Seattle!
I can't quite see the Space Needle from my window, but I know it's there, like five blocks from the hotel. Half an hour of driving would take me right to Andrew's house...
Don't worry, I'm not that stupid.
I couldn't post yesterday 'cause the hotel's wireless didn't work, so I'll catch up quickly. After South Dakota came Wyoming, which had a much more pleasant vibe eminating from the area around I-90; hardly any billboards except right around the couple large towns, and bigger and bigger mountains. So beautiful! I saw my first snow-peaked mountains, and took many many blurry distant photos out the window of the car. I'll never look at the little hills that pass for mountains in the Northeast the same way again...
Nothing much of note happened yesterday other than the scenery. I had planned out a day for us, since we were passing the most sparsely populated, and hence hardest to find food in, region of the drive. We had lunch (quesadillas) at a Perkins in Rapid City, amidst signs pointing us toward Mount Rushmore. My dad says he finds Mount Rushmore "grotesque", and I'm inclined to agree. There's something creepy about the idea. And, as he said, why spoil a perfectly good mountain? Still, as an engineering feat I suppose it's one of the most impressive. We didn't bother to go see it. Dinner was at an Olive Garden in Billings, Montana, which was by far the most built-up town we'd passed since, oh, possibly Chicago, or the suburbs thereof. It had a Barns & Noble, and strip malls with things like David's Bridal and other familiar chains.
Another reason I couldn't live in the middle of the country, in addition to the aesthetic claustrophobia of being landlocked, is just that it would take so long to get anywhere. Having grown up at the center of the world--or what feels very much like the center of the world--I would have a hard time getting used to having to drive hours to get to a large bookstore, not to mention an Indian or Chinese restaurant (which would take more than hours), or an art museum, or a baseball game, or an international airport. Where I live, I can pretty much find any kind of store I want within an hour, three or four major big cities and cultural centers within three hours, and if I flew I could get to any airport in the world within two days easily. That's just not true if you live on a small farm in Montana. I think that would bother me.
Again, I'm not accusing the people there of being boring or culturally deprived or out of touch with the world or anything. I don't know anything about the people there. And if I'd grown up in that environment, I'm sure it wouldn't bother me. It would just be an adjustment, and one I don't feel I'd want to make. I feel much closer to home in Seattle, being sort of right at a port of the transportation network of the world, than I did when we were technically several hundred miles closer to home. It actually made me feel happy when we crossed into Washington and suddenly there were malls and stores and chains I'd heard of, in the suburbs of Spokane--even though another part of me obviously regrets marring the amazing mountainous landscape with suburbia. But I am a suburb girl at heart, there's no escaping that.
I was also thinking how self-perpetuating the cultural divides of the country must be. Obviously, this isn't a very original thought. But driving through the midwest and northwest, feeling so uncomfortable and out of place and thinking how, beautiful as it is, I could never live there...I was just thinking how, because I feel out of place already, I wouldn't take the time to live there and come to understand the nuances of the culture better, or to influence it at all with my own worldview. And probably to someone who grew up in the mountains of the northwest, the big coastal cities would feel big and confusing and too loud and too crowded and too dirty--and why not; they are confusing and loud and crowded and dirty. But then that person might not take the time to live there and experience that culture and all the ideas of the people there. And it's all very natural but it means we have so many people in the country who don't know or understand or trust each other, and since the instinct is to stick to what feels right and familiar and supportive, it's hard to ever change that. So yeah, it's a pretty obvious fact, but it just sort of struck me when I was in a part of the country that I really don't feel I relate to or fit in to.
By the way, who left the first comment on the previous post? I couldn't tell if it was someone I know or not, lol. In any case, I didn't mean to sound like I was judging any individual people by anything at all. I didn't particularly interact with any people in South Dakota, and any that I did were perfectly nice and our interactions were superficial. All I was reacting to was the vibe I felt from the billboards and from the content of the tourist attractions and the decor of the buildings. Individual people are obviously complicated, but there's such a thing as the primary cultural attitude that a place projects, and that projected attitude felt hostile and unappealing to me.
We stayed at a hotel in Bozeman, Montana, which was perfectly fine except for the lack of internet access. Oh, and the wind! It was amazing! I do so adore wind...
This morning I woke up with a fluttery, tight feeling in my chest, and I've been fighting it all day. I've been an interested observer of my own psychology leading up to this trip; I had a few days of panicking about it, several weeks ago, and then I surpressed it pretty successfully, expressing my anxiety mainly in the form of over-organization, like making up inventory of all the clothes I was bringing, and about five different TO DO lists in slightly different formats. Driving along, so far, I hadn't felt anxious--I think it just wasn't sinking in. This morning, knowing that our goal for the day was Seattle itself, the anxiety finally rose to the surface. It manifests itself in little things, making a big deal out of them--like what music to listen to, or where I put my cell phone, or where exactly we eat, or whether my dad passes a slow truck. I tried to control it the best I could, and my dad and my brother were very understanding. I think I must react to intense anxiety by simultaneously desiring a lot of control and a lot of guidance. In other words, my tendency to be indecisive and to fret about making good decisions about little things that don't really matter increases, and so does my impatience with other people when their actions don't make sense to me. Like whenever I noticed my dad looking intently in a particular direction, I would have this increased heartbeat, sort of anxious shallow breathing reaction until he explained what he was looking at. And I got more impatient at people pausing before the end of their sentence, or losing their train of thought. After dinner my brother let me sit in front because I'd been having a hard time not getting frustrated with his following my instructions about the music player. When I momentarily couldn't find my cell phone, I felt panicked. It's kind of weird. I controlled it as much as I could and did a lot of apologizing.
Now, I say "anxiety" for lack of a better word...but it's not really quite right. I'm excited, so excited, and scared but not really because I think it will go badly; just because, well, it's a big deal. But I keep stressing about exactly what I'm going to wear, how my hair will look, when I can shave my legs...I've even been using all these body lotions and facial cleansers and creams that I never usually use. Will any of that have the slightest effect on what Andrew thinks of me? Of course not. I mean, I want to basically look as nice as I can, but does it matter if I use the best kind of body wash? No. But it just feels really important somehow. Maybe I'm just looking for something I feel I can control, as an outlet for a general feeling of...helplessness? Powerlessness? Sometimes I tell Andrew that in a way, I could feel more secure if I knew there was some specific reason he loved me--if it was because I used a certain perfume, or because I sent him a logic puzzle each week, or because I read him all the Amelia Peabody mysteries. Or something. Something where I'd know, as long as I keep doing this, he has to keep loving me. Of course, it doesn't work that way, and couldn't possibly work that way, and would mean so much less if it did. But as it is, all he can tell me is to keep being me...and it's hard to have faith in that. So maybe tricking myself into thinking that what clothes I wear and what lotion I've smeared on my face and the exact shape of my eyebrows really matters is just a way of giving myself something I can control.
Deep, huh? :-)
Meanwhile, I'm starting to fall asleep so I'll try to stop babbling. Now that I'm in Seattle I'm not feeling the fluttery feeling anymore, although I know it'll come back. The next two days are the torturous part--being here without being able to see him! Just a half hour drive...he's right there...so damn close!! Gah!
From one of the rest areas we stopped at, you could just barely glimpse Mount Rainier in the haze. I fell in love with it. I think that I love mountains, like real mountains. They give me this rush of awe and aesthetic joy. I can't wait to see Mount Rainier in the daytime from Seattle. I do so hope I like this city. I just might have to live around here someday... ;-)
Thanks for the comments! Love you all.
Don't worry, I'm not that stupid.
I couldn't post yesterday 'cause the hotel's wireless didn't work, so I'll catch up quickly. After South Dakota came Wyoming, which had a much more pleasant vibe eminating from the area around I-90; hardly any billboards except right around the couple large towns, and bigger and bigger mountains. So beautiful! I saw my first snow-peaked mountains, and took many many blurry distant photos out the window of the car. I'll never look at the little hills that pass for mountains in the Northeast the same way again...
Nothing much of note happened yesterday other than the scenery. I had planned out a day for us, since we were passing the most sparsely populated, and hence hardest to find food in, region of the drive. We had lunch (quesadillas) at a Perkins in Rapid City, amidst signs pointing us toward Mount Rushmore. My dad says he finds Mount Rushmore "grotesque", and I'm inclined to agree. There's something creepy about the idea. And, as he said, why spoil a perfectly good mountain? Still, as an engineering feat I suppose it's one of the most impressive. We didn't bother to go see it. Dinner was at an Olive Garden in Billings, Montana, which was by far the most built-up town we'd passed since, oh, possibly Chicago, or the suburbs thereof. It had a Barns & Noble, and strip malls with things like David's Bridal and other familiar chains.
Another reason I couldn't live in the middle of the country, in addition to the aesthetic claustrophobia of being landlocked, is just that it would take so long to get anywhere. Having grown up at the center of the world--or what feels very much like the center of the world--I would have a hard time getting used to having to drive hours to get to a large bookstore, not to mention an Indian or Chinese restaurant (which would take more than hours), or an art museum, or a baseball game, or an international airport. Where I live, I can pretty much find any kind of store I want within an hour, three or four major big cities and cultural centers within three hours, and if I flew I could get to any airport in the world within two days easily. That's just not true if you live on a small farm in Montana. I think that would bother me.
Again, I'm not accusing the people there of being boring or culturally deprived or out of touch with the world or anything. I don't know anything about the people there. And if I'd grown up in that environment, I'm sure it wouldn't bother me. It would just be an adjustment, and one I don't feel I'd want to make. I feel much closer to home in Seattle, being sort of right at a port of the transportation network of the world, than I did when we were technically several hundred miles closer to home. It actually made me feel happy when we crossed into Washington and suddenly there were malls and stores and chains I'd heard of, in the suburbs of Spokane--even though another part of me obviously regrets marring the amazing mountainous landscape with suburbia. But I am a suburb girl at heart, there's no escaping that.
I was also thinking how self-perpetuating the cultural divides of the country must be. Obviously, this isn't a very original thought. But driving through the midwest and northwest, feeling so uncomfortable and out of place and thinking how, beautiful as it is, I could never live there...I was just thinking how, because I feel out of place already, I wouldn't take the time to live there and come to understand the nuances of the culture better, or to influence it at all with my own worldview. And probably to someone who grew up in the mountains of the northwest, the big coastal cities would feel big and confusing and too loud and too crowded and too dirty--and why not; they are confusing and loud and crowded and dirty. But then that person might not take the time to live there and experience that culture and all the ideas of the people there. And it's all very natural but it means we have so many people in the country who don't know or understand or trust each other, and since the instinct is to stick to what feels right and familiar and supportive, it's hard to ever change that. So yeah, it's a pretty obvious fact, but it just sort of struck me when I was in a part of the country that I really don't feel I relate to or fit in to.
By the way, who left the first comment on the previous post? I couldn't tell if it was someone I know or not, lol. In any case, I didn't mean to sound like I was judging any individual people by anything at all. I didn't particularly interact with any people in South Dakota, and any that I did were perfectly nice and our interactions were superficial. All I was reacting to was the vibe I felt from the billboards and from the content of the tourist attractions and the decor of the buildings. Individual people are obviously complicated, but there's such a thing as the primary cultural attitude that a place projects, and that projected attitude felt hostile and unappealing to me.
We stayed at a hotel in Bozeman, Montana, which was perfectly fine except for the lack of internet access. Oh, and the wind! It was amazing! I do so adore wind...
This morning I woke up with a fluttery, tight feeling in my chest, and I've been fighting it all day. I've been an interested observer of my own psychology leading up to this trip; I had a few days of panicking about it, several weeks ago, and then I surpressed it pretty successfully, expressing my anxiety mainly in the form of over-organization, like making up inventory of all the clothes I was bringing, and about five different TO DO lists in slightly different formats. Driving along, so far, I hadn't felt anxious--I think it just wasn't sinking in. This morning, knowing that our goal for the day was Seattle itself, the anxiety finally rose to the surface. It manifests itself in little things, making a big deal out of them--like what music to listen to, or where I put my cell phone, or where exactly we eat, or whether my dad passes a slow truck. I tried to control it the best I could, and my dad and my brother were very understanding. I think I must react to intense anxiety by simultaneously desiring a lot of control and a lot of guidance. In other words, my tendency to be indecisive and to fret about making good decisions about little things that don't really matter increases, and so does my impatience with other people when their actions don't make sense to me. Like whenever I noticed my dad looking intently in a particular direction, I would have this increased heartbeat, sort of anxious shallow breathing reaction until he explained what he was looking at. And I got more impatient at people pausing before the end of their sentence, or losing their train of thought. After dinner my brother let me sit in front because I'd been having a hard time not getting frustrated with his following my instructions about the music player. When I momentarily couldn't find my cell phone, I felt panicked. It's kind of weird. I controlled it as much as I could and did a lot of apologizing.
Now, I say "anxiety" for lack of a better word...but it's not really quite right. I'm excited, so excited, and scared but not really because I think it will go badly; just because, well, it's a big deal. But I keep stressing about exactly what I'm going to wear, how my hair will look, when I can shave my legs...I've even been using all these body lotions and facial cleansers and creams that I never usually use. Will any of that have the slightest effect on what Andrew thinks of me? Of course not. I mean, I want to basically look as nice as I can, but does it matter if I use the best kind of body wash? No. But it just feels really important somehow. Maybe I'm just looking for something I feel I can control, as an outlet for a general feeling of...helplessness? Powerlessness? Sometimes I tell Andrew that in a way, I could feel more secure if I knew there was some specific reason he loved me--if it was because I used a certain perfume, or because I sent him a logic puzzle each week, or because I read him all the Amelia Peabody mysteries. Or something. Something where I'd know, as long as I keep doing this, he has to keep loving me. Of course, it doesn't work that way, and couldn't possibly work that way, and would mean so much less if it did. But as it is, all he can tell me is to keep being me...and it's hard to have faith in that. So maybe tricking myself into thinking that what clothes I wear and what lotion I've smeared on my face and the exact shape of my eyebrows really matters is just a way of giving myself something I can control.
Deep, huh? :-)
Meanwhile, I'm starting to fall asleep so I'll try to stop babbling. Now that I'm in Seattle I'm not feeling the fluttery feeling anymore, although I know it'll come back. The next two days are the torturous part--being here without being able to see him! Just a half hour drive...he's right there...so damn close!! Gah!
From one of the rest areas we stopped at, you could just barely glimpse Mount Rainier in the haze. I fell in love with it. I think that I love mountains, like real mountains. They give me this rush of awe and aesthetic joy. I can't wait to see Mount Rainier in the daytime from Seattle. I do so hope I like this city. I just might have to live around here someday... ;-)
Thanks for the comments! Love you all.
Labels: Seattle Trip
posted by Ashila at 3:17 AM
1 Comments:
I'll add more later mind you. I'm falling asleep it's late here. It's funny that you mentioned the idea of being land locked as a bad thing. On the other hand, for me when I was by the ocean, it was peaceful, but...I wanted to see something across from it. A part of me needs that feeling of land around me. Proably why I would go crazy if I had to live near a large body of water.
It's all in a sensation, I guess. My aunt lives in colorado, though the last time we were out there I was 8, I don't know why, but I think, if given enough time, I would be able to get used to the open planes. Sleeping there though, I don't think I could do it. I need my noise, as weird as that sounds. I can't stand quiet, quiet to me is something that I can do without.
There's a great book that I have to point out to you, Its speciffically about Wyoming and this lady that lived out there for a while. It really shows you in a sense what it's like to be out in those plains. I think the best thing about the small towns and such is that ther's no light pollution, just you and the stars...and yes the animals and insects. But still it's such a beautiful site.
Oh It's funny you mentioned Seattle as the transportation hub. If you rememeber, the train model showed that it's a direct connection to Chicago. So two hubs beween the midwest, it's actually quiet cool. In some ways I think that it's almost like the mid west, I mean that part of it, is it's own little country. Oh did you know that Wyoming is the least popuplated state? And um, not to disagree with you guys, but I think that Rushmore is quiet a feat. I mean, to make something that big that prescise out of rock? Crazy horse monument is another one that I'm impressed with.
Anyway, reading tomorrow more. Seeyou.
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