We officially no longer live in Seattle. I write this from an overpriced Air BNB rental in the Mission where we will be for the next month, which N rationalized on the basis that we will be living in some sort of Pearl District furnished flat on the company dime in September.
If there was a discourse on urban mobility the way there is on other ubiquitous topics, I would identify myself as an “up and mover”. I cannot idly chat about a desire to move someplace. I tend to just fucking go and deal with the consequences later.
There are so few benefits to moving around so much, and so many drawbacks: the jarring unfamiliarity, the lack of context, the toll it takes on your social life, the setting the clock back in terms of knowing your way around. But you wouldn’t know about it from the way that people talk. There is always someplace cheaper, cooler, with better weather, cleaner air, better jobs, better scenery, more people like themselves. I don’t think on these terms. If I am guilty of anything, it is naivete (it will be fine!) and then resignation (I really must leave this place). If anything, I need higher standards.
I’m not traumatized by the shocks, which, if you grew up in an immigrant family, you would think to be the case. There is nothing so banal as moving, nothing that reduces your life to a pile of logistics so quickly. I tell myself that after this next move, I will not move again, but who am I kidding? Of my four grandparents, only one was born in Texas. The rest came after several stops elsewhere.
