Seattle

I had a fantastic weekend.  My cousin Todd and his wife are temporarily living in Seattle.  When I got off the ferry Friday morning I drove to their little place on the edge of Lake Washington.  Todd has been my best friend for as long as I can remember.  We are two months apart in age and for most of our growing up years we would do anything to have the chance to be together.  He lived in Bozeman and I in Billings and through the years we rode with some pretty odd people just so we could spend time together.  Most of the time we were climbing trees, building forts under every tree and in every abandoned building on the farm, digging through junk heaps to furnish our forts, floating the canal, chasing cows, playing runaway orphans, hiking to the chalky bank, and as we grew older, jet skiing, cliff jumping and camping.  He’s still one of my very best friends and every time I’m in Montana I make a point to spend time with him and his wife and kids.  Right now he is in Seattle undergoing chemo for colon cancer.  I was nervous about seeing him and about how things would be different.  When I walked in the door he had his chemo pump working and he is thinner than he was, but one of the first things he said was, “Hey, Erin’s cousin is letting us use his boat.  Let’s go out on the water this weekend.”  Definitely still the same Todd.

 

The blue angels were in town and we watched them from the water 2 days in a row.  It was incredible.  They were flying right above us so close that it felt like you could reach up and touch them.  Our other cousin Tyson and his girlfriend joined us and we swam and played in the water.  Right before it was time to go back Hannah, Todd’s 3-year-old daughter, decided the two of us needed a ride on the tube.  Off we went.  The water was pretty rough and it was hard work holding onto the tube and Hannah.  All of a sudden the wake of another boat hit us and off I went, not head over heels, but rather heels over head off the back of the tube, Hannah in my arms.  I managed to hang onto her and we came up sputtering.  She panicked when she saw the boat driving away from us, but actually laughed when she realized we weren’t being left.  She’s a tough little cookie.  I came out sputtering and coughing, having swallowed about half the lake and inhaled the rest up my nose, but laughing also.  I figure everyone has to get bucked off something every now and then. 

I finished my time in Seattle having coffee with a friend from Denver.  He drove over to spend an hour and half with me and we just talked and laughed and caught up on our lives and the movies we hadn’t yet discussed.  Casey is my friend who I can go to a movie with and he laughs at all the same things even if no one else in the theater does.  I love that. 

It was fun to spend a week of anonymity.  Traveling through Alaska and being on the ferry and knowing that no one else knew me.  But it was also comforting to walk into a place with shared memory.  Being with people who have known me my whole life or people who think the same way I do.  It’s nice to have that break to be able to just sit and breathe and rest knowing you are with people who love you no matter what.