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Traveling

I don't know how high we flew last night, but two hours after landing, I have yet to come all the way down. En-route from Anchorage to Seattle, I woke from fitful airplane sleep to peer out through the small, oval window. The moon, its face bold and woeful, shone full above the wing. Below, low clouds, like crusty frosting, were broken by splotches of black, and through these breaks in the sugary strata, a great river flowed. Upon its water, up and down its length, the moonlight played, dancing in white sparkles, like tiny bursts of fireworks. The horizon curved along the edge of the earth.

The word amazing is used with cavalier indifference these days, but this scene, this moment in time, was. Amazing.

If a city's airport is at all accurate in its reflection of the place it represents, then Seattle is a fine and funky place indeed, worn around the edges, hip in its strangeness, strange in its hipness. There are dozens of Starbucks, sure, but there is also the Seattle Taproom, in which I did not indulge at 5:30 a.m. for reasons other than the fact that it was closed. There's also Ivar's, where, no matter the time of day, breakfast, lunch or dinner, I always stop for a friendly, rich, piping hot bowl of chowder. I could learn to like a place like Seattle.

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