Seattle First Impressions

If you were to ask me how my new home is treating me, my reply would sound something like this:

    "From the homeless rock star on the street singing for food, to the starving college student majoring in jazz violin and working three jobs, to the envied and working professionals touring a show through the city, the liberal vibe of Seattle is a breeding ground for not the hopeless, but the hopeFUL. Substitute the smell of rotting dreams that one might come across in New York City or Los Angeles with the soft brew of 'Seattle’s Best Coffee' and you're home.

    My days are long and filled with everything I love. The screaming ambulance sirens and breaths of exhaust from semi-trucks passing on the street outside my dorm room window wake me up earlier than my eyes are ready to open six out of seven mornings, but I don’t mind; city living is a game of compromises with BIG rewards.  I’m living in the 7^th avenue dorms, the busy dorms, where everything happens. All students and faculty alike are individuals here, each his or her own definition of an artist. In fact, nearly every faculty member, including the janitors, are working elsewhere and living their art in addition to their job at Cornish College of the Arts. People dress how they feel and everyone’s personal aesthetic is vibrant and thriving. Everyone I meet is friendly and open in contrast to the “Minnesota Nice” that reality proves is more accurately titled “Minnesota Passive Aggressive.” Sure there are some catty girls and skater boys, but I’ll run into those and other stereotypes everywhere I go in life. I can officially say that I have indeed found my people. And no, I’m not jumping the gun in my declaration of brotherhood; a week is really all I need. Since I’ve been around the college block once or twice, I know what I like. And I like it here. A lot. 

    My classes are thought-provoking and very right-brained. My teachers have led and are still leading respected careers in the industry. And with a fair majority of them having BROADWAY in bold print on their resumes, let’s just say it's hard NOT to be extremely motivated to pay attention in class. I am taking eighteen credits of dance, acting, improvisation, script analysis, physical technique, yoga, voice, meditation, and singing. What’s not to love? I feel comfortable and welcome among upperclassmen, and I am IN LOVE with my teachers. IN. LOVE. And it’s a college made up of only 800, so a one-on-one coffee date with a professor is basically a given. I feel a sense of pride in my school for the first time. Theater graduates here go on to Yale’s graduate drama program or are WORKING as producers, playwrights, actors and directors, with the lot of them directing their own shows and being cast onto professional stages. I am persistently being encouraged by the faculty to start collaborating with all the artists around me, so I’ve already asked a music composition major to play Rodgers to my Hammerstein and start putting music to the dozens of plays, scenes, sketches, one-acts, and musicals I have birthed through my words. One of my homework assignments was to ready a play, so why not grab all the theater majors within a ten foot radius to read the play aloud and give a unique voice to each character? They’re certainly happy to do it and then I get my homework done.  Win, win. Catch my drift?

    I have not one, count them, but two gay BFF's (I do not, in any way, mean to use this phrase to objectify gay males) who switch roles as the devil and angel standing on my shoulders. They are just two of the many friends I have made here, one of which includes my NORMAL and fellow thespian roommate. I am busy busy busy between school, work, and friends constantly knocking on my door asking if I can come out and play. But at the heart of it all, I am thriving in a company of actors who support me as an individual while collaborating in a beautiful and very alive art.

   Of course my time here hasn’t been perfect, and I quickly became aware that I’m not in never never land (as much as I’d like to be). Even in Seattle, and likely no matter where I go, there are aches and pains to be tended to, life lessons to be learned, and heartaches to be felt. But that’s life, and I am not going to let those things deter me from living it. I can honestly say that I cannot think of a better place to be at this point in my life and I am going to cherish every moment."

That was an excerpt from a journal entry that I logged as of two weeks ago. I do hope you enjoyed the read.