My Home Town

I live in a little "Victorian Seaport" (or tourist trap) in Washington state, with around 8,000 residents. I've lived here 18 years. After college I kept thinking I was going to leave but it kept not happening and then I met D who I later married. He was very definitely here and not going to leave and I figured that I couldn't throw away a perfectly nice man just because I wanted to leave. I know I could get a far better job if I lived somewhere else but the trade-off is that it's beautiful here, the beach is 6 blocks away and the furthest I have to travel for family get togethers is 45 minutes. Also, my commute is 7 minutes so I frequently go home for lunch and the view from my office window is of the bay. I think there is a lot of intrinsic value in those things. There are days when I have to remind myself of that, however.

There is a huge debate over "liveability," "sustainable growth," and "living wage jobs" in this area. At heart I tend to be a liberal environmentalist but pragmatically I know that we need more than just tourist trade jobs here. I hate that the people who've moved here from out of state in the last ten years now want to shut the doors behind them. Port Townsend's housing market has become unaffordable for the average working person and I don't want to see it become a place where only rich people can afford to live and visit. I certainly don't want it to become the kind of town where the people who actually do the work have to commute from another nearby town.

I love that when I go to the grocery store the clerks know my name, and it's not just from reading the name that is on their scanned coupon cards. I love that a trip to the store also usually involves seeing someone I know and a stop to chat. My poor husband has sometimes had to wait 30 minutes or more for me to come home and make dinner. I love that many of the people I run into ask about my family. I love that strangers say hi to eachother and that you can strike up random conversations at the coffee shops or the art galleries.

That's my hometown.