going home

I recently had a conversation with a friend who also grew up in the small Eastern Washington town of Pullman. Somehow in our meandering conversation, we started talking about how what we identified as our home towns had changed over the years. Maybe it's the same for others from small rural areas, but nowadays when someone asks me where I'm from, I proudly declare "Seattle." My friend now considers Portland her home town. What is it about growing up in a small town... why is it such a source of pride to have escaped, moved on... why is the idea of remaining in your small town so frightening, even shameful?

I've been living in Seattle for 8 years now... 8 years! That's almost a third of my life. And, whether it's justified or silly or whatever, I do take pride in being from Seattle. It's not that I've escaped... it's more that I challenged myself to try something different, and lucky for me I liked that 'different'. Small towns, home towns... there's nothing wrong with them. But I would say that everyone should challenge their environment before they settle on the only thing they know. Escape, move on, or whatever... do it for a little while. If it doesn't work for you, cool, now you can settle into that small town life knowing, really knowing, that it's right for you.

My ramblings aside, there will always, always be a place in my heart for my childhood home. Nearly nine months have passed since I last visited my family in Pullman. Diving from Seattle, 300miles across the state of Washington, I was actually surprised by how much I was enjoying the anticipation and, eventually, the familiarity.

Mountains gave way to orchards, then to expansive farm land and the mighty Columbia, then to arid scab-lands, and finally to the rolling hills of the Palouse. The air is sweet here... somehow I always forget that.