Troll under the bridge

In Seattle, are bridges. Not as many bridges but still bridges. And under those bridges live trolls. Not as many trolls, maybe just the one. And he crumples up small toy cars, brings smile to the faces of strangers, waiting long lines, for photos, for food, for buses, for everything it seems here. The troll guards a community garden, in a neighborhood that trellises around a highway corner. In that garden blooms frazzled pink and orange poppies and gigantic lone alliums, somewhat late season. Hovering the alliums, buzz bees. The troll listens to the playful buzzy bees, in the flowers, in the garden, in that neighborhood from beneath the bridge in Seattle.
And maybe smiles a little inside, poses scarily for photos.

In Seattle, proper, English brushes up right next to weird and international, intersectional; clarity coexists with what-if, home lives next to longing. (Shows up everywhere these days, must be me.)
In Seattle, two friends meet, after years. Tells strangers they’ve known each other since an internship 14 years ago. Strangers think they look too young to be working for 14 years.
The friends have grown older, apart but together. They laugh they fight they eat they drink they hike they cry. They talk food, talk shop, talk hopes, boys, work, food at weddings, travel, aspirations once discussed now immaterial. The friends have changed. They talk about love, falling in love, out of love. And heartbreak. Recent. Old and primitive.
In Seattle two girls meet and talk about their rights and all the wrongs that are now muddy water under a strange bridge.
And the troll guards a friendship as old as our first job, green as can be, as we both struggle with ideas of who we want to be now, fossilized as we are, still green in places, still in love, still with a little hope left.

…

In Seattle, there’s standing and watching the setting sun cast rays on the skyline, listening to music alone for two hours, hoping for some direction to appear and tap me on the shoulder. hoping for some sense for where life is headed.
In Seattle there’s a mom and son at a rocky beach. There’s a mom and son playing jazz. There’s a mom and son deer. There’s a son on the other end of the phone call. In Seattle there’s a mom whose heart is breaking in invisible ways. And the troll waits under the bridge to see them when mom and son visit together.

In Seattle, there is the long distance couple at the airport. The only person who arrived before the plane landed. And she jumped in and said let’s go camping. There are parents seeing off an adult daughter. There were friends. Family friends. Grown children. Little children. Lovers.
In Seattle there were 87 minutes of witnessing hugs- goodbyes, hellos, I missed you-s, I’ll miss you-s. The troll inside my rib cage moved a little and looked away.

In Seattle, during writing this, I get interrupted by a 15 minute wedding ceremony- a promise of togetherness on a trip to be away from everything I once called mine, I once embraced, chased and thought could be forever. When you burn bridges, what happen to the trolls that live under them?

In Seattle, I get invited to dinner by strangers, nvited to be picked up in their car because I’m carless. I get hit on by adorable people. Strangers pour their hearts out to me. Explain mountains, discuss COVID, trails and technology, we talk from sunrise to lunch. Animals swarm all around me.
In Seattle, there are all kinds of animals showing love, taking love, being love.

In Seattle, a broken friendship mends, online. I find calm in a quick chat with another. In Seattle I ask someone out on a virtual date and smile to myself at my courage. It’s hardly about her, it’s about me.

In Seattle we learn to find peace in quiet, we learn to find peace in the middle ground and in strangeness. In the absent cousin, in the present friend, in the dead grandparents, the alive relatives, in common dislikes and shared excitements, in the plans in front of us. Two other girls meet giddy with dots too connect, jokes to share, a home to find. And the troll watches.

In Seattle I’m away from everything, yet nothing. In Seattle I’m still me, still confused, still hurting. And you wonder what is this strange troll… how weird are her bridges.