Here I sit amidst a sea of half-unpacked boxes after having just arrived in Seattle from our dual-purpose camping and moving trip. I am scratching this piece onto the backside of a moving box with a ball-point pen, because who knows which box contains stationery, because I am yet to purchase a new laptop for school,  and because my wife is utilizing hers to take a skills assessment test as part of her job search. To say we are in a state of transition might be an understatement. 

The following represents a sampling of my scribbled observations from our trip and our first few days in Seattle, selected at semi-random from my makeshift, cardboard writer’s palette:

  •  A list of the wildlife we encountered along the trip, ranked in order of which ones I’d most like to have as a pet (if they could remain perpetually in their less-threatening baby stages): buffalo, prairie dog, pronghorn, moose, bighorn sheep, elk, grizzly bear. 
  • So far there is no evidence of a Seattle freeze. Are people here actually friendlier than in the Midwest? Both the mattress store salesperson and the WiFi technician took their own initiative to give us their personal contact info, urging us to text or email them with any questions about the area we might have. 
  • We stick out like sore thumbs, betrayed as midwesterners by our full closet of Michigan-based apparel. Gotta retire my Lions cap.  
  • On my list of locations that offer the clearest view of the Little Dipper, the campground at Buffalo Bill State Park just east of Yellowstone has dethroned Copper Harbor in the UP. 
  • Find and devour a monstrous bowl of beef noodle soup in the city’s vibrant Chinatown. 
  • Yes, street-dependency is a problem here. We live near a mental health day clinic, and we’ve noticed a fair number of tents. No, we do not feel unsafe. I’m wary of how we’re contributing to gentrification and I don’t know the proper response.
  • A thirty-hour camping trip is much more convenient without a return journey. Though so worth it, dedicating a backseat passenger space to a box of household plants is not convenient, and it will attract equal parts curious and perplexed stares from other campers when you take them out to water. 
  • Hills, hills, and more HILLS! Looking forward to the sculpted calves and quads that will result. 
  • I’ve already parallel parked four times in two days, and successfully getting out of our condo parking spot requires a four-point Y-turn (W-turn?). Streets are narrow, traffic swift, and pedestrians plenty. The frenetic character of city driving is energizing. 
  • Never visit the Black Hills, or South Dakota in general, during the annual Sturgis Bike Rally. If you do, be prepared to share the road on the windy mountain drives with the half-million bikers that descend on the region like locusts. If the Harley-Davidson aesthetic is your thing, then ride on!  
  • For the first time in our adult lives, we have access to a dishwasher and an in-unit washer and dryer. There is something about not having to lug laundry to a parent’s house or haul it down to the basement of an apartment complex that makes one feel as if they’ve finally made it. May I never take this luxury for granted. 
  • Pods > U-Haul. 
  • I was struck recently by a statistic I had never known about Detroit: it is the largest majority-Black city in the nation. By contrast, Seattle’s Black population is about seven percent. There are different legacies and patterns to the history of racial and social injustice here that I must educate myself on. 
  • My Panera coffee subscription is practically worthless now—this is Starbucks territory. 
  • From Missoula to Spokane, the pine-covered mountain passes were obscured by haze, which we later realized was wildfire smoke wafted in from some area of the west that is aflame. From a distance, the charred trees are eerie black toothpicks that cover once lush hillsides. In eastern Washington, we drove by a fresh, small blaze that had closed down the other side of the highway. It hasn’t rained in Seattle for two months. 

Several days have passed now, and as I transfer this post from cardboard to cloud, the chaos is beginning to quell. We’ve unpacked a majority of our things, assembled half of our furniture, troubleshooted the warm refrigerator (fingers crossed), and are beginning to imagine what our lives will look like here. Each discarded box brings a slight degree of welcome order, though the truth is that it will take time to settle in. I feel a mixture of expectant, sad, anxious, curious, and grateful about our new lives in this still unfamiliar city. These emotions will take time to sort themselves out, too. In the meantime, I’m making every effort to embrace the excitement and exhaustion that comes from living into the unknown.

1 Comment

  1. Lillie Spackman

    I went the other way – PNW to midwest, and you’re right to observe the many differences! Gotta love those mountains though, I hope Seattle treats you well!

    Reply

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