Secrets of Suburbia

I went for a run today. It was my first in two weeks, what with the snow and my sinus infection. I still don't feel fantastic, but the run had to happen. I made it about two-and-a-half miles with minimal coughing -- not a long run, but enough to clear my head a bit. And my head desperately needs to be cleared; it's been pretty clogged lately. Fortunately for me, spending a little time outside usually helps a great deal, and I'm lucky enough to live in a place in which outside beckons just about every day of the year.

There are lots of things to love about where we live, in our ordinary house, in our ordinary little neighborhood. I suppose there's nothing special about it, not really, nothing that gives us any particular bragging rights. I mean, there's definitely no coolness quotient. But what I love is this: the fact that I can walk down to the shore of Puget Sound and have maybe one car pass me along the way. The way the fog hangs over the huge trees in our neighborhood, the silence so thick the air seems almost textured with it, so thick you can pull it down with your fingers. The way our house sits on a corner in such a way that no one can look directly into our windows from any of theirs. The quiet in the late afternoons and evenings, which is especially lovely in the summers when we play or lounge in the backyard. The fact that I can walk with my children to a couple of different playgrounds without worrying about busy streets, and that we can give them a large yard to play in. That there are neighbors with kids next door, that Suzannah has grown up along with them, that both of my children have a playmate their age and one in-between. The fact that I can drive for less than five minutes to get to the boardwalk along the waterfront, where I like to jog, where I used to walk my pug every day after work.

But it's not just the trees, the water, the quiet; this is my community. I have to drive a little to get to all the cool coffeehouses, and we don't have trendy little cupcake shops nearby (although we do have a cafe or two I happen to adore), but there are schools in which we are deeply invested, people whom I deeply love, a church that has become my family. I am surrounded by people who put down roots here.

It is absolutely not cool for a person to admit that they love living where I do, in this uninteresting little suburb south of Seattle. But I've never really been cool.

I don't know that I'd love where I live in the same way I do if we weren't within such easy driving distance of the cool places -- Seattle, downtown Tacoma, and all the wonderful and terribly obvious things these very awesome cities have to offer -- not to mention our easy access to both the mountains and the water. But our day-to-day lives, the things that actually matter in very real ways, they're here -- in our little house, our little neighborhood. The trees, the paths to the park, Starbucks, the library, the people who know what I like on my veggie sandwiches and how spicy I like my Thai food and who are kind to my children.

And there are secrets here that the cool kids will never know. First of all, I won't share -- not when the cool kids are so openly contemptuous of where I've chosen to live my daily life and raise my family. Second of all, it's not possible anyway. Some people just don't have passports that will allow them to access the beauty in ordinary places.

I thought of one today -- it's nothing earth-shattering, really, it's just an unlikely little sanctuary nestled in this little corner of suburbia -- because it occurs to me that what my muddled head really needs is not a trip to the Elliott Bay Book Company (although I'd never turn down one of those, and in fact I just had one) or an hour in my favorite coffee shop (though I'd never turn that down, either). What I need is a place where my soul can breathe, where I can be quiet for a bit. Where I can just be.

It's a ten-minute drive from my house, give or take, depending on traffic, and until I actually went there, I wouldn't ever have believed that this kind of place could exist just off a busy street in the middle of town -- a street I actually take great pains to avoid, in fact. But it does exist. All I'm really going to say about it is this: there are trees there, and water, and lots of birds. There are benches. Flowers, in warmer weather. Mostly, though, there is a deep, reverent quiet. And secrets.

The first time I went there, I took only my daughter. This place fed her imagination and my soul; we walked together, mostly hand-in-hand, but occasionally she broke away and ran ahead, her beautiful childlike exuberance somehow not at all out of place in the cold, quiet stillness. I was a little quieter. Suzannah has been there many times with her daddy; it's one of their afternoon retreats on the weekends, a place they go while I grade papers or catch up on lesson planning. She knows it well; she's probably more in-tune with its secrets than I will ever be, without even trying. I'm still listening. The only people we encountered there on that quiet winter afternoon were an elderly couple, walking very slowly. We didn't speak; they merely looked at me as we passed each other, and they both nodded once, with a decidedly knowing look in their eyes.

Matt and I have lived here for over ten years now, and we've discovered countless wonders both in the city and around it. Some of our favorite things to do include hiking at Discovery Park, eating dinner in West Seattle, finding the best coffee in Seattle, and frequenting the best book shops and record stores. On our semi-rare childfree "date" nights, we take greedy advantage of what the city has to offer. But I feed my soul where I'm at, and when I need to tap into a little beauty and peace, when I need to find that quiet center, I don't have to look very far to find it.

I know exactly where I need to go, and soon. And I'm grateful -- so deeply, quietly grateful -- that such a place exists right here, where I live. I'll give up any bragging rights for such a gift.