Tales of Transformation

Finding Spring in the City

To delight in (human) nature

As spring was about to start here in Seattle, we had a burst of warm weather, which for us meant a super-lovely weekend with highs near 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

When we have nice weather in Seattle, many people like to go hiking or paddleboarding or kayaking, or some combination thereof. Or people work in their gardens or take their kids to the park.

I’ve been known to take a walk on the beach or on some woodsy trails near my house in the suburbs. On this particular sunny weekend, however, I was walking around downtown Seattle, across asphalt streets and concrete sidewalks and even some cobblestones.

I was with someone I like very much, on an extended date of sorts which had started with us taking the light rail — me from the north and her from the south — to meet in the middle for an errand she needed to run. With the errand completed, we could focus on our goal of the day: enjoying the afternoon.

We glimpsed slices of the deep blue water of Elliott Bay as we walked downhill toward the market. As we waited to cross First Avenue, a musician who was set up just beside us started to blast out “Dumb” by Nirvana. It felt a little too perfect to hear the lyrics, “Think I’m just happy” as I smiled into the busy street, then turned toward my date to give her a kiss.

I wish I could tell you that we saw and heard more elements of nature on our walk, like birds overhead. But I only remember the empty blue sky and the mildness of the sun, just warm enough for short sleeves unless you stood too long in the shade.

Oh, and people. We encountered lots and lots of people. Not quite a crush of people, but enough to feel like you’d become part of a flowing wave that would move you along despite your own preferences or intentions.

We decided to walk somewhere less popular. We passed some graffiti, and my date wondered why so many people don’t like it. I looked at the colors of the painted designs and didn’t try to put anyone’s objections into words. I felt beyond objecting to anything, even secondhand.

We settled in to relax and enjoy the first weekend of springtime weather with drinks on a tiny patio in front of a bar called Shorty’s. We sat in plastic chairs at a small round table, my Vans touching her leather boots under the table, our hands touching across it.

Shorty’s has pinball, and we ventured into the darkness to put a few quarters into some machines to test our skill, or rather to feel the fleeting moment of control that comes from delaying the ball from its inevitable descent down the drain.

I didn’t keep track of the time of day as we headed back onto the sidewalk and walked around some more, stopped at another bar with even more pinball, and wandered through the darkness, lit by the glowing lights of the machines.

It felt like it had gotten close to dinner, or maybe past dinnertime, so we sat down with Google Maps open between us and searched local restaurants. Everything blurred together until we found a Hawaiian place called Ohana where the whole menu sounded delicious — and the name of the restaurant meant family.

The waitress didn’t have a booth for us but said there was space at the tiki bar. We were so hungry all of a sudden that we ordered too much food and took home a full order of yakisoba that we never managed to touch.

When our weekend together was over, the warm weather persisted, and we ate the leftovers on our own, feeling a new afternoon of sun and remembering yesterday’s, too.

I wrote this story in response to Sahil Patel’s Tales of Transformation prompt about the start of spring.

If the change of seasons has you thinking about changes in your life, check out this story by Carmellita on setting and achieving goals.

And I liked this story by Rhiannon James so much that I made my own single-sheet booklet with a poem to give away after reading about what she had created and shared.