The experience of visiting the same city over the years in different life stages and mental states creates for a mosaic of feelings. My first time in Seattle was a few months after I first came to America. A new bride and immigrant, starry-eyed about the future and visiting the Pacific Northwest for the first time. We stayed in a nice hotel down-town though I simply cannot remember where. Remember being able to walk to Pike Place Market in the morning and loving its exuberance. I have returned several times over the years - no longer new to my would be future, no longer new to Seattle.
It is as if the bright colors of this city muted in my eyes to become tinged with the a certain boredom and sadness. I still like it when I visit but it is never like that first time. Like me the city has changed over time - maybe it was a more exuberant then than it is now - maybe the change is mutual, not one-directional. Uncle B lives in Kirkland. I knew him since I was a child, he was close to my parents then but not anymore. I never fully understood what caused the rift between them.
In my single years, he visited me in my apartment a couple of times and crashed on the couch in the living room - which in hindsight was a bit strange. He would bring me a bottle of wine and we drank it together sitting in the balcony after J had gone to bed. We talked about lot of things and I was glad to have conversation with an adult that was not about my problems. I thought nothing of it then - my mind was thrumming with the noise of things I needed to get done to keep my head above the water. The appropriateness of a married man, close to my father's age choosing to spend the night at my apartment was not the most pressing problem I had to deal. If he was trying to get me interested, I did not have the mental capacity to notice.
At some point, I ceased to be single and I did not see Uncle B much - he did stop by when he came to my town for work. Uncle B is a childhood memory gone sour - I don't know what to make of him. He have me a lot of useful parenting advice, insights into how the "system" works in America and ways to navigate it. He used to be one of the people I could call when I had questions about things. But there was something off about his visits and those late night chats in the balcony. Was he always predatory and I was just too clueless to notice or was it that he found his opportunity when I was most vulnerable and I luckily remained just as clueless. Whatever the case, I have never contacted him when in Seattle. Yet, the facts are he never did anything that crossed the line - it was never clear to me what his end-game was if any.
Comments