Yesterday Seattle blew up the Kingdome. At the moment I am on holidays in Noosa, Australia and my mother rang me to tell me the news. So as I sit here in my apartment rental, I am actually quite sad to hear that this is happening back home.
This is probably not a very exciting thing to consider for most people, because most people aren't from Seattle. It isn't everyday that we go around blowing up landmarks, and it really isn't everyday that they blow up a place that seems to represent so much of my life. It would be a huge deal if it was an iconic statue in Italy or France, but it's Seattle and no one cares.
It isn't that I have many memories of the Kingdome other than seeing it sitting there on the face of Seattle as part of the backdrop for the movie of my life. What I find remarkable is that its demolition is so timely for other forces at work right now. I'll try to explain it, but it probably sounds very lame.
First of all, my Saturn return is next month. I have completed roughly the first 1/3 of my life, and to commemorate it, the city has decided to demolish a building which was erected when I was a child. It represents leaving behind that which is behind, erasing the board to make room to start anew. It is truly an opportunity to build something different, unique, and completely of my own choosing.
Second, my city is being destroyed systematically anyway. Everytime I go out and do something anymore, it is such a unique experience, so otherworldly, that I could never hope to recapture the moment. It makes me not want to visit certain places, do certain things, ever again, lest they become tainted by a lack of understanding. It would be like a stone-throw into a perfectly still pond, made beautiful by chance, then desecrated out of boredom.
Third, the walls come tumbling down. I've marched around Jericho seven times, blowing trumpets of grace and mercy, and at long last angels have been dispatched to throw open the shutters. My eyes are blinded by the light of a heartbeat as pleasant scenery flies past, cars rattling and shaking, pulled by an unknown engine.
The Kingdome was a scapegoat, on which I've loaded all of my sins, all of the transgressions of my life. In one sacred act I piled all of my fears and weaknesses onto the rickety old structure and said goodbye to the past. In the morning it was blown into oblivion. My sins were a cloud that blocked out the sun. When I went on my first holiday to Noosa, Australia, I had a blast but when I did think about home, I thought about the Kingdome. I re
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
In nomine Magdalena.
L'amour est plus fort que la mort.
