I visited friends and my sweet little cottage in Walla Walla on my journey East.
I’m Brattleboro Bound and today was the second day of my journey east. Last night I left Seattle mid-afternoon and retraced the path that took me from my hometown of Seattle to Walla Walla where I went to Whitman College and then lived for an additional six years, working for the college and experiencing Oh, The Joys of Home Ownership.
There were patches of drizzle on the drive, which was just like the good ol’ days. In fact, the day I first visited Whitman as a prospective student was the first day of rain after a long, dry summer. People were literally dancing in the puddles when we pulled onto campus that first time, so the rain made it feel even more like a homecoming. However, I also caught a gorgeous section of the drive right at the golden hour and the golden wheatfields were radiant. Golden Golden Walla Walla.
One of the things I love about Brattleboro is that it reminds of me of Walla Walla. Maybe it’s something about the red brick buildings downtown, the beautiful old homes on tree lined streets, or the waterway that snakes through. Maybe it has to do with the way half the folks in Brattleboro are in the Brattleboro Facebook group just like half the folks in Walla Walla read the Union Bulletin (though that’s my memory from a decade ago so perhaps that’s less true now.) Or maybe it’s the “rurbanity” of the place, that combination of a historic urban core with deep roots in farm and forest. Maybe it’s just that I run into people I know in both places in a way that wasn’t true in metropolitan Portland. In any case, I am excited to find more similarities and differences as I explore Brattleboro.
I lived in Walla Walla for ten years and I’ve been in Portland for nine. And I don’t think it was just the difference of a year that makes it feel like I lived in Walla Walla much longer. Eighteen to twenty-eight are years of big changes, self-discovery, and an invincibility that makes the days longer. I drove past Valencia Cottage, the little house I own and hope to retire to someday, and it was neat to see the fruit trees I’d planted taller and more robust. It was amusing, as it always is, to find myself replaying memories from my college days to feel the inchworminess of time – the way a memory feels simultaneously like a lifetime ago and like no time has passed at all. And the way that I can hold the perspective shifts, to map the way I felt and thought at various points in time.
There are many people in Walla Walla I love dearly, so I enjoyed several porch sits involving several cups of tea and lots of catching up. I still didn’t get to see everyone I wish I could have, but being sent forth on this journey with a big dose of love and encouragement was fortifying. Bye Bye, Walla Walla (for now anyhow!)
Dim sum in a cabin in Coeur d’Alene called Bilbo Baggins
Tonight I continued on to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and I’ve just finished a supper of leftover dim sum in a little cabin called Bilbo Baggins. Raffi has secured the perimeter and we’re going to snuggle in to sleep like hobbitsies.
