Ra-in-Seattle

I have a penchant for tall buildings, and found out soon after that the tallest building in Seattle only cost $5 to get to the 76th floor observation deck, or just a cuppa joe at the Starbucks on the 40th floor. We got distracted by the Happy Hour menu at McCormick & Schmick, with their famous $2.95 cheeseburger and fries and $1.95 spicy chicken wings, so we never reached the top. I realised last Thursday that this is where Jack works: “It’s only fun for the first week.”

You could see into the offices of nearby buildings, cubicles after cubicles of bland office spaces. Behind us the sun was setting.

“Imagine working in those buildings… you have such a wonderful view of the sunset everyday… but you’re probably too busy to notice…”

And so it goes.

We talked about how people (disguised as us) live beyond our means so that they can afford to go on nice ‘vuh-cay-shuns’ in Hawaii and stay in a nice resort for two weeks in a year while the rest of the days are spent facing a lifeless machine so that they can afford luxuries like an automobile and a house that is left vacant all day.

She’d just returned from a three-week stint in Hawaii where she eloped with a boy who sold drugs to get by; hitchhiked around the island, camped in the woods, stole from Dole pineapple plantations and worked on a coffee farm. That’s the traveler’s luck and heart captured in 24 days - “I think I know what I want to do in my life now” - meeting free spirits, and by the way her temporary boy runs around the country, almost homeless. How his heart still expands, with his dreams never shrinking.

So he can’t afford a Mai Tai, but really — he gets the same 365-sunrise-to-sunset days, wakes up in the morning and knows what he’s leaving. Who knows? Maybe sometimes that’s enough…