Home Again

I’ll never fully get over the fact we can get in a metal tube with wings, fling ourselves in the air, and be on the other side of the country or the world in a day. It’s pretty incredible to be in cold Walla Walla one day and then Florida and the tropics just a few days later. I got to be on a cruise ship, one of the smaller ones out there, that’s about 100 feet longer than the Titanic was. Cartegena, a city nearly 500 years old, had sky scrapers in one section that they referred to as their Miami. Going through the Panama Canal, seeing all the tankers, shipping vessels, cruise ships waiting to pass the locks, was remarkable. I learned a lot on this trip–wonderful, fascinating, heartbreaking, and infuriating all at the same time. If you’d ever like to catch coffee, I’d be happy to chat.

But coming home–there’s something so wondrous about home. Every tour guide had that same sound in their voice–love for home. Their love for their places had that mixture of awe and chagrin. Here are the things that are great. Here are the facts of history we can’t change and how we bear the consequences of them. Here’s what we would like to change and the challenges to doing so. An honest look of home is like that. I love this place. To live here, it’s imperative to have an honest look and understanding of the history we can’t change. And sometimes with that comes responsibility and chagrin in facing the consequences of that history and new challenges simultaneously.

Our biggest industries–wheat, wine, tourism–are dependent on Walla Walla’s location, soil, and climate. Things that affect a small island in the Caribbean also affect us. We, too have an indigenous and migrant history. Concerns of fresh water, land, energy, and changes to climate are ours, too. The cost of living (to rent or to buy a home particularly), the increasing gap between the haves and have nots, and those with the means and power ensuring they maintain it–is not different with different scenery; it’s just a different flavor of the same thing.

I am happy to be home in this familiar, beautiful setting that gets increasingly so as the light comes back and the early flowers like snowbells (snowdrops/johnny-jump-ups) and crocus start to appear. My kid, friends, coworkers, kitties seem happy to have me home, too, and that’s an incredible feeling.

This week, there was a Chamber of Commerce event where folks in our community were honored for their service. Teachers, firefighters, police, members of the three colleges in town, got honors. Whitman chose Sarah Hurlburt for her work related to Frenchtown, history of people and place, and they also honored Bryan’s memory for his contributions to our town, too. It was such a great reminder that this town is full of folks who love this place, who recognize the complicated history that got us to now, and who are also doing their very best to make it better. Sarah is doing that. Bryan did that. It’s easy to throw rocks and complain about things you don’t like. Statler and Waldorf-ing the world, can be amusing, but it doesn’t get anything done. I’m glad to be home and among folks who get stuff done for all our benefit.