Take the girl out

if this was a…

beauty contest…

she’d win.

Everett is like a hot Eastern European woman wearing an ugly scrunchie.

Flanked by the Cascades and the Puget Sound, you couldn’t ask for a lovelier landscape. And yet, driving downtown is a depressing venture. Everywhere you turn flat, rectangular, postwar buildings with absolutely no ornamentation or character, jut out from the concrete. It’s as if the city’s developers deliberately sought to thwart the gorgeous green farmland, the blue/white mountains, and the sparkling water by building strip malls and warehouses.

This is my hometown.

I left Everett ten years ago. I couldn’t wait to get out.  In my opinion the only good thing about the town was that it was a half hour outside Seattle.  For a long time, I couldn’t even appreciate the landscape, it was simply background since I knew nothing else.  Now, going back, four years gone from the Pacific Northwest, I am surprised by its beauty.  Taken aback even.  Which, consequently, frustrates me even more.

On my 1st day in Everett, my mom and I stopped at a drive-through espresso stand (I’ll admit it, I miss these living in Chicago).  I asked her “why don’t you think the people developing Everett tried to create architecture that would compliment the landscape?”

“I never really noticed that,” she replied.

“What do you mean?!” I asked. “If you’re not paying attention to that, what are you paying attention to?”

“The people,” she answered, “after all, relationships are the most important thing in this world.”

I don’t disagree with this sentiment, but I imagine my relationships, though not consciously per say, are partly based on shared aesthetics.

I worship the hustle and bustle of the big city.  Living in a hip, busy neighborhood, with countless coffee shops and music venues, restaurants, and boutiques makes me feel like I’m in the center of a destination. I love the snug feeling of the Chicago brownstones hugging the sidewalk one after the other.  Who needs a driveway?  We’ve got a public train system!

What strikes me most about returning to my old neighborhood is how spread out everything is. People have big yards.  You can see the sky. The sky, and power lines.  And I find it sort of ironic that I’ve literally grown bigger and yet my neighborhood seems more vast. Which is the exact opposite feeling I have when I enter my mother’s house.

There is STUFF everywhere. Stacks of newspapers, Christmas decorations, books from the goodwill, junk mail from the past year piled by front the door. She’s a hoarder, and I’m here to help her clear it out.  I COME IN THE NAME OF ORDER.

I haven’t spent three weeks living with my mom since I was seventeen.  Obviously, this is going to be a blast.