In the center of Fremont--, a neighborhood in Seattle, a neighborhood which calls itself humorously, hyperbolically "the center of the universe"--is a funeral home. I have attended two funerals there of elder loved ones, and I'm sad and sure I'll attend more. The funerals I attended belonged to women who worked hard, lived principally, cared about their country. Women who loved children, believed, flew planes. One got married; one didn't. They were my grandma's sisters and my childhood memory of them, which I tearfully shared at one of the funerals, was their always sitting together on Christmas while we rugrats opened our presents and growled around the living room and their legs were just there like the adult legs in Peanuts and I had a sense as a child then they were sentries of some kind, protectors, stabilizing pillars. It felt they were permanent.
Their view of education, it seems, was that it was good, and when not available, do it yourself. They grew up rural and worked with their hands, and when brothers died, it truly pained them and they truly moved on. They spoke clearly and earnestly, and wrote well. One of them, Katie, attended her sister Adilene's funeral. At the end of the funeral, Katie grabbed my forearm, looked at me searching for a name, searching for who I was, and she said, "Let's get a drink."
These women were so 20th-century, so solid, so strong, so clear, a blog feels inadequate, anachronistic, almost an insult. These women deserve memoirs, novels, biographies; they deserve the concrete reality of ink and paper. The rest of Fremont that surrounds that funeral home deserves a blog entry.
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I admit: I am Fremont, or I can be. A few nights ago I went to a wine event expo in Fremont catered to 20-year-old privileged kids who are beginning a lifetime of alcoholism and pretense. (The two should so distinctly be separate!) The event was in a large warehouse. Two large screens presented all the tweets people were tweeting about the event. ("You gotta check out braised pulled pork with cilantro-infused lentils at table 33!") Discotheque purple lights flickered around the room and dapper men in fashionably faded jeans sipped wine, conversing with girls with purple teeth and large swaths of exposed skin. We initially tried to comment on the wine, but it was too loud and soon we conversed by shouting about relationship drama and the economy and we spoke of everything new on our facebook accounts.
I felt like Nick Carraway in Gatsby. I was the wimpy observer (and a participant), so sad/angry at some vague thing, I wanted to cry. I thought, "Wow. So this is what it means to be 30." And I became like that girl in Tokyo Story: "How disappointing this all is." My spirit sat crouched in a corner waiting for honest consolation. Each man at this event was a stamp of the other. Same eerie smile, same possessive, insincere eying. If Diane Arbus photographed the place, surely she could bring up the unhappiness there because it felt, to me, as palpable as humidity. The lonely, low self esteemed women. The craven men. The angry. The people digging deep into themselves to smile, to toss their head backs, to be interested in their fellow creatures, to enjoy. I did not sense fun in that warehouse; I sensed escape. Escape into image. We were not having fun; we were the image of people having fun.
Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm projecting. But look: I'm talking about the soul of my city. Seattle belongs to me. I refuse to let it turn into an image. Once it's just an image--an amalgam of the Grey's Anatomy, Frasier, hipster-nation, techie fantasy, a projection of what we think it is, a fabricated city, not an organic one--it will no longer be lovely.
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In Seattle in the late 80s and early 90s, there was a show called Almost Live!, Seattle's version of SNL. This show ragged on Californians moving up here. It criticized their perceived materialism and hurried-harried driving and shallowness. But the Californication of Seattle ensued. Glass buildings and yoga studios and pan-Asian restaurants came quickly. South Lake Union feels like San Jose and "old" Ballard has become the manicured yuppiedom of Sausalito.
I strongly believe Seattle should be about dorkiness, impish political views, fleece, plaid, library cards and cultural appreciation. There should be a quaint unawareness of image. Seattle is about the zoo and exposed pale skin on a sunny day, about beer and facial hair and protest and gay pride. How quickly we've washed it over in political apathy and peacoats and wine expos and Lexus's! As a child, my city was filled with storytellers, flamboyant gay men, brainiacs, politicized teachers, graffiti artists, deft sports columnists, protesters, didjeridu players that smelled bad, and old ladies that shaped and earned this damn city. As a child, it was a city filled with opinion and personality shaped by experience, and I couldn't wait to be adult enough to join it.
I want to howl like The Walkmen, "What happened to you?!" I want to howl like Ginsberg, "What has happened to the best minds of my generation?" I want to howl like Arcade Fire, like Do the Right Thing, like The Roots, "Wake up!"
"Feel! Get angry! Get sad! Scream! Cry! Fight! Question!" I want to howl.
"Wake up, my lovely city!" I howl.
"We're more than just this!" I cry.
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