Oooh, a writing prompt!

I'm sitting here attempting to take advantage of PRECIOUS PRECIOUS NAP TIME, but my brain is mush. (Specifically, multigrain cereal mixed with formula, if you must know.) So I'm fluttering about the internet, as I do, and I see this writing prompt from my new best friends:

How long have you lived in Seattle? Why here, of all places? Where else would you live, given your choice, and why?









Well! Even though I'm absolutely positive I have explained my Seattleness a hundred different ways before on this website, there's no reason I can't do it again, right? Did I mention that my brain is mush, that the weather went back to being Horrid, that I sat in front of my lightbox for 20 minutes this morning (oh yes, I have a lightbox) and this is my "work" day? Which means a whole 8 hours of HAVING TO WORK?

And so, my darlings, I have lived in Seattle for all of (GOOD LORD) ten years. Horrors! I am an old person!

I flew into Seattle in August 1997 (the day Princess Diana died, actually, which we plane riders found out when one of the flight attendants (I am not making this up) SHRIEKED and began SOBBING in front of PASSENGERS, some of whom were quite possibly TERRIFIED OF FLYING, like MYSELF.)

I stayed with my grandma for about a month and then my uncle drove me to my dorm and dropped me off. I started classes a few days later.

And I moved here because of in state tuition. Very simple. My mom's family lives nearby and it was more or less home, since we came back every summer. But I applied to forty-seven different colleges and my top two schools were located in Indiana. I KNOW. What was I thinking? In the end city living, lower tuition and family won out over, uh, the things the Indiana schools had going for them which, as I recall, were more academically-oriented. And we all know how I feel about academics so, good choice High School Me!

But the more interesting part of this question is: WHERE ELSE WOULD I LIVE? Because oh, I have given a lot of thought to this question.

Before I married Phillip, I was going to go live in Europe, but the real Europe, not the fake American military base Europe with which I am very familiar. I figured you could do this by teaching English and I was going to live in Prague and teach English and drink lots of Czech beer and become an Expat. Oh Prague, how I love you so. I spent a lot of time looking into teaching English abroad programs and thinking about how I couldn't date anyone or get married because I had to LIVE MY LIFE and SEE THE WORLD.

And then I got married.

After that I was all, "Hmm, what do I do NOW?" So I dreamed up this plan that still involved teaching English, but in China. Brilliant! I didn't really want to go to China, I would have rather gone to Prague, and even more than that I would have preferred to stay in my cheapo apartment with my devastatingly handsome husband and have dinner parties and bake cookies, but NO. Getting married didn't mean I wasn't going to LIVE MY LIFE and SEE THE WORLD, dammit!

Uh oh. This is turning into one of those annoying History of Me posts. Oops!

Suffice to say we did NOT move to China, although we came THIS CLOSE (picture my thumb and index finger thisfarapart) and we have stayed happily thereafter in Seattle because, as I've said more than a few times, I love having a place to be from. Love. It. And now, quite honestly, I don't want to live anywhere else.

I reserve the right to change my mind, of course. If someone offered me a palazzo in Venice I probably wouldn't turn it down. Once Jackson and his fourteen brothers and sisters (ha!) are all grown up Phillip and I might sell off our belongings and get an apartment on the Seine. Or a shack on the Mediterranean. Or a condo in Shanghai with a driver and a maid and a chef. But I love the city and even the thought of moving to the suburbs gives me the shakes.

Although the suburbs come with built in grandmothers and people, you cannot deny the crazy high value of free drop-in daycare.

So! Where would YOU live had you the funds and inclination?

Comments

[Lindsay]

...Hey! What are you saying about Indiana? :P I love Indiana. 'Tis my homeland. Incidentally, which schools?

I would want to live in Ireland. I've been obsessed with Ireland since I was 8, even though I have never been there. But Ireland & all things Irish? I love more than words than express. However, there are also other places which I have not been to and which I have a strange fascination with. Actually, I've never really traveled, so that's probably why. For some reason I have this obsession with Montana of all places and why, I do not know. I've never been there, it just always looks pretty. There are lots of places I am interested in, but if I end up marrying Steven, I'll probably end up in New York (state, not city! -- totally hate always having to say that). He's a software engineer, so he wants to end up in California eventually, which seems like it would be culture shock, but eh. Like I said, I've never traveled so I really don't even know.

[Lisa]

OMG, I can't believe how much I relate to Lindsay's comment! I, too, am an Indiana resident, in love with Ireland, and destined to at least VISIT Montana (my husband insists that he wants to retire there because you can "buy lots of land and live in peace and quiet" even though he has never been there either). I'm also curious as to the two Indiana schools that merited such consideration from such a brilliant high school student as you must have been.

But, honestly, I don't know that I'd voluntarily choose to live anywhere else. I enjoy warm climates (Arizona) in the winter and Michigan/Wisconsin in the summer, but I'm pretty happy with where I am. Indiana doesn't offer much in the way of grand vistas and glorious terrain, but the weather is amazingly temperate and doesn't hit the extremes too often (I hate extreme temps). Plus, I grew up a farm girl, so I enjoy the rolling hills and amber waves of grain. Perhaps this is why I enjoyed Ireland...it looks a lot like the hills in the southern part of my fair state!

[Jenny Ryan]

Oh, my precious light box, how many winters you've seen me through!!

But back to your question, until I was 13 I lived in Northern Virginia and considered myself an honorary citizen of Washington D.C.

Then we had to move to North Carolina, which of course meant the end of the world, because who wanted to live in the stupid South?!

Well, apparently I did, because now I'm in Georgia, close to the mountains, close to the beach, close to Chattanooga, TN, which I love with an odd, slightly scary, passion. And I honestly can't imagine living anywhere other than here in the Southeast.

[Katie]

Delurking to ask where one purchases a light box. Is there a particular brand that is preferable? I recently moved to Syracuse, NY from Washington, DC. Syracuse proudly boasts more rainy days than Seattle and the highest snowfall of any city over 100,000 people. Fortunately I'm just here for a year...

[Colleen]

Hey, just wanted to chime in that I had the same daydream about teaching English, except in Nepal. (I don't know if anyone there particularly wants to learn English, but that was my daydream.) Instead I taught children north of Seattle, got married and now I stay home with one, cute child (north of Seattle). If I could live anywhere? How about Fantasy Seattle with four distinct seasons (rather than three seasons of rain).

[Eve]

Oh how I can relate to those dreams of travel and the fact that marriage would not hold us to one place.
In the end it has, and I can't imagine life any other way.
But the travel will come for us! Someday.

[Monique]

What's wrong with a little history of you? LOL! Thank you for participating and I'm glad I helped unmush the brain a little!! :)

[coco brown]

Like your blog. If I could live anywhere it would be Noo Yawk Citayyyyy. Ah, New York. I spent two very good years there during the dot com boom and my twenty first through third years. Now I'm married with a 5 month old and living in the Bay Area. I came here for the tuition :) I came for a PhD program, in which I advanced to candidacy in May at 9 months pregnant. The Bay Area has been scarily growing on me, but if cost was no object, it would still be Manhattan for me. Mostly this is because I'm not so much an outdoors girl. I'm an indoors with a fashion magazine kind of gal. I can fake it on a hiking trail and I love to Look at nature, but I'm personally for the daily fashion parade. Superficial? Could be. I prefer...fabumommy. Check out my blog at www.motherofallstyle.blogspot.com

[ren]

I am a complete dork...again. If I had to choose anywhere to live, I'd move away from rainy cold gray England back to sunny Emerald Coast Florida. You know, the redneck riveria? I love it there. The weather is awesome, the people are nice, its close but not too close to my parents, and the beach...the beach. My fantasy place is something like the atmosphere of the northwest (although I've never been, only known cool friends from there) with the weather of the southeast.
Must purchase a lightbox. Must purchase a lightbox. Must purchase a lightbox.

[Katie]

I have lived many places, and one of my favorites was Tennessee; although, it must be said, even just going that far south=greater risk of man-eating spiders.
Currently I live in a small town in Michigan, and I adore it. We have a farmer's market! And a cute historic downtown! Before I got married, I too had the dream of Europe and Expat and Adventures . . . but then I got married. Funny how life changes you.
I have family in Seattle and it's a great city, though. If one had to live in a city . . . somewhere like Seattle would be ideal.
And, no offense to those from Indiana, but temperate climate? No extremes? Have you ever lived in South Bend??? I spent two years walking around the wind tunnel that is Notre Dame. It is FRIGID there for oh, six months out of the year. FRIGID.

[jenney]

Toronto.. but I would buy a house just for my FIL b/c I really don't want to spend more time than is required with him... MIL can come live with us! Someone needs to cook us decent chinese food!

runner ups... western england, coastal maine, north of boston in a better town that I can't currently afford