Warning – this post is fraught with run-on sentences and overt
sentimentality. If you have an aversion to either of those things, you may want
to find a blog to read where the writer is not suffering from a minor emotional
breakdown.
I often complain about living in North Idaho. The winters
are too long, the fall is too long, the spring is too short and the summer is
often non-existent. I complain about the location (too far from my family), the
strange people with strange ideas (I don’t believe you should have a shotgun
with you when you go to the grocery store unless the butcher hasn’t gotten
around to putting down your dinner yet), the ridiculous weather changes
(yesterday it snowed, was sunny and rained all in the same 2-hour period and
the wind almost blew our roof off last night), and the belief that a community
is diverse because there is one kid in your child’s elementary class whose
mother is half-Chinese (no explanation needed on this one).
Now that we are facing the very real prospect of leaving the
Pacific Northwest, I see things I love about it all around me. Where else would
a teenager, with no political interests, look forward to meeting an actual
presidential hopeful (even if that hopeful is only Ron Paul)? In what other
region do you find a hipster drinking coffee in a swanky café one minute and
then turned out in camouflage to kill turkeys or deer or some other innocent
creature the next? Where else would the following product sell big? (With the exception
of Portland, OR, I am sure Moscow, ID has more than its fair share. I might
have been tempted if I rode a bike, but alas, I do not.)
Everywhere I look these days I see things I am convinced I
won’t find anywhere else (I’m sure this is not entirely true, but it feels that
way sometimes). The Bagel Shop that claims to have invented the steaming
process of heating their very delicious sandwiches, the sound of University of
Idaho’s carillon chiming on the hour or playing different tunes for the
seasons, the abundance of dogs walking with their owners or sitting at outdoor
tables sharing scraps of their masters’ lunches, the feeling of safety when I
send my kids to trick-or-treat on their own after dark, with little concern for
their safety in our friendly community, the Moscow Co-op’s delicious vegan
cupcakes and how I see someone I know everywhere I go. These are just a few of
the things I will miss if we leave.
