Dayjamas

Tilden Park

Soakin' up some California sunshine.

Fickle not pickle

This morning Kiku couldn’t decide what to have for breakfast, changing her mind three times.  I told her she was being fickle.

    “Oh, yeah, I wanna pickle!”

    “No, not pickle, fickle.”

    “I want a pickle, mama!”

    “Fickle.  It means that you’re always changing your mind.  You can’t decide what you like or dislike.”

    “Pickle!”

Kiku wasn’t the only one feeling fickle today.  Last night the three of us returned from a five-day trip to the bay area, and I woke up this morning feeling somewhat unsure about whether I really wanted to move back.  This is after making the BIG DECISION to move a few months ago...in the dead of winter.  (My advice to anyone considering moving away from Seattle: never decide in the winter.) The trip itself went smoothly and it was great to spend time with good friends and family, but I was a little overwhelmed by the whole place. 

I’ve definitely crossed over. 

I’m not sure when it happened, but I know I didn’t feel this way when we visited last summer.  Sometime between then and now I became a Seattlelite and stopped being a bay area girl.  When I stepped off the plane last week, it didn't feel like home.  I felt like a visitor.  I didn't "get it" anymore.  People seemed to be racing everywhere, whether by car or foot.  It felt edgier, grimier, more stressed out, more me-first.  I even found myself disliking the intensity of the sun.  It seemed too bright, and I practically had to glue my sunglasses to my face.   A few mentally unstable types approached Kiku and I (this never happens in Seattle) while we were out and about.  There was the odd guy who offered Kiku a dot-shaped sticker, and then followed us into the grocery store to offer her more stickers.  Harmless enough (probably), but my mind couldn’t get around the possibility of the dots being laced with LSD. Then there was the time when we were walking down the street in a somewhat upscale neighborhood and a tattered woman covered in sores asked me if I knew where the Laundromat was.  I told her that I didn’t live there and she proceeded to violently scream, “no one does laundry around here!” to me and everyone else around.

These kinds of interactions never used to faze me.  It was just part of my everyday environment and it felt normal.  Seeing someone pace back and forth while talking to themselves used to be normal.  Having a homeless person bark at me or call me Yoko was normal.  Now it feels threatening.  I’m sure it’s partially due to my maternal instinct to protect my daughter.  But even so, I’ve gotten soft. 

Seattle is nice, calm, slow paced, easy, clean, and, well, normal.  People (including the bus drivers) smile and say hello, drivers aren’t aggressive, rushing isn’t de rigueur, and there are fewer people flying their freak flags (or at least they’re quieter about it.)

I feel calmer and safer in Seattle.  My mind is clearer.  It’s easier to live here and there are fewer things to worry about.  So why move?  If this is such paradise, why do we want to go back to the land of over stimulation?  Up until recently, there have been three main reasons. 

1.    The weather
2.    Missing loved ones
3.    The blandness factor

But now I'm getting more used to the weather, and the only months that really get to me are Dec-Feb.  It might be more bearable if we can get away to a sunny spot every winter.  I certainly miss my friends and family, and I don't want these people to be strangers to Kiku, but what if we committed to visiting three or four times a year?  Maybe that woud be ok.  Then there's the blandness factor.  Over the past four years I've found myself craving more interesting, stimulating interactions with people who were less reserved.  But now I'm wondering if it matters so much anymore.  Large urban areas are interesting but they come with a price. 

I can't believe I'm actually feeling this way.  I've bitched about Seattle for four years.  It's been hard to adjust to the culture and I haven't felt like I've wanted to stay for the long run.  And now this is happening.  I'm starting to, umm, like it (maybe even love it?) here.  Although it could be that I just need to get used to bay area living all over again.  You know, grow back a thicker skin and adjust my "normal" meter.  The question is, do I want to? 

I'm just too damn fickle.

Things I never thought I'd do before living in Seattle

Walk or jog around a lake in the rain...and enjoy it.
Yes, I really do enjoy it.  In fact, I barely notice the rain until my pants start sticking to my legs.  Since it pisses so much around here, you can either stay inside and feel gloomy or get out and tell the weather to go fuck itself.

Wait patiently at a 4-way intersection.
It's the way of Seattle.  There are several 4- and even 5-way intersections around town without traffic lights that just work.  Cars just wait their turn!  I've encountered very few "stop and go" contests because most people just wait.  And, some cars will wait for you to go before them even when they've arrived at the stop sign first!!!  I still can't get over this one. 

Plan weekly schedules and meals (and stick to them).
Ask anyone who knows me and they'll tell you that I don't like routines or schedules.  But, add a toddler to the mix and voila!  Now I'm a (semi)organized, routine-oriented woman. Actually, I've always been good at planning and organizing in, say, work situations.  I just haven't been so good at organizing my own life.  I have to say that the meal planning has been the best thing that's ever happened to our household.  The 4:00 pm "do you have any ideas for dinner?" phone calls with JJ were too exhausting.

Declare that the quality of life here is better.
Yes, I'm afraid it's true.  There are lots of self-absorbed blankety blankers back in my good ol' liberal-hometown who believe that their city rocks above all others.  Umm...reality check.  I can't tell you how glad I am that we moved up here, even though we're planning to move back at some point to be closer to family.  The livin' is easy, plain and simple.  You can get any kind of food here (there are five Thai and two sushi restaurants less than 5 minutes from my house).  The air is fresh, the trees are green, there's no road rage, and the traffic ain't so bad.  People in general treat each other better, and the politics are good (Seattle is like one long NPR broadcast).  Skiing is 45 minutes away.  And, you can buy a decent-sized house for under $1 million.  Sure, you'll find a healthy population of rednecks right outside the city limits, but it's no big deal.  Just stay clear of the pick-ups with wheels the size of Lake Washington and you'll be fine.  Back home there are a lot of aggravated types with me-first attitudes who can start a chain reaction of bad vibes just by flipping up one finger from the comfort of their car.  It slowly chips away at your soul one day at a time.

Wear so much fleece.
The quality of life might be good, but this town has very little fashion sense.  This is both a good and a bad thing.  It's great in that you don't have to put much effort into dressing in the morning if you don't feel like it, but on the down side everyone ends up looking the same and it's kind of boring (there are only so many ways you can wear Patagonia and Keen's, people).  I will say that I love how little everyone seems to care about what you wear.  You can put on jeans, a fleece vest and sneakers or a sexy little thing paired with Manolo's and parade through a nice restaurant feeling equally as comfortable and accepted.  Back in the bay area, your clothing style often defines which "group" you fit into.  Yuppie?  Hipster?  Gay?  Artist?  Hippy?  It always felt so judgmental and limiting.   

Miss being around other Asians (and feel like a minority!)
I grew up in an ethnically diverse town and have always had a diverse group of friends, including several Asians.  Most of my family is Asian.  There are lots of Asians in the Bay Area.  In other words, I've always been surrounded by lots of other people who looked like me and rarely did I feel like I was being viewed as "different" or as an "outsider."  I always felt like me...a person who just happens to be Asian.  I took it for granted.  Before moving to Seattle, I kept hearing about how many Asians there were up here and how they were the dominant minority.  Uh, no.  On a good day, maybe I'll see two, and that usually includes the little girl at the playground who was adopted from China by a white family.  There are Asians a-plenty in the International District, and I do go there sometimes to see some color and feel like I'm blending in, but the problem is that they're not really my people.  We might look similar, but I'm a 5th generation American and the I-District is full of immigrants.  Culturally, it's completely different.  I have about a million more things in common culturally with my Jewish-American husband from NY.  I've heard that there are lots of Asians in the suburbs north of Seattle and also on the Eastside (suburbia).  One Asian Seattlelite told me that most of the Asians here live where the "good" schools are, hence the suburbs. I have noticed this somewhat, but again...they're not really my people.   I hate the freakin' suburbs with a passion and would never live in one.  So, after four years of often being one of the only, if not the only, person of colour in my environment besides my daughter (be it a cafe, restaurant, playground, or gymboree class), I'm slowly adjusting.  Seattlelites (who in my experience are generally white) don't seem to find my "otherness" (or Kiku's) as an issue.  I think a lot of people move here from other urban areas and actually find it refreshing to see someone who isn't white, as if it helps them to believe there's a little diversity in their community.

Buy salmon off a fishing boat on any given summer day, grill it up, eat it, and smile.
A few years ago I learned that you could go down to the locks and buy incredibly fresh salmon right off the fishing boats.  Awesome!

 

Finding a preschool

Q. What do you do when you're moving to the Bay Area and need to find a preschool, but you're starting the process in February? 

A.  Bang your head against the wall, repeatedly.

Part of the problem is that we’re not sure which city we’ll be living in, since we plan to rent at first.  We can probably narrow the field down to three towns, but with the way traffic is (bad), I’d like to find a school relatively close to home.  Also, most preschools require a tour before getting onto their waiting lists, which is a challenge when you live in another state.  To make matters worse, most of the preschools I’ve talked to so far have either stopped accepting applications for the upcoming school year, or have waiting lists so long that Kiku will be in Kindergarten by the time a space opens up for her.

I'm trying not to stress.  I mean, it's only preschool, right?  I don't need her to be in the most popular, elite preschool in town.  I just want her to be in a loving, nurturing environment that's a good fit, where she's having fun and learning social and cognitive skills.  I'm sure there are several prechools in the areas we're looking in that fit this description - but the challenge is to find them, fly down to take tours, get onto waiting lists, and cross our fingers. 

Ugh.