When I Travel to Seattle

So, then there was the summer I lived in a hut on the beach.

Now, in fairness, the beach was on Friday Harbor Island, a very small and very pretty little place nestled between Washington state and Canada. Forget about the picturesque and tropical scenes of the Caribbean. This was nothing like that. We're talking arctic waters here.

Still. It was a hut on the beach. And I lived there for a summer.

In any case, this is not a blog about places I've lived. This is a blog about places I've traveled. And now begins the story.

During the summer I lived in a hut on the beach, my friend Dashing and I made an excursion to Seattle. Why would we leave the scenic beauty of an island paradise for the dingy charm of an urban landscape?

Firstly, the rustic nature of island life had started to wear thin. We delighted during the first several weeks that a small rowboat was our only means of accessing the main town; this novelty wore off quickly.

Secondly, I dislike nature and was ready for some city time.

Thirdly, Bruce Lee.

"Qua," you ask.

"Let me explain," I reply.

My friend Dashing had yet another friend, a man who loved Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee is, evidently, buried in a cemetery in Seattle. In a gesture both touching and well-considered, Dashing wanted to make a rubbing of Bruce Lee's gravestone. He would frame this rubbing, accompanied by an 8' x 10' of Mr. Lee, and make a gift of it at an upcoming birthday.

I had never tracked down a grave before, let alone a famous grave, and agreed to join the journey.

Journey, incidentally, is not hyperbole. The trek from Friday Harbor to Seattle required a boat ride, followed by a long bus ride. This trek left us hungry upon our arrival to Seattle and prompted Dashing and I to find a small Indian buffet for lunch.

Let me say here that I adore my friend Dashing. That being said, let me add he is also the most frugal being I've ever met. At movie theaters, he will ask for a free cup of water, then add lemon juice and sugar packets to it from the condiment bar until he has a substance that palettes something like lemonade.

The point of this inclusion of character? That our Indian buffet, while absolutely delicious, was also less than $5.00.

"Plot point," you ask.

"Naturally," I respond.

With deliciously and cheaply filled bellies, Dashing and I began the long walk up a tall hill to the grave site of Bruce Lee. The cemetery was about what I expected. Large. Grass-covered. Rolling hills. Hemmed in by an ivy-covered chain-link fence on three sides. Lots of headstones, broken up by the occasional mausoleum.

Dashing and I decide to split up and find Bruce Lee's headstone. It is only moments after Dashing is out of visual range that I realize I need to use the restroom.

Immediately.

Perhaps this is common knowledge, but it had not occurred to me until that moment that cemeteries do not have bathrooms.

And so began the concentrated powerwalking that comes with convincing your body it does not need what it needs. I marched at a frenzied pace about the graves, muttering to myself that I would be fine, that the gurgling in my stomach would subside, that I absolutely did not need to go to the bathroom.

But who was I kidding?

At the far end of the cemetery, near one of the chain-link fence boundaries, I saw a nice-and-wide mausoleum. Safely hidden behind its walls, I gave my regards to the Peterson family, dropped my pants, and braced myself.

Do you know what goes through your mind in a situation like that? I mean, the instant you accept the fact that you are shitting on a family's grave?

"How am I going to wipe?"

That's what you think.

While in the midst of working out that little logistical problem, I came upon another. Leaning there against the Peterson mausoleum and finding some modicum of gastric relief, I realized that the ivy-covered chain-link fence was more sparsely covered in ivy than it appeared at a distance.

This realization came with a second one: there was a preschool playground gurgling just beyond the sparsely ivy-covered chain-link fence.

Do you know what goes through your mind after such a realization?

"I am going to jail today."

That's what you think.

Did I go to jail that day? Did the group of four little girls playing hopscotch by the fence look over, meet my eye, realize I had my pants down before them, and begin a shrieking cacophony of children? Did I escape notice altogether? Was I forced to sit-and-drag like a stray dog? Did I actually pause upon leaving, paying my respects to the Petersons for their hospitality?

None of these details matter much. But that's what happens when I travel to Seattle.