Stepping Back in Time in Seattle
Plus, a question about respect and etiquette.
First off, I’ve got to say a big thank you to everyone who is reading and supporting me, this journey, and my blog. But a particularly big thank you to Jaymi, Suzy, and Joyce. Your comments really meant a lot to me.
There have been a couple of times now when my parents have gone to some big gathering of people and reported back that “everyone” told them they’ve been reading and loving my blog. Which I really didn’t believe at first, the very idea seems really surreal to me. I think I still write these things expecting five people to read them.
Being alone out on the road, I’ve definitely noticed myself getting a little stir-crazy from the isolation. Listening to numerous podcasts and hours of the same old songs everyday really doesn’t do as much to fill the silence as you might think (read: as I thought). But I find myself constantly thinking about what I want to say to you all in my next post, or in a later post. And knowing how many of you are reading and supporting and enjoying my ramblings, it does make me feel like I’ve got you all along with me (even if I am hopelessly behind in filling you in).
Speaking of which, I actually made it home! And I didn’t end up doing any of the things I mentioned wanting to do before I made it back in my last post. But, I also got home two days earlier than I planned — the extra 48 hours had to come from somewhere!
After I woke up in Jasper National Park on the 7th, I just really wanted to get home. I went further than I planned that day, ending up past both Banff and Glacier National Parks (despite having planned to spend a night in each of them). Then I drove the last 1,100 miles in two days.
I’m exhausted. But I’m home.
And, since I now have guaranteed WiFi, electricity, warmth, and all the other comforts that come with being home, I think it’s time to dive into Seattle! The final stop on the continental USA portion of the journey up.
It only took us a month and a half (and the rest of the trip) to get here.
Honestly, I’m trying to remember where the day went. Particularly considering everything we did the day before, I feel like what I remember doing on July 17th couldn’t possibly have filled the entire day.
For instance, I remember we got to the city in early-afternoon. By the time we’d parked, I think it was around 2 pm? But Seattle is only a two hour drive from Mt. Rainier, and I don’t think we left that late. But I suppose with a few leg-stretching stops and a bit of a late start it makes sense. Apparently nothing happened that I felt I needed to take pictures of, so it probably doesn’t matter.
At any rate, we arrived in Seattle and had a heck of a time finding parking. Not because there aren’t any parking spaces; I was actually surprised by how many there were. But because downtown is all one-way streets, and we always seemed to be on the wrong side of the street, and the traffic was too dense to maneuver Danica to any of the places that appeared, and the insane mesh of one-ways made it impossible to back-track.
We finally found a spot a little ways away from Pike Place, where the crowds had thinned a bit. And then, with a bit of wandering and hoping, we made our way to Pike Place Market.
We walked around for a while, enjoying the quirky shops and the wide array of merchandise (if you can think of it, someone there is selling it). We browsed a shop filled with antique magazines and other paper artifacts, and I bought some chocolate in an old-fashioned-style candy store (in a moment of weakness).
Around 3 o’clock I knew it was time to get to work. That morning, I’d decided that I was going to get a blog post up if it killed me. Aside from Pike Place Market, the only thing on the itinerary for Seattle was Smith Tower, which has a happy hour from 4–6 pm. Since it was a short walk from Pike Place, Zach and I decided to meet up again at 4:00, giving us plenty of time to get there and enjoy the discounts, and leaving me about an hour to get the post done.
Iwant to go a bit off-topic here, because of what I said before about this blog being a place to just discuss what comes to mind. Because the thing I remember most about Seattle came and sat down next to me shortly after I was getting in the rhythm of working out the blog post, began asking me questions, and wouldn’t leave.
Truth be told, I’m pretty anxious about getting this deep into what ultimately amounts to a minor incident. I’m worried about what it says about me, that I was still thinking about this a month later, or what you all might think I’m trying to say about this incident. So just to be clear, I’m just genuinely curious how people who aren’t me view it. Because it is minor. It’s the sort of thing that just happens everyday as we all go about our lives. But it bugs me, and I can’t quite put my finger on why.
I’ve gone back and forth about whether to include it or not, but ultimately, this is the first time I have felt like this blog is more than a glorified diary, so here it is:
Basically, it’s 3:15, and I’m engrossed in my work. The Starbucks is packed, so I hardly even notice when a man sits down next to me. I kind of glance at him, he looks like he’s waiting for his drink, and I go back to my frenzied typing.
He says hello, introduces himself, asks how my day is going. And I like talking to people, and a big part of this experience is me wanting to meet people and find out how they live, what they think. So sure, it isn’t a great time, but I really don’t mind chatting with him for a few minutes while I hunt down the already-edited pictures on my phone and send them to my laptop.
I tell him I’m traveling to Alaska with a friend. He tells me about some places I should check out in Seattle. But suddenly I’m glancing at the time and it’s 3:30 and I’m pretty sure I’ve still got what would normally be an hour’s worth of work left, with half an hour to finish it, so when he asks what I do, I tell him, “I’m a writer. I’m actually working on a blog post right now. It’s got to be finished by four, so I kind of need to,” I gesture at the computer and go back to work.
And he keeps talking. To be fair, my attempt to beg off wasn’t explicitly clear.
I try to pay attention while figuring out where I’d left off writing when he first interrupted and working out the next sentence. And now I feel guilty, because he seems like a nice guy and I think if I talked to him longer he might have some interesting stories to tell, and finding interesting stories was the whole point of this van-deal. I’m wondering if it makes me a hypocrite to only want to find those stories when it’s convenient for me, rather than when they walk up and say “hello.”
But I’m also starting to get really anxious about how far behind I am on blog posts, and I know I need to get one up. So I try again: “I’m sorry; I’m enjoying our conversation, but this really has to be finished by four.”
He sort of nods and acts like he understands… and then starts talking again, asking me questions. I don’t want to be rude; I like to think I generally try to treat people with courtesy and respect, if nothing else. And although telling him, point blank, to leave me alone is tempting, the idea makes me uncomfortable. So I try to deflect him again, this time pointing out that it’s 3:40 and I have twenty minutes to finish something I expect to take a good deal longer than that.
No dice. And, again, aside from ignoring my attempts to work, he seems like a nice guy, so I finally offer him my business card, telling him he could contact me later and maybe we could talk over coffee when I came back through Seattle.
He takes it happily, and keeps talking to me.
3:45. I’m frantically typing, still trying to keep one ear on the conversation so I can respond and not come off like I’m just ignoring him completely. I point out that he now has my number, and I really can’t talk at the moment, so if he would just text me later, that would be great.
At which point he tells me that he doesn’t have my number, and I begin to wonder if I should have given him my business card at all. I point out that it’s on the card, argue with him for a minute until he pulls it back out and sees that, yes, he does have my number, and proceeds to text me, presumably to make sure it’s actually my number. I show him his text on my phone, and tell him I really have to get back to work, which he, you guessed it, ignores.
3:50, I look up and see Zach coming across the street, and I really start to panic, because he’s early, and I’m nowhere near finished.
“You’re early,” I bite out through my teeth.
Zach holds his hands up, apparently sensing my disdain for his punctuality. “Sorry. I didn’t have time to find another bookstore. No rush.”
Not wanting two men watching over my shoulder while I worked, I point across the street. “There. Bookstore. It’ll probably be more like fifteen or twenty minutes.”
He assures me it isn’t a problem and tells me to relax, and leaves. The guy, who had been talking my ear off for half an hour and ignoring my every attempt to get him to let me do my job, is finally quiet. I don’t even care at this point, I’m frantically blowing through formatting, barely even paying attention to what I’m bolding or making into headings and just praying it makes some sort of sense when I’m finished.
“I’ll text you,” the guy says, about 60 seconds after Zach walks out the door, and leaves.
Honestly, that was the first time that it even crossed my mind that I wasn’t the one being rude. Because the second he found out the friend I was traveling with was a guy who actually respected my need to work, he left. And it sent a resentful flash of heat to my head before I refocused on the post, and hammered it out in what I think was probably record time.
It was after 4:00 when it went up, but it went up. And I felt like celebrating, which was good, since we were headed to Happy Hour.
Until I was driving though the Yukon, realized Seattle was the next post, and started thinking my way through the day, and got totally stuck on this incident. Particularly after I got through some of those internal hurdles about what I think others expect of me, and my own insecurities and what kind of person I want to be. Because I’ve always wanted to be the kind of woman who stands up for herself. Those are the women I’ve always admired. And I really didn’t do that. Looking back, I think I would have been well within my rights to tell him, point-blank, to go away. Particularly after telling him I needed to work didn’t have any effect. Especially after telling him we’d talk later didn’t make a difference.
And it really bugs me that he ignored my requests for the better part of an hour but left as soon as he realized I was traveling with a man. It got me thinking about whether or not this happens to men, too. If you’re male, tell me: have you ever been working in a public place and not been able to get someone to leave you alone simply by saying you were working and needed to continue working?
I was wondering: do you think he ignored my repeated requests to be left alone because he genuinely didn’t get the message, because he wasn’t actually listening to what I was saying, or because he just didn’t care? Do you think me being a woman had anything to do with it? Or maybe he thought that, as a writer, my work wasn’t really “work,” or my deadline wasn’t as solid as I implied? Is it my fault for trying to work in a public place, and I can’t expect people to respect my requests to be left alone when in a public place?
I don’t want to jump right in and say “this only happens to women,” because I’ve never been a man, and therefore I don’t really know. (My friend Gordon tells me it’s certainly happened to him before, so there’s a point in that corner.)
Maybe this is just an issue with respect across the board, rather than respect for women (though I’ll admit, I expect it’s probably more of a problem for women). And to that point, where do you think I should have drawn the line? Did I handle it the right way, by trying to keep being respectful towards him despite his complete lack of respect for me and my work? Or should I have stood up for myself by being explicitly clear in my request for him to leave? Was I not being clear enough, could my meaning have been muddled? Is this just a world where we can’t expect respect and need to demand it? Is it weird to want a world where respect is the norm?
I want to understand what was going on there. And I’m particularly interested in figuring out if this speaks to issues with respect towards women or just in general. So I’d love to hear your thoughts.
And in the meantime, I’m going to rave about Smith Tower.
I highly recommend it as a tourist attraction in Seattle. It’s got everything going for it. The exhibit is fun, interactive, and informative. You select a character and follow them through the 20s scenes, discovering what it would have been like to live in Smith Tower back when it opened. At the end, you take a ride in a manually-operated elevator (complete with attendant, who enthralled us with comedic trivia during the ride) to a prohibition-styled bar and restaurant on the observation deck. The views of the city are phenomenal, and if you paid attention in the exhibit, you can earn yourself a discount by telling your server an answer to one of the questions on your character card.
Basically, it’s educational, fun, affordable dining with great theming and a better view. If you’ve only got a few hours in Seattle, Smith Tower is the way to make the most of them.
Zach had a beer, I ordered a glass of wine, and we split the Artisan Cheese Plate (which was phenomenal. There was a soft cheese and a jam that tasted heavenly together). We enjoyed the view until 6 o’clock, then returned to Danica and got back on the road.
Zach picked out our stopping point for the evening: Larrabee State Park. The drive out was stunning, another study in lush forest and ocean sunsets. It was dark when we arrived, but the camp host made sure to check in with us and ensure we were taken care of, even making change for us to put in the fee envelope.
We opened up a mini bottle of champagne I’d been toting around, and toasted our last night in the lower 48.
We made it to the border! Hopefully, I can start to move things along a little more quickly now. The next post is going to cover four whole days! In the meantime, I’m looking forward to unpacking and scrubbing Danica top to bottom.
