Love Letter to Seattle

After 7.5 years living in Seattle, I’ve made a big move. For the past 2-3 years, I’ve been feeling an itch to move, but I didn’t know exactly where to go. Throughout the process of deciding, it’s been impossible not to realize how much I genuinely love and appreciate so many aspects of Seattle. It’s a great city and my time there was amazingly transformative. As an homage, I wanted to write a love letter to Seattle. This quickly became an exercise in reflection too, which I’m embracing. I did the thing that I told myself not to do which is to write and re-write and edit this post until somehow a month passed by. There’s absolutely more I could say about my time in Seattle, but I don’t want to write a book. Perfection is the enemy of progress and I gotta keep moving forward because I have multiple other topics I’d like to start focusing on. From here on out, after making some very big changes in my life, I’m thinking the dust will settle and my goal is to post at least once per week. Ok, now the letter.

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Dear Seattle,

When I first visited your wild city streets in 2017, I could only imagine what it would be like to live with you. At that point, I didn’t think I could. I grew up in the South with hot, humid summers and cold, but mostly dry and most importantly, sunny winters. Your mild summers and rainy, dark winters intimidated me. The thought of 9 months of chilled bones made me nervous about the idea, but in June 2018, I made the leap. It was more a product of circumstances than an intentional decision, really. The guy I was dating at the time got a job offer and I followed with no job lined up and no specific plans. What I unexpectedly found over the next 7.5 years was genuine social connection, unmatched access to nature, eclectic neighborhoods, and freedom of exploration that no other city has offered me yet. Even today, you’re still growing and inspiring me in ways I couldn’t have expected.

With you, Seattle, I had the opportunity to experiment with new ways of being. My first few months, I did gig work walking dogs all around the city through the Rover app, exploring landmarks and side streets for miles and miles with adorable puppies, including my own. It didn’t take long at all for me to recognize the beauty and amazing walkability of the city. Well-utilized trails alongside the waterfront at Olympic Sculpture Park gave me the unique experience of feeling like I was existing within a work of art. The grimy, lively streets of Capitol Hill made me feel like I was finally living the city life I’d always wondered about. As the seasons changed, I remember watching the colors of my surroundings transform from the hot clear blue skies of July to the hazy red-orange cast of wildfire smoke blanketing the city in August. By October, I was ready for my first rainy Seattle Autumn, whatever it would take to have clean, breathable air again. I got a job at a float spa close to my first apartment in the feral heart of Capitol Hill. I had such a fun time working with all kinds of different people at the spa- all interesting, caring, and kind in their own ways. I have a wonderful friend from Charlotte, H, who had moved to the city one year prior. She welcomed me with open arms into her friend group’s social activities. I didn’t wind up connecting with them on a deep level, but I’m still, to this day, grateful for their kind and welcoming nature. One of the women in the friend group, a funny, talented food and wine writer named Aimee even invited me to join her for a work dinner, helping to share more insight with me into what the city’s food scene offers.

FOOD – FREEDOM CONNECTION

Speaking of food, a lot of people complain about your food, Seattle, and I get it. Most restaurants and cafes in the city cost more than I care to pay and really don’t tend to blow away my taste buds. With the exception of teriyaki and bahn mi, Dick’s and a couple of Mexican spots, there really isn’t much food for sale around the city that feels like a great value. I’ve gotta give you your flowers where they’re due, though. Despite the high price tag, I will say that when there are gems, oh to me they are gems. Not to be forgotten is the food you offer beyond restaurants which is… chef’s kiss. It’s probably the most essential aspect of how you helped me reconnect with nature, Seattle- you feeding me. In time, showing me naturally delicious foods from the source has given me the capacity to fully appreciate the simplicity of so many elements of life. It’s with you that I first went crabbing; catching and cooking up fresh crabs with yet another friend group that I was welcomed into and had such a fun time hanging out with. It’s with you that I learned to forage and thoroughly enjoyed the wild blackberries that burst from the vines all around the city in the summer, mushrooms emerging from the cool wet ground in the fall, wild greens that nourished me back to life in the spring. It’s with you, Seattle, that I connected for the first time in my life with what food really is and the magical generosity of the Earth in providing it to us. It was with you that I first went on a hike with friends and stopped to quench my thirst with sweet, wild salmonberries, a fruit I’d never heard of but came to adore from that moment on. So many people who are drawn to you, Seattle, have such deep knowledge of what the Earth offers us and how to be in respectful relationship with the land, and I’m so grateful you introduced us all. One day when I was in the garden my favorite place in the city, Beacon Food Forest, a friendly stranger struck up a conversation with me and told me about a book that changed the way he saw the world. I moved it to the top of my “must-read” list and found that the ideas in the book aligned with new views that you had been showing me for years already. This paradigm shift was expressed in part by this excerpt from the recommended book, “My Ishmael”, by Daniel Quinn. In the quote, a sage character says…

“Clearly I’m talking about fundamentals, and nothing is more fundamental than food. I’m sure it’s difficult for you to realize how very bizarre you are in this respect. You think it makes complete sense to have to work for what’s free for the taking to every other creature on earth. You alone lock food away from yourselves and then toil to get it back—and imagine that nothing could possibly make better sense.”

-Ishmael, My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

I mean for real, why pay $30 for oysters when you can put on rain boots and take a short road trip with friends to pluck them from the shallow waters yourself, for free??

ABUNDANCE

Seattle helped me to see alternative ways of being in so many different places. I saw and experienced the joyful and spiritually nurturing act of stewarding the land in community while enjoying abundant harvests, at no cost aside from time and energy. Organizations like Beacon Food Forest, Nurturing Roots Farm, Rainier Beach Urban Farm & Wetland, Yes Farm, Hip Hop is Green, Black Star Farmers, Tilth Alliance, Seattle Giving Garden Network and countless others empower and encourage community members to build resilience, sovereignty and food equity that rests in the power of the people rather than the establishments we’ve all grown so used to depending on for survival. Going to many events over the years, I was without fail, always welcomed into beautifully impactful conversations and projects. Feeling welcome and part of something universally meaningful made it so easy to learn big lessons, one of the most pivotal being that at the end of the day, as hippie dippie is it may sound, there is no food, be it Doritos or fresh fruit, that doesn’t depend primarily on the well-being of the Earth. No fertile soil, no food (not unless we want to feed all our plants with synthetic hydroponic nutrient solutions, but that would be so expensive lol can you imagine??). The inextricable connection between human survival, living well, and caring was highlighted for me repeatedly throughout my time in Seattle not in the standard form of learning through scarcity and fear, but rather through the magic that is natural abundance. Not only when it comes to food, but also community. When people feel secure and safe, they can be extremely welcoming and generous; a phenomenon I experienced repeatedly in Seattle. The abundance doesn’t just apply to human connection either. Strolling through the neighborhoods, I see so much beauty that makes it impossible for me not to think of another quote I stumbled across in recent years. The quote goes…

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.

– Chief Seattle

The P-patch gardens, beautifully landscaped yards bursting with colorful, fragrant blooms and signs explaining the importance of caring for pollinators, countless flyers for free community events, a thriving sharing economy via little free pantries & little free libraries, and the seemingly endless mutual aid and educational organizations has totally redefined for me what it looks like to be a person who isn’t just alive, but who is living as one within a symbiotic community. Not just for myself, but as a fragment of a thread of an entire web. Outside of your confines, Seattle, and even sometimes within, it can be easy to forget what kind of peace and safety can actually be inherent to life in this world – all we really have to do is look around and learn how to take care of what we’ve been gifted. And when we see others neglecting life’s gifts, we can’t forget that we were once just as ignorant as they were. I learned through experience time and time again during my time in Seattle what it looks like to show up as a support to friends, systems, communities that we’re all a part of even if we don’t realize it. That awareness is something that I hope to grow and carry with me wherever I go.

Even the way you manage your waste, Seattle, has shown me that not all that we discard is trash. The black gold that’s produced and lovingly regifted back to residents as fertile, nutritious compost helps to support our web of life. From the microbes in the soil that support strong, healthy plants in your many home and community gardens to people receiving emotional and physical nourishment, you offer so many gifts that I’m so thankful to have benefitted from and which have grown me significantly.

TECH SCENE

In contrast with my deepened connection to nature, Seattle, you also gave me some excellent foundations in tech. I started learning how to code – wondering and hoping if I’d get swept up in the tech/ startup headwind that pushes the city’s aura into a level of competence that I hadn’t experienced anywhere else before. I did hackathons, non-stop weekends of problem-solving, brainstorming, executing ideas and teamwork, that introduced me to one of my most cherished friends, R. Where I asked, you always provided more than I expected. When I had a startup idea of my own, you connected me with mentors and group meetups that helped me to assess my ideas outside of my own feelings about them. Spending time with hackathon friends, connecting with other people of color in tech, and even a free legal clinic for entrepreneurs through the University of Washington helped offer guidance to a naïve young entrepreneurial-spirited woman. You saw me through the mental conception and death of several business ideas, but I learned some lesson from each one. You saw me through countless networking events and job applications. When I finally landed a professional role as a consultant at Starbucks, it was mere weeks before I was offered an upgrade to a dream job at Facebook Reality Labs doing some of the most cutting-edge research I ever could’ve imagined being a part of. I got to learn and hone new and old skills in practicing chemistry and physics, my two favorite sciences. Crossing the bridge over Lake Washington 5 days a week to badge into a job that offered free (delicious and high quality- I can’t express enough…) food, extremely smart and competent colleagues, and top-tier facilities was about as good as a 9-5 was going to get, outside of the moral dilemma of working for a tech giant run by oligarchs. Moving to a contract with Boeing gave me the unique experience of shifting from tech to aerospace and seeing a significant pay increase. The culture at Boeing was night compared to Meta’s day, but the moral dilemma of being there remained. I learned a ton and felt very lucky to see how these giant corporations work from the inside. I don’t think I could’ve had such an experience anywhere else, Seattle, so thank you. My professional life with you has given me some invaluable education, experiences and perspective that I don’t take lightly. I can’t say I have everything figured out, but you have helped to shed some light, ironically, on who and how I am.

SOCIAL SCENE

Despite everyone’s complaints about the “Seattle freeze” and it being hard to make friends, I had no trouble at all finding fun, intelligent, kind, thoughtful and interesting people with you. The coolest people gravitate to you, Seattle; and the best among them go outside seeking each other out. You offer so many opportunities- hackathons, book clubs, farmer’s markets, parties, dog parks, friend-finding apps, community gardens, professional organizations, Meetup groups, chess clubs, art walks, free summer programming, top-tier workplaces – to find people who define what community can look and feel like. The people I met with you, Seattle, have nurtured within me a desire and ability to go outside and be pleasantly surprised, not only by your visually stunning landscapes, but by the visceral energy and passion of those who have chosen to call you home. Now yes, it’s true, if someone is looking for a culture of strangers chopping it up at every corner, you don’t make the best impression, Seattle. However, many people who dwell within you, in my experience, are awkward, but kind introverts who are happy with being approached and befriended. In February 2020, weeks before the panny became a full-blown pandemic, I had a mission to assemble all the coolest people I’d met in my 1.5 years with you for a Palentine’s day celebration and I was so thankful to have a table full of wonderful, insightful, funny people sharing brunch together at a good, but standardly overpriced Seattle restaurant. I loved everyone at that table and the successful execution of that brunch party made me feel like not only could I officially call you my home, but I was leveling up in multiple areas of my life. The timing of the brunch was perfect. Almost like taking a deep breath of air before submerging my head underwater; organizing the brunch and throwing the event, being in the presence of all the people in Seattle who I loved helped to carry me through the isolation of the COVID-19 lockdown. Its funny to think that brunch was now 7 whole years ago almost to the day.

People also complain and wonder about how easy it is to find other black people in Seattle and I have to say I didn’t find it too hard. True, there aren’t that many of us, but when you do meet people, they’re generally friendly and happy to be in community with each other. I found familiarity, support, and joyful energy very easily. Organizations like Sync Seattle, Hey Black Seattle, Golden Bricks Events, and The Collective made it easy to find fun events by and for black people- offering a cultural comfort that doesn’t come so easily everywhere around the city. I was so lucky to meet the ladies from my core friend group within months of intentionally seeking out friends who I could deeply relate to. Over the years, we shared cookouts, themed nights, an international trip, dinners, holidays, and so many fun times with laughter and support as we all walked our own paths in life. J, B, K, and T I love ya’ll and can’t wait to see how our paths cross in the future. ❤️

NATURAL BEAUTY

Another thing, Seattle, you’ve got the most beautiful scenery I’ve had the privilege of enjoying in a home town. The number of times I gasp and sigh at your beauty, it’s like I’m in a perpetual state of fresh awe. Your scenery has shown me what it’s like to be constantly pleasantly surprised.  When the skies are clear and the fog has lifted, nearly every direction offers postcard views that are constant reminders of the majesty of the Earth and your place on it. Today alone, I walked westward and caught a glimpse through the streets of Capitol Hill of the snow-capped Olympic mountains, Space Needle, and the shimmering waters of Elliott Bay. Walking back home eastward, I couldn’t help but marvel at the Cascade mountain range dwelling behind the modest cityscape of Bellevue across Lake Washington in the distance. Water and mountains everywhere. Driving down Rainier Avenue (southbound) yesterday, I got to admire the enormous volcanic mountain that stands in the distance, almost as if a guardian to the city. It was my first time seeing Mt. Rainier in over 3 months and it felt like the first time. Even though I was having a frustrating day, her massive, snow-capped presence snapped me back into a headspace of wonder and gratitude. It’s a gift to have one’s environment garner such a strong and positive reaction, and it’s one that is unique to you, Seattle. At the same time, Rainier, an active volcano, serves as a constant reminder of the necessity to value every moment. Every city has its primary natural disaster threats and yours comes two-fold with an inevitable massive earthquake and volcanic eruption. At least today, it’s easy to say it’s worth the risk.

Your mild weather also supported countless mental health walks for me and my dear Watson. We could walk for hours traversing your many neighborhoods sprinkled with the most beautiful parks; from the peaceful family-friendly Seward Park to the chaotic and lively Cal Anderson in Capitol Hill to the serene forestry of Discovery Park. Those 3 barely scratch the surface, Seattle. You have SO MANY top tier parks, all of which can be walked or biked to with relative ease so long as one isn’t afraid of a few substantial hills. Speaking of hills, just walking around the city is enough to keep a person decently fit. Your terrain forces a strengthening of the heart and encourages an appreciation of your gifts, as nearly every hill climbed rewards us with spectacular views (weather permitting).

OK, NOW WHAT?

With all your beauty and amazing experiences you’ve given me, in the end I do feel that our time has come to a conclusion, at least for now. I knew from the start of our time together that I don’t like the cold. My whole life, I’ve been susceptible to cold fingers, icy toes, and a chilled nose and ears when the temperature drops below 70 degrees Fahrenheit. (Editor’s note: If this is crazy to you, imagine how I feel when I see people walking around in shorts and t-shirts when it’s 40 degrees. I know it’s irrational, but it’s upsetting to me when I’m the only one suffering from the cold.) My point is that although there’s so much I Iove and cherish about this city, it isn’t the best fit for me because I’m missing some aspects of life that are foundational to me. Still, Seattle, you’ve absolutely set the bar in many categories to heights that will be difficult, maybe even impossible to find ready-made in another city. I’ve explored the idea of moving to almost every other major city in the US and they all have their pitfalls for me. Too cold, too expensive, too culturally/ideologically incompatible, everywhere has something. So after literal years of pondering, “where to next?” I’ve landed on the most comfortable answer I could find- “wherever I want”. Being able to reach such an unconventional conclusion honestly feels like a gift that only the free-spirited energy of Seattle could have given me. So thank you, Seattle. I’m grateful for all the ways you’ve helped me to step into myself. Now, I hope to step into the world sharing all the amazing things you’ve taught me. First stop, Mexico.

With love & gratitude until we meet again,

Janee