Pages, Plans & Unexpected Magic in Seattle

I'm tagging along on my husband’s work trip to Seattle. While his day is filled with company business, mine is devoted to a different kind of work—bookish, indulgent, and entirely my own. I'm spending my time exploring the literary corners of the city, a world that feels like home. My plan was simple: leave the hotel, wander the bookshops surrounding Capitol Hill, and carry my own novel in my backpack—hoping it finds a home, one conversation at a time.

First observation: the phrase “uphill both ways” must have been coined in Seattle. Or maybe San Francisco. But either way, Seattle earns it.

Our hotel was down by the Pike Place Market so I had to walk through a more well used part of town to get to my first book stop. The underbelly of night had not yet fully receded. There was the pungency of urine. An argument between a night walker and kevlar clad officers echoed across the street. I wonder how well the officers and the night walker know each other. While I’m lost in imaginary scenarios about the nightwalker and the officers, a man is heading towards me. Yelling. It takes me a minute to realize he’s yelling at me. Obscenities. The officers look over. Watchful. I duck into the front lobby of the City Courthouse and wait for the man to disappear.

I consider an Uber.But I decided I wouldn’t let foul words or the visible illness of another reroute my day. A quick check in with Google and a local concierge, and I reroute to friendlier streets. The concierge advises, “You look pretty today miss. Maybe you shouldn’t walk that way.” It was a comment that clung with me the rest of the day. So I walked (mostly) everywhere.

My goal had been to gift four books to four bookstores, each with a sell sheet tucked inside.

The first went as planned. I dropped off my book gift—purchased a new book to fill its place in my bag. On my way to the second book store, I spotted an herbal medicine shop and couldn’t resist the urge to duck in. I believe in earth medicine and I’m irresistibly drawn to those who are the same.

On the window of the shop was the acknowledgement of the indigenous people that once inhabited the land—the Duwamish People. Inside, the shop looked as an herbal shop does. Walls of stones and herbs. Displays of vitamins and supplements. There was a floor to ceiling rock pool on one side. A display of organic jewelry. Light spilled in warming pools from the high windows and there was the faint sense that everything inside—including myself—was being steeped. In the back, a well stocked apothecary grew along eight foot high wooden shelves. Spider plants draped their skinny tendrils protectively along the top. It had been awhile since I’d encountered a true apothecary. Jars and jars of ancient healing waiting to be blended and put to use. The whole place vibrated with an undertone of magic.

Two young women, loose hair and glinting with silver piercings, chatted in the back. They were kind and offered me a cup of cold tea called Desire. I asked to read the ingredients.

One of the young women had a particular brightness about her, and we struck up a conversation. I asked her about the bookshop a few doors down and she gave me a bit of history. We talked about the heat and how she’d wisely let her natural curls go wild that day. I, on the other hand, had tried to blow my own out straight and now my hair was a tangle of humid frizz. I told her about the book, and she brightened more. Light on her face. She was a poet, she said. She wanted the world to read her poems. A voice nudged at me. Four books. Four bookshops. Four sell sheets. That was my plan. But the book in my bag was singing. What of plans when one chooses to wander.

I took the book out and offered it to her. I told her a bit about it and she leaned in. She told me about her mother. About herself. The stories of women. Connecting. Interlocking. My own story, one filled with the intersecting lives of women, sat between us on the counter. I took a sip of my herbal tea. I bought a handmade soap that wafted with the warm, masculine scents of bergamot and cedar. I shared with her what I’ve learned so far about the world of indie publishing. The light in her practically shimmered.

She reached over into her quilted bag and pulled out a jar filled with folded papers. She handed me one and said, “This was meant for someone else. But I think it belongs with you.” It was one of her poems and the paper looked as if it had been folded and unfolded many times. I thanked her and tucked the paper away, forgetting entirely to ask her name before leaving the medicine shop behind.

I found a bench and consulted my list. Marking off one of the bookshops. I’d spent one of my books on a conversation with a girl in an apothecary. Three books. Three bookshops. Four sell sheets. The story of Ruth was on a journey with the girl and her mother and her world, and I had no idea where it might land. What quaking, unexpected magic.

At lunch I ordered a salad and a spritzer. Sitting in a corner I unfolded the paper and smoothed it out in front of me and began to read. A reflective poem with an edge of feminine defiance– Folklore//Les Dame Blanches. She hadn’t attributed it so I cannot offer you her name. But within the stanzas, I was halted by these lines—sitting back in my chair, I smiled at the way the universe intertwines us—

“They wrote it down in a book as a last resort,
because, as we all know,
paper can barely hold anything anyways.”