It has been a year and a half since my last post. Why am I bothering to write? Where would I start? So much has happened since my last entry! The biggest change would have to be our cross country move from the suburbs of Chicago to the state of Washington, about an hour southeast of Seattle. We have lived here for five and a half months and now as life's more mundane aspects plop themselves down on our daily lives with increasing frequency I have felt a growing urge to not let go of how this beautiful new state has so captured my heart. My mom and I still frequently joke with each other about how it feels like we're on vacation except for the fact that we have to go to work during the week! So, I've returned to my blog. Yes, I post a lot, including pictures, of our new life on Facebook, but it's not always enough. I can't fully express my thoughts in such short blurbs. In my soul, I am a writer. I have been since before I could write words (as a small child I drew picture stories).
So, what the heck is going on with this all-over-the-place blog post? Well, I started with how seeing a photograph of Chicago made me feel back when I lived in Arizona because now that I am in Washington no photograph could ever make me miss that area. That does not, however, diminish in any regard how much I do miss my friends and family still there. If my brother had invented teleportation like he was supposed to (according to my world) then life would be so, so grand, ha ha! For as much as I adore my new state I still have a travel bug and the whole world fascinates me. I would never in a million years move back to Arizona, but next week we are taking a road trip there and I am excited! In October I'm heading to my beloved south central Kentucky, home of Mammoth Cave.
Let me tell you what the Pacific Northwest, in my limited experience, is not. It is not gloomy. The people are not cold nor unfriendly. I know it's supposed to rain a lot during the fall and winter and I'm perfectly content with that. If it didn't rain like it does, the land wouldn't be as lush and green as it is. The trees here are enormous and tower far above any in any other place I've been. I've flown back to Illinois twice for work now and I've been struck both times by how short the trees seem! But best of all ... the mountains. I LIVE near mountains now! Ever since visiting family in Colorado for spring break each year starting when I was ten I've want to live in or near mountains.
That is Mt. Rainier in all her awesome glory. I took this photo from the Mt. Rainier National Park a couple months ago, which is only about one and a half hours away from our house. The quote in the photo sums up life in Washington fairly well, "Grey is the price of neighboring with eagles, of knowing a mountain's vast presence, seen or unseen." ~ Denise Levertov. Thus far we've had a very dry spring and summer, experiencing a plethora of cloudless blue sky days with today being no exception. I grew up in northern Illinois where the sky can be slate gray for months on end during the winter. And I lived in Arizona for four years where the constant blue skies began to feel like living in a giant fishbowl. I'm not afraid of the rain that western Washington is known for. The cloudy, rainy days we have had were beautiful in their own right, with the clouds texturing the sky in several shades of gray.
We have so much more to explore around here, I can't hardly wait! But there's also no rush I have to remind myself. I'm not on vacation. This is my home!
