"this guy's nobody, and if he's somebody, i don't give a fuck." -john gotti

nearly 10 years ago, whilst in europe and planning my return to washington, i researched the bellingham area from a computer in grenoble (and to this day, i feel incredibly embarrassed by how i perpetuated the Ugly American stereotype to the unfailingly polite hosts... another story). what i'd heard about bellingham sounded ever so bohemian and free-thinking (and within close proximity to the lower legal imbibing in canada). found a house for rent in sedro-wooley for, i believe, $400, which sounds absolutely otherworldly now. mentioned it to my parents, who'd lived in that area for several years while they dropped out of WWU and unexpectedly had to raise me. "sedro-wooley?" my mother said, scorn detectable over the international connection. "there's not a lot going on there..." "everything gets moldy" my father added. i never did go there (it's about 20 miles east of bellingham)... until today.
drive N on i-5, through the perpetual traffic of everett, and take the darrington/sedro-wooley exit. sail through cornfields, past barns with "apples! cherries!" painted on the sides, past kids obliviously riding their bikes into the road, past trucks flinging rocks off their loads, past little hamlets with old-timey gas pumps in front of their general stores (that are actually called 'general stores', with 'drink sprite' signs), past many american flags. sedro-wooley appears to have not changed in 30 years. the buildings are low-slung, houses with empty porches facing the streets, everything glowing gold. i stopped at the gas station to use the loo. very tanned flaxen-haired kids were debating what kind of candy to buy. motorcycles idled in the parking lot. it seemed like the kind of town i would want to have my grandparents live if i was younger, so i could visit them and sit on a porch swing and catch fireflies and have cookouts and play fucking stickball or something. rather pleasant, but i left feeling extremely relieved that i never moved there, no matter how distracted by love and optimism i was.
on the way back i saw a dirigible balloon (some car dealership) off the freeway and suddenly remembered my dream from last night. it was a desertlike setting, but i somehow knew it was alaska. the mountains in the distance were purple; the foreground was flat and sandy. sunset. there was a huge rainbow-striped hot air balloon in the sky, and as i watched a gust of wind tipped it on its side, the fabric blew up, and the entire thing caught fire. it remained aloft. "i can't believe i was ever in one of those" i said to whomever i was with (unseen but familiar in the dream- my dad, maybe?) "yeah, we were lucky" he replied. i admired the colors against the arid backdrop; clinical, abstractly mellow, not terribly agitated by any of it.
i could interpret this as a tidy yet lurid metaphor of my current distance from all my recent life-shite, and it would make a good amount of sense.