ah, seattle

i'm missing seattle terribly this morning. it creeped up on me as i sat curled up on the couch in my flannel pjs and a cup of hot tea. something about cool weather and hot tea or coffee always takes me back to seattle.

i grabbed my laptop and looked up the local papers (seattle times, seattle weekly). it took me back to my first months in wallingford and the long lonely days i spent exploring the neighborhood when i first moved to town and had no friends.

i remember sitting in the starbucks on 45th street with the crossword puzzle and a cup of coffee, just killing time because i had no where to be and no one to be there with. i'm romanticizing it, of course. it seems so delicious and luxurious - the idea of sitting in a coffee shop for as long as i wanted to - because i don't get to do that anymore. but the truth was slightly less shiny. it was lonely and boring a lot of the time.

but still. i miss it. i miss living in the city and the anonymity that came with it. i liked being just one person in a big crowd. i liked not being noticed. i liked being able to observe other people. i liked the freedom. i even came to love the uptight, PC, artys-fartsy vibe in seattle.

i especially miss the public market. not the touristy, crowded market that you see on tv, but the early morning-vendors setting up-quiet market that tourists rarely see. my first christmas eve in seattle (back in 1996) i was lonely and depressed and utterly out of sorts. my roomate's boyfriend offered me a ride down to the market, so i went. he dropped me off and i grabbed a cup of coffee at the original starbucks. it was lightly raining and the piano man (johnny hahn) was playing christmas carols on the corner. i will never forget standing in the rain with my coffee, listening to him. the market was crowded and people were rushing around trying to get last minute errands done while avoiding the rain. but i just stood there and listened. and it was, perhaps, the first time in the lonely months that i had lived there that i felt content.

but that was ten years ago. another decade, another liftetime. i wouldn't trade my kids and husband and friends for anything. but every once in a while, when the weather gets cool and cloudy and i have a good cup of tea, i miss the wide open world and limitless possibilities that seattle represented.