Seattle, Part III

Each street in Seattle is like the spine of a novel in my bookshelf. I'm glad it's there, I have a vague recollection of what's within it (having spent hours there), but more than anything, it's mine. That damn book, that damn street is mine.

So many streets in Seattle are mine. I cannot relate, really, to people who come here and begin the process of ascribing memories to landmarks. I cannot relate to people who call Capitol Hill "Cap Hill"; I still can't call "South Lake Union" "South Lake Union." My Seattle is a topography of youth, and I'm grateful for it, and it's no accident that most of my best friends are friends who feel the same memories in their blood as I do when standing on the Counterbalance or when getting a hamburger at Dick's on Wallingford.

31st and Kenyon is a novel about friendship, about skateboarding, about one endless summer afternoon, so endless as to be cliche, but it's not cliche: it's the epitome of Summertime.

Madison Park is a story of Mother and Son, of genetics passing down from body to body, a story of hard-earned love scented with Myers rum and feta cheese and eucalyptus.

23rd and Spokane (one block from where I live now) is a trilogy: One book is just about falling in love with girls spinning on bars, eternally in memory. One book is just about the bass tubes in the Hondas of technologically prescient friends. One books is about board games and tikka masala and birdwatching and lovely Erica and the activities one does during the process of making conclusions about life a.k.a. one's 30's

Oh, sweet Alki, sweet Armour St., sweet Broadway, and the Viaduct.

I remember as a child, late at night, going through the Battery St. tunnel, Dad at the wheel of the '78 Corrola, Bessie, the bright yellow lights skimming across the flesh of my eyelids like X-Ray, going from my grandparents' home to my dad's. I remember shooting from the Battery St. tunnel and curving to the left, and up, space-shuttle-ish. If I opened my eyes, I would see Elliot Bay to my right and maybe a ferry and my patria, sillouhetted, West Seattle on the other side, and the cu-chunk cu-chunk, metronomically under us. Going home. Going home. Cu-chunk, cu-chunk.

Those who advocate for the tear-down of the Viaduct have no sense of sentimentality. Safety, yes. Aesthetics, yes. But no sentimentality. I know it's a death-trap; if not removed, it will fall and people will die. Yes, it's loud. But, the Viaduct is also a symbol of the birth of Seattle as we know it. It's a symbol of mid-century America, of our parents, of functional ugliness, of grit. I fucking love grit. I know in my soul that when it's torn down and a tunnel is built, what will be atop of the spread and forgotten ashes (as all ashes are) of the viaduct will be complete shit. There will be a soulless park a la the Scultpure Park that could be in St. Louis or San Francisco or St. Paul or any other saintless-now city. There will be a Subway, an Applebees, and tax revenue will flow into City Hall like a healthy Duwamish and yes yes, we will be on our way to being a world-class city, but it will be a city without a memory, just as concrete flattened out the memory of the people before, and we will link ourselves to the American consciousness of constant now-ness.

To foreigners a city is layered in exotic images, to natives, it's all layered in memory. All the talk about improvement--while extremely rational--so often ignores the memory of Citizens. Maybe that is the process of living: to see what you know go away, to see old factories become condos, to see old cafes board up, to see vacant lots get occupied. Cities: living, breathing, cu-chunking along.

I wish it didn't all change. I guess that's my thesis tonight. I wish things stayed the same for longer periods of time and that we all lived forever. In America we say, "Let's go." In Mexico, "Viva." That is, "Long live." Long live the viaduct. Long live the Battery St. tunnel. Long live my mom and dad. Long live 31st and Kenyon. Long live all of it. Tonight I want all of it to last forever.