I was on my way to work yesterday, cutting through the lawn in front of my complex, zipping up my sweatshirt against the surprisingly brisk air. It was almost 8:00. As I picked my way through the grass, trying to step in the sunny spots so as to avoid dampening my shoes with morning dew, I saw a tiny robin hopping in front of me. I let my eyes create the path I assumed the robin was taking and followed the invisible line over to a tree. It was under the tree that I then saw a squirrel flicking his tail back and forth and a bunny, standing very still except for a quivering nose. The bird, bun, and squirrel were positioned in a triangle shape in the grass, mere feet away from each other, just in front of my apartment complex. I instantly fell in love with every one of the cuddly little animals. And I realized how much I love Pullman.
I bitch about Pullman a lot. I never did before I started grad school, either. When I was an undergrad at WSU, I would practically skip up to campus, whether I was trekking to the CUE in January for Digital Diversity with Patty, or headed into Avery in April to sit with Kristin and my fellow rhetoric students. (God, I really should call them Dr. Ericsson and Dr. Arola, but they are both so much more than just professors to me.) I LOVED Digital Technology & Culture. After bouncing through architecture and majors that were way too sciencey for me, I was so thrilled to find DTC, find Patty, and find awesome people who were just as nerdy as me. Of course, I had (what I thought) was a lot of work to do, but I always did it in earnest.
When I started grad school, though, I started to resent Pullman. No longer was it the quaint, warm college town I had grown to love over the past four years. Pullman now felt like a mistress, whipping me with a composition notebook, screaming at me to lesson-plan for my students and start reading more for my seminar papers. I felt like I was drowning, like I was in over my head. So I started bitching about Pullman all the time, talking about how sick of the place I was.
It took me almost a year to realize that Pullman hadn't done anything to me. I was the one making myself so stressed out amidst the corridors of Avery Hall. Pullman was the same as it has always been. It was my outlook that had changed.
I then let myself fall back in love with Pullman, remembering my favorite stores, my favorite spots to lounge with a book. I reminded myself that I am the one who always wanted to get a Master's, that I was the one who worked hard to get here, that there was a reason I applied only to WSU and (fortunately, IMHO) got in, and those reasons were that I loved Pullman, WSU, and the English Department. (Or, at least, the parts of it I had been exposed to.)
And now, as a traditionally-aged student who is now two years old than all the traditionally-aged undergraduates, I feel a sense of belonging and security in Pullman. Not to mention, I straddle the line between continuing my role as a student, sitting in Avery 110 and trying to keep up with seminar discussions, versus standing at the front of a classroom telling 26 freshmen about rhetoric. I have a place here. I am needed. I feel important. (If not vastly out of my league, more often than not.)
When I start Fall semester, I will be starting my last year in Pullman. (I'm not staying here for a PhD, but that's another post entirely.) It's really starting to sink in that in just a little over a month, I will be participating in my last Pullman Fall semester. Then my last Christmas Break. Then my last Spring semester. This is the last summer I'll spend in Pullman, panting in the heat, waiting for the school year to commence yet again. This is a very odd feeling, because I've made Pullman my home. I took to Pullman like a fish to water the moment I came here in 2003, and that affinity for this town has remained. But by next May, I have to get out. My time at WSU will expire and I'll have to move on (IhopeIhopeIhope to the West Side), get a job, start a 401k, buy a house, travel, go to weddings and baby showers and funerals, retire. You know; do what people do.
I'm scared, though. I'm not scared of growing up, or getting wrinkles, or being poor, or going through hard times. I'm scared of moving. I'm scared of leaving this little haven of a town and having to enter The Real World in a new city. I feel like I belong in Pullman. I don't feel that way about any other place.
Sure, I love Seattle. But I feel like if I told Seattle I loved her, she's swish her long, shiny hair behind her shoulder and exclaim, "You and everyone else, sweetheart."
And every time I go home to Vancouver, I feel like it greets me with a weak half-hug and asks, "So, what are you up to? Are you engaged yet?!? Ohmigod I'm getting married in like two months! He's sooo good with my kid, too. Can you believe my little baby is almost five years old?! I know, right? Wait, you're still in school? Ohmigod, why? Ew."
I'm worried I won't ever be able to find a place that embraces me like Pullman has. Pullman is like my friend; I can tell Pullman my problems, and she sits with me, looking into my eyes, and she always brings me a cup of tea. Right now, I feel like I am vacillating, ready to move on and create my adult life and simultaneously afraid that I will never feel at home in another place. I feel like no matter where I go after I graduate in May, I'll be taking a risk. But maybe that's the point. I mean, this is life. If I play it safe from here on out, I'm not really living, right? Part of life is jumping into something unknown. And I've done it before. I did it with a relationship I thought I would have to bid farewell to mere months after it began. I did it by coming to Pullman in the first place. I mean, before I got out of high school, Vancouver was my home. Then Pullman became my home. The next city I move to will undoubtedly become my home as well -- where I'll find favorite restaurants and favorite shops and favorite second-hand stores -- even if it takes me a while to grow that love. I just want a city that I can call my own, that I can identify with, that I feel needs me. I want a bigger, badder, more intense version of Pullman. I want a house, and a car I picked out, and a floppy puppy who springs around on the floor with his tongue lolling, asking for table scraps. I want love to permeate the walls. Maybe I will paint my kitchen red, with hardwood flooring and rich cabinetry, so that I feel like it's hugging me every time I walk in. Hello, Lauren. I love you. What are we cooking this evening?
I often feel like from right now up to May of 2009 is the most dangerous place I've ever been. I'm scared, and worried I'll fail, and apprehensive about finding a new place to put all my shit. My mental health, my confidence, my security are in danger. But I know, logically, that it's all in my head. I know that this will dissipate, then vanish, and I'll laugh at myself for ever thinking that I would never belong anywhere but Pullman. I just need to prepare to thank Pullman for all it's given me, and keep my heart set on that red kitchen and the smiling puppy, sitting at my ankle, waiting for a sauteed carrot or a rogue bite of chicken to tumble from its place on top of the stove.
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