I've been doing this
a little while now guys. By 'this' I mean the traveling and the working, and
th- well, you know… that sort of stuff you probably know me for. But sometimes
it gets a little heavy. Sometimes my drive to go out and adventures gets a little
bit worn down. I get a little bit tired of the go go go and start feeling like
maybe, just maybe, I should try to stay stay stay. But I know deep down that'd
never do it for me. I'd get bored in how long? A week? A month? Maybe I could
even make it 2 or 3 months, but at the end of that month or those months I
would look back at the fruitless days I'd just spent stationary and throw a
little pity party for myself. I'd look at a month spent in San Antonio and say
'I could have gone here instead' or 'I could have gone there instead' and I'd
feel like I'd just wasted a good portion of my life (how I now feel about going
to college). Still, sometimes it gets lonely out there and the wanderlust isn't
as strong as it used to be. Sometimes I need some motivation, not the old kind
where I could Google 'cool places to see' or something just as silly, but
something fresh, from a new angle. Sometimes I just need something to ignite me
from within, a bellow for my fires, or a catalyst that connects with my specific
chemistry. And sometimes, just sometimes, that tinder, that bellow, and that
catalyst is a girl. An unassuming and quirky young girl. One that sits next to
me in the Denver airport. A brilliant girl, by the name of Maddie.
I am not in the mood
to write facts tonight, that is, I do not wish to be taking minutes on a moment
in my life. Not to say that I haven't been attempting just this outside of the
blog, wanting so badly to record these three days of my life accurately, precisely,
and in a way that could make the reader feel, just maybe, 1/100th of the jolt I
felt in such a short time. But that complete story is a long way off from being
finished, and it is not quite of the blog style. If I had to pin a tail on it
at all I would have to say 'short story' is the genre it belongs to. I'm still
writing the short story version and have already attempted this same story
you're about to read in a blog but, realizing that the story was merely 1/3
done when I wrote that post, I have reconsidered what I already posted in favor
of this one, Tuesday (A blog about Maddie, the
best from her story). Let me warn you in advance, this one is meant to
be a whirlwind. Not a mistruth mind you, just because I said I didn’t want to
write facts tonight doesn't mean that these things aren't the truth of how I
feel about the whole situation, but I can hardly call my feelings fact when
nobody other than myself will ever know them to be true. To me they are true,
but to you they are merely a story. But the truth of it is, is that it was a whirlwind, if not a tempest in the
flesh, and, I, caught completely off guard, was catapulted from my melancholy
by such destiny that I was forced to reconcile with my passions. These events,
of which I am about to relay to you, were the firing command of just such a
force and, I must stress, that this is not a love story. Well, in a way, if you
knew me well enough, or, possibly, if you were just a very insightful person,
you could say it is a love story. But I consider that to be semantics and not
of importance.
I'm going to go
ahead and tell y'all I don't really know how to do this, as you can probably
tell by how long I've been stalling with this introduction. I've been inspired
before, but nothing quite at this magnitude. Not that it was a grand thing, it
was quite an ordinary thing actually, but I just wasn't expecting it. I want to
describe it all and how it went down so on point, and, as I previously
mentioned, I am attempting to do just that in a short story that is not this
blog. So, actually, what I believe I will do, I believe I'll go ahead and
divide the rest of this post into thirds. Day one, day two, and day three. The
airport, Seattle, and Bellingham. Each day will touch, respectively, on one of
the three times me and Maddie saw each other. Does that sound agreeable? Good,
because that's the best way I can think of to write it.
I guess I should stop dilly dallying now, no
matter how long I write this introduction it won't give me enough time to
collect my thoughts. I suppose the best thing is to do is just start, no matter
how intimidating the subject matter is to me. So let me just get on with it and
cut the gibber jabber. Without further adieu, Maddie.
=========================================================
Day 1: The Airport
So it goes, I'm in
yet another airport, and I'm not in the best of moods because holy hell am I
getting tired of airports. I mean, it's awesome that I get to travel all the
time, seriously awesome, especially when work paid for this flight, but
airports are just so incredibly dull. It's like they sat someone down and told
them to build the least interesting place in the world with nothing comfortable
to sit on and even less to do. So I don't really like the airport part of
traveling. I don't go to an airport because I want to be in an airport, I go in
order to get somewhere else. An airport, it's just a middle man, the means to
an end, it’s never my real destination. I want to be in Seattle yeah, but I
hate having to go through the airport shenanigans to get there. Apart from the
docks that float planes pull up next to I never want to be in an airport.
But that's how it is
as I get off the plane for my layover in Denver. I'm back in another airport
for just over 2 hours. 2 hours! You know what I could do in two hours? Nothing,
because I'm in an airport. I can't even buy a cup of coffee because I spent the
last of my money, plus $20 I borrowed from my mom, on having a good time my
last night in San Antonio. Even if I did have some money I certainly wouldn't
squander it away on the monopolies that are airport snack shops where it'll
cost you a gold nugget and a rough gemstone to get some water. The only money I
have left is a fiver and a one dollar bill that a friend of mine artfully
folded into the shape of a t-shirt before making me promise that I would only
use this dollar on a stripper (because, ironically, I would be giving her
clothing to take clothes off, and you're allowed to do anything for the sake of
good irony).
I make my way
towards the gate for my final leg of the day, the flight to Seattle. It's only
a near half mile walk to get to the farthest area possible from my arrival
gate, because when do you ever arrive at gate 35c and your next flight is at
36c? Never, it's always two trams, 4 sets of stairs, and then 12 moving
sidewalks to get all the way to gate 99z where it always seems my next flight
awaits. I find hardly anyone waiting there for the Seattle flight. Probably
because it's still two hours from take off. Actually, no probably about it,
that's definitely why there was no one there. I quickly locate an empty stretch
of seats where I can try to settle down for Seattle. Why don't they just put
some comfortable chairs in these places instead of these ridiculous pieces of
leather stretched between two metal bars? Who thought this was a good idea?
Probably an economist. No matter how much I flip, flop, roll, stretch, and or
slouch I just cannot find a comfortable position in such a distasteful piece of
furniture as an airport chair (I'm continuing on my sour mood here). And I'm
giving a damn good effort at making myself comfortable too, but it just ain't
paying out. I decide to switch over to a more normal person position, sitting
straight up instead of sprawled along half a bench like a homeless man downtown
after a typical nights splendor. As good as invisible the whole time to the
stressed, half panicked passengers starting to mill about the kiosk where
flight attendants tend to all the crazy and uptight with a fake smile and a
sarcastic 'we are doing everything we can for you honey'. But hey, it keeps the
masses at bay. I couldn't imagine having to deal with people in an airport as
customers. As many times as I have told someone about how I travel and
adventure, and they've asked me 'hey, have you considered being a flight
attendant so you can fly for free?', I can still say fuck no twice as many.
With boredom digging
his cold, dingy nails into me I begin eyeing the newspaper that some careless
passenger has left strewn across the pleather chair next to me, that's how
desperate the situation was becoming: I was so bored I was considering reading
a paper. If that isn't desperate I don't know what is. Granted, I probably
wouldn't have gone any further than the funnies, or, sometimes, I like to look
at the dogs for sale in the classifieds. Before I have to live with myself for
making such a desperate throw as that someone sits down in the seat on the
other side of it. I'm not thinking anything as I look up to assess whoever it
is. I don't have time to wonder if it's some middle aged woman who wants to
talk my ear off, or some well off girl looking to pass 20 minutes with a
bearded stranger (like the one I met on the San Antonio leg of this journey a
few hours ago), but, honestly, anything is welcome in order to kill the last
hour looming ahead of me. Really, whoever it is, it has to be a girl. For some
reason a dude by himself won't sit near another dude by himself, unless it's
extremely necessary of course. Then, and only then, could it be acceptable,
like if it was the last seat in the entire airport. And I don't think that
extremely necessary situation had arisen yet. So I look up at 'em. I look up at
her, because it is a her, and it is, you
guessed it, Maddie. Sitting just a seat or two over from me.
She's got two
flouncy cowboy, or should I say cowgirl,
boots on over a pair of ostentatious leggings. I mean they were loud, yeah, but
some people can pull that sort of thing off. She is certainly one of those
people. A plain shirt under a denim jacket. Her hair, a unique assortment of
oranges and blondish colours strangely complimented by out of place trucker hat
and large glasses. It's the kind of hair that does anything she wants it to. If
she pushes it out of her eyes it stays out of her eyes, if she brushes it to
the side it stays to the side, and if she runs her fingers through it front to
back then it'll stick up at whatever odd path her hand unconsciously chooses to
stray. The whole package was something of an oddment. I'd even go as far as to
say I have never, never in all my life, seen a girl such as this. It doesn't
mean she's better or worse than all the other girls in the world, just
different, just something I hadn't encountered before, a rare and exotic type.
And, I have to say, that is a big statement coming from me. If you know
anything about me you know that I meet people. I meet a lot of people. I meet a
lot of all sorts of people from all sorts of places doing all sorts of things.
That's a lot of sorts going on and for me, and to meet a sort that I have never
encountered before (not to say other people are all the same, but they, for the
most part, fit into categories), it's a little bit exciting at the very least.
It's like stumbling upon a mythical creature you didn't expect to find. Like a
siren, or a jackalope. You know, just discovering something magical. Something
you always wanted to exist, but you knew
that it didn't, and now you know that it does.
Foundation cracking.
I met
Maddie probably around 8 pm. By 9 we were sitting next to each other on the
flight from Denver to Seattle. At 10 we united together under the banshee wails
of a screaming baby being cooed at directly behind us. Then, with the loss of
an hour, and some sleep, by midnight, a mere four hours after becoming
acquainted, being introduced to her mother and shaking hands with her father
before loading up into their SUV with them. Okay, maybe that was a little
misleading. I wasn't an adorable little fuzzy creature they wanted to take home
with them for the night, but I was an adorable little fuzzy creature they
didn't mind dropping off at his friends house on their way home.
In the
Denver airport Maddie had discovered that my friends house, whom I was staying
with that night in Seattle, was maybe 5 or 10 minutes down the road from where
her family lives. After a slight hesitation I tentatively asked her if she
could give me a ride there. I say tentatively because I didn't want to startle
off this newfound pixie, but she nonchalantly called up her dad Damien and got
the all clear. I find that incredible, how you can meet someone in an airport,
and she doesn't know you from Adam, but she turns out to be one of the rare and
completely open minded people that are out there in the raw.
Maddie and I on the plane
What I
learned about Maddie that night was that she is passionately dizzying. A rowdy
spunk, but also blessedly sublime. It's hard to peg her down into one category
because it always, to me, seemed like she was existing in two opposing realms.
One foot dipping into yin, with the
other planted in yang, and doing a jitterbug between the two. She is the type
of girl who plants a seed of doubt in my mind, but no, it's not a bad thing,
it's a beautiful thing. It's a fanfuckingtastic thing because sometimes I need
a kick in the ass to get me going and show me there still are things out there
that I never expected to find. Y'all saw how I was describing the airport just
there, all morose. Like my ship had just sunk and my dog was run over. What's
the point in doing things I know I can do? I need some challenge, I need some
doubt about the outcome, and that's what she was to me at that moment. I wasn't
looking to find someone in that airport, wasn't looking for a ride or a place
to stay, she even talked to me first! She's the type of girl I spend a little
time with in a controlled environment, like an airport, and seeing what she's
like there I wonder if I could keep up with her on the outside should she
choose to crank it to 11. She's the type of girl who makes me want to be more
than I've ever been before and I've been some stuff in my day. Makes me want to
travel and see and love and just experience all the most wonderful things the
world has to offer. Needless to say, that night, she struck me like a meteor
with her peachy demeanor.
I waved
goodbye that night more than a little bemused by the extraordinarily quirky
girl I'd met by complete chance still reverberating from the pleasant
vibrations she'd been putting off throughout the evening and into the now early
AM. I turned my back on her and her awesome parents believing I wouldn't see
her again, even though we'd exchanged numbers. There was no way we would,
especially since I'd be off to work in less than 12 hours.
But why
fight gravity?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day 2: Seattle
Well, as
gravity has it, there was a landslide and Amtrak wasn't running when it was
time for me to skip town. Meaning, there was really no way, other than some
really complicated and time consuming buses, for me to get up to Mt. Vernon
where the boat I work on was awaiting my arrival. Lucky me, my captain was
headed to Seattle the next day anyways for some parts and gave me the option me
to hold tight in the city. Easy enough.
I'm in
Seattle another night it looks like, Maddie is in Seattle too, and my friend
I'm staying with doesn't get off until later that night. Why wouldn't I at
least see what she's up to for the night? I mean that's why people exchange
numbers right…?
I
thought texting her would be an Apollo 13 mission, but there I ended up,
walking down a stony beach, the cold air of early spring blowing my beard
around (best feeling ever), with Maddie beside me, after she'd already taken me
on a string of other adventures through her old stomping grounds in Seattle
greenbelts and friends basements, watching the sun sink down. We'd spent the
day just meshing, not like puzzle pieces fitting, but more like a front of cold
air meeting a bubble of warm air and the resulting cyclone. It was a completely
unexpected and infectious night. Nothing I'd planned for, nothing I'd expected
in the least, simply a girl I'd only met less than 24 hours previously and some
low key adventures.
Adventure
is a seductive mistress though, even these small ones. Those of us that feel a
quickening of the pulse at the sound of her whispering in our ears, whispering
in our hearts, have incredible trouble resisting her sparking embrace, never
quite able to get away from the persistent siren song she sings.
Exploring some parks
I'm
impressed. That's for damn sure. I'm more than impressed, Maddie has galvanized
me. I haven't had such unplanned escapades since… since… well, since the first
time I threw caution completely to the wind back in Greece 2012. Ever since
that first time that I'd let loose of those societal expectations I'd learned
to expect the unexpected in nearly everything I do. Nothing was a surprise to
me because I knew surprises were coming and it's not often I get in a rut where
I have an itinerary that isn't meant to be strayed from. That itinerary, for
the purposes of this time period, was work in Alaska. There were hard and fast
dates with out much room to vary, or so I thought. I'd let my guard down to the
unexpected thinking I had a plan, but, through some twists of fate, I was
brought back to a rogue rose sticking slyly out of the flower bed at one of the
few moments I really wasn't expecting such a thing and, therefore, was
flabbergasted by it. Somehow meeting Maddie has floored me with grandiose
daydreams. Plans to tie a bouquet of rocks to that pity party I'd been planning
and throw it into the sound. I'd started to smolder, no longer as passionate as
I'd once been about all these things, ideas of an endgame coming dangerously
close to my conscious thoughts, but she was a cool Westerly, in the right place
at the right time, bellowing that special thing inside me that makes me never
want to stop doing what I do. Maddie.
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Day 3: Bellingham
Alright,
that was it, we'd had a good row at life in the two days we'd known each other.
I left her, for the second time, expecting to not see her again (at least not
any time soon). Nevertheless, my heart had been lifted and there was a skip in
my step. Off to reunite with Amber, my captain, and Gordon, the dog aboard the
boat, it was like coming home and hanging out with a sibling you haven't seen
in half a year. Just like the good ol' times, all the inside jokes come out and
it's more laughing than talking. I fell in love with boat life a long time ago
and it was good to be home on the water again. Maddie had excited and me in a
discernable way, but I had to put that on hold for now. I wouldn't be seeing
her again, at least not before the season was over, so why bother myself over
that? And as work began she slid to the back of my mind while her infectious
spirit lingered. I didn't know it then, but, yet again, why fight gravity?
Look at
me, talking like it was weeks or months since I'd seen her. It'd been like one
day maaaybe (probably not even), since
our romp in Seattle, when I realized the boat was going to be in Bellingham for
a couple, or a few, days and I knew she was coming up here at some point during
her spring break to make a delivery of wine for her father. So I texted her,
just to see when she was headed Bellingham way. You know? Just in case. Maybe I
could show her the boat or something. I expected texting her to turn out like
the Hindenburg, surely she didn't want to come hang out with this dirty
deckhand she, still, hardly knows. But she responded lightheartedly with a 'I
was gonna come up whenever' and a 'I'd love to see the boat, I'll come up
tomorrow' (or something to that effect).
She came
up, and, as soon as I got leave for the night, I invited her over to check out
the boat. I wouldn't call myself an expert on people, or interpreting their
reactions for that matter, but it seemed like she really enjoyed it and was
maybe even a bit impressed by it all. I remember her mentioning how homey the
boat is, and of course it is. This is our home for, what seems like, most of
the year. It was fun showing her the boat because I'd really only ever shown
the boat to one other person (oddly enough it had happened earlier that very
same day). One of my old college professors who keeps tabs on my travels turned
out to be in Bellingham (he had stopped by for a short visit). It was fun to
show off my home to her though.
With
both of us hungry as hell, we headed off to find some food and ended up
chilling at her friends house in Bellingham town, away from my oh so familiar
docks. Ah, of course I could launch into a description of all we did and the
fun I had with her, add in a few quotes sprinkled atop with the description of
the third and final night I saw her before I (for real this time) left on the
boat for Alaska, but I started a blog for the quick and sweet version of things
and, for the most part, I think I've kept true to that standard. So let me try
to push through this writers block o' mine and unstop the story bottled up
inside me. Let me just launch into my last attempt to describe the gem that
Maddie left me with:
Now I
know that all this sounds like a romantic sappy infatuation with a girl I've
only really hung out with thrice. But look, from basically the moment I'd met
her, she'd been willing to give me a ride from the airport to where I was
staying, she had no idea who I was at the time either. She'd taken time out of
her spring break at home to hang out with this total stranger as if it were no
big deal while generously showing me a really fun time around Seattle. AND
she'd let me tag along with her adventures in Bellingham which, I thought, was
another really great time. I was impressed with her, I can't say that enough.
If not for those things, then for her bold sense of fashion. In the way she
holds herself like a ripe fruit, pitched to fall at any moment, hanging on to
that moment of suspense right before the drop, and you don't know if it'll be
now, or in an hour, or in a day. She just looks like… like… she looks like
organized chaos. A little paradox wrapped up in a girl. And that little paradox
somehow, someway, sparked me into a fervor about the things that I am doing.
She's
like a burning cold. Intense and warm. Wait! That's it! It's like when I was
trolling (a type of fishing up here in Alaska) and it's fucking colder than
shit out. My hands hurt from the numbness, I'm soaked down to my bones, and my
face is frozen underneath an ugly orange rubber hood and then, like a ruby in
the rough, there's a red jellyfish that has mistakenly collided with the
fishing line being brought aboard. The kind of jellyfish that burns where it
touches you, and I'm so cold and miserable that it feels good to have that burn
on a cheek or wrist, or whatever piece of skin has been left exposed to the
lashing elements. All of a sudden I feel alive again, all of a sudden there's a
drive again, all of a sudden I want whatever it is I've been searching for
again. That's what she was to me when I met her, she was the catalyst my sense
of adventure had been craving and I can't begin to explain why or how, because
something about her just resounded at the perfect pitch somewhere deep down in
my gut. All I can do is describe her. And she is the scent of jasmine with a
citrus accent and a beet pollen base note (yes, that is a reference), an off
the cuff flare in ebony leggings, a poem that's been written in the snow.
Of
course I can say all these fanciful words using a pretty, but uneducated,
vocabulary. My feeble attempts to try and convey the essence of what Maddie
meant to me, and, on a certain level, I'm sure it helps, but the most important
thing about her surging nature? As a friend of mine once told another friend of
mine who then wrote that thing about me: Maddie, thanks for the spark, I'm
ready for the flame.
You've
inspired me whether it was your intention or not, I want to be me again. Thank
you.
Be
happy!
Beacon
