> On another note, this afternoon I looked out my downtown Seattle
window to
> see plumes of black smoke and waves of emergency vehicles heading in
that
> direction. After panicking, finding nothing on the news, and
running up to
> the roof to look, I was sure another disaster had hit. Turns out a
grain
> boat on Puget Sound had a bad boiler. No fire, no damage, just many
shaken
> citizens.
>
> Jenaya
Hi Jenaya!
I was returning to my desk after using our fitness center this
afternoon. The windows nearest my cubicle look directly out at the
P-I building (Seattle newspaper) and the grain terminal you're
referring to. I saw a huge plume of black smoke pouring into the sky
and my stomach did a flip-flop. Luckily it was what you described and
nothing more.
Did you get up to Seattle Center to see the flowers in the
International Fountain? For other listers, Seattle Center is where
the World's Fair was held back in 62. There is a large fountain there
which is kind of like a concrete bowl with straight (as opposed to
curved) sides that slope down to where a large metallic dome sits in
the center of it. There are water jets all over this dome. On sunny
summer days, music comes out of speakers around the rim of the bowl,
there is a ramp down into the bottom of it and kids in their swim
suits play in the water from the fountain which comes out in patterns
that are synchronized with the music. Last weekend the jets were
turned down to a gentle flow that covered the dome in a sheet of water
& the fountain was turned into a memorial. People brought flowers to
place around the sides and to throw onto the flat space around the
dome.
Travis, Melanie & myself went down to Seattle Center on Sunday with
three pink roses that Travis had cut from a bush in our yard. The
fountain sits in the middle of a large open grassy quadrangle.
Looking up you can see the Space Needle not far away. There has been
a huge American flag flying from it for the past week. We could see a
good size crowd of people gathered around the fountain. A line had
formed that went about halfway round the perimeter where there is a
paved walk way & benches. It lead around to the ramp that goes around
the inner wall to the bottom. Just before the ramp, a wicker archway
had been placed over the path and it was covered with flowers. There
were also balloons and notes that people had written expressing their
anguish for all of the lives lost in New York & Washington DC last
week. The inside of the fountain had flowers laid all over it and
more balloons and more heart-felt messages of grief and sympathy.
There was the solemn & ethereal sounding music of a single,
unaccompanied flute coming from the speakers. Here & there people had
scrawled messages with colored chalk on the concrete wall. The one
that sticks most clearly in my mind is the one word message 'WHY?'
As we stood in line at the top, looking down at the colorful sight
below us, I was drinking it all in, feeling the solemnity of the
moment but at the same time hoping the line moved fairly quickly (it
was overcast on Sunday and kinda chilly.) When we actually got into
the fountain, however, it was a completely different story. I found
myself overwhelmed with an overpowering feeling of mourning & sadness.
It was like being at a funeral but even more intense than that. I
spoke at my partner Edward's memorial service and the feeling then was
nothing like this. Maybe at that time I was already cried out and
there seemed to be an unspoken pact between his mother, his brother &
sister-in-law, his sister and myself that we were all going to be
strong for one another that day and help each other through it.
But this was different. It was almost as if we had actually walked
into ground zero when we descended into that fountain. I could feel
the grief of every person present and of maybe millions more who
weren't there. Millions from all over this nation and all over the
planet. It was overwhelming. The tears streamed down my face. At
the bottom I threw my rose out into the center. There was a bank of
flowers encircling the center, probably to keep people at a reasonable
distance from the water, so I didn't see where it landed. It didn't
matter. What mattered was that I was there and was somehow part of
and connected to these awful tragedies.
A co-worker walked over to the Seattle Center on his lunch break this
week as they were hauling the flowers away. The local news said there
were more than a million flowers in the fountain. My co-worker is
partially blind and does not feel comfortable in large crowds so he
did not visit the memorial while it was still happening. He said it
was sad to see it being hauled away but that while he watched, a
heart-shaped balloon broke free of the debris and floated away into
the sky. I want very much to believe that this was a sign that love
is the stronger force & will prevail over hate when all is said and
done.
Peace & Love to You All,
Mark E
