My Week in Washington
Reflections and poems from my trip to the PNW
How romantic is traveling, right? Is it possible to visit another place without wondering about an imaginary life there?
Surely some of you share this feeling. Everywhere I go triggers wanderlust. Of course, then I come home, settle back into a routine, and quickly release the new life I’ve curated in my head back into the ether. But the daydreaming sticks around for a little.
In early July, I went to Washington, specifically Seattle/Bainbridge Island/the North Cascades, and it inspired daydreams galore. I’d never been to the Pacific Northwest, and it’s been a goal of mine to explore more of this country in my travels. Seattle is an excellent jump-off point, a big and interesting city with immediate access to three world-class National Parks. My friend Kaylie used to live in New York (hi Kaylie! <3), and tragically abandoned me and this city to go to graduate school at the University of Washington. When we talked about me coming out to visit, I made her promise we could check out a national park, and of course she readily agreed. The special part was it felt like I stepped into a regular life there for a spell (albeit not the working or running errands part). I stayed with Kaylie at her cozy home near Green Lake park.
Staying at a friend’s house on vacation reminds me why AirBNB took off: there’s something special about living in a place that feels real. Where there are magnets for community events on every corner of the freezer. Where I ask about the art on the wall and it was made by a family member three years ago. Where I wander around a neighborhood full of people washing their cars and holding reusable bags. I got to really step into Kaylie’s life, meeting her charming roommate and putting her key on my keychain. I left my shoes by the front door and my eyelash curler on the dresser. We sketched out plans to escape into the mountains for the weekend with Kaylie’s other Seattle friends. I tried on my own little double life.
It was exactly what I needed: to be outside and outside and outside.
Seattle
Seattle is a cool city! I spent a few days trying to drink it up as much as I could, even though my main excitement for the trip was The Wilderness. My flight landed at 10AM on Tuesday, and I had slept on the plane. After a brief stop to drop off my luggage at Kaylie’s (slipping in via a spare key as she worked her internship), I set out to explore Capitol Hill.
Capitol Hill is fun: unabashedly progressive, young, and dense. I spent the day walking, darting in and out of thrift shops and sprawling myself across Cal Anderson Park. Every light post was papered thick with colorful posters for protests, raves, dating podcast advertisements, more protests, charity concerts. It was a hot day, and I grabbed an iced tea to sit and stare at the trees and imagine myself living there. I also spent an embarrassing amount of time at Elliot Bay Book Company bookstore, which is now officially in the running for my favorite bookstore of all time. Multiple floors! So many staff recommendations! Cute cafe inside! And then I didn’t even buy a book, as I’m committed to my library era as best I can, but what a thrilling time browsing.
When Kaylie got off work, she met up with me to grab dinner at Artusi, an awesome Italian restaurant. (In New York, one of my favorite Italian restaurants is called L’Artusi, so this made me smile.) We ushered in the trip with piles of delicious antipasto and ravioli.
Kaylie was still working on my second day, so I took that opportunity to indulge in all of the tourist-y activities of Seattle. I love feeling like a local, but I also think it’s silly to pretend you are one. I love those TikToks that are like “what to wear in Italy on your next vacation to avoid looking like a tourist at all costs.” Babe, you are a tourist! Tourist activities can be very hit or miss, in my opinion. Here’s how mine stacked up:
Space Needle: MISS. I had heard that the Space Needle was kind of whatever, but I think I would have wondered if I missed out if I hadn’t gone. It’s a great view, but it’s a lot of money to have a good view. The mountains look awesome, but it’s crowded and I felt satisfied by the view after one quick lap. The level they throw in with rotating floors would be worth it if you stayed at the restaurant, but it was full when I visited.
Chuhily Garden and Glass: HIT. I don’t think this would have been super fulfilling on its own for an exorbitant price, but I bundled it in with the price of the Space Needle and absolutely loved it. I found Chihuly’s work to be striking, and I loved how it was often tied into the natural landscape. Sometimes art just hits you where it should, and this did it for me. In the heat of the afternoon, I ordered an overpriced Diet Coke and watched an outdoor glass blowing demonstration. That really helped expand on a museum that felt a little one-note.
Museum of Pop Culture: HISS. I’m not sure. That’s a combo of hit and miss. Caveat: my ticket was free. The employee used to live in Crown Heights, and we bonded over how incredible the smash burger is at local watering hole Franklin Park. She graciously comped my ticket, which was really appreciated as I was somewhat balking at the price. I thought there was lots of fun stuff in here—loved the Nirvana exhibit—but some of it felt a little “no duh”. (I had fun playing at the indie games exhibit, but a lot of it felt like it boiled down to “indie games exist!”). But…my ticket was free, so. I had a great time.
Pike Place Market: HIT. I am throwing in the pier as part of the this experience. Put me next to a body of water and at a food market and I’m pretty much satisfied. I sauntered along the water, briefly considering doing the Ferris wheel until I realized it was a ridiculous $23. So instead I just enjoyed myself. My favorite part was an awesome antiques store across the street from the pier, which is very on brand for me. I hopped over to a bookstore ran as an anarchist collective (cool), and then met Kaylie for dinner at The Pink Door, a restaurant with sweeping views of the Puget Sound. We had risotto with whole popcorn pieces in it alongside mussels and clams. Kaylie regaled me stories of visiting as a teenager, and we giggled and caught up.
I sprinkled other less touristy city activities throughout the weekend: a sushi dinner after we returned from Bainbridge one night, a trip to an excellent bakery before I left, a long walk from Fremont along Green Lake park. What a city. They need more trains, though.
The North Cascades
Recently, I read something that connected the experience of being awestruck with creating self-transcendence. We should all be striving to be self-transcendent: looking beyond ourselves and having a concern for those around us and the world at large. Not only does it help us build and maintain society, it actually helps us reduce depression that can arise from suffering. You may be thinking: no duh, Jen, of course thinking about something besides yourself is good. To me, though, there’s knowing it and there is actively building it. For me, the really salient point was that being awestruck can help build transcendence—and that awe can thus actually help us reduce internal pain. I didn’t realize the two were linked in such a close way.
Basically, this is an academic take that going to the North Cascades can cure depression.
Driving through the North Cascades actually made me clutch my heart dramatically in the car. Everywhere you look is rolling mountains, and creeks and lakes are rampant, most of them ranging from eggshell blue to a brilliant turquoise.
We crunched along the dirt road to our campsite. Two of Kaylie’s friends had sent out the bat signal for friends and friends of friends to gather there, and about 25 people were set to spend 4th of July weekend camping in the Cascades. I am not an experienced camper, but the Pacific Northwesterners are, so I took direction from them as we pitched tents and set up the picnic tables.
I was a bit intimidated, of course, as the person who was just “Kaylie’s friend” to this group of people. I was relieved to find that it was an awesome crew, full of funny and kind people who were very easy to get along with. The first night we did a round robin “who do you know here?” around our makeshift gas flame (campfires are banned in the park), and I wasn’t the only friend-of-a-friend there. Throughout the weekend, I found community in the creeks, on the trails, hanging at the campsite. We truly ate well, with the many camping stoves brought by the experts cooking up breakfast burritos, sandwiches, hot dogs and hamburgers, someone always producing a tub of something useful like seasoning or extra snacks from their car when we needed it.
Saturday night, we put on our finest weekend duds, campsite-edition: long shorts and sweatshirts and leggings and Tevas and sneakers and creek-cleaned hair. We gathered around the “fire” and danced to downloaded Spotify songs on one speaker, jumping and laughing and figuring out which of us could actually twerk. My phone was in the tent. It’s a little camping memory I now carry around, precious, with me in my pocket.
I’m a hiker first and a camper second, though. I discovered it as a hobby in college, when my friend Lauren and I chose "going outside” as our Covid-safe activity of choice during my senior year at Syracuse University. Upstate New York is underrated, stunningly beautiful, and had epic trails within driving distance. Since then, I’ve realized my favorite vacations include hiking (a lot of the time with Kaylie!). The hikes in the North Cascades are absolutely unbelievable, whether it’s sweeping views or deep in the forest. I already want to go back to do a few that I didn’t have time to complete.
Hiking clears my mind like nothing else does. I love the patterns, the crunch of my boots on the earth. I love the butterflies and the sunshine shaded by trees and the quiet. I love the burning in my thighs and gulping water after a difficult pass. And then, when you get to that view you’re chasing…well, self-transcendence follows.
I mean, come ON. How does it look like this?!
The last day, we packed up our car tightly with all the camping supplies and crunched our way out of the park. It was perfect weather, clear and sunny, a few clouds in a sky, about 75 degrees. The park faded in the distance as we wound our way into tiny towns, still surrounded by stunning mountains and creeks. I feel like a little slice of me was left there, so I guess I just have to go back out west at some point to retrieve it and make me whole again.
Bainbridge Island
Bainbridge Island is the biggest surprise of the trip for me. Kaylie is from Bainbridge, so of course we had to pay it some visits. Twice we took the absolutely stunning ferry ride from Seattle to Bainbridge. For a mere $10, you can have sweeping views of the water, and, on a clear day, Mount Rainier (and Mount Baker and the Olympic Mountains, but Rainier is truly the stunner).
I met her parents in their stunning, light-filled home, and they graciously cooked us dinner and let us borrow kayaks. Kayaking on the Puget Sound was, once again, a clutch-my-heart-in-awe-and-self-transcendence experience. It was so quiet on the bay from our little area of Bainbridge, and when we kayaked far enough to see Mount Rainier, I nearly burst into tears. I cry at everything, so maybe that doesn’t mean much, but it was so beautiful and majestic and damn it, life is hard, and I like pretty mountains. And you’ll never believe it…we turned our kayaks around after seeing the mountain and saw dolphins in the water. DOLPHINS.
The only not-so-magical moment of kayaking was when Kaylie dropped her phone in the water. Whoops! At least she learned the meaning of living in the moment, I guess? It did leave me with this hilarious screenshot of her location:
On our last trip to Bainbridge, Kaylie’s mom took me and Kaylie to a frozen yogurt shop, where we piled toppings high and ate on a nearby beach. We trekked from the shop to a restaurant in search of a map of Bainbridge, finding wall art in the frozen yogurt shop of it but no physical map. We walked by a sauna for locals and drove by Kaylie’s middle school. Before I left, I bought a magnet from a local shop of a frog, emblematic of Frog Rock on the island, a sort of inside joke for its residents. A reminder of the little town I stepped into, paddled on its bay until I saw the most gorgeous landmarks you can imagine, and then returning to a beach where we saw neighbors and friends Kaylie recognized from growing up. A marriage of adventure and the magic of everyday life, as the rest of the trip was.
What Now?
I come back to New York City remembering that outside makes me feel alive (and inspires self-transcendence), but I have a great little life here, too. I was both excited to hug my friends in the city and missing watching trashy reality TV before bed with Kaylie. I researched nearby hikes I could do in the Hudson Valley, and Kaylie and I started brainstorming our next trip together. What a beautiful reminder that in so many places I go, there are little pockets of beautiful things just waiting to be mined, and a place to come home to that opens itself to me once again.
I felt very inspired surrounded by nature to write write write. My phone background is Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese, a poem I’ve shared here before, and I found myself reading it over and over while hiking. I then wrote in the quiet moments. (I even wrote a poem I loved so much that I submitted it for a contest! Not below, against the contest rules, unfortunately. I did show it to my wonderful writing group for feedback before submitting, so direct your inquiries to them, I guess.) Here are three quick poems I wrote during my time in Washington:
on the rocky shore
again, this life slices you,
your eyes open as your chest
spills out from under you.
you will try to understand, but you won’t,
try as you might. sometimes you find
your heart limp, split
like an atom. sometimes you stitch
yourself furiously,
stitch to stay alert and alive.
sometimes the air is stale, your eyes dry.
come now: follow me to the creek.
tell me the way the turquoise looks.
suddenly you find yourself listening
to the fox scampering in your path,
the sharpness of the rocks against your feet,
such a pleasant burn,
opening a tinfoiled sandwich, peanut butter
lining the roof of your mouth.
isn't it always like this? you learn again
that these things aren't interested
in being understood. they ask to be felt.
walk to them once again.lost
i’ve learned i love to get lost /
in gardens / in the middle / in waves of
orange / in water on town edge /
in december / in it, again /
in art i made / in art i can’t make /
in something i need to make me forget /
in places i went alone / in don’t worry it’s going to work out /
in it won’t work out / in it must / in it can /
if you come with me, i know that /
i’ll lose you in something worthwhilechuhily
once I found myself in a garden of glass,
molded flowers warmed in orange and red
and yellow, coiled tentacles of yellow and blue
searching up for the sky, shrouded under
a canopy of green leaves, the sky an accessory
of the artist. eyes closed I listen
and breathe in slower slower slowly,
off with the anxieties trapped
into my stomach into the forestry and glass,
praying it holds, still,
and doesn’t add weight and shatter.
gorgeous poetry and was such an amazing trip, i love you so much!