When Craig moved from Washington to New York to start film school at NYU, he never realized how much he’d miss his home state. He spent his college years at the University of Washington and spent his post-college years working for the Pacific Science Center where he drove the science van and did presentations for school kids around the state. (Once, during a presentation involving boa constrictors he suffered a spontaneous pneumothorax; another time he made liquid nitrogen ice cream which the children ate. These children are now tongueless adults.) More important than his time in Seattle, though, was the time Craig spent as a child in Bellingham: a pristine, bucolic township one hour north of Seattle. From the moment I met him Craig pined for Bellingham the way Dorothy pined for Kansas: “It’s so beautiful there,” he’d tell me. “I didn’t realize how much I’d miss it when I moved to New York.”
And so Bellingham stood high on the pedestal in my brain when I boarded the plane at 8:30 am last week headed for Washington State. Craig had already been there for a week–I let him spend Christmas with his family before I came for New Year’s–and I arrived wholly excited and curious and ready to experience the city and people Craig had told me so much about.
“I’m so excited that you’re here!” said Craig after I boarded his parent’s car at the Seattle/Tacoma airport.
“I am too,” I said. We spent a moment being cheerful as he merged on to a highway and then I revealed that there was a problem.
“What is it?” he asked with genuine concern.
“I’m starving,” I said with great gravity.
His concern morphed into a smile and he said, “Don’t worry. I know exactly where to take you.”
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We Begin In BellinghamRead More »
