Seattle:


Puget sound reflects a puff-white cloud blue sky and the Olympic Mountains rise snow-capped beyond. Ferries and frieghters score white wakes across the water. The shoreline is like frayed fabric with wharves and jettys. Onland, Seattle is busy, like all large American cities, with a constant stream of cars along the I-5 that winds through the center of town.

I take a walk from the hotel and visit Pike market. Most places are closing by the time I arrive but I find a restaurant. The sign on the walls boast “as featured in Sleepless In Seattle” with photos of Tom Hanks and Rob Reiner in scenes from the movie). The view over the Sound is beautiful, every window a picture. The water is a rich blue. The harbor is busy unloading a container ship stacked high with rusty Hanjin containers from China. I eat seafood by myself and eavesdrop on a nearby family as they talk about school projects and home. The city feels homey to me then, warm. An outpost on the edge of America, somewhere for people to camp and stay safe.

On the way back to the hotel I pass through a street full of destitute drunks. Suddenly the promenade doesn’t seem so benign. It’s pretty heavy; certainly more full-on than New York is these days. The faces don’t beg here, they demand--or at least threaten to. I’m six feet tall and rarely intimidated by things on the street (at least in broad daylight!) but for these two blocks I walk taller and straighter and remove any warmth in my eyes just in case; just like I learnt to back in the Midlands.

Northern cities have a strange feel to them. I think it’s to do with being on the edge of nature. There’s an atmosphere created by the cold northern horizon, a reminder in the dark distance that there be monsters, or nothing else at all. (It’s the same facing South below the equater – something to do with facing away from the sun, perhaps....some primitive trigger?). In New York, Los Angeles or Chicago you can feel in the midst of things. You can feel connected. And in some way there’s a sense that you’re in a controlled environment. Central Park in New York is man-made and framed by the city. In LA unless you drive up to the wilderness by Mount Wilson, every life is caught and lived in a net of roads (even the Wilderness behind Mount Wilson to some extent. It is beautiful and remote but at the same time you can drive there in easily less than an hour from Hollywood). In Chicago there are derricks out on the lake and the buildings tower above the shoreline – thousands of tons of steel that men have driven into the ground like tent-pegs to anchor the sky over the Loop and make it secular.

In Seattle you can see the snow-capped mountains, the freighters roll in through the sound from China and Japan, safe again in the tranquil waters after crossing the world’s largest ocean. The city feels like an encampment on the edge of Terra Firma. There’s something intimidating about it that I like, even fopping around in my soft-soled city loafers and my tailored suits. Somewhere I fancy I’m an outdoorsman: in another life I’d burn my books, sell my laptop, grow a set of balls and go live in a cabin. But not quite just yet. I’m content to watch Grizzly Man for now.

I am unsettled all the time in Seattle, permanently melancholy. Dark clouds roll in over the city: rain threatens but never arrives. Something in the air here makes me feel small and humble. I can’t tell if it’s the climate, or if it’s part of the post-Californian come-down (going to California always feels like going on vacation) but when we leave I am relieved. I like Seattle, and I want to like Seattle, but this time it feels like an exit to the fun part of my tour instead of an entrance. Time to head back inland…