It takes a Village and Xanax: Tacoma Tales, Part 1

Things I remember about Tacoma, and its people: 1) it’s not Seattle; 2) I had to fly on a plane to get to it; 3) they fully believe in a Farmer’s Market – despite the fact that, in my estimation, there were probably only two or three actual farmers at the market; 4) they want everywhere you turn to be something worth looking at; 5) so, that means there’s a lot of random art and sculptures everywhere; 6) Sundays are just as dead there as here, and 7) did I mention I had to fly on a plane to get there?

This wall is not in Tacoma.

Well, it’s true. So, I’m sure I mentioned it. Probably, like, twice, at the least.

This is how I got on a plane. I woke up very early and took several Xanax. (I may have also sipped a little of a wee bev, to help with the Swallowing. I have never enjoyed swallowing pills, in any form, be it via apple juice, ice cream, or a tablespoon of peanut butter).

I’m using the term several, in relation to the Xanax, to preserve my reputation.  I’m not addicted; it is simply rebuttal to my fear of flying. I’d like to think it helped; I’m sure Thomas and Amanda can attest more accurately to that…but, as far as the nature of what a Xanax is supposed to do, that part didn’t kick in until ten minutes from touchdown, at Sea-Tac, which I discovered is not a large push-pin that keeps the western middle portion of Washington state attached to the ocean floor, it’s actually a real place.

It also sits fifty dollars’ worth away from Tacoma. It is not, in my opinion, worth that much.

After landing – the second most frightening part of flying and sometimes the first – though, is when the real fun began. I was to remain in a hazy daze of “All’s well that ends well” for at least the following 35-40 hours. On several occasions, I found myself, alone, riding the Link from the hotel to the theatre district, intent on taking it all the way around the city, despite the fact that I was told, three times, by different conductors that it didn’t do that.

I don’t remember, for instance, how I got to the Chihuly Glass Bridge. Thank god, it wasn’t what I was expecting. That would have simply given me a heart attack. But, it also would have been a good picture.

There isn’t much to do in Tacoma, except stare. And eat. Both of which are things I do quite well. But I do them often enough here at home.

Yet, I enjoyed, no…no, I appreciated the aesthetic attempt Tacoma seems to encourage. It’s a city that really loves itself. And that makes walking a pleasure. We did a lot of walking, and detour-ing; the city suffers from the same illness ours does: random, prolonged, unexpected roadway renovation. There’s no cure for this; the blister just has to boil, come to a head, all on its own.

Like this, but noisier and with a cigarette.

The real joy was in trying to find a way from the right side of the street to the left side, where the Pantages Theater sat. This is where all the performances were occurring. Luckily, there was an unhappy city employee with her orange hat and vest and Virginia Slim, tucked ever so Bankheadishly beneath her upper gum, to pointedly gesture to the miniscule sign that indicated how we were to cross the road.

I think I’ll miss her, most of all.

By the time the daze lifted, our theatre had been nominated for six national awards and had won three of them. We were in a small theatre being bombarded by a group of local singers doing quite a determined job of entertaining us with a medley, a 14-minute long medley, of various and sundry Broadway tunes.

I’m not sure, but I think the woman in the shimmery blue-green sequined gown, the one who did what I’m sure she’d call singing on her rendition of “Razzle Dazzle,” was the Helpful Crossing Guard. I had no Virginia Slim on me to verify.

But, that’s not the point. In my memory of this trip, it was the Helpful Crossing Guard. Because in my memory of this trip, and it was a wonderful trip, I like thinking of her on stage. That’s what community theatre is all about. She has just as much right to strut the boards as any of us do. And thinking that, at least while I sat in that theatre under musical attack, is what made me enjoy it. I even teared up. I did.

Of course, aside from a fateful dinner cruise (I’ll come back to that later, I assure you), and a few nights of karaoke, rolling on the floor with a stranger in an interpretive dance, coupled with the deaths of Wacko and the Farrah Fawcett, nothing could prevent the fact that a plane waited to take me back home to Mississippi.

There's a joke in here somewhere, I promise.

I’ve decided it’s the size of the plane that affects me. I’ve also decided that the next time I fly on a prop plane will have to be when I’m dead and for some reason my family has requested that my dead body be flown around my hometown for “one last goodbye.”

I don’t even know why on earth prop planes still exist.

But, that’s what brought me home, and as we landed in the pasture that it is the GTR Airport, what should greet me upon arrival but a good, old-fashioned thunderstorm. The turbulence, in my book, was devastating. The man sitting in front of me didn’t get the hint and close his window. Amanda finally asked him to, and he did. He wasn’t from America, so I halfway forgive him.

The nerves didn’t upset me until I was finally in my own bed.  But, I think I know now what this lethal combo of aviophobia is made of: the small cabins, the lack of legroom, the inability to control my immediate environment, and the fact that I’m 30,000 feet off the ground…this is the sum of why I hate to fly.

That’s a lot, isn’t it?

No wonder Xanax only did a fourth of the trick.

Thankfully, though, on the long flights, at least – they served a cheese tray.