Category: Writing

In this day of Facebook “Like” I found myself wondering what is it that I like that does not have a convenient, spiffy button next to it?

I like?

I like running 10k first thing in the morning. Every morning.

I like coffee in a French press on a Sunday morning.

I like Cafe Solstice in the evenings after work where people know my name and where I can get a finger and a smile from the barista.

I like playing a kick ass mage on a rainy day.

I like to read.  A lot.

I like traveling and Traveling.

I like to smile at attractive women. I like it better when they smile back, their skin creasing at their eyes.

I like a woman who knows who she is and is in the world to live and not wait for it to come to her.

I like jumping off of cliffs.

I like that my work is periphery to who I am.

I like lemonades that spike your tongue in bitter, sweet awesomeness.

I like warm molasses cookies with a large glass of cold milk.

I like chocolate milk.

I like to peel off the plastic covering on remotes.

I like to imagine. I like imagine a couple in a room with the end of the days light coming in from the bay window. It is Fall, maybe October toward the end of harvest where there are still leaves on the trees even as some stand denuded in readiness for the Winter coming. It is one of those clear days when the shadows freeze you and the direct Sun makes you sweat even though the slightest breeze wicks and cools you uncomfortably.  Her name?  I am not sure her name any more than I know his. But I can well imagine her name might be Amelia, maybe because of the aviator or maybe because of the film. A lovely French name. A kind name. A name that even in the dusty years of later life comes equally to your ear and from my tongue as something young and flapper-ready for a new adventure.  She is reading a book, he napping.  There is a fire in the fireplace, he closest with a blanket wrapped around his legs.  She looks up and over to him.  She remembers yesterday and the picnic outside, he placing the items around them all the while laughing.  She cannot remember why but it does not matter why, only that she remembers him laughing.  It is enough.  Even now as he sleeps there is the remains of an impish smile dusting his lips.  She closes her book and gently rests it to her side along with her glasses.  She wishes to linger longer looking on him but she knows there is a time when we must all close our eyes.  So she does. He now wakes.  It is now dark outside, the sun having set hours ago.  Only embers remain, a soft glow touching her cheeks and eyelids.  He takes the blanket from around his legs and puts it over her frame, it now fast fading in the late hours of the day’s remainder.  He kisses her lightly and then picks up the book and sits back down to read where she left off.  But he only looks at the remains of the fire.  There is no heat left in the room.  And he knows that he too will soon sleep.  He turns to her, takes her hand in his and smiles, his eyes closing.  The room is now black.

I like this ending.

It may seem a surprising thing, even absurd really, when you read that in the thirteen years that I have lived in Seattle I have never been picked at the airport by a friend; until last night, that is. It is funnier, maybe even ironic, that this most auspicious event is hallmarked by maybe an even more auspicious week wherein I decided that my home, for better or for worse, is Seattle. This decision comes on the heels of a rather extensive interviewing with numerous companies in and out of Seattle, including but not limited to NexTag in San Francisco and Google Japan. However, these past three months searching for something I thought I needed I discovered instead I was already in possession of what I need most: a home.

Three months ago, upon experiencing a moment that crystallized my recognition that my well-being, happiness and general state of life are entirely in my control, I began to look outside of Amazon for alternatives both to company and city. As much as the event that precipitated all this is an unfortunate intersections of stressors, nevertheless, in the final analysis I was afforded an introspection of my life in Seattle which, while slow and which has at times shriveled back to bud, has finally taken meaningful root. I came to realize that I, a person who is pathologically shy at self-introductions, has built a small, but deeply committed set of friends; people who regularly call me to see what I am up to and how I am. As small a thing as it is, I have even begun to re-explore my world through art and photography. So much so that a cafe is currently exhibiting some of my photographs. These may not have been the reasons I was so explicit about when I set out from Buffalo back in September of 1998, my then car loaded with hopes to someday return to soil more foreign than the that to which I was born to. However, in these past thirteen years I have lived a bit of a life here in Seattle. It is a life worth continuing and a set of friends worth staying with to cherish and celebrate life with — in Seattle.

And from now on I will have to remember that pickup at the airport is on the ground floor next to baggage claim. Thanks, friend.