foreign and familiar

When I was in highschool I had this thing I would say. I'd say that, someday, I was going to move to Seattle and get season tickets to the Seahawks. I remember coming to Seattle on our annual "Seattle trips" and just staring out the window as we drove down the city streets in our huge blue bus, head cranked upwards, trying to see the tops of the buildings. I thought this city was magical--but never a place I would actually live.

Right now I'm sitting in a cute little coffee shop at the top of the hill in Queen Anne. This is my neighborhood now. My home. I live in the city and it's kind of strange--still. Everyone around me looks like they belong here, like it ain't no thang that they just rode public transportation to get to dinner, or that their dog just pooped and...look at that... they have a baggie. I still find myself staring a lot, wondering about their stories and if that piercing hurt. Yikes, I bet it did. Basically, I think I'm still in awe of it all. I think I didn't ever really believe that I would live in Seattle, and I almost don't believe it now. Not because it's some lovely, magical place, but because I pictured my life being a lot different than this. I'm not really sure what the picture looked like--but I think there was a husband, and maybe a dog, and I think I was in Walla Walla. Yuck. If I lived in Walla Walla right now I think my insides might be exploding, and I would probably be longing for a life like this.

So, here I am six years later, still smashing my forehead up against the window to look at the tops of buildings in a city where I live. I wonder if I'll lose this sense of awe someday. I wonder if my breath will always catch every time I come around that one bend where the skyline fills my windshield, or if I'll ever be one of those people running across that busy bridge, undaunted by the huge tons of metal flying past them. I guess I hope it's a mix. I hope I don't lose my wonder, but I also hope I feel more like this is my home someday. Southern's still got me...but Seattle is in it to win it.