My husband grew up in the Pacific
Northwest. Whenever we’d go back to visit the cloudy skies of
Seattle or Portland, he’d ask, “Can you picture us
living here?” and I would try. But I always felt anxious.
He seemed so happy, just posing the question, that I put
my trepidation down to that arthritis — latent now — in
my left thumb.
Then one day, the question changed.
“What about Tacoma?” he asked.
I felt instant
comfort, as if I were sinking into warm vanilla bubbles. Turns out,
it wasn’t the arthritis that worried me. It was the prospect
of living life in a hip, happening, Seattle-or-Portland kind of
city, a lucky-you, can-I-come-too kind of place.
I prefer
a town whose freshness date has expired, one with a slight funk, a
little grit, a mysterious stench wafting on the breeze. Such towns
dot our great country, and I’ve lived in a few.
My
all-time favorite is Astoria, Ore., on the mouth of the Columbia
River. When I pulled into town, it was just getting dark. People
peered at me from behind soggy curtains. It felt shifty,
mysterious, like I’d stepped into a Twin
Peaks episode, and during my time there, that feeling
never entirely evaporated. How could it, when it rained so much?
Long ago, Astoria dreamed of becoming the salmon capital
of the world. But at some point, the dreamers abandoned her, and
let her go feral. When I was there, much of downtown stood empty,
its mossy inhabitants whispering that Astoria would come back some
day.
Turns out they were right. I got out in 2001, just
in time, as that remote outpost of Lewis and Clark let its
revitalization take hold. Now, under the big bridge where the hobos
used to relax, there’s a deluxe hotel with an on-site spa,
its rooms replete with fireplaces and claw-foot bathtubs. Astoria
may still be eccentric. But those seedy, decrepit days are gone.
Its promoters have probably found a way to suck the fish smell from
the air and silence those seals that used to bark me to sleep at
night.
These days, I sleep in Billings, Mont.
Billings isn’t quite the sort of town I embrace — Butte
is probably more my style — but at least Billings possesses
some humility. Although it’s the biggest city in Montana, it
knows darn well nobody chooses to live there. People move to
Billings for business, or stay because their family wound up there
three generations before and never scraped up the smarts to
skedaddle. In November, when the sugar beets burn on the edge of
town, there’s a singular stink to the air that almost smells
like home.
The apple of Montana’s eye is Missoula.
Everybody and her Labrador loves that town. I don’t blame
people, but frankly, this Missoula worship is tiresome. More
tiresome still is Boulder, Colo., where I lived for a stretch. With
Boulder’s perfect array of ethnic restaurants, endless bike
trails, sunny open space, enlightened public transportation,
eclectic cultural offerings and those drop-dead-gorgeous Flatirons,
I should have been in heaven.
Correction: I
was in heaven. Boulder is heaven on earth.
Trouble is, some people don’t belong in heaven.
Some of us just don’t fit in. How weary I grew of
Boulder’s relentless enlightenment, its herds of hippies
nibbling their sacrosanct vegan concoctions, its fitness freaks
with their far-too-healthy habits.
You cannot argue with
heaven, but like Lucifer, you can leave.
I’m better
off earthbound. After all, I was born and raised in Omaha, one of
those towns like Billings or Tacoma that people — most of
whom have never been there — crack jokes about. The jokes
make them feel better about where they live, but all their negative
energy just makes me stronger. I hardly know Tacoma, but the idea
of it sits well with me; it’s the kid sister to glamorous
Seattle, passing a little gas at Easter dinner. Having spent my
entire life as a kid sister, I know what that’s like.
Like certain towns, I’m perverse, determined not to
do what’s desired. Obstinate, we turn away from what is
right, good or proper. We persist in what’s wrong.
Perhaps this attitude is necessary to my economic survival.
I’ve never been loaded, and I probably never will be, and my
kind of towns are almost always marked down for quick sale. Maybe
if I had more money, I would embrace nirvana, but I doubt it. Money
can mask your smell, but it can’t change it. Underneath,
it’s always the same stink coming from your pores.
So, Tacoma has its aroma, and I have mine. I believe it might
welcome me with moldy, open arms. I know my arms, perspiration
stains and all, will be raised in return.
Karen
Mockler is a writer, teacher and former HCN intern. She currently
breathes the air of Billings, along with her husband and 3-year-old
daughter.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The aroma of Tacoma.
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