I am sitting in the Central Terminal of the Seattle airport, in front of the big and gorgeous, sometimes concave and sometimes convex wave of glass window. Watching the planes come and go, just finished with a dark mocha and moving on to a drip coffee. It's 8:12 am, and I have been here for two hours. The Alaska Airlines flights from the North Terminal are taxiing by, and it takes a number of these before it dawns on me: I will not be back in Alaska for one month.
Gone, the familiarity of faces, friends, acquaintances, strangers I've encountered before. We flew into Seattle in the dark, and my half open eyes and sleepy brain just barely registered the scale of the lights stretched out below me, rising to meet the plane. Gone, the city of ninety thousand.
Once, Seattle was familiar. It has grown and changed and so have I; and this is not the time for rediscovery of anything but the airport tram, a glimpse of Mount Rainier out the south window, and the Dilettante coffee stand that I always look forward to on these red eye flights. In one hour, I will be boarding another flight, heading yet again east and south. My destination is a place three time zones from home, where Xtra Tuffs and Carhartts are not the garb of choice and ten times as many people whirl and swirl through their day.
My heart is back in Alaska, where my Kaia and Annapurna are being looked after by good friends. Where snow covers the birch leaves recently fallen to the ground, where the smell of wood smoke curls through the air.
I'm stepping into this month now with an open and eager mind and a spirit for adventure. A temporary trade-in on the life I've left behind, perhaps a few thousand miles over due.
