It is a beautiful afternoon here in the Northwest, my home for the last 25 years. I can hear the birds twittering outside and feel a cool breeze come in from our open sliding glass door. It's getting close to the last day of school around here and I remember the last day of school growing up was typically overcast, maybe a little drizzly. But today defies those memories; it is a model spring day. It's days like this that make forcing myself to stay inside and pack hard. Since we are leaving town in about 4 days, I should be packing, but I felt a pull to sit down and reflect some on my time living in the NW.
My family moved to Federal Way, WA, in June of 1987, when I was 5 years old. We moved to a house my dad bought without my mom's even ever seeing it. The reason for moving was that the pastures were supposed to be greener near Seattle for my dad's business as a stockbroker than they were in San Diego, where I was born. My sister was 7 and my brother was just turning 4. We lived in FW for 5 years and when we left Washington for Oregon, I never thought anywhere else would feel as homelike to me.
In fact, it probably took until 10th grade for Oregon to feel like home to me, mainly because I finally made solid friendships. For years after we moved to Oregon, I used to pray that God would let me move up to the Seattle area again because it was the only place that felt like home to me. He answered that prayer by letting me go to PLU. And, after graduation in 2004, I found myself ready to kick the dust off Pierce County and head for Washington DC for the Lutheran Volunteer Corps. I really think I would've gone nuts had I stayed in Pierce County a week longer. Most of you know the story of why my stint in LVC was so brief and why I had to move back home to Oregon to convalesce in the winter/spring of 2005. Back home...to Oregon...only it didn't feel like home because I was 23 and wild and free and newly graduated from college and the LAST thing I wanted to do was live at mom and dad's house in Oregon and rehab from a brain hemorrhage. But I did. And then came the end of August that year when Joe moved out to go to PLU and to be near me.
For the first half of my 20's, I moved about every several months, with different roommates or by myself. It wasn't until Joe and I moved to our current place that I could feel let go and relax a little. Life was so precarious with roommates...especially when you're broke. My concept of home was constantly being altered in the first half of my 20's. One time, when my family was visiting my mom's hometown of Orange, CA, we went to the house she grew up in on Locust Ave. I told her I wanted to take a picture of her in front of her old house and she refused saying, "This isn't my home anymore. My home is where your dad is."
I don't think I've understood that until now. That my home is wherever my husband, and now daughter, are.
We aren't going to be in a place to buy a home for quite some time, a least a few years until after I finish school. We are moving into my inlaws' finished basement and then find an apt. somewhere in Fargo by the summer's end. We won't really have a home, yet won't be homeless. Even after so many years of living with this discomfort, I haven't quite adapted to it.
I've lived in Tacoma longer than anywhere else. If you've ever been to Tacoma, you'd notice it is surrounded by the Olympics and Cascades and bordered by the Puget Sound. I love that salty scent when I am down by the water and I appreciate now more than ever the grit of the sand between my toes. However, I've never grown accustomed to the site of Hooter's off the 72nd St. exit on I-5. Or the trash that accumulates in the gutter by the sidewalks around town. Or that people seem to think it's ok to park their old couch or mattress at the end of their driveway with a "FREE" sign perched on top. (Isn't that called dumping?) Or the rapid turnover of businesses on 6th Ave. (didn't that teriyaki/hair salon/coffee shop just open up a few months ago?) Not to mention the homicide rate...
I have hoped to get to the point of not noticing (as much) these things. But truth be told, I chaff every time I see my city marred by shady businesses and trash in the gutter. My stomach turns over every time I drive by a house on the Hilltop that I know is a brothel. Needless to say, I wasn't looking forward to raising a child here. I think I've stayed in Tacoma so long because I didn't know where else to move. When I moved back here in 2005, I was just elated to be with Joe again while he attended PLU. He finished school and we were excited for him to get a job in Steilacoom, even if it was only part time. But the past few years I think we've been growing restless. Gradually, the doors shut one by one in regards to me going to nursing school and it was clear I was supposed to apply to Concordia. I think this was made most clear to me when Sonja was down for her nap in the afternoon and I would finally have a few moments of quiet in the day and my mind would start turning life over and I would feel a sense of restlessness welling up inside.
Time...to...get out of Tacoma.
Time to leave. I am still pinching myself that I actually got into nursing school. My heart aches that it won't rain in Fargo like it does here in Tacoma. That cold, drizzly precipitation we call "mist" that is characteristic of NW geography on the west side of the Cascade range. Ahh...my mountains...crisp and clean-cut set against the backdrop of a blue sky that's just been cleansed by a much-needed rain. I am a NW girl. I love my hilly terrain and my Puget Sound with seaweed and crab legs and chipped clam shells poking up out of the sandy shore. I am an unabashed lover of coffee shops and books on rainy days. My sister-in-law Heather once told me that she never saw me in college without a coffee cup in hand. :) I've loved living here in the NW and I don't know how long it will take me to feel like I'm "from North Dakota". Or Minnesota.
But our hearts are telling us it's time to go and we're following. With great joy and anticipation of what is yet to come.
