By Peggy Sturdivant

The day I heard the City of Seattle’s Arts & Culture office was looking for a Writer in Residence for the Fremont Bridge I joked, “This is what I was born to do,” and added, “Now I know why I was born.”

I put aside whatever I was supposed to be doing and started writing the first of several essays on my qualifications, starting at birth. (Once again I’d confused 2000 character limit with 2000 words). As to why I should be Writer in Residence in the North Tower (Rapunzel Suite) of the Fremont Bridge for an Arts & Culture opportunity I said: I’m a writer who grew up on an island, fascinated by the mechanics of transport, between the mainland and the island, the drawbridge across the lagoon and all the stories that connect people and their surroundings. Although I’ve written all of my life it has been my profession (along with working with students) since 2004. A friend once said that I wouldn’t stop until I had connected everyone in Seattle; that drives me as a public writer.

Over the weeks between the announcement and the application deadline I reflected on writing and “being” At Large in Ballard since May 2006 (first appearing in print in 2007). Curiosity about the infrastructure of Ballard and Seattle has taken me to vaults and archives, District Council meetings all over the city to write a series on the intersection of government and neighborhoods. I’ve profiled extraordinary people no longer with us…Bertha Davis, Marvel Kolseth, Dodie Leach, and Queen Bea, the 100 year-old volunteer at the Senior Center. I’ve toured the working side of the Ship Canal, ridden the Norse Home bus, climbed down to the bottom of the Big Locks, and lunched on a rooftop by the billboard at the northwest end of the Ballard Bridge.

Described at Ballard’s Literary Provocateur I’ve always loved merging indoors/outdoors and public and private. The award for best outdoor living room at the original Fremont movies always inspired me, as does creating a reading space on the street for Park(ing) Day. I transformed an alley into another room for my wedding reception and when I first moved to Seattle in 1987 there was a man living in a billboard in the University District for a month as a marketing event by Millstone Coffee. An almost outdoor office on a bridge, as part of chronicling its 100th year, hooked me immediately.

One summer I fantasized about applying to be a tender at the Ballard Locks because of the story potential of a lock filled with unlikely companions. I study what’s on the water and check the online Marine Vessel tracker to learn more about what’s passing off Shilshole Marina, the vessel’s speed, port of origin, freight. I started researching the 100-year history on the Fremont Bridge, its pedestrians, art, bikers, motor vehicles and its variety of scullers and seiners slipping below or between the raised bascules. I particularly loved the idea of taking “At Large” to a higher level, as a civic writer, up the North Tower stairs.

At the time I learned I hadn’t been chosen, which I’d known in my bones for a while, I was on a suspension bridge headed for a tunnel that would take me to a ferry to an island, and then across another drawbridge. I was back east visiting my family. I did a lot of walking this last trip because unlike Seattle there’s only one good coffee shop in town. And it was closed due to water damage after a freakish April snowstorm. I challenged my sister and neighbor to still walk for the coffee and breakfast bagel, to the next town, over the lagoon drawbridge.

By the 4th time I was making the 2.9 mile walk yet again (that’s just one-way) I had a chance to pause by that other tower, one without Rapunzel. The Writer in Residence for the Fremont Bridge will be Elissa Washuta and she is a stunning choice. She’s talented and brave.

As with so many things in life it’s the desire and what we do to apply ourselves to achieve our dreams that matters more than the outcome. I love my writerly life in Ballard, and on Martha’s Vineyard. Applying to be Writer in Residence for the Fremont Bridge was a lovely exercise in assessing why I love what I do, connecting students, neighbors and other writers. But after all my heart does belong to another bascule.