster, rubberband center parts with seats in them, like i used to seek out on the 42 and sometimes the trams in Amsterdam. they crinkle open and shut, taking you with them, and you can't see out the window as well but who really cares.
b) right by the space needle there is a big silver half dome in the bottom of a cement bowl. it is a fountain. it spurts water and simultaneously plays music: sometimes thievery corporation and sometimes beethoven. little children run around in the bottom of the cement bowl. for some of them, the game is to not get wet, and for others, the game is to get as wet as possible.
c) zoe and conner's kitchen looks out over a cliff-type thing, out onto a tangle of extraordinarily tall trees covered in ivy and moss, and crags, and pieces of building, and flowers. most of the windows in houses here are large and flat and wide, to maximize the view. because wherever you are, there is a view.
d) an irish man in love with a girl named kate from minnesota who he holds a picture of in his wallet still even though they are broken up, and a cigarette tucked into the brim of his oddly unpretentious fedora, spent ten minutes trying to convince us that we should really spend twenty two dollars a month on a child in the philippines. he also told me to go to a pub called the pale horse in dingle where there is some irish pride graffiti about nobel literature prizes, and made us feel really bad for not giving him any money by saying "well, it all comes down to what kind of person you are at the end of a knife blade." i wonder how many children he sponsors, and how many people he makes cry.
e) zoe is here, and it feels the best to be here with her that i have felt since i was in wisconsin and minnesota in august. it feels like i can be silly and sad and confused all at once but it doesn't matter because i am allowed and she loves me anyway. it feels like when i am projecting everything that i am, i am spewing it into a big warm fuzzy coat, and not into a hard plastic white wall.
it feels like maybe i should move here, but that is a decision for another time.
for now, it is nice to lie in her bed with its rich patchwork comforter and christmas lights and teal gauzey curtains and eat pumpkin spice ice cream and steamed vegetables and laugh and watch the office and bundle up to stay warm and try to recreate our high school schedules because it bothers us so much that we can't. it feels good to have naptime and writing time and spend all the time in between talking.
more soon, and pictures, and i sent my first round of postcards today. love.
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