I see photographs of me as a young boy dressed in a blue yellow and pink coat with a Seattle pier in the background. In each image my brother and I pose identically. My dad’s hair is long, my mother looks about the same. Those memories drown in preconsciousness but sometimes I remember watching heavy rain flow down the car window and the pattering on the roof.
Twenty years later I hope to remember food instead of water. I start in Pike Place Market, probably best known as the site of the original Starbucks but the lineup is long and I’m looking for a shortcut.
I walk down an alley and stumble upon the gumwall. John says Seattle is as quirky as Portland is hipster and I think he’s right. A new green member is smeared into place as a local chats on her cell phone.
After an expresso chased with soda I’m back to the market where I’m greeted by a panoply of leviathans. They rest on ice when they aren’t trying to fly.
The tradition dates to the eighties when the market declares insolvency and this is introduced perhaps as a metaphor to reel in tourists and media.
It’s time to try the seafood and after tussling with the menu we can’t decide what we want so we let our chef choose. Our experience is a blend of culinary and cultural and artistic. I’m reminded of the Tibetan sand mandala whose beauty lies partially in its transience except that fish tastes better than sand.
We walk home and it’s raining. It drips down my umbrella and I guess on the west coast it’s hard to escape.
