Nice Try, Seattle!
I used to live here, and on my most recent visit to the city, it was obvious you want me back. But it isn't going to work.
For the audio version of this article, read by the author, go here.
Nice try, Seattle. You’re a sly dog, aren’t you?
You know that Brent and I used to live here, and that once upon a time, I was madly in love with you. Which is why, during our most recent visit to the city, you really pulled out all the stops trying to lure me back.
You came striding out of Puget Sound sporting James Bond swim trunks, flashing your glistening pecs, and looking as seductive as I’ve ever seen you.
Brent wasn’t fooled. Me, though? I confess, you caught my eye just like you did all those years ago when we first met.
Even though Brent and I visited in the first week of May — when the highs should be in the mid-60s with plenty of clouds and a fair bit of drizzle — you dazzled us with clear, sunny skies and temperatures in the low 80s.
And yes, I know your nickname is the Emerald City, but you were even greener than usual, weren’t you? I saw Washington State’s famous evergreens everywhere we turned. The deciduous trees had leafed out too, their branches glowing in the spring sunlight.
And there were so. Many. Damn. Flowers. It looked like someone had tossed colorful confetti all over the city.
And all the water! And the mountains!
With those impossibly clear skies, I could see the granddaddy of them all, Mount Rainier, standing guard in the distance, watching over the city like a benevolent god.
We even had a lovely evening picnic along the shores of Lake Washington.
In early May!
Look, I appreciate all the work you’ve done on yourself: the remodeled Space Needle, the expanded Pike Place Market, the Chihuly Glass Museum.
You’ve obviously been working out. Downtown is looking pretty fit. There was almost no sign of the damage Covid did to you.
You had other work done too, didn’t you? The redeveloped waterfront area looks amazing. Removing that hideously ugly elevated highway might have been painful, but now that the swelling has gone down, it was worth it.
I’ll admit it: I was tempted to get back together with you.
But I still love Brent, and we have no interest in being in a “throuple” — at least not with you.
For one thing, Seattle, you still have baggage. We left you, and the United States, in part because of your in-laws — especially your toxic president.
Yes, we know it’s not fair to blame you for that — only eight percent of Seattle voters supported Trump in 2016 and 2020. But even you have to admit that he’s worse than ever.
That aside, when we broke up, it wasn’t me. It was you.
It was so much you.
Because while I’m glad you’ve worked on yourself, you were also lying to me when we met in that week in May, weren’t you?
You haven’t really changed. You can’t change, at least not in the ways I would need you to.
You think I don’t remember the summer of 2017? That’s when all Seattleites were forced to accept you now had a new season: “smoke season” — from all the forest fires in the Cascades and Canada.
Week after week, a yellow haze cloaked the city, making it hard to breathe and leaving everything feeling vaguely post-apocalyptic.
Yes, yes, again, this isn’t your fault — you’re incredibly health-conscious. But you won’t — or maybe can’t — leave your neighbors who now often smoke like chimneys all summer long.
And what about the rain? Remember that last winter we spent together, also in 2017? Almost 45 inches fell! By March, Seattle had already received more than its average rainfall for an entire year.
In one 206-day period, there were only five dry days.
Five!
Sure, if we got back together now, there would be more beautiful summer days — at least when the forest fires aren’t burning.
But come November, we both know you’d treat me like the Count of Monte Cristo and toss me into your cold, damp, wet dungeon where, in an ordinary year, I wouldn’t see the sun until July.
I admit it: you looked great during our visit, but the longer we stayed, the more it became clear what else you were hiding under those sexy blue swim trunks.
Truly insane housing prices, with median home prices now well over $900,000. The rest of the cost of living is just as bonkers.
Social problems like record homelessness, a drug crisis, and petty crime.
And the traffic! The day we left Seattle, I-5 was so jammed that it took nearly an hour to go five miles.
So nice try, Seattle. I’m not falling for your old tricks.
But, well, since you’re obviously making such a big effort, I could sneak away from Brent for a bit and pop over for the Fourth of July…
Michael Jensen is a novelist and editor. For a newsletter with more of my photos, visit me at www.MichaelJensen.com.
I was in Seattle a day and a night in 1983, while traveling the country. Visited Jimi Hendrix's gravesite, saw a great jazz combo in a cobblestone section. Pretty city, despite raining the entire time, and all the way into eastern Oregon. But I wish your voting 92 percent could be here in suburban SW Ohio.
Your story telling has become exceptional! And because my love of flowers and my previous life time as a bee I loved , “It looked like someone had tossed colorful confetti all over the city.”