Letting go of my dream life / the second last chapter

206 465 0540. I have loved my Seattle number. The figures. In what order they come. The shape of it. The sound of it. The fit in my mouth while saying it out loud. I can even whisper it just to come close. We, a perfect match.

206 made me a Seattleite.  465 0540 was me.

After cleaning out my Seattle storage and selling the car (although the money for it actually never showed up…) in summer 2017 I have continued letting go. Last year i closed my bank account and this July I cancelled my Seattle Times subscription. Although the paper is really generous when it comes to headlines and preambles, even a free article now and then so I can still keep myself pretty updated.

I am not sure when I bought my first phone in Seattle, actually my first cell phone ever. It might have been in 2000. 206 465 0540. Love at first sight. A Pay as You Go of course, since I wasn’t a resident. Through all these years I have seen to to always have some money on the account, that’s how I’ve been able to keep the same number. 

During the years I was commuting between my two homes being back in Seattle 2-3 times a year I refilled when I was there. Later, I’ve saved my number every September. 100 $ and I’ve been good to go another year.

The last few years though I have hesitated. Will I ever be back? No, probably not. But what if? Hope. Am I allowed to keep the hope? And so I have. Last year I missed the date with two days. In panic I called ATT and a kind agent helped me getting my number back. My number.

September 7 was the date 2019. And I didn’t refill. It was time, finally. Letting go of my Seattle citizenship. One day I will call that number. Kind of to meet an ex’s new woman. But not now. When I am ready.

I have totally accepted that my Seattle dream life will never happen. The time for it is way over. It’s harder for me to accept the fact that it did not happen. I’m not dwelling over it though, not any more. I am keeping Seattle on a distance.

Yet. A couple of days ago an evening-lit-up Seattle downtown picture passed by on Facebook. They do of course, most every day. But something in this pic just pulled me in. I was standing at 5th Avenue a chilly December night after having a delicious dinner at Palomino. And it was like someone punched me in my stomach. I lost my breath.  Overpowered by the insight of how deep and strong my feelings for Seattle are. And how I am surpressing them.

Giving up my Seattle number is an important and necessary act. And the second last chapter in the process of letting go. What’s the last chapter then? Well, my Tempur Pedic mattress is still sitting in my dear friends Matt and Elizabeth’s basement on Capitol Hill…

Letting go of my dream life/part 2

It’s actually hard to grasp that it’s done. But it is!

Friday morning Trouble 2 and Audrey vacated my storage unit in Seattle. They brought the sack with the Tempure Pedic mattress and the three storage boxes to the room on 15th and Marion they are renting for their stay.

I had been preparing. Already a week ago I had digged out my Seattle note book. On the last page the list with everything I kept in Seattle.

This is one of my things. I need to prepare. I need to be as ready as I can be. This counts for difficult things as well as fun. But of course difficulties needs a higher level of preparation.

So, that first evening with the list in my Seattle note book I was reading every item. Slowly. Feeling them. The Kalaloch sweatshirt bought on our first stay at the lodge. The cereal bowl from my Boyer Avenue home. The multicolor thick beach blanket - how many afternoons in Gaswork Park? The grayish green knitted halter neck tank from the Fremont market, so special to me.The ice tea pitcher, brand new from my last stay telling I was planning on coming back many times. And so on. My itinerant Seattle home.

Swedes dress in light colors in the summer. We completely change our wardrobe in a way Seattleites don’t. Personally I love white. I’m a white lady. Complemented with pastels and some bright surprises.

Wearing those colors in Seattle makes you an exclamation mark in the beige/grey wardrobe of the Emerald City. I’ve always found it odd how bright the city is and how dimmed the inhabitants dress. But my home grown analyzes is that the nine months a year of wet and grey skies and ground sticks in the soul, reflecting the dress code.

The first years in Seattle I stuck to my Swedish summer colors. I was still a tourist. But as time went by I noticed myself picking up beige tanks at Nordstrom Brass Plum as well the finest latte shades of silk blends at Banana Republic. I was becoming a Seattleite. I wasn’t comfortable being an exclamation mark in my new home town any more.

The clothes I’ve been keeping in my storage have all been the Seattle palette. I wouldn’t even wear them in Sweden. It’s something about the quality of the summer light here that doesn’t work with fifty shades of beige.

Therefore, in this separation I was about to go through, I was thinking of giving away my favorite Seattle clothes. That’s what I was preparing for. Going through the list once more. But in the hours before the actual clean out this Friday I changed my mind. What if? What if I at some point will be able to return to Seattle one last time? And my Seattle clothes are gone. There is always that hope… No, I would have Trouble 2 and Audrey bring them back to Sweden, I would put them in a special box and just keep them.

At my 8PM I waived to Trouble 2 and Audrey over Skype. Hi there! Look at that downtown view from you window, wow! And then: okay, lets do this!

We sorted all my things in four piles: back to Sweden, throw away, Zoe and Becca - would they like this?, and keep in Seattle. Oh, yes, I forgot, my dearest Matt and Elizabeth had most kindly offered a corner somewhere in their Capitol Hill home to store my mattress!!

Trouble 2 is a quite slow and methodical young man, Audrey the exact opposite. Together we went through box after box. The U.S. domestic mail sack where I am keeping my mattress is a magical storage, this I know since before. And in the end “we” managed to squeeze in not only the blow dryer, electric tooth brush and the beach blanket, but also the top 5 of my Seattle summer wardrobe into the sack!

So this was successful indeed! Also, I did not go all emotional but went through this event cheery and without shedding a tear. I was quiet proud of myself I have to say.

I know for sure this would not have been possible without my mental preparation. Grieving my things in beforehand, so to speak. And of course not without Trouble 2 and Audrey’s good spirit, for which I am very grateful.

So, now I don’t have a storage in Seattle anymore. Check! And I feel lighter. But there is more to come…

The Nordmaling and Robertsfors of Seattle. And why.

When I first came to Seattle in 1993 I was struck by how the city was laid out between the waters of Elliot Bay to the west, Lake Washington to the east and around Lake Union in the middle of the city. The hills and the waters made it easy for the eye to navigate. Queen Anne Hill, Capitol Hill, First Hill, West Seattle over the bay. In the middle the dense Downtown as the obvious city center surrounded by neighborhoods were people lived their lives.

I was fascinated by the neighborhoods. Wallingford, Madrona, Madison, Central District, Ballard, Montlake, Queen Anne. I remember writing letters (!) home trying to explain how Seattle had a city center surrounded by small-towns like Nordmaling, Robertsfors, Vindeln and Vännäs, places of about 2-3000 inhabitants when I grew up in Västerbotten Region where Umeå is the main city. Places with local downtowns, schools, shops, most everything you needed. Built up by single homes, mostly.

In 1993 the Seattle population wasn’t far from 600 000, Greater Seattle about 2 million. In 2014 about 668 000 and Greater Seattle 3.6 million people. I’ve been thinking the fact the City of Seattle hardly been growing during these 20 years is because it’s squeezed in between the waters and have very little chance to expand. And the expansion that’s after all been happening is upwards with the Downtown condo rises. It’s not until this summer I have learned that I’ve partly been right in my guesses, and why.

The Seattle neighborhoods are protected single-family zones! I don’t know why I never even questioned the fact that the Nordmalings and Robertsfors of Seattle are only residential areas with quite streets and basket hoops in the back yards and alleys, although they are in the middle of the fastest growing major city in the U.S.! Maybe because Wallingford, Madrona and Ballard all have their souls, their communities, their self-evident space in the fabric that is Seattle. 

They say a city without building cranes is a city without a future. In that case both my cities sure have a future. For as long as I have known Seattle, building cranes have been a part of the skyline. That’s also true for Umeå now.

Due to my body restrictions I unfortunately haven’t been back in Seattle for three years. That stay was though, speaking in terms of getting out and about, my most difficult one. I stayed in lower Queen Anne in a penthouse with a killer view (google Seattle views and the first one you will find was mine!), but it became a tower from which I dreaded to climb down. Partly because of my back, but mainly because of the location. Well, the location on the map is great, close to Downtown, but to drive from there to Downtown or Capitol Hill through the Mercer (street) mess, was a nightmare of road work, traffic gridlock and construction sites. I feel claustrophobic even thinking about it.

Yet it seems like the three years after 2012 have totally crazed Seattle. Amazon is taking over the former wear house waste land (umebor, think Västerslätt) South Lake Union, made it it’s campus adding more than 15 000 workers to Seattle with capacity of 30 000 within e few years. Last time this kind of company development happened in the Seattle area was Microsoft in the nineties, although in Redmond east of Lake Washington. Now it’s happening right in the core of the tight Seattle city center with already packed freeways and over-crowded buses. As much as I miss Seattle and always long for the Emerald City, this picture makes the claustrophobia take a seat on my chest.

So, where will everyone live? Downtown condo high rises, yes. But, it might be that the Seattle neighborhoods will be changing. The single-family zoning may very well be in jeopardy. That’s in the Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s panel on housing affordability, because here is another issue. As Seattle’s booming is going through the roof, who but the Amazons and the Microsofties will afford to live here? A lot of the new high-rises planned for Seattle aren’t condos but apartments (unthinkable in the nineties, only losers were renting), because people just can’t afford to buy on this market anymore!

Wallingford, Madrona and Ballard might look different in the future. In the recent draft  of the panel on housing affordability’s recommendations, the committee argued for converting Seattle’s single-family zones into “low-density residential zones” allowing more types of housing, such as “small-lot dwellings, cottages or courtyard housing, duplexes and triplexes.” 

I can see how this stirs up feelings all around Seattle. The neighborhoods are beautiful and generally safe. Privileged, if you so will, some very privileged. To buy a home in either of those neighborhoods is money. But maybe, if the development is restricted to mother-in-law backyard units and modest town houses, it won't be worse than tearing down a bungalow replacing it with an oversized McMansion blocking the view? And might it add something to diversity?

Now, is building cranes always a sign for a a better future? Well, that’s a different topic.