Sayonara, Seattle

I am writing this on my last day in Seattle. Maybe not, most likely not, my last day in Seattle EVER. But tomorrow, the Buick will be packed up with whatever stuff it brought here a month ago, and Alex and She-ra and I shall begin the long drive south to the hot hot desert. Hot, indeed: It was 122 degrees in Vegas last week. 122 moisture-free degrees. Oh man, oh man, oh man…

I don’t want to leave Seattle. Not even a little bit. This place is magical when the sun is out, and wow, is the sun out! The sun has been for most of this month, and I have taken full advantage of it. I have taken full advantage of being in a place where I can walk and bike and hike and do it all with friends! Take last week, for example: On Saturday, I shared fantastic tapas with my boys while my lady mixed mojitos behind the bar, with Judd Hirsch munching away at a table behind us. Sunday brought me and a college buddy to a dirty-crunchy-hippie music festival, where we listened to bagpipes and rockabilly and stoners singing for their supper. Monday took me and my crew across Puget Sound to a friend’s organic farm, where we barbecued and walked in the forest and sat on the porch watching the world go by. Tuesday I spent walking through Seattle to a waterfront sculpture park, where a girlfriend and I sat at the intersection of Love & Loss, talking about the journeys that brought us there. That night, it was karaoke with more college buddies, where I brought the house down singing “The Man That Got Away” in my best drunk Judy (Garland, that is). Wednesday, I hiked a favorite trail with my best friend and tossed bits of bagels to the birds at the summit. On Thursday, I was back across the water to build chicken coops on yet another organic farm, this one complete with 29 chickens, 12 baby turkeys and a very pregnant she-goat and her very bully Billy, then it was back to Seattle to celebrate my girl’s 24th (again) birthday. And yesterday, me and my lady had a picnic on a West Seattle beach, looking out at the still-snowy Olympic mountains while turning lobster-red in the mid-day sun, wondering what life would be like if this was the place where our families lived, if this was the place we’d always called Home. That was how I spent this last week in Seattle. Doesn’t it sound magical? Doesn’t it make you wonder why the hell I’m leaving this place? It certainly makes me pause and consider the what-ifs. What if I stayed…?

But I won’t stay. Because I’m not ready yet. For a long time, Seattle has been the place that I want to return to after I’m done doing all the things I want to do before I settle down. And I’m not there yet. I’m not done with New York. I’m not done with my Big City Dreams. I don’t really know what I’m looking for out there, but I know I haven’t found it, and I know that I will regret it if I stop looking. I have lived this long with no regrets, and I refuse to take the easy road now, now when I am on the verge of something, something big and beautiful, I don’t know what that something is, but I know that it’s out there, somewhere, and I know that I need to struggle in order to find it, I know that I need to throw myself in to hardship before I can have a little easy, and Seattle is easy, Seattle is peaceful, Seattle is a place for me to catch my breath and enjoy the good life. I’ve been gone for 6 years, and this place still loves me. And when I’m ready for it, it will welcome me back gladly. It will throw its arms open and embrace me and all that I am and all that I am not. But I’m not ready for it. I need to go back to New York, a city that doesn’t have a clue who I am, even though I lived there for 5 years. I need to go back to that New York energy, that New York pace, that New York ambition, I need to get my ass kicked some more and see if I can start kicking ass back, I need to be a Nobody and do my best to become a Somebody. And if it doesn’t happen, I need to know that I tried, I need to know that I gave it everything I’ve got so that if I come back to Seattle, it will not be with my tail between my legs but with battle wounds that I am proud to call my own, scars that will heal but will always remind me that I am a warrior and that I can survive anything. I need to leave Seattle because I need to finish New York. But first, oh man oh man oh man, first I need to go back to Vegas. ARGH!!

I am dreading the return trip for many obvious reasons, but there are some bright and shiny joys waiting in the desert for me. Namely, there are Jess and Vina, my voice teacher and my mailman, both of whom I am lucky to call my friends. And of course, there’s the whole purpose of my return, the whole point of leaving Seattle NOW instead of 2 months from now when I’ve got a place to live back east: There’s the piano man with whom I’m gonna rehearse and hopefully book some jobs, some non-Vegas jobs, some I-get-to-be-a-lounge-singer-and-live-out-some-of-my-dreams type o’ jobs. I have to remind myself that this return to the desert is entirely MY doing. Alex has no purpose in being there, other than being with me. He would be glad to never set foot in that town again, with its crooked cops and its more crooked casinos. Alex is going to Vegas for me. Isn’t it ironic? And our return will be brief, a month and a half of hiding from the sun and drinking water by the gallon. After a month and a half, the Buick will get packed up once again, and almost a year after saying goodbye, we will make that cross-country return to New York City and all the family and friends who are waiting for us. And from there, who knows? I can’t even begin to imagine. All I know is that tomorrow, it’s Sayonara Seattle. And my heart is breaking. And I wish I could just squeeze this country together until its two oceans almost meet, so that my two hometowns could be side-by-side. Or, I wish I could just be satisfied with what I’ve got right here where I am.

There’s an Ani DiFranco song that sums up Seattle for me. It’s appropriately entitled “Grey”, appropriate because this place is nothing but grey for 8 months a year (I must remind myself). The chorus goes like this:

What kind of paradise am I looking for?
I’ve got everything I want, but still I want more.
Maybe some tiny, shiny key will wash up on the shore…

I’m not ready to say goodbye, but I’m not ready to stay. So, I will make the choice to remain unsettled. I will make the choice to go seeking out satisfaction in hard-to-satisfy places. I will make the choice to take the hard road and see where it goes. And someday, maybe it will bring me back here. Someday, when I’ll be ready.