Fuck you, hipster music.
I was born on the east coast of the United States. Right smack in the middle between North and South. I only stayed there until I was 5 years old.
I grew up mostly in the dry dust of the Mojave Desert, just outside of Las Vegas. Parts of me are still strewn about there, in the smell of an August rain, tobacco, and heat-baked asphalt; in the well-memorized patterns of local casinos' cheap carpeting, the way the city looks from far away; the comfort of 75 degree summer nights without a cloud in the sky, and the excitement of watching streets turn to rivers of runoff water and sand during flash floods. I know the layout of that valley better than anything else in my life. I know it better than my own face. I oriented myself to its mountains and the Stratosphere Tower. There are childhood memories of places in that city that no longer exist. But I remember watching lightning from my bedroom window and smelling the dust and rain, and I remember the summer bats in the evening.
Despite all that I've left behind of myself in the Nevada desert, it wasn't home. It still calls me, in some way, those missing pieces of myself pulling me - but the place itself never fit. It nurtured my fear of large bodies of water and dried me out. I wanted to leave it.
So I guess it took western Oregon to rehydrate me.
I've been to California, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah... most of the western states tend to blur together. Lots of fierce-looking rocks and pine forests, interspersed with deserts. Beautiful. Wild. Dangerous. But I'd never been to Oregon or Washington.
I was fresh from a trip to a prospective college in Ohio (a place that had depressed me the instant I stepped off the damn plane) and it was night as my mom drove us to a motel in Salem, Oregon to spend the night before I went to tour Willamette University.
My first impression of Oregon is driving from Portland's airport to Salem with the windows down, watching towering trees zoom by. I felt a giddy energy well up in my chest. I wanted to howl.
Over the next four years, the Pacific Northwest made me fall in love.
The first year, I walked a lot. I could walk all over Salem, if I wanted to. I'd be gone for hours. To the river, to the grocery store, to the mall (and the dozens of independent stores between), to the parks, sometimes just wandering around the city at random and walking around neighborhoods.
Meth addicts aside, it was a very nice place. And you couldn't even tell the drug addicts and homeless people were there, half the time.
When I became and environmental science major, and was subsequently dragged all over western Oregon for class projects, field trips, and surveying exercises, I was subjected to just how fucking gorgeous the rest of the area was.
Fuck you, Oregon.
Fuck you.
More than the natural beauty, there was a different culture. In the cities at least, but even in the rural areas there was at least one hippy out there trying to grow pot without the feds knowing in every little town. In Salem, everyone held the door open for the next person. It doesn't seem like much, but I had never experienced that. I came from a land of burned-out and bitter retirees looking for a distraction to live in, and stupid tourists who didn't give a fuck about anything that didn't promise tits and alcohol. People holding doors open, being friendly and polite, being happy, was all something new.
It was constantly wet from the misty rain. Winter was one big, constant rain cloud that never thundered, never really rained, but only got the hems of my jeans wet, and I spent the rest of my time there wandering, exploring, reading scholarly articles and novels in coffee houses, conducting research in forests and marshlands, taking an afternoon walk in a park that had bike trails and was several acres (I had a few of those to choose from within walking distance), surrounded by people who were happy. Not all of them, and not all the time, but I don't think anyone who lived there could really appreciate what it was like.
In Vegas, your cashiers, service-persons, etc., were all polite but aloof. Which is fine. They all worked for tips, because everyone gets tips in Vegas. In Salem, most salespeople I met were... friendly. Maybe they didn't want to be there, but most of them were... happy. Even if they weren't happy to be working, they were still happy people.
The first stop I made in the South when I moved was like a slap in the face. No one is happy here. Cashiers look at you with a dead-soul stare. I don't want a BFF when I buy my fast food or anything, but to get absolutely nothing from them even when I offer a smile... it was jarring.
I don't think Florida will ever be home. I like it fine enough sometimes, but... it's not home. Even if I didn't hate the culture here, it couldn't be home.
Oregon keeps pulling at me. When I think of the place I want to live, it's there. Not the Plains, not the Southwest, not the South no no no, and not New England. I want towering trees and temperate rainforests. I want stupid hipster indie music playing. I want to decorate my cottage home with little fat birds and foxes wearing scarves, and grow a vegetable garden and fruit orchard in the backyard. I want to ride a bike everywhere. I want it to get cold enough to wear sweaters and scarves and gloves.
I want meadowfoam honey on my toast.
Damn you, Willamette Valley. Why did you have to make me love you?
One day, I'll come back. One day.
I grew up mostly in the dry dust of the Mojave Desert, just outside of Las Vegas. Parts of me are still strewn about there, in the smell of an August rain, tobacco, and heat-baked asphalt; in the well-memorized patterns of local casinos' cheap carpeting, the way the city looks from far away; the comfort of 75 degree summer nights without a cloud in the sky, and the excitement of watching streets turn to rivers of runoff water and sand during flash floods. I know the layout of that valley better than anything else in my life. I know it better than my own face. I oriented myself to its mountains and the Stratosphere Tower. There are childhood memories of places in that city that no longer exist. But I remember watching lightning from my bedroom window and smelling the dust and rain, and I remember the summer bats in the evening.
Despite all that I've left behind of myself in the Nevada desert, it wasn't home. It still calls me, in some way, those missing pieces of myself pulling me - but the place itself never fit. It nurtured my fear of large bodies of water and dried me out. I wanted to leave it.
So I guess it took western Oregon to rehydrate me.
I've been to California, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah... most of the western states tend to blur together. Lots of fierce-looking rocks and pine forests, interspersed with deserts. Beautiful. Wild. Dangerous. But I'd never been to Oregon or Washington.
I was fresh from a trip to a prospective college in Ohio (a place that had depressed me the instant I stepped off the damn plane) and it was night as my mom drove us to a motel in Salem, Oregon to spend the night before I went to tour Willamette University.
My first impression of Oregon is driving from Portland's airport to Salem with the windows down, watching towering trees zoom by. I felt a giddy energy well up in my chest. I wanted to howl.
Over the next four years, the Pacific Northwest made me fall in love.
The first year, I walked a lot. I could walk all over Salem, if I wanted to. I'd be gone for hours. To the river, to the grocery store, to the mall (and the dozens of independent stores between), to the parks, sometimes just wandering around the city at random and walking around neighborhoods.
Meth addicts aside, it was a very nice place. And you couldn't even tell the drug addicts and homeless people were there, half the time.
When I became and environmental science major, and was subsequently dragged all over western Oregon for class projects, field trips, and surveying exercises, I was subjected to just how fucking gorgeous the rest of the area was.
Fuck you, Oregon.
Fuck you.
More than the natural beauty, there was a different culture. In the cities at least, but even in the rural areas there was at least one hippy out there trying to grow pot without the feds knowing in every little town. In Salem, everyone held the door open for the next person. It doesn't seem like much, but I had never experienced that. I came from a land of burned-out and bitter retirees looking for a distraction to live in, and stupid tourists who didn't give a fuck about anything that didn't promise tits and alcohol. People holding doors open, being friendly and polite, being happy, was all something new.
It was constantly wet from the misty rain. Winter was one big, constant rain cloud that never thundered, never really rained, but only got the hems of my jeans wet, and I spent the rest of my time there wandering, exploring, reading scholarly articles and novels in coffee houses, conducting research in forests and marshlands, taking an afternoon walk in a park that had bike trails and was several acres (I had a few of those to choose from within walking distance), surrounded by people who were happy. Not all of them, and not all the time, but I don't think anyone who lived there could really appreciate what it was like.
In Vegas, your cashiers, service-persons, etc., were all polite but aloof. Which is fine. They all worked for tips, because everyone gets tips in Vegas. In Salem, most salespeople I met were... friendly. Maybe they didn't want to be there, but most of them were... happy. Even if they weren't happy to be working, they were still happy people.
The first stop I made in the South when I moved was like a slap in the face. No one is happy here. Cashiers look at you with a dead-soul stare. I don't want a BFF when I buy my fast food or anything, but to get absolutely nothing from them even when I offer a smile... it was jarring.
I don't think Florida will ever be home. I like it fine enough sometimes, but... it's not home. Even if I didn't hate the culture here, it couldn't be home.
Oregon keeps pulling at me. When I think of the place I want to live, it's there. Not the Plains, not the Southwest, not the South no no no, and not New England. I want towering trees and temperate rainforests. I want stupid hipster indie music playing. I want to decorate my cottage home with little fat birds and foxes wearing scarves, and grow a vegetable garden and fruit orchard in the backyard. I want to ride a bike everywhere. I want it to get cold enough to wear sweaters and scarves and gloves.
I want meadowfoam honey on my toast.
Damn you, Willamette Valley. Why did you have to make me love you?
One day, I'll come back. One day.