Ambivalence: Seattle Edition

I’ve been living in Seattle/the surrounding area for four months now.  I like it here, but I don’t think that I could settle here.  It feels good but doesn’t quite feel like “home.”  That’s not a particularly explicit statement, but this is how I feel and I can't think of a better way to say it.   I like Seattle overall, and this post is mainly to write about what I think of this gem of the Pacific Northwest (did you like that?  It sounds like it came straight from a travel guide).

I see this view almost everyday. Check out that mountain

I love the diversity here. 98118 (here in Seattle) is the most diverse zip code in the United States.   I know that the word “diversity” has become a hackneyed term; an overused word that does little more than conjure up memories of recent affirmative action court cases, or complaints against quotas in hiring.  But seriously, I love the diversity here.  And I’m not just talking about racial diversity, though people automatically think “blacks!!!!” when they hear the word.  I’m talking about racial, ethnic, religious, gender/gender-identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic, (dis)ability, etc.

As you know if you read this blog, I take public transportation.  Pick any given workday in Seattle, and I can tell you that I could be riding the bus with a Somali man and his daughters, an Ethiopian teenager, a Vietnamese grandfather, a lesbian from El Salvador, a Canadian vegan, an Eritrean college student majoring in Russian literature, a wealthy French woman who works for Microsoft, whose headquarters are nearby.   It’s a veritable mosaic every time I venture outside.  There's no telling who I'll meet or stalk on my way to work.  

Recently at work, I was asked for money from a Cambodian ex-convict.  I knew some things about their culture, but the closest I came to ever encountering a Cambodian before I moved to Seattle was seeing Angelina Jolie’s son Maddox in the media.   I met a woman from the Makah Native American tribe; I had never even heard of the Makah people.  Of course, I was proud to have heard of tribes other than Cherokee, which seems to be the only one folks are familiar with, but I had not heard of the Makah.  Also at work, I helped out a black Jew. I work with a practicing Wiccan, whom I adore.  I never thought I’d meet a Wiccan in person.  Though I had researched it in high school and knew that its followers were growing, I thought the likelihood of me meeting a Wiccan was as likely as me meeting a person who celebrated Kwanzaa.  Read: not likely.  But hey, that’s Seattle, for ya. 

Growing up in Detroit, I wasn’t surrounded by a lot of different cultures.  People call Detroit ‘diverse’ but it’s really not.  People are silly and think diversity is just a code name for ‘lots of black people.’ But Detroit proper is like 90% black; how exactly is this figure diverse?  Detroit is the most segregated metropolitan area in the country, with the majority of people of color living in the city and the majority of whites living in the suburbs.  Before I decided to attend an elite, mostly white university, all the schools I attended K-12 were almost 100% African-American (though a small handful of blacks were Ghanaian or Nigerian), everyone was cisgender, with almost all identifying as exclusively heterosexual, almost all Christian—whether that was by personal connection to a church or just because of how they were raised.    I love being surrounded by people who are different from me.  Even in college I didn’t meet this many different types of people in one sitting. 

It’s a myth that it rains year-round in this city, and when it does rain, it's usually a light drizzle.  It's not the monsoon-like torrential downpour that people often associate with this place.  According to Wikipedia (a truly reliable source, mind you!!), as well as my own observations and testimonials from native Seattlites (is that the correct term for them...?) it rains a lot more in other places than it does here.  I hate rain, and trust me, it rained a lot more while I lived in Chicago over the summer than it has in Seattle for four months.  True, it is quite grey here (yes I spell ‘grey’ with an –ey like the Brits because I like it better), but I like grey skies.  I’m one of those rare people who isn’t too fond of sunshine.  I do like kittens, though, so I’m not a monster.  Just don’t like sunshine.

I like that people are educated here.  It is a fact that this city contains the highest percentage of college-educated persons in the country.  This is why I went to a bar and somehow ended up talking about Germanic literature with a stranger over drinks, and went to another bar and slurred conversed about anacoluthia.  This is why I read the alternative weekly papers here and am amazed by the writers’ prose and piquant wit.  This is why the homeless guy asking me for money had a copy of The Apocrypha in his hat.  This is why there is a hot dog stand here called ‘Dante’s Inferno’, an apartment building called ‘Sir Galahad,” and another one called ‘The Iliad.”  Therefore I, the self-proclaimed intellectual snob can find solace in any library, coffee shop (and I don't even drink coffee) or even grocery store.

I love that it’s clean, and it’s a big city but not too big like New York.  There’s culture, there are museums, there is a pretty nice nightlife.  The mountains are breathtakingly, majestically beautiful.  The whole state of Washington looks like it should be on a postcard.  And there are plenty of parlors for me to get my next tattoo.  All in all, it’s pretty cool.

I don’t like that Seattle, though a rather friendly town, isn’t so friendly to Christians.  Believers are certainly a minority in this city, and I am reminded of it constantly.  Whether I’m reading the newspaper or dealing with someone at work, there is a real anti-Christian sentiment brewing here.  I don’t take it personally; I mean, most of them aren’t deliberately insulting me.  Most of them just think I’m stupid or mislead, and some of them (God bless ‘em) try to ‘convert’ me to atheism.  I’ve dealt with non-believers before, of course.  One of my areas of study in college was philosophy, for crying out loud.   It’s not only a useless major (though I loved it and don’t regret studying it), but it’s also filled with skeptics and other people who are too reasonable to believe in God.  So of course, these debates are nothing new.  But I have never felt as alone as I do here with my beliefs.  [Insert pilgrim in unholy land quote] J.  And there not nearly as many pro-lifers here as there are in Michigan; at least not visible ones.  The paucity of piety is something I really feel.  People sometimes give me a strange look when I say I’m a Christian or they see the cross around my neck, as if I am emitting a strange odor.  It’s a weird phenomenon, but at least now I know how other people [religious minorities/people sans religion] feel vis-à-vis Christians.  The shoe is now on the other foot, and I think it’s an Ugg boot. (If you know how I feel about Uggs, then that sentence made sense to you).

This is petty, but I don’t like the way they respond to snow here.  Around Thanksgiving, we got our first snowfall, and it was around 1-2 inches.  1-2 inches, and they closed the schools, people got into car accidents all over the city, people (including a pregnant woman) were stuck in traffic for over 12 hours, a man died after being hit by a car on the freeway, no one could drive properly, people were getting stuck—it was effing ridiculous!  In Michigan, that’s nothing!  Especially in Detroit.  DPS closed the schools twice (twice!) in my entire K-12 career.  The rest of the time I was trudging through the snow in blizzards, wearing the snowpants my mother forced me to wear until I was old enough to make a case against such abject humiliation.  People in Seattle were freaking out over a few inches of snow.  And to add insult to injury, the tow trucks wouldn’t even come out to help people because they said, “The weather’s too bad.”  WTF?  You are AAA (Triple-A) and you dare not brave the treacherous two inches of snow flurries??  It was insulting.  I know that winters here are supposed to be mild.  It rarely snows in Seattle, and this season is supposed to be the worst winter in fifty years (I picked a hell of a time to move here. I hate snow even more than I hate sunshine).  Since the snow is so rare, I understand that Seattle was ill-prepared.  However, you’d think that they would take lessons from the Midwest and put down salt, which melts ice.  Instead, they put nothing down on the roads, and the scratch their heads in confusion as automobiles collide into one another after sliding on ice.  Or, since they clearly want to piss me off and don’t want to put my tax dollars to good use, they'll sometimes put down SAND, which does nothing whatsoever.  Sand.  Are you kidding me? 

Of course, I miss my family and friends.  I have Boyfriend, but I would love to be closer to everyone else. This isn’t Seattle’s fault, but it plays a role (albeit small) in how I feel about staying here permanently.  I came out here sort of on a whim.  I think it was great to get away from Michigan, even if only for a year.  I spent 22 years there, and it was time for a change.  I probably won’t make this my home forever, but it has been nice.  Living in Seattle is like dating a guy (or girl, whatever floats your boat) who is great but not quite what you’re looking for, and you can't really figure out why.  This person is nice for now, but you don’t see yourself committing to this person long term because he/she is not The One.  Sure, you could be happy with this person, but you are convinced that there is one city that is right for you and will best connect with you. 

So, I think when summer arrives, I’m going to tell Seattle that we should see other people.  I’ll begin with, “It’s not you, it’s me….”