Travel + Leisure magazine is out with a rather quirky story on Seattle. Predictably, the piece pays homage to our usual array of homage-worthy highlights — bookstores, nightspots, the scenic vistas of mountains and sea. And then it leaves the tracks with these jarring passages:I’m on the life-affirming ferry ride from Seattle to Bainbridge Island, the city’s rather quaint steel-and-glass skyline receding behind me, nature rushing in to tickle the eye with aquatic sparkles of sun, the green, hibernating islands strung out across the horizon like outstretched arms.A big, bearded man choking on his loneliness tells me the story of his life, which concludes with the line “I was too stressed out working at the Hilton, so now I just take the ferry back and forth.” This seems to me to sum up some greater Pacific Northwestern wisdom. Cue the melancholy–this is not a city that chooses to turn its back on sadness. There are many things to do in Seattle but after a while, with a sense of resignation, one just may take the ferry back and forth.So let’s see if we got this straight: A lonely and stressed-out hotel worker criss-crossing the Sound is the very personification of a sad, melancholy city. What a remarkable way of connecting the dots.Read the full story here.