transition

I seem to be caught in a hamster ball rolling down a spiral staircase with about twelve landings on the way. I'm going and going, bouncing and thwacking my way down, then there's a nice gentle roll for about a month, then its klunk, thwap, hugh. I'm not really sure where I am right now. I've grown so dizzy that it's starting to feel the same.

What I mean to say is that even though I've been in Seattle four months now, I'm still not settled. I'm still trying to find my place and feel a bit stuck in the patterns my life here has been taking so far. I haven't had a consistent job. I haven't even settled into my apartment such that it feels like "home"--it's just a place that I live (& hide). All of this has kept me from branching out and making more substantial friends (as in, I've met people; we are/were friends, but now we don't talk or see each other because I reached the end of that landing). I guess I'm mostly referring to how comfortable I felt at my last job, and the anxiety of roughly rolling into the next, once again, alone.

I find it kind of amusing, actually. I really like to be alone, but then I get to a point where I say, "I NEED PEOPLE," so I go to a coffee shop or ride the bus, and I watch people, and I kind of soak up their energy, their communication, their interactions. Socially re-fueled, I return to my basement to sit and knit and read and write.

In my last interview, I was questioned thoroughly on why a writer would be going for a position in business. "If you want to be a writer, you should go sit in a solitary room on Bainbridge island. This isn't a writers' environment," I was told. I thought for a minute, mostly of Annie Dillard in The Writing Life and how I can only handle so much of that lifestyle. It's not every writer's life. "I need people," was my response.

Yet my "people" need has thus far been satiated through the act of being a wallflower. I'll admit, at first, I really tried to settle in to the community. I went to the Farmer's Market and spoke briefly with the vendors; I tried to make small-talk with everyone. It's quite exhausting, actually, especially when people are not willing to give anything back beyond "I'm well, thank you" or "Yes, the weather is nice today." I suppose that's how I became a leech--I can pull pieces of other's social lives into mine, the way my hamster would reach his tiny claws from the holes in the plastic ball, grabbing any crumb or dustball that he wanted, and he was happy.



I watched a documentary oh-so-cleverly entitled Happy. The researchers spoke to people from many countries and asked what they wanted out of life. When nearly everyone, anywhere, answered "To be happy," they dug further to see what made people happy in different regions and lifestyles. A man in the slums of India was happy to be a rickshaw driver and come home to his family. The people of Okinawa, Japan talked about how they achieve happiness that has allowed them to have the highest census of people aged 100+ in the world, mainly through being united; one example they gave was their funeral ritual--they have a community urn where all of the ashes of all of the dead from all of neighborhoods go because they believe they are all one people. A family in the bogs of Louisiana enjoyed the simplicity of being together and enjoying alligators and fresh-caught fish.

Then there were the un-happy: the over-worked, the people under pressure. Japan's standards are so high that many people die from stress, and they have the highest suicide rate (which, I think, shows the concentration of the cities considering the status of Okinawa). They even have a word that translates to "death by overwork": Karōshi. Do I need to explain where the general American population stands?

I've been thinking a lot about the happiest people. Statistically, they live in Denmark in what equates to communes. They have very small living spaces, but live with several families, who all take turns cooking and cleaning; the children all have friends who they live with and treat like family; the parents can spend more time with their children without having to worry about the duties of daily living since everyone takes turns. It seems ideal. I like to think that I would love it, but there is the solitary part of me that says, "I like to visit, but I like to come home and be alone too." It's an odd balance.



And the scales are a little off right now. I really mean it when I say I'm not settled in Seattle. I knew when I moved here that no matter how much I liked it, this would not be my end-point. I don't know how long I'll be here: maybe a year, maybe five or ten. Woah, hold the reigns: ten is pushing it. Maybe five years. Maybe. Regardless, I'm not here for get cozy, take-your-coat-off-and-stay-a-while kind of living. Actually, I'm not really sure I have any expectations; I just want to be happy where I am, and when I am ready to move on, I will. (This mostly translates in my mind to: when I am ready to move elsewhere for grad school.) My hamster loved time to roll around in that yellow plastic ball, but when he was ready to move on, he'd bump into a wall and stop, just sitting there. Right now, I'm still rolling.

Because short-term to me is staying here for "a couple years" (whatever that means), I find it difficult to define "home." I always like to think that it's wherever you are that feels like a place you can define yourself in, like when I was in Italy, I felt I knew me there, as in Waynesburg or Mamont. Here, I'm still trying to find the edges; I'm coloring way outside the lines trying to find how I fit in here in the city, in this independent life outside of college.



I love baking. I love making a mess out of flour, watching it pouf into the air and letting it smear onto my itchy nose or fronts of my jeans. I love working dough. I love the range of smells from raw to warm. Despite all of this, I have not done any baking since I moved here. Part of me thinks it's because I'm vegan and don't feel like experimenting yet. That's a ridiculous excuse; I have plenty of time and recipes, and I've certainly been testing out the cooking end of it and with much success. The real reason I have not baked is because I cannot bring myself to buy flour. To me, flour needs its own little canister home so that it doesn't make unwanted poufs when the bag is bumped. To give it its own home is to settle in--I cannot imagine myself moving to a new place and taking flour with me.

That may sound ridiculous, but for some reason, it keeps echoing in my mind when I think about baking. You don't get to the bottom of a canister of flour and rinse it out and take it with you--you add another bag; you don't finish a bag of flour. And a row of canisters sitting across the counter, just waiting to be opened and turned into something delicious is one of those home-y feelings like sleeping in your own bed after you've been away or walking intentionally to avoid the creaks in the floor that you know are only in certain places or the weight of a door that you know how to shut just right to make it silent or maybe it needs a rough pull to even close at all.

This place doesn't have those things: it's not my bed, but I like to sleep in it; the floor creaks, but I feel more like hiding by avoiding them, trying not to be seen; the door is light and hollow and has to pulled until you hear the second click so that you know the number pad is secured. It makes impersonal beeps when you unlock it and always sounds like the door itself is cracking when you shut it. Finally, we're not allowed anything on the counter--no canisters here unless kept in the cupboard. To add to that, in with the mess of flour is the magic of never really getting it all cleaned up; it sticks in the corner-edge between counter and wall; it lays lightly on the rug; it smears when it's wiped up, never totally gone. I love that about it, but everything here must be completely clean all the time. Who has the energy to take the life-proof from the white dust that builds a home through snug bellies and a well-lived-in kitchen? What a sorry fate for the welcoming, comforting flour.

Sure, they're all just excuses. Nothing is really stopping me from buying a bag of flour, keeping it in my cupboard, and just plain baking. If I wanted to bad enough, I would do it, I suppose. But I find myself frequenting the local bakery, picking up a few goods and being on my way, mooching off their yummy treats to satisfy my want for a warm oven and a crumby pastry as I walk into the sweet-smelling shop--it is the same pinch of that unsettled feeling that I seek to temporarily please in going to public places and calling it a social life.



It took me four months, but I have finally dragged myself to church. Church, for me, is one of those sensitive issues. You can invite me and leave the card on the table for me to pick up when I'm ready, but you cannot drag me there, and if you try to tell me that I should go, I won't just because then it was your suggestion.

Like a little kid's first day at daycare, I feel shy and not wanting to play with the other kids, keeping to myself. If you try to talk to me or coax me into a game, I sink further inward with a pouting lip and a yearning to go home to my mother. But if you let me be shy and inward and pouty and watch the other kids have fun, I'll want to have fun too, and I'll choose it.

So I finally chose to go to church. (Though I have to say, I almost bailed because I hadn't told anyone I was going, then, the night before, my sister suggested I should go, and part of me said, "Fuck it. That's it. The deal's off. I can't go now because someone said I should, and I'm not going because someone said I should; I'm going because I want to." I told you I'm really sensitive about church. That or just stubborn.)

Regardless, I sucked up my childishness and went. The small crowd immediately pinned me as a newcomer--everyone knew everyone else. Suddenly, I was surrounded by smiling faces telling me their names and welcoming me. I was ready to run. I don't remember any names because I was so worked up in trying to play down the title "church" because all I want is relationship with God, not some overdone show that doesn't dig beyond the surface. When the service was over, and I realized that the message hit the right points and connected with the way I think and believe, I knew that I had better try harder to remember those names.

It scares me, remembering people's names at church. Then they have some sort of accountability towards you; they'll know if you skipped out. And knowing people at church means building friendships and meeting people beyond a surface-level "Hihowareyou." And having a regular church is one more step towards settling in. It took a while, but it happened. All of this is on my mind because I have Community for church tonight, where the people who live in the same neighborhood here in Seattle have a weekly get-together. I'm nervous yet excited yet afraid.



The hardest part about settling in to a new place is recognizing that it means leaving the old one behind. Part of me doesn't want close friends because it's such an obvious step away from the life that I knew, and I'm not ready to have a new "best friend." People aren't replaceable. It makes it easier to push others away, but of course that's not what I want. I want to settle in. I want to make room for new friends and a church family and cookies and pies. I'm just not totally ready yet, and it's taken me four months in the city to at least recognize that. I'm not trying to avoid people. I'm not too lazy to bake for myself. I'm just not there yet.

If you see me in the store holding a bag of flour, don't say anything. I'll probably be standing in the aisle, hugging the thick block to my chest, staring at the shelves. Maybe I'll put it back and try again later. Maybe I'll take it home and put it in my cupboard. The next battle will be, of course, to open it.