I’ve moved to a new city three times in my life, and each time I might have made a better first impression if I'd arrived in town wearing a T-shirt that said “I KNOW--I should have seen this place five years ago.” Or ten years ago, or fifteen, depending on the age of the person telling me what I’d missed. Everywhere always used to be better, according to the people who were cool enough to have been there. Did you know that Austin, Texas was the greatest city on planet Earth until exactly the moment the Liberty Lunch closed for the last time? What was the Liberty Lunch you ask? Oh, nothing, I guess you just had to be there. Seattle was pretty cool too, until they closed a bowling alley and a Denny’s in Ballard, and all these condos were built on top of the artists who used to live in the trees and drank independent coffee before that was even a thing and we wore flannel because it was the thing to wear, not because it was the thing to wear, you know man?
That’s the right of people who stay in their hometown though. If you stick with a place long enough, you do earn ownership of it. You can complain about the way it is now, and cherish the way it was, if you want to. When I go back to my hometown I might as well be a tourist. All the stores are different, I know about three people I could call. Here I've met people who have been working the same plots in my community garden for thirty years. They really do remember Seattle when it was a lot different. Their regional complaints actually contain bits of history. If Seattle seemed better to them back then, maybe they seemed better to themselves then too.
I’m not a native northwesterner, and I'm not trying to pass myself off as one, but if I should need some kind of credential to prove I'm rooted here, I could point out that my son is a native, and that’s a serious thing to me. He might become a rolling stone when he’s older and leave this mossy place, but it’s important to me and to Jordan that he have a hometown. We love our hometowns. Even if you can’t go back, it’s good to have a place you can’t go back to. Some people can’t not go back anywhere, so how do they even know which way is up?
So I’m trying to learn about this place, taking Henry out to explore it and reading about the history of the land and the people, and I’m finding that I love it here. I hope that if I love it, Henry will find it easy to love too. Yesterday morning I was at work, and when the sun came up I went outside and it was raining. It was maybe the first good rain after the summer drought season. I wanted to jump out of my skin, I was so excited. It was like dreading the first day of school, but then when you get there you find out your best friend from two years ago moved back to town and he’s in your class. Henry is going to know how lucky he is to live in beautiful Washington State, with these hundred year red cedars and these salmon who (hopefully continue to) return every year. We’ll always have to grow more peas and cabbages in our garden than tomatoes and peppers, but they’ll taste better to us because they’ll be our kind of food, from our kind of place.
Also, I'm going to try to teach him that it's bad manners to welcome people to your town by explaining to them the sad fact that they aren't cool enough to have seen the place in its most recent heyday. But shoot, some people can't help themselves.
Cross Spider
Araneus diadematus
Family Araneidae
Here's a common lady to see during autumn in Seattle. Henry and I found here in the blackberry bramble behind our apartment. They're harmless to humans, but they sometimes devour the male after mating. Another fun fact: they digest their food before eating, by throwing up on it. Neato!
--Tim 9/27/11