I.
There are moments when I feel the need to leave—to be anywhere but home, if only for a short while. Perhaps to a different city or to somewhere new; perhaps with the intention of a mindful retreat—to reposition a disposition. Or rather, is it to escape? To elude the vociferous cacophony that plays in my mind? It’s uncanny how a bedroom can toggle so quickly between comfort and constriction. Solitude is a double-edged sword.
Restive, I packed my thoughts and hit the road. The Puget Sound is a lush and moody region, one with which I’m still growing. There’s so much I have yet to explore; so much to experience. And so I went, somewhere—anywhere—to wander; to be somewhere else; to quell the cacophony; to find harmony.
II.
TURNING THE CORNER, I was struck by this dramatic sight. The tempered air was refreshing after a long drive and the deck seemed befittingly moody, but I needed a break from the wind, as well as some coffee.
I sat inside at a table with a view of the bay. Pen in hand and paper underneath, I wished my wrist as a vehicle that could arrange my thoughts into letters and paragraphs and spell out my restitution.
My americano cooled, and I looked around at the others who also chose to pass their afternoon here. The raging wind and splashing waves outside seemed docile through the windows, and an amicable calmness settled in the cafe. It was a Sunday, much like many others that preceded my visit, and much like many more to follow.
I set my pen down, took one final sip of my tepid drink, and packed up. It was just another Sunday.
III.
In envisioning the world that we wish to cultivate, the late scholar and activist (and one of my heros) Grace Lee Boggs spoke of the need to grow our souls. What a beautiful and wicked challenge.
That concept stuck with me, especially as a twenty-something navigating the honesty of our world and learning the hard lessons that come with aging. It’s indelible: that perhaps the most radical way to reconcile dissonance and entropy—to elucidate our salvation—is through empathy, connection, and compassion.
I’ve been reflecting on Grace Lee Boggs’s mantra vis-à-vis my search to understand the process of finding home: a persistent theme that speaks louder as I continue building my life in Seattle. How have I grown my soul here?
Two thousand miles away from my roots in Michigan was this untethered domain: a vast canvas free of preconceptions. A canvas that dared me to dream of colors and shapes with which I could paint a vivid future, and in a place that I could make my home. There was room to grow.
Steady hands weaken over time, and the colors soon began to brush across the lines of imperfect shapes. The successes and failures of my time in Seattle—the connections and mishaps—inevitably stained the canvas, haunting the shades and lines of my idyllic vision. This canvas was never an exclusive creation.
It explains the frenetic desire to leave and be somewhere else, to wash the stains away. There’s an eerie allure of new places—one that flaunts agency and excitement.
But the haunting never stops, and those stains don’t go away. They’re inevitable. These memories—these experiences: they’re unforgivingly loud. And bitter and sweet and pungent.
And it’s all part of finding home in Seattle—the moments of desolation, the gracious victories, the needed support, and all the blandness in between. Building my life here is just as much about mastering my canvas as it is about accepting the stains, living with ghosts, and loving the shades of imperfections.
Because this is part of growing my soul.