Saturday, July 24, 2004
Bellingham, Bellingham ...
Bellingham is 20 miles from the Southern Canadian border. It is an hour-and-a-half north of Seattle. The people of Bellingham read the Bellingham Herald, an evening paper with a circulation of 5,000. Bellingham is actually a combination of four smaller towns, including Fairhaven (Fairview? I can't remember). Bellingham is home to Western.
I read all these things and more in the weeks before I left Houston. I was broke as hell and I would go to bookstores and get a coffee and then read all the books for hours. It has been hard for me to concentrate on any particular novel for months, but I read everything I could find on the Pacific Northwest, San Francisco and parts of Canada.
I loved Bellingham before I read all this. I loved how it looked in this old photograph. One day a few months ago I created my own version of it with my soft pastels. It felt strangely spiritual, drawing a picture of a place I had never been. I made a frame for it out of hot pink posterboard and hung it on my living room wall.
I miss those walls. And the maps. I had hung one of Washington, one of Texas and one of the West Coast, although not in that order. I bought the Texas one at the Dallas airport on my way back from visiting Ellen months ago and put tacks on every place I had seen.
During my last month in Houston I dreamed about adding tacks to the other maps. And this night, I am in Bellingham.
Maybe dreams can take you places. I feel like I'm living the proof. I want to dream forever I think, but if I decide to wake up I hope I'll remember where I left off. Because sometimes the best place to start is the place where you left off, even if it's cold and damp and far from where you want to be.
Bellingham is neither cold nor damp. It is quiet and beautiful, peaceful and endearing. I will write more later when I have more to tell, but for now I'm going to rest my head and sleep with the window open while the Seagulls enjoy the night sky in the short distance for my listening pleasure. And I'll let the breeze flow in and out of the room like the cars passing on the neighborhood streets as I breathe in the silky perfume air and pretend it belongs to me.
Bellingham is 20 miles from the Southern Canadian border. It is an hour-and-a-half north of Seattle. The people of Bellingham read the Bellingham Herald, an evening paper with a circulation of 5,000. Bellingham is actually a combination of four smaller towns, including Fairhaven (Fairview? I can't remember). Bellingham is home to Western.
I read all these things and more in the weeks before I left Houston. I was broke as hell and I would go to bookstores and get a coffee and then read all the books for hours. It has been hard for me to concentrate on any particular novel for months, but I read everything I could find on the Pacific Northwest, San Francisco and parts of Canada.
I loved Bellingham before I read all this. I loved how it looked in this old photograph. One day a few months ago I created my own version of it with my soft pastels. It felt strangely spiritual, drawing a picture of a place I had never been. I made a frame for it out of hot pink posterboard and hung it on my living room wall.
I miss those walls. And the maps. I had hung one of Washington, one of Texas and one of the West Coast, although not in that order. I bought the Texas one at the Dallas airport on my way back from visiting Ellen months ago and put tacks on every place I had seen.
During my last month in Houston I dreamed about adding tacks to the other maps. And this night, I am in Bellingham.
Maybe dreams can take you places. I feel like I'm living the proof. I want to dream forever I think, but if I decide to wake up I hope I'll remember where I left off. Because sometimes the best place to start is the place where you left off, even if it's cold and damp and far from where you want to be.
Bellingham is neither cold nor damp. It is quiet and beautiful, peaceful and endearing. I will write more later when I have more to tell, but for now I'm going to rest my head and sleep with the window open while the Seagulls enjoy the night sky in the short distance for my listening pleasure. And I'll let the breeze flow in and out of the room like the cars passing on the neighborhood streets as I breathe in the silky perfume air and pretend it belongs to me.
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