Sweet Home Sedro-Woolley

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Being Myself

I picked up a hitchiker Friday night on the way home from the bars. We didn't know each other--which is strange in this tight community--but I'd seen him at the Old Timers earlier in the night, and he was with some guys who I've known since I was a little kid.

Bar hopping in Sedro. That was the night. My oldest friend, Matt Steinman, and I met up around 10 or so and wandered around the bars in town seeing what we'd see. At the Old Timers we saw a lot of great old friends and drank $1.25 cans of Schmidt. Then we wandered down to Cues & Brews and saw even more buddies. Old Timers was kind of wierd, it always is: watching a few of the same people who come there every night just to shoot pool and play old country songs on the jukebox. I like it though, it's familiar and predictable and comforting. Cues & Brews is more of a crapshoot. Depending on the night, it might be all young kids I went to high school with, on another night the place might be packed with all their parents. This night was a nice mix of both. Some pals I've known since grade school were there, and some of them with their little brothers in tow. I also saw some of the local punk rock kids, guys who were still in grade school when I was getting into the punk scene around here, but they've been listening to the right people and carrying the torch through all the years that I've been gone. I like all these guys, and they like me, and we shot the shit for awhile, until everyone else was too drunk and me and Matt were too sober to really carry on.

After that, we decided to see what the other bars in town had in store. The Schooner had five people in it. Regulars. At midnight on a Friday. The Overflow, which used to be Aces Tavern, was packed door to door with old cowboys (complete with hats) singing country karaoke. They gave us and our long hair dirty looks and I heard a muffled "get on outta here" as we were walking out the door. After that, Matt took me back to my truck and I headed home.

Anyway, I saw this hitchiker at the intersection of two long, empty country roads, and I decided to pick him up (thinking of all the times I'd hitched around the valley when I was younger). We talked for a little while, but without really saying much. He was wasted and I wasn't and there wasn't really much for us to connect on. Then the hitchhiker found out who I was and all he wanted to talk about was my little brother Nathan, who he'd known. At this point, this was really all he wanted to hear about and all he wanted to tell me about was how bad he'd felt.

I guess it wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't heard it ten times already that night. It seems like it comes up with a few people every time I go out in Woolley, and some people bring it up like clockwork, every time I see them. A lot of people still can't wrap their head around the fact of one of the town's nicest, brightest, and friendliest kids dying in the dirt out halfway across the world in Iraq. I don't blame them, I can't either. But, they always want to talk about it, while it's hard enough for me just to get the thing out of my head for a few hours here and there.

I dropped the guy off right near the cemetery--about a block away from where Nathan is buried--and I wondered to myself if he ever went over and visited the grave. Then I pulled back out onto the road and headed up the hill home.

And that's Sedro-Woolley for me, in a nutshell: old friends, nostalgic faces and places, smiles and stories, and the ever-looming shadow of our families greatest tragedy, one of the town's big tragedies, and something that a lot of people can't look at me without thinking of.

At the end of the day, I love this place, but I can't really be myself here. I guess that's what this journal is about. I'm always seen by people here as the person I used to be at one time or another, or the brother of Nathan Nakis, or Arty and Elinor's son, or the person they heard about in a story, or the kid my folks want me to be or maybe think I am from the little they get to see or hear anymore, or that long-haired fucker that wandered into the cowboy bar. I suppose this is the biggest thing that my trip is about, getting a chance to just be myself, away from the context of "me", getting to explore and live and learn and be--outside the realm of anyone else's past impressions and any of the roles I've fit into in the past.


Gotta Go

It's been an abrupt end to my partying, living out here in the woods this past week. My phone was shut off, I've been taking care of my immunizations, paying all the last bills, packing my bags, and working to convince my parents and myself that this trip is actually about to happen.

I'm living in the treehouse where my parents lived before I was born and where they lived with me as a baby. In high school, after running away from home and attempting to emancipate myself as my own guardian, I moved back out into the tree for another couple years. I also lived there in the summer when I was 20, the last time I tried to use home as a base to prepare for a big trip and a big move across the country, but I spent too long here that time and ended up never making it very far. The difference this time is that I've got the ticket and I'm going, and I don't really want to stay, no matter how hard people try to get me to.

First, everyone got scared over the coup in Thailand. But, I talked to the former U.S. Ambassador to Thailand on the radio when that was making all the news and he said there was nothing to worry about. He'll be there in two weeks himself, so maybe I'll look him up. Then, there's been all the unexpected costs: costs of bills, costs of traveler's insurance, costs of medications, all more reasons why they folks think I should cut my trip short or maybe push back my departure date. And today I was flooded with them.

We had a barbecue for the old ladies and for me and for the young guys with their new women. Originally, it was just gonna be my Aunt Lorraine and her young man-servant Glenn (she's a real badass wild west woman who had to stave the men off with a pistol back in the day, and even at 80, she still drags around a 65-year-old stud that she's been living with for decades and never bothered to marry), but then yesterday my mom ran into and invited my brother's friends Doug and Lance, each one of them with a great new girlfriend in tow (Lance's is a fiance!). So, of course, Doug's mom Karen and her mom Joan also got to come along, and in the end it turned out to be a great gathering of families and friends, with all kinds of food and games and great conversation.

But all day I got one thing after another about how this trip was a crazy, half-baked idea and shouldn't I probably reconsider? And of course, it was only the old ladies who would actually come out front and say what it was that everyone else was leaving in the subtext or maybe weren't aware of at all: they know I need to go and they know it's the best thing for me and they're really all a little jealous, but they're worried about me and they'll be scared and they'll be a little nervous until I come back, so they just pretend that they want me to stay, but know I won't.

And that's the difference this time: I won't. And, truthfully, I don't really want to anymore. I guess that's the turning point in me, the change in my character that is going to allow for something incredible to happen. This time I just gotta go.

And that little realization (or maybe it's a big one) is the conclusion to this part of my blog. This last few weeks has been about getting ready to go, and now I'm ready. The next time you hear from me, I'll probably be in San Francisco getting ready to hop on a plane. And the next time'll be in Asia.

Gotta go.

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Photos

The Treehouse
From about as wide a view as you can get.

The House I Grew Up In
My parents keep it real nice.

The Veterans' Memorial
Where my brother Nathan is buried.

The Grave
Nathan's grave: consistently the most decorated one there.

The Headstone
Has a pretty good likeness of him.

The Stove
That's kept the treehouse warm for 28 years.

The Downstairs
Has quite a view.

The Ladder
That connects the upstairs to the down.

The Bed
Where I lost my virginity in high school.

The View
From my bedroom porch.

Comments

[Erik Neighbour]

The adventure is about to begin! Looking forward to hearing your initial thoughts after you get off the plane!

[Matt Vollans]

Have fun on your trip
You may or may not remember me, but our little brothers used to play army together (ironic). I've been living in Texas for over three years now and was down hear when I heard the terrible news of your brother. I know you don't like it brought up a lot, as you mentioned in this blog, but I feel that you do a good job reminding us who your brother was; never letting us forget. The account of your night out in Sedro is incredibly consistant with what I find when I go up there for a visit every so often. Many things that were once thought as lame and boring about the valley... well let's just say that after living in West Texas for 3 years I miss them very much. Enjoy your trip, enjoy getting to be yourself. If you find yourself in a tight spot just say you're from Canada, born in White Rock, British Columbia. Take it easy, Matt