Here or There

A small town just east of the Cascades: Yakima, WA.

Tucked here and there off of the main streets are residential neighborhoods with age-old tree-lined streets, at this time of year shedding colored leaves, and boasting early 1900's era 1-3 bedroom homes of every shape and style framed by flowers, pumpkins on doorsteps, and elderly people or children playing outside and chatting with neighbors.

On our street, 23rd Ave., the children congregate nightly, after homework and dinner, to play football, leap frog, princess, or cop, and their laughter lasts until the sun sets. Meanwhile, the elderly residents stroll down the sidewalk or sit in lawn chairs greeting one another, with their cats at times slinking along behind them. When we're out gardening or have gone on a walk to the park and back, there are people to stop and talk with, who look up from moving their hoses or picking weeds to say hello and ask about or share a life story.

The quaint neighborhoods that are something out of a glorified small-town movie setting center around parks, social outings for community development events, and  the downtown historic district, though somewhat less occupied than it has been in the past (rumored to have resulted from a greedy landowner charging too much rent). Coffee shops, a bakery, unique one-of-a-kind restaurants with twinkle lights, a French-garden inspired theme, or the essence of a boardwalk along newly habited ancient train cars creates an aura of times gone-by. Charming.

While these appeal to the dreamer, the idealist, and comfortably situated, classed members of society, the city has an equal number of people who struggle, who are very poor, uneducated, sick, and who come from generations that reinforce this life. Characteristics of poverty are as overt as diamonds and perfect, manicured lawn are for wealth. The positioning of these neighbors within similar, general regions of the city seems to have the effect of not letting either settle. The wealth is tame, while poverty seems to have movement. I notice this in my community college courses, there is a push-back against a complacent mentality; instead, people strive to move, to learn, to help their children, to attend a four-year college, to earn professional degrees. It's a city that is alive with movement, impact, and personal responsibility.

It is a place where people smile or offer a few kind words as you pass, where material pressures and external appearances are not so concerning as striving to enjoy life, help one's neighbors, and to know and be known.

Life consists in running on a well-trod path. I go to 10 places interchangeably: YVCC, church, JoAnn's Fabric, The Home Depot, Target, Albertsons, TJMaxx, Costco, Starbucks, and the library. When I feel like mixing it up I have a few alternate options: Crafter's Warehouse, The Little Red Hen Yarn Shop, Safeway, the other Starbucks, and The Farm Store. When I want to walk, Patrick and I walk to the same (perhaps the only) park, at times, multiple times in one day.

The effect is a fish swimming circles in a fishbowl. Fortunate for Godlie, he doesn't know anything different, and his tiny pea brain makes each lap a new adventure.

For the past five years, as I commuted four days per week between Laguna and Long Beach I had my pick of 10 or more Trader Joe's locations; I passed Fashion Island and South Coast Plaza with nearly every retail location desired; on the drive home, I often stopped at either Crystal Cove State Park to hike on the right side of PCH, or to walk/read/whale watch on the ocean side, at Huntington State Beach near the pier to watch surfers, the dog park to watch happy pups running from the waves, or at Bolsa Chica State Beach. When Patrick got home we could ride our bikes to 2nd st. to the beach path, to CSULB, or to Megan's house in Rose Park. We walked or rode our skateboards to the marina to ride around on the blacktop. I don't think that I went to the same park twice.

Yakima is far from the city that I am familiar with and comfortable in. Yet, it is where I have family, a place to live for now, and a job with students to teach. Often I strive to get out, wanting to get back to the familiar, stifled by the smallness, the seeming insignificance, the lack of cool, the want of progress, but for now I maintain that it is a small bit of home.