Of course, my new location changes some things on the blog. I hope you’ll forgive the silence of these past three months now you know the whole story. Maybe one day I’ll regret it but today is not that day. The only thing I do know is right now, I’ve never been prouder of myself for taking a chance and chasing after the vision I have for my life. Maybe the honeymoon will come to a halting and unromantic end. Maybe, as one of my friends warned, the halo effect will wear off. For the first time in my life, I feel at home. Each subsequent visit created even deeper ties and I knew in my bones one day I’d be here to stay.įor the first time in my life, I feel settled. My first visit to Seattle four years ago only served to solidify my connection to this place and ignited the first real sparks of attraction. Television footage of the quiet beauty of Puget Sound, the grandeur of the surrounding mountains, and the hills draped in cascading evergreens cast a spell on me that’s never been broken. This move has been coming for a long time. I fell in love with the Pacific Northwest over a decade ago and shortly after, even before I’d ever set foot in the Emerald City, I’d settled on Seattle as the place where I wanted to spend my life. I took this picture last summer because I knew one day I'd write this post and I can't think of a sentiment that's more perfect. I’ve been talking about taking risks for over a year. Like when I said I hoped to spend a lot more time on the West Coast this year or when I mentioned how much I wanted to get back to Seattle or when I wrote I needed to take some risks to chase the kind of life I wanted.

It’s no secret I tend to keep things close to the vestbut if you’ve been reading between the lines, this announcement will not come as a surprise. Sitting in the wishing chair in Smith Tower, SeattleĮxcept I didn’t marry a person. I’m a bit ashamed to say it, but I hightailed it over to Smith Tower and sat in the wishing chair twice for good measure. As the legend goes, any single woman who sincerely wished to be married could sit in that chair and her wish would be fulfilled within a year. I was intrigued by a single feature mentioned in the presentation: a wishing chair, housed on the tower’s 35th floor as a gift from the Last Empress of China. Although many of the buildings downtown now dwarf the once-imposing edifice, the Tower’s place in Seattle history make it a hidden gem among the city’s more popular attractions.ĭuring my time in Seattle last summer, I visited the tower after learning about it on a narrated cruise of Elliott Bay. Seattle’s first skyscraper, Smith Tower–with its pyramid-shaped roof and 38 floors–opened in 1914 and was then the tallest building in the Seattle skyline until the construction of the Space Needle in 1962. Before the Space Needle, there was Smith Tower.

Smith tower vs space needle