“Real time travel is when you are in the same places you’ve once been.”
-beat poet Ali Eskandarian
Seattle via Time Travel
If I have a true physical home, it is in Seattle. The mountains and the ocean and a whole lot of rain, something about it just feels right to me. It’s been over ten years now since I moved away from Seattle, met the love of my life, and settled in Calgary. But, every time I return to Seattle, I sink into the coziness of being home.
Like Ali Eskandarian says, returning to familiar places feels like time travel. To see something familiar through the eyes of a more mature and experienced version of yourself is a curious experience. At once remembering how it felt to be in a place, and feeling what it is like to be in that place again now.
The Quad
When I was in school, I would walk through the cherry blossoms in The Quad at the University of Washington to get to classes. Occasionally, I would lay down on a blanket and study under a shower of pink flowers. Most of the time, studying turned into napping. I don’t think I knew back then that I was studying in the middle of one of Seattle’s major tourist attractions.
Returning to The Quad in spring eleven years later, I am one of the tourists. My camera hangs from the strap around my neck. I carefully try to capture a photo of the perfect cherry blossom, scarcely aware of the students who are studying in the grass. Closing my eyes, I trying to remember what life as a student was like, but bumping shoulders with so many tourists pulls my thoughts back to the present.
I can’t decide which version of myself had the better experience. Was it adolescent Ashley, who didn’t pay much attention to the unique beauty of the place, but enjoyed it so purely? Or is it tourist Ashley, who fully appreciates The Quad in all its magnificent glory, but can’t seem to delve any deeper than that?
Standing on a Bridge Between Both Worlds
The answer is somewhere in between, I think. To be a traveler, and not a tourist, is to be able to have a foot in both experiences. It’s doing mundane things like laundry and grocery shopping while taking time to notice the amazing world that surrounds these menial tasks.
It’s appreciating hot food on a cold day. Delighting in the comedy of errors that is human interaction. Noticing new sights and sounds on a walk you have taken a hundred times. Reflecting at the end of the day on what made you smile, what surprised you, what you learned.
Reclaiming Seattle
The day after The Quad, I feel a sort of ambivalence about Seattle. I know that I will never experience the place the same way I did when I lived there. A sense of sadness sinks into my gut. At the same time, I feel a growing resolve.
There is a power in re-experiencing familiar places, and reclaiming them as a different version of yourself. Almost as though you can say to a place, “look how far I’ve come. Look at all I’ve learned since we last met.”
We head to Thai Tom, my favorite restaurant in Seattle. It’s little more than a hole in the wall, and I had always thought of it quite simply as a really tasty plate of food. But, coming in with fresh eyes, there is a beauty to the place I never really noticed.
Every surface bears the patina of years of chefs and customers. Three staff shoved into a tiny open kitchen work with incredible teamwork and efficiency. Sauces fly from bowl to bowl. Chopped veggies bounce off of cutting boards. Flames rise and fall on the range that turns it all into culinary bliss.
My dish arrives, and I celebrate the experience of being amidst all the sights and sounds and smells of the place by savoring every bite. The food here has never tasted so good.
Seattle Give Me Strength
As our week in Seattle winds down, the place feels more like home than ever. I feel more like myself than ever, ready to take on the world. Be a driver of change. An advocate for justice. A compassionate soul in a busy world. That is who this city shaped me to be all those years ago. That is the legacy I claim as I leave my home once again.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Seriously, though, I really miss fresh seafood.