________ ________ ________
2018-08-25 / \/ \/ / \
/ __/ /_ _/
I was talking with Danielle last night / _/ / /
about this and that, funny memories and our \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
plans for the future, those kinds of things. / \/ \/ / \
We got on to reminiscing about our recent / _/ /_ _/
trips and I brought up the idea that I think /- / _/ /
a memory of our last time in Washington got \________/\________/\___/____/
filed wrong.
I mentioned it in passing back in May[1] but when we were driving home from
the Barcade in Alki, drunk and high and bewildered by the GPS directions, we
got stopped by a train somewhere in Seattle's industrial district. Let me
flesh out the drive in more detail.
We were heading from Alki to Capitol Hill to drop off a friend and then out
to Kent. The GPS got us on to the bridge fine but then took us down into the
industrial district, I think (sober) that the GPS was trying to tell us where
to get off the bridge but we kept taking the next exit rather than the one it
was indicating so it was then directing us back on to the bridge. Regardless,
we ended up somewhere down in the industrial district, driving around and
turned up a street between warehouses, vaguely in the direction of the onramp
to the bridge and crossing lights started sounding and we stopped for a train.
The train rolled past, slowing down and then came to a stop in front of us.
We waited a little while but eventually it clicked that it wasn't moving so
we turned around and carried on our ridiculous journey.
We ended up back on the bridge and made it to Capitol Hill. Capitol Hill is
one of my most favorite places in Seattle, if you're in the Seattle area and
want to know what inner-city Melbourne is like then check out Capitol Hill, it
really reminds me of suburbs like Fitzroy and Collingwood.
It seems reasonably safe at night too, I dunno. America has a bad
reputation of being unsafe and I'm sure it is more dangerous in general than
Australia is but I don't really feel like it's as bad as people make it seem.
TV and movies exaggerate things and then get taken literally, I suppose.
The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful, so back to my initial point;
the whole memory of that drive and in particular being stopped by the train
feel like they're stored wrong in my memory. It's almost like they're the
wrong temperature or color, it's hard to describe. The whole thing should
register as exhaustion and frustration and stress. I remember how I felt at
the time, it was funny because of the chemicals in me but I vividly remember
the negative feelings spiking through but now, when I think back on the night
none of that is there, I remember remembering feeling that way but if I think
on the memory softly I remember it with the same kind of resonance as, say, a
lazy evening in the gardens or a quiet morning walk on the beach.
Something happened (yeah, I know) when the memory was forming that tinted
it with such a curious feeling of warmth and safety and significance, it's
really strange.
It leaves me wondering if that's how I experienced it or if something got
lost in translation between intoxicated brain and sober brain.
It leaves me wondering if this feeling of comfort, of rolling with the
punches rather than freaking out and shutting down in a weird, out-of-your-
control situation is how people without anxiety experience the world.
It leaves me feeling a bit jealous.
[1] gopher://baud.baby/0/phlog/fs20180507.txt
EOF