Zac and I spent a few days in Seattle, WA, where Starbucks was brewed for the first time and it’s usually raining, but not enough to douse the majestic sunsets that fire the evening backdrops of Elliott Bay. Whereas my hometown Detroit has a sculpture of RoboCop (seriously), I didn’t find evidence of a Dr. Frasier Crane statue, not that Seattle needs another reason for you to visit.

As a lifelong Michigander, I would describe the Puget Sound region as “Michigan but with the color saturation turned waaay up and the tension turned waaaay down.” Everything is green, yet considerably greener than the mitten state. Moss grows on trees like they’re dressed up to go someplace. The wilderness is like a scene in Avatar. Drivers on Interstate 5 move like I-696 in Detroit, but in slow motion. There is no discernible frenzy like you sense in the Eastside suburbs of Michigan. It’s called “The Emerald City” because it’s green all year ’round. The name has nothing to do with the recent legalization of a certain substance, though it’s what the glassy eyed guy at the airport coffee shop attributed the general calm to.

We encountered nothing but kindness with every human interaction. The Pike Street market featured headless fish swimming in a frozen lake, if by swimming I mean packed in ice, which I do — and they can be shipped anywhere in the USA, says the guy in the thick plastic overalls and rubber boots. A guy who grew up in Flint came to Seattle in the 90’s to be part of the grunge scene, which for him never quite materialized into a record deal, leading to his opening a used bookstore. His store playlist included music from an Eastern mystic chant album and not a single Nirvana song. The lady who sells gum “FOR THE GUM WALL” as the sign outsider her store shouts, suggested fire cinnamon peach rings when I asked about Atomic Fire Jawbreakers, which haven’t been published in years. We didn’t find the gum wall because we kept finding other things instead. No doubt Zac and I presented as tourists on our Lime scooters, especially when I couldn’t remember where I parked the rental car. We traveled many miles over the dark downtown street looking for a forgettable Hyundai that blended in with everything else. Where’d I leave that thing?

What we did was visit the pristine Pacific Northwest. But what we accomplished — what I set out to do — was most important. I described this excursion as a Father/Son Spiritual Retreat Getaway to Zac. We lived like Monks in a temporary Monastery that we established in a typical Air B&B in Port Orchard. We watched the seals bob their heads out of the water instead of Netflix and YouTube. We read scripture slowly and talked about how God talks to us as we aim to have the mind of Christ. We prayed for whatever came up and caught inspiration from the randoms. So disconnected were we from the world in that little beachfront house that my wife called to tell me who won the presidency.

Of course Zac wants to move to Seattle when he grows up. He broke this news to me as we ate Burgers and McDonald’s type fries at an 80’s diner facing the downtown waterfront, delightfully playing Back to the Future II in the background. Zac saw that the idea of him growing up and moving on with life in a couple years made me sad. He was kind enough to break it down and say “Don’t worry Dad — I’m only halfway through 10th grade… I’ve got like… I dunno… 900 days yet where I’ll still be at home,” which made reality even more stark for me. I ordered a Pepsi Free and sat in that thought with him for a minute.

The genius of wisdom is that it is acquired through experience over time. The tragedy of wisdom is that the adolescents who need it most are often farthest away from it. All of our kids have a certain wisdom that comes from loss and tragedy, but it takes an old man like me, with the haircut and grey beard to prove it, that the next few years will zoom by.

Seattle was a good place to exist for a few days. There’s always perspective after a trip like that, little turning points and lessons that one carries into the next leg of the journey. Time spent shaping the souls of our kids is never a waste and far more important than we factor into our day to day hustle. Truth: work goes on without me, I am still needed at home, I love my wife who sent me away for a few days as a plan B to our original intent for the week, and I need to take moments to reflect on what kind of soil tilling Jesus did in Zac’s heart and mine. Like Tulip bulbs planted in Autumn, the petals will tell the story sometime in the future.

We found our rental parked on Elliott street, just south of Wall Street. I remembered the Wall Street part (easy) but forgot the Elliott part. Half of a coordinate isn’t much in an unfamiliar place, but it all worked out.

As it usually does… except for the trout.