On Pearl Jam and wedding rings.

It was agreed. We would wear platinum. A metal known for strength and permanence. The perfect metaphor for “’til death do us part”.

Seattle Center, September 2001. I met him at the Orca statue, right near the giant mound of a brushed silver fountain. He clasped my hand and I clasped back. We’d been dating since June, but this was the first time we’d held hands together in public. I knew this thing was going to be serious. Do you want to walk around? he said. I do, I said. That was almost ten years ago. We’ve been walking around ever since.

Seattle Center, May 2003. We drifted down the hill together. Queen Anne Hill, to be precise. The sunny waves of Elliott Bay sparkling like Christmas tinsel strewn across the Puget Sound.  A lovely place. I highly recommend it. If you go, a visit to Macrina Bakery on McGraw for an orange hazelnut pinwheel is a must. But get there early! They run out fast. Tell them Callie sent you.

We entered the gates and wandered over to Memorial Stadium. Where I first saw Pearl Jam, crushing hard on Eddie Vedder. Where I sat many a gray Saturday for Michaela’s middle-school soccer games, squinting hard from the stands, trying to discern my daughter’s tall, skinny limbs from the tangled, pre-adolescent commotion running back and forth across the field. Where my gaze fixed upon cresting the now dismantled Fun Forest roller coaster, right before plunging headlong into the warped, purple reflections of the Experience Music Project, smack dab under the shadow of the Space Needle.

A strawberry-lemonade sounds good. Would you like a strawberry lemonade?

We wandered past the vendors, whiffing scents of tie-dyed hippies, catching soundbytes of rapping, smacking teens. My favorite tents are the ones with racks and racks of silver jewelry. I love the simplicity of silver. The malleableness of it. The warm glow to its hue. The way I see it, there are two kinds of people in this world: those who wear silver and those who wear gold. Will and I bought cheap silver bands to get us through our wedding ceremony.

But it was agreed. We would wear platinum. A metal known for strength and permanence.

That was ten years ago. Now our cheap, silver, Bumbershoot bands are permanently infused with memories, stories, and meaning. Memories writ large as nicks and scratches visible in the soft patina of the tarnished metal.

Beautiful. There will be no platinum, afterall. Just permanence.