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BOB OSWALD remembers lonely nights on Highway 99 The Feminine Viaduct 
It was two thousand years after the reputed death of our reputed savior and I was 21. I signed on for a year of service in the Americorps VISTA program, because I was confused and couldn't get good drugs and I'd heard the gov't would pay for my relocation expenses.
This was the move that landed me in the Pacific Northwest. The wounds on the bodies of the WTO police-riot victims were still fresh, and to a naïve New York boy, the west coast was a fabled, golden land, "jumping with jazz," a place where that kind of anarchy reigned every day. I imagined putting my own brick through the windows of Niketown and I thought "Yeah, OK, that sounds good."
So I left my family and my girlfriend and everything else (just kidding; there wasn't anything else) for a Section 8 apartment with no furniture in Kent, a year of boxed wine and spaghetti for dinner every night. I don't regret it, although I do miss the girlfriend.
For a while, I lived in Kent. I wouldn't say I was drunk all the time, but other people probably would. I lived in Kent and I drank; and because I lived in Kent, when I wanted to do something beside... living... I came up to the city, always via route 99.
To look out over the Sound in the darkness, headlights off 99 providing the only light before the moon's stark impact on the black water... wondering how many people had just met one another in the heavy swirling crush of night... how many new romances had just ignited. It probably isn't necessary to repeat that I was drinking pretty heavily, in those days.
So here's the portrait of the introvert as a young man: The Alaskan Way Viaduct. I-5 is the day for me; it is work, efficiency, the busy, prosperous, "male" side of the psyche. 99, and especially the viaduct, is the dark, seductive, feminine principle.
In memory, the viaduct was the route to freedom-out of Kent, out of the drudgery of working and drinking to forget about working, into the churning intrigue of city life. Yeah, I'm one of those people who's nostalgic about the viaduct. I don't care if they have to rip the bastard down, I'm just saying.
It probably isn't necessary to mention that I'm drinking pretty heavily, these days.
Now, I drive on the viaduct at least once a week. Pretty mundane; highway and water, brick and glass. But every now and then, the sunlight catches the Sound and bounces up to one of those windows... I remember the girlfriend, the apartment in Kent, the years of hopeless abandon that I've spent here. Since my old life ended.
This is not a political thing. I don't know what we should do about that old piece of "elevated highway." I don't necessarily think my fond memories of my self destructive youth should trump the populace's need for intelligent transit design. Although it would be nice.
If I'm still around when the viaduct goes down, it will be something else. I'll spontaneously burst into tears at the sight of the Frye art museum, or I'll drop to the ground in ecstatic fits when I enter Mae Phim (full disclosure: I sometimes do this now). The point... I think... is that this place means something.
Tonight, I bought a box of wine. Not because I'm broke, but just because I wanted to remember. Back when I wasn't a part of this place, but I eagerly, earnestly, wanted to be.
You know, all communities are intentional, but some are more intentional than others.
And that's what this is about. I know all of you have the same story, minus maybe the self-loathing and addiction (or maybe not).
To the point: We all came here (or in the rare case of the true natives, stayed here) for a reason. Your soul adheres to a place because souls are notoriously fragile and places stick around a lot longer. You adhere because every day, you invest yourself into where you are. I came here, and maybe I didn't know what I was getting into but that doesn't matter anymore because I am here. And I've almost been here long enough to see here become somewhere else but still here.
The viaduct can go down, or it can stay up for another hundred years, and when they lay the track for Monorail 3001, it will be over what's left of my own sad remains.
Because I'm staying.
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