Distance Learning: Eastward, Ho!

If there is life after grad school, it might as well be on this side of Lake Washington.

Spring is supposed to be about awakening. We hoist ourselves out of the round ruts winter curls us into and take a moment to wiggle our toes in the grass. Drive with the windows down. Breathe.

Living in the Northwest . . . I don’t need to explain it to you. I just don’t feel the same about spring. This year, even after my boyfriend showed me how to crack the traditional red egg at his family’s Greek Orthodox Easter lunch, I couldn’t catch the spring fever. Maybe it was the rain falling as we trudged back to the car with sacks full of leftovers. Maybe it was the wool scarf scratching my neck.

I was raised in Houston, Texas, where, around the time of the spring equinox, scuffed roller blades were already piled by the front door. By May, shorts were standard issue. When it was finally summer (in Houston that means about 100 percent humidity in 100 degrees of heat), a new hibernation had set in: we huddled in front of our a/c units and tried not to let light get in through the miniblinds. Without spring, we’d never stay to see winter and summer push us around again.

Three Northwest winters have now passed since I moved here; I’ve learned to celebrate spring quietly. You’ve seen it happen: a gorgeous day rolls up in March and you think it’s finally time to shake out the picnic blanket. But it’s just a cruel mirage. The next day is all ice and snow. Wearing printed shorts and a tank top, you’ll watch from your window as rock salt-sized hail covers the city. You’ll turn the heat up a few more degrees and you’ll try to hold back the SAD-induced tears.

From now on, I take summer as the only reliable signal that it’s time to deactivate the metabolic depression. Any glimmer of blue sky before June (or July) is a fluke.

Mind you, up until a year ago, my life was structured around an academic schedule. I moved to the Northwest in 2005 to attend the graduate creative writing program at the UW.  I’ve wanted to be a writer since I discovered I wasn’t really good at much else.  So my first two years living around Puget Sound were mostly confined to one square mile on the UW campus, pursuing my goal in a more “professional” sense. I went to class and the library, and then I took the bus home to a converted attic room where I worked on my book (still in progress).  Occasionally, I hopped in my car and drove to McDonald’s, late at night, when no one could criticize my fetish for the “McFish.” 

When I did get out, I worked part-time here on the Eastside as a reading tutor for an after-school program.  A fantastic job. I gained teaching experience and met a slew of kids (and co-workers) who represented countries and cultures from all over the world. But every night after work,  I drove straight back to my  garret and pressed my nose against the computer screen again. I didn’t stop and look around. I went to school. I went to work. I went home. Rinse and repeat.

Now that I’ve had a year or so to decompress from grad school, I go to the movies without feeling guilty. I go to the ballet and the park.  I shop.  Eat out.  Even (gasp) read books for fun.

I realize that all the time I spent traveling to and from the Eastside, my vision was as straight and narrow as the tree-lined tunnel that 520 becomes once you cross the lake. Now I’d like to change my perspective. When summer (finally) comes this year, I’m going to shake a blanket out and spend an afternoon thinking and absorbing whatever the hell I want. And I plan to do it over here.

Granted, I still work and sleep in the 206. But if you look at where I spend my time, you’ll find I haven’t dropped stakes yet. As a writer, I’m usually sitting Indian-style on my own couch, balancing a laptop across my thighs (or procrastinating — but that still involves sitting on the couch). Considering it’s the place where my footwear boasts faux fur, I’d say my apartment is neutral territory. There, I’m no more a Seattleite than I am a Phoenician or a Hawaiian. 

So try to see me, outsider that I am, as a chunk of clay — a bright-eyed fledgling looking over the edge of the nest and setting my sights on the great wide open.  I’m crawling out of my shell and I want to go where my friends have not been before.  Manifest Destiny is played out and so is this litany of clichés.  I did come west. All the way from the Old West in Texas.  If I go any further west, I’d be waist high in salt water — or is it fresh?  Either way, I want to turn back around and see what I missed on the way here. I’m crossing the bridge again. And this time I’m getting off the freeway.

For the simple fact that I’m not writing this piece in the Gates Law Library (where I spent months hunched over my thesis), I have to say I already feel my horizons broadening.

Illustration by Demian Johnston