Home, bittersweet home

I just spent an extended weekend at home with my family in the evergreen state. It was a short trip (just Thursday through Monday) and it was one of the best vacations I’ve ever had—only now that I’m back, I wish that I weren’t. Being at home really threw into sharp relief the differences between Seattle and Salt Lake.

I don’t really like Utah. I’ve been here four-plus years and its still not growing on me. I’m not really sure why I don’t like it—I mean, I know what I don’t like about it I could easily list some things (and I plan to), but I wonder sometimes whether there an underlying reason for me not to allow myself to embrace it? Am I somehow threatened by it and therefore critical of it? If so, it’s unconsciously because I don’t feel threatened by it. Do I depend on my-not being-from-Utah to define my identity? I suppose I do to some extent, but I’m not so wanting for an identity that I use my hometown as a social crutch.

Whatever the motive may be, I often find myself comparing here to home, and here always comes up loser. My trip home reminded me of some of the things I’ve noticed in my comparisons.

Utah is a desert. The air is dry and thin; in the winter it bites and in the summer it burns. The water is hard (excess minerals) and it scratches your throat when you drink it. The scenery is brown and desolate; every tree here was planted by hand and none of the trees provide either shade or privacy. And the cultural diversity is minimal.

“I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth.”

In Seattle, we have mildly humid air chalk full of oxygen (due to the near-sea-level elevation). Our tap water is soft and tastes as pure as bottled water (and its just as good straight from the garden hose—or so I recall from the last time I did that ten years ago). The landscape is green and hilly with lakes every 20 miles, and the culture is diverse enough that, when meeting strangers, you always hear a brand-new story (whereas in Utah its more like reading a book for the second time).

“Why am I still in Utah,” you ask? The only reason is because this is where I was first offered a job out of college, and until I’ve got enough experience under my belt to dictate where I work (and therefore where I live), I see staying here as a wise career move.

I’ll admit my dislike for Utah is merely that: a dislike—I don’t hate it here. There are days when a sunset under scattered clouds paints the sky red and I catch myself staring, and when the fall air turns cold and the mountain leaves change, followed by the valleys’, I always take a moment to appretiate the leaves. Plus, some of my best friends I’ve met here in Utah and life would be a lot less entertaining without them.

I think that my trip home just makes me nostalgic for that place, and being around family and friends makes me feel like there is still my home, and here is just a sojourn.