Jan 5, 2017

I don’t have a vocabulary for trying to explain it. That down-to-earthedness that is Northwest life. I don’t mean it in a romantic way, or to suggest that if you were born there it makes you better than anyone from anywhere else. I’ve just been trying to come up with a way to explain it is all, and I can’t.

How do you explain the rain? Not just the occasional drizzle or downpour, but the rain that is simply always there, the constant backdrop to a life that makes certain acceptances other places don’t require. How do you explain a childhood spent in puddles? High school years spent in hoodies and gray skies. In a culture where the middle class and wealthy alike all wear Columbia jackets. I have something I’d like to say about it all, but I don’t have the words to get there.

I remember hearing once that in ancient times they didn’t have a word for the color of the sky. Maybe someday they’ll make words for me too.