It was 41 years ago today, November 5, 1977 (Year of the Snake). With my broken heart in tow, I made the lonely 1135 mile drive up the I-5 to Seattle Washington. It was a rainy Saturday morning and traffic was heavy because the Trojans were in town to play the Huskies. I had everything I owned stuffed into my brand-new Toyota Celica hatchback when somebody ran a stop sign and t-boned my beautiful car. When the officer asked for my address I truthfully replied, “I don’t have one,” and eventually limped to a shady motel on Hwy 99 in North Seattle, adjacent to a large cemetery. I was provided with a station wagon rental car and while driving around to see what I had gotten myself into, it started to snow. Being an LA kid, I’d never actually even seen snow falling, let alone knew how to drive in it. I looked up at the shiny flakes coming at me in a frenzied flurry as my vehicle started to skid with angry car horns blaring at me. I felt like Sulu piloting the Enterprise through hostile Romulan airspace. Clearly, God does not want me to live in Seattle!
My car finally came to a stop against the curb and I got out. I wanted to feel this magic snow fall on my face and hands for the first time. I was looking up at the sky slowly turning with my outstretched arms, like Andy Dufresne tasting freedom for the first time and wham, I fell onto my back on the slippery snow-covered sidewalk. With what little dignity I had left, I sat there for a while and again, thinking to myself, Yup, clearly God does not want me to live in Seattle!
Never wanting to intentionally defy the Creator of the Universe, but I stayed in the Pacific Northwest and called Seattle my home. My two daughters were born in Seattle. The bluest skies you’ve ever seen are in Seattle, and the greens the greenest green in Seattle. My job as a mechanical designer had given me the opportunity to travel all over the world and meet many wonderful and interesting people. But it’s that universal feeling we have all experienced that never gets old. It doesn’t matter, I could be returning from a Safeway run down the street or from a remote location of Siberia in the Russian Far East, there is nothing like the feeling of coming back home to the warmth of my loved ones.
Today, I’m a full-time novelist. I often work at my desk next to a warm fire, in my small cottage in the woods. I look out over the full complement of trees transitioning into crisp and vivid Autumn colors. I hear the birds signing and the squirrels rustling within the branches preparing for the season and feel truly Blessed. Frequently, I sit back and take stock in the past 41 years and realize in my heart, Yes, clearly God did want me to live in Seattle.