PNW

Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial.

The Pacific Northwest is filled with wondrous natural majesty, and maybe so much so that it is heavily imposing on what American society exists there. Melancholy sure, but indifference and resignation seem to be current cultural norms. Is it the mountains, the Sound, and the grey sky? I felt as if I was in a place where they’d recently lost a war yet they, you, me are all Americans in our own land. During our vacation in the Pacific Northwest through Seattle, Olympic National Park, and Portland I pondered over this sense. It is the land of Cobain, Staley, and Earth First! yet is disturbingly quiet. Jenny and I could have gone anywhere in the world, in theory. But we chose this area because it was known for many of the things we grew up being influenced by. In Jenny’s case it was more aesthetics. For me it was the music, the melancholy, the trees, and monkey wrenching. Sometimes I like to joke that my worldview is FernGully.

And so more than Seattle or Portland I desired to go to this area for its beauty and symbolism against blanket industry. And it wasn’t so much surprise as curiosity that I found the place that should be the most against industrialism rather submissive to it. And I do not mean that there are factories scattered all over. Rather I am speaking of the higher industrialism of the cloud, AI, or whatever celestial tech that is consuming the world and attacking our humanity. And I rummaged over if maybe that is the war that was lost here. In New Jersey, we consume the same things but we may not be at this stage just yet. I always find the majority of New Jersey people to have adequate social skills, a sense of humor, and general self perspective, contrary to what the media loves to sell. Meanwhile in the Pacific Northwest I have never encountered such common social awkwardness except for on Bainbridge Island. This was evident in coffee shops, seafood markets, museum, and walking in a park.

The most beautiful beach I have yet to set my eyes on was several hours west of Seattle. Jenny and I had to walk an undetermined distance through fern covered woods to reach it. I say undetermined because I am reluctant to name this beach or else others will go. It isn’t just a beach with sand and waves, but it is a cove hugged with tree covered cliffs. When I stood on this beach and looked out into the ocean I felt as if I was in the attendance of the gods at their hearth. In a place like this you experience a sense of freedom where life is a deep pool beyond the chains of modern civilization. It is where a strange feeling of endless ideas and possibilities flood your mind yet they are all equally irrelevant in the presence of such benediction.

You can, but being here is everything.

Beyond this moment in our trip I find most everything else neither here nor there. Yes, there was coffee, salmon, thick boots, ferry rides, books, and the space needle. But even as I sit here back in Jersey things still rumble in my head. Maybe many in the Pacific Northwest have visited these same beaches and experienced such benedictions, perhaps not. When one experiences moments of stillness is the part afterward indifference and resignation? That is the challenge, of course, how to act when there is no path and what is required is to start walking. Sometimes being exposed to such beauty can be painful.