The airport goes by the name SeaTac, and the city of bridges and ships spreads across twelve hills, held by the cold waters of the ocean and three lakes. Seattle, the renowned hub of trade and fishing that stretches from Alaska to Mexico, is a gameboard for sailors and salmon. Yes, it’s raining, naturally. Did you pack a raincoat? Leonard Cohen is at the Paramount Theater tonight, singing his famous Blue Raincoat: ‘I’m writing you now just to see if you’re better.’  Rainy summer of  ‘93. Pacific waves crash at the feet of Chief Seattle, who departed long ago for the lush meadows of his people.

Glum and disappointed, the girls murmur they are leaving us again. Having had their fill, the squirrels make their exit behind the apple tree. The news claims the Northwest hasn’t experienced such rainfall in years. For the moment, however, the rain has ceased. Straight to the car then. D. pampers his tomatoes, planting bits of Greece every summer, while J. turns the key and floors the gas pedal. In the back seat, the girls fantasize Thelma and Louise on the road again! On the radio, Aaron Nevill erases any resistance to contentment with his ‘Stand by Me.’ Will you really? I wonder.

Sometimes we would head north toward Anacortes, leaving the bustle of trucks and trailers on the highways to explore the older roads skirting Puget Sound’s coast. We’d find ourselves lost among bays, inlets, and hidden coves, amid emerald islands, tiny islets, and meandering rivers. We’d cross truss bridges and ramble along steep cliffs and tranquil harbors, surrounded by towering sequoias and rain-nurtured firs. Foamy waves, names Native and European, sailors and explorers, old and new conquerors in this New World. Nowhere Bay, Useless Bay, docks shrouded in mist, cabins nestled within forests, windows clouded over, damp lives of fishermen.

Occasionally, a tour boat appears, seagulls in its wake, ferrying sightseers from one marvel to the next. White sailboats cut through the wind and weathered wood boats resembling ancient firs drift by. Small fishing vessels return from salmon runs, those freshwater havens where the sacred fish of Native tribes journey to die. Retrograde fish, retrograde planets. They punctuate our existence, as the water mirrors our emotions and fears. Thoughts struggling to become words, to settle old accounts: does discarding add value to what’s left?

And then, there to the left, just shy of the Pacific, Puget Sound meets the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Ioannis Phokas, the mariner who charted this waterway leading northward to Vancouver Island, hailed from Corfu. He made the discovery in the 1590s, but local Greeks recount that tale as if it were yesterday, eyes alight with the gleam of old adventures. As for his Latinized name—well, what do you expect? The poor man came all this way in the company of Spaniards after all.

Heading in the opposite direction toward Olympia and Aberdeen, we veer off Highway 101 and turn left, glimpsing distant St. Helens and Mount Rainier. I always heard it as ‘Rain Ear,’ it sounded right to me with all those daily rains. The Native Americans called it Tahoma, the mountain that is god, both hidden in the mist. Skirting past the Olympic Mountains (does Greece follow everywhere?),  we crossed the soaring Columbia River bridge and wander into Oregon along forgotten routes. Lumberjack hamlets, melancholic men sitting by log cabins, empty whiskey bottles and soda cans in the trash, derelict gas stations. Am I in an indie road movie? The Oregon heartland emanated an unshakeable sense of loss, perhaps only in my imagination.

And, yes, the persons I keep in mind…

J. Sh., a multilingual Russian Jew, crossed through the Bering Strait by foot to flee Stalin’s purges. Whether knowingly or not, he retraced the steps of the Natives who had ventured to the New World 15,000 years earlier. He settled in the Northwest, where his son, a famous linguist, teaches the origins of language at a local university.

D.S. left Greece on an aging ocean liner. The specter of the civil war haunted his family. His mother and sisters urged him save yourself at least. In America, he found his calling as a marine biologist. He cherished the crystal lakes and his wife, once his  student, an Irish woman. They went to all the rallies against the Vietnam War and advocated for the return of democracy to Greece. In the evenings, he planted zinnias, dahlias, and white daisies, casting his gaze southward.

G.L., arrived by ship from Scandinavia and by truck from California, spending his working years as a logger in the mountains of Washington and Oregon. Shortly after retiring, he passed away one tranquil afternoon in his camper van, in the backyard of the sturdy house he had abandoned when his wife Suzan passed. His grandchildren found him clutching his last read—a biography of Nelson Mandela. We took his threadbare body to the funeral home, gifting him an ancient Scandinavian tale and Sibelius on the piano. At his wake, global citizens from all corners raised their glasses to his next journey. That night, sleep eluded me for hours. The concept of the melting pot had suddenly crystallized in me.

*******

In the campus bookstore. Lavishly illustrated fairy tales,  Scott Fitzgerald and others grate American authors... Then you freeze. The store’s playlist suddenly shifts to a Greek song. In Andreas’ boat, where dreams are born… a recurrent question: do we orchestrate our own serendipities?

You can’t help but smile as you walk past the grill house ‘Beautiful Lesvos.’ The owner beams as he talks about how his Mytilenian father started the business, how he established and expanded before handing it over. He cherishes that vintage sign over the door and knows the daily weather and news back in Lesvos. Next, you traverse Pike Place Market—seafood stalls brimming with fish and shellfish, with Hawaiian fruits,  with flowers resembling exotic birds. Native American crafts, too, hawkish heads and wide-open eyes adorned with feathers, dreamcatchers and amulets, intricate belt buckles.

Crossing over you find yourself on the seafront, awash in scents, sounds, and yearning. You purchase steamed mussels topped with a lemon slice, neatly served in a large cone. As you sit on a mooring bollard to savor it, D.s’ warning comes to mind: ‘You are not in Iraklion, this is America, you are taking a risk.’ I hear you. But it is not the pursuit of safety that compels us to wander.

Jurassic Park is the indisputable summer blockbuster. Spielberg dominates the box office, Clinton basks in public adoration, and we are still a couple of years away from Monica’s blue dress (oh daddy, how could you?). Forget shark jaws; now it’s dinosaur maws on the big screen. New special effects captivate kids nationwide, raising the standards for the bottom line. The multiplex lies just beyond the city, redefining ‘large’ for me in a scale I have not seen since traveling in the former Soviet Union (coincidence?). Sprawling parking lot, ticket kiosks, towering popcorn cones, oversized soda cups. The theaters are numbered, hallways carpeted, children and teenagers bustle about, everyone geared up for action.

The boys: trousers slung low to flaunt Calvin Klein boxers, pant legs sagging accordion style from the knees down, brand name sneakers with meticulously tucked-in laces. Long hair is the look du jour—we are squarely in the era of dreadlocks. Again.

On the giant screen mythical creatures come and go, making fantasy out of paleontology.  But there is a line, and, for us, it’s crossed when the cinematic beast, in his voracious pursuit of human flesh, interrupts that most sacred of moments: sitting on the john. Enough is enough. We rise, step over outstretched legs and popcorn crushed underfoot, ignore the grumbling murmurs, and make our way to the exit, welcoming the burst of fresh air.  J. urges us to move faster; we parked some distance away. Suddenly, absurdly, we break into a sprint, running away from the movie or from the feeling of alienation looming over us. Once inside, the sound of doors locking brings unexpected comfort. American parking lots are not made for socializing or even lingering. At least, their sheer scale and the mass arrivals and departures offer a sense of safety in numbers. Yet, the terror on the screen—the rampaging dinosaur—continues to haunt us. A vague, lingering threat.

Fear is a big chapter in the American storybook. Or so it seemed to me coming from Greece in the 90s, a time when you could sleep in the yard on summer nights or leave the front door unlocked as you waited for your neighbor’s visit. I remember thinking that, in America, fear isn’t confined to the margins; it seeps into affluent homes, haunts stoplights, and whispers in the halls when layoffs are announced. Fear walks in with the medical bills, it glimmers in the eyes of the homeless huddling in the corners, it echoes in the advice to avoid Ravenna Park even in broad daylight.

Is fear rooted in the American DNA? Does it hark back to the settlers and pioneers making their way westward, forging pathways of survival in their brains? Is it part of a systemic plan that uses fear to cultivate need, that uses need to perpetuate consumption and so increase the bottom line? Is it the very cornerstone of all institutions, from family, education, and religion, to government, economy, the media, healthcare, science…? Is fear the catalyst of subjugation, an emotion so fundamentally undemocratic (can emotions be described politically?) that it undermines a nation’s principles? It may be all of these, or none.

Maybe it’s fear, not love, that really defines who we are. I am growing older without the answers I thought I would have by now. But I know that I have been seeing in Greek eyes, for some time now, the fear I first noticed in America.

Philip Roth, an astute seismographer of the American psyche, notes in an interview that maple trees, despite their long lifespans, eventually decay from within.

© Νίκη Τρουλλινού

Από το δίγλωσσο βιβλίο, Crossing The Ocean, αγγλική μετάφραση Eleni Hall Manolaraki, αναπληρώτρια καθηγήτρια University of South Florida, εκτός εμπορίου, χορηγία Π. Κρήτης.