December 4, 2007

• Gray, with occasional snow flurries

  Both Saturday and Sunday, an occasional snow flurry came through this little corner of the Pacific Northwest. Nothing sensational about that, in and of itself. Let’s face it, we’re pretty far north. Because this town is basically in Washington’s “Banana Belt” (Yes, there really IS such a thing) we had nothing like the 8″ of rain that fell in Bremerton, just 40 miles away… and otherwise made national news headlines.

  There’s an odd thing about snow. Watching snow tends to send me time travelling. Perhaps… perhaps because snow is a childhood memory for me, from the days when I was a kid and we were living in Denmark. I remember much of my childhood fairly well, but it occurred to me (today) that I have almost no “feeling memories” from that time of my life. What I remember is like a series of still photographs of specific places, people and events… but I cannot remember how I felt, at the time.

  “So what?” you might be asking.

  It just seems a bit out of character, since most of my recall of events, people and places since age 18 are “anchored” by a “feeling fingerprint” of that moment. So I stood there, watching heavy wet snowflakes fall, trying to recall how I felt about being a kid. And I pretty much drew a blank. Except for the feeling of peace I would have on those occasions when I’d be walking through the woods near our house and it would start snowing. At best, however, I could only conjure up a sense of emptiness when it came to my childhood. Maybe that really is an appropriate feeling, as much of my childhood was marked by “the absence of” a whole lot of the experiences that make up most upbringings.

  Unrelated (maybe?) to this, I found myself in the Big City, the other day. Port Townsend is a nice little burg of some 10,000 souls, but certain things are simply not here. So occasional trips to the mainland– known among some locals as “Going to America”– are required. Seattle is about an hour’s drive and a 30-minute ferry ride away. The cool thing is that you can park the car and take the ferry to Seattle and the ferry terminal is right downtown, so you just walk off, and everything is “right there.’ And I do love a city with a working public transit system.
   
  OK, so maybe this ties back into the “feeling memory” thing, in a way. I first came to Seattle in 1987, and just had this “feeling” that it was the place where I needed to be. I found myself standing at Pike Place Market (seen by some as “the pulse” of the city) looking around at the people, and then looking out across the bay towards the islands, with mountains in the distance– and it just “felt right.” Not only did it feel right, those few moments also sent me down a long path of studying and trying to understand “The Power of Place,” as it relates to the way we feel about where we live.

  Of course, what’s slightly odd about all this is that I set in motion the process of “creating reality” that involved moving to Seattle– a process many long-time readers suffered with for years. The curious thing is that I always figured I was going to end up living in the city. I think my rationalization was that I have historically been such a “misfit” that I would need a really substantial population base to be able to locate the four “similar souls” in the surrounding millions. The irony, of course, is that I now live in a small town.

  I have lived in small places before, and it never really worked that well for me. Even during those times in my life when I felt a need to “hide” from the world, it didn’t take long before small town life made me feel extremely “disconnected” from the remainder of humanity. I can’t exactly place place my finger on what it was that bothered me… in some ways it was the “complacency” of thought; this imperceptable undercurrent of “we don’t need modern amenities” among the populace, a subconscious “pride” in being “less than.” I say “subconscious,” because that’s important. It’s rarely a deliberate thing– instead, it’s something that subtly manifests when a town’s local elections turn down installing fiber optic cables, or upgrading a derelict local park because “it might attract outsiders.” My experience tells me that actively seeking a “dynamic community” is almost no different from rejecting one– two sides of the same somewhat extreme coin.

  So there I was, a few days ago, back in the spot that more or less set a part of my existence in motion. On some level, the “feeling” that drew me to this part of the country was still there. In a way, it made me feel happy that the “Power of Place” was as strong for me today, as it was 20 years ago. But then I asked myself the question of why I was living “over there” in a small town, rather than “right here” in the middle of a big city.

  And nothing very obvious came to me.

  One thing that did come was that when I originally decided I was going to live here, there was no Internet. In order for me to have any chance of meeting the people I perceived to be “my tribe,” I truly would have needed a major population center. Of course, that’s just a wimpy downstream rationalization– because “moving to the Northwest” wasn’t specifically about meeting people, but about feeling “right” about where I was living. And yet…

  Part of how I always felt out-of-place down in Texas was that the “community values” and my values seemed to come from opposite poles. Much is written to the effect that “people everywhere are basically the same,” but that isn’t exactly true, is it? There is counterculture in Berkeley, and there is a strange spiritual awareness in Sedona. And so– perhaps– feeling at one with the people around me isn’t about individual persons, but about the “current” that flows as the dominant paradigm. And let’s not forget… “dominant” just means more than half. But that still doesn’t explain the “small town” thing.

  I could argue that I ended up in Port Townsend because property is less expensive in a smaller town. Of course, that would be pure bullshit– the median home price in this town is about $360,000. A condo the size of a closet is $200,000. Besides, I have neither the capital nor the income to (likely) ever be a property owner again. In a “practical” sense, the place seems less than ideal… and yet, on some “spiritual” level, I can totally see myself living out my days here, quite contentedly… even if I had to do so in a refrigerator box.

  Which leaves me with the nebulous notion that “something” called me here. And that “something” remains to be discovered… although it keeps manifesting, in various ways. Typically, though, it takes me a little while to that it is manifesting. For example, I am quietly moving towards a life where I am basically “playing with my hobbies” for a living. When I was little… between ages five and seven, perhaps… I had certain things that were important to me; they provided solace and comfort in an otherwise chaotic world, for a kid. I started writing around that age… actually expressing what was inside me, not just “the brown cow jumped over the fence.” Although writing was seldom more than a “pastime” during the ensuing 30+ years, it was always a place of “comfort.” Around the same time, my dad started me on stamp collecting…. and even as a six-year old (while others wanted to be “fire fighters” or “spacemen”) I thought it would be fun to help stamp collectors find things for their collections. When we travelled, the one constant that always made me feel a tiny bit “at home” was walking on the beach… perhaps because I knew that the water I was looking at was connected to all other water, everywhere else. And as I walked on the beach, I would pick up interesting things. Now, I do that again. Not only do I do it, but I “do it for money” (get your minds out of the gutter!).

  I have come to realize that the power of THIS place is important in creating that reality. This town is full of artists and writers. When I stand in line at the post office, people aren’t talking about software design, they are talking about what they heard from their publisher. I am surrounded by water on three sides, so beaches on which to walk are everywhere. And because much of the year is dark-ish and gray-ish, there are many more stamp collectors here than there were– for example– in Texas.

  The thing is, I didn’t PLAN that. I just felt “drawn” here, and the Universe “conspired” to make my changing life a reality.

  Another thing I am increasingly noticing about being here is my growing interest in “being involved” in my surroundings. Yesterday, I realized that is– in large part– due to the “philosophical inclinations” of the people who live here. I feel completely up to perhaps being part of starting some local “interest” groups… and I realize that’s because I understand (on some level) that people here would be receptive to my interests. I did try that, when I lived in Texas, but attracting people to what I was interested in was so much work that it never quite felt like a worthwhile pursuit. I remember starting and trying to maintain a social and support group for HSPs in my area… and just pulling 4-5 people out of a city of 1,000,000+ was like pulling teeth. Wisdom teeth.

  So why am I writing this whole dissertation?

  I suppose, as a corollary the whole “Bloom Where You’re Planted” point of view, and as food for thought for those convinced that you just “need to be happy with what you HAVE.” I don’t– for a moment– question the validity of trying to “make the most” of whatever comes along in life. But ultimately… we not only have choice, vut we owe it to ourselves and the people in our lives to to exercise the choices that make us the “best possible” human beings…. rather than compacently sit by and claim that “life happens TO me.”

  Photos: top right– view of the Port of Seattle from Pike Place Market; center left– Christmas lights at the Seattle Center; bottom right– the Space Needle juxtaposed with a traditional coastal tribes totem pole.

  • 1:39 pm
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