When people ask me why I moved from San Diego and the Bay Area to Seattle – a city where I’d have no friends, no job, and no clue – I’ve got my schtick memorized.
“There’re three reasons,” I say at the same steady pace each time. The two summers as a carnie are paying off. “First is that it’s a creative city, and I want to be a writer. Second is that it’s far from home, but I can still drive all my stuff up. Third is that I don’t know anyone there, so I’ll have to find myself.”
I sat down today to write about that last – how a move away from everyone you know is the ultimate placebo. I started outlining the way that actually making the move and getting to 1st and Pike was a collapse of possibilities into a few unshakable uncertainties, how tours of Valve don’t always lead to jobs, how one-in-a-million airport meetings don’t pan out.
Instead, I was sitting next to an elderly woman sniffling and wiping her nose with her sleeve, and across the table from a man reading a paperback with hands he couldn’t keep from shaking. It’s the anniversary of 9/11, football season is beginning, and the sun is out. The first non-posthumous Medal of Honor since Vietnam has been announced. At the top of my outline, I wrote “Geeze, I sound like a whiner.”
Travel Tip: Any time you’re waiting, you could be talking. At a bar, people already have a plan and might brush you off, but on the bus ride, everyone’s just waiting to get there. Pop those earbuds out and make small talk.
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