I used to come down to Pioneer Square over my lunch hour to kill time. When my job didn’t matter much, no one cared if I was there, and I’d roam the side streets and street corners dreaming. Old Seattle, parts of it profoundly unclean, but real. By the Greyhound terminal and the Mission, neon signs advertising 75 cent rooms. The Bush Hotel which still says Modern Rooms, Fireproof. Pigeons and people in sleeping bags in broad daylight. The sound of the street trolley bell is just like the tone from the song Tainted Love, and each time it passes the song restarts. I came looking here for inspiration, like one of those pigeons pecking around for poems. I dropped in an old book store promising Fine and Rare Books and scanned the titles. Killing time again, bits of me in these storefront bricks. Just like the look of downtown Vancouver, Victoria, Portland: that Pacific Northwest 19th century vibe, about as far back as we go out here. Traces of the indigenous people still, token memorials, totem poles, bars that never seem to close. I forgot what it sounds like being in the city with the sirens and the jets, the trolley squealing on the rails, buses idling or hydraulic brakes releasing, a constant gasp or swoosh, always building tension. The rental cops in threes shooting the shit, more ornaments. The snake-like tails to the colored dragons twisting around the street lamp poles, Chinatown. Bilingual street signs in Mandarin, brown beneath the English green. How the afternoon sun reflects off the sky scrapers in that pale manner. Everyone with roller carryons clicking over the bricks, could be Prague. And how much I click into my city protective coat and refuse eye contact, quicken my stride. Tainted Love. Spotting a young black woman waiting for the bus and smiling, how good that felt. No words, just a smile. Wish I’d held it longer.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Errata, writing

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, journal writing, pacific northwest, Seattle