Hello,
Happy New Year! I hope that your holidays were relaxing, rejuvenating, healthy, stress free, & uncomplicated. I also hope that you didn’t miss me on the two week hiatus that I took during the latter half of December; I was traveling, seeing family, & even played a show or two. I appreciate you all allowing me the space to do so & having the patience & understanding for those times when I need to dip away for a minute. I always worry subconsciously that no one is going to come back any time I skip a week or so with the blogs, but amazingly so many of you return with your love & your hunger for the stories that I tell, the feelings that I share, the experiences I so exuberantly pass along to you all, & time that it takes to interject my life into yours for however long you choose to read these pages.
I was struggling to find a topic for today’s blog at first, until Evan shared with me a TikTok highlighting a minute of different vignettes around the PNW. Then, as the deep pang of homesickness hit me, so too did the idea for this blog. However, with the singular idea also came a myriad & the idea further blossomed from one stand alone piece to the series I hope that this will become.
I am privileged to call myself well travelled. I have been to many corners of the world & fallen in love with many of the locations & people I have come to know along the way. As someone who travels, & travels often, I often feel a deep sense of “Saudade” (see attached blog) but I also get frequently asked about my favorite places & the question that always seems to follow the locations I disclose is “Why Do You Love It?” So, therein lies the blog idea. My friend Josh Brady, an excellent writer & author himself, reached out to me regarding the PNW post & said “Now you’re making me miss it too. Only lived in Washington for two years, but I miss it every day. Been dying to get back ever since I moved away.” To which I replied “There’s something about the way that the mist & the darkness creeps into your bones & embeds itself there that is inescapable." Which immediately flooded my mind with all of the other things about the region that I hold so dearly intertwined in my DNA. Welcome, dear reader, to the “Why I Love…” series. May it help you find connection around the world & fill your spirit with a sense of wanderlust, comfort, & adventure.
Why I Love…
The Pacific Northwest
There’s a spirit to the PNW that is unlike any other, it maintains the wild, untamed energy that most of the land west of the Rocky Mountains carry, but there’s something deep & brooding about it, like slowly drifting into a bottomless slumber. The freedom that emanates from the “ungentrified, uncolonized, untainted” wilderness allows an unbridled sense of personal expression & peace that is probably, in part, reasonable for the coined slogan “Keep Portland Weird.” And while the free spirited, often aloof nature of its city dwelling people may not be everyone’s cup of tea, their sense of personal freedom & being is undeniably admirable. The PNW is undeniably a place where they have yet to kill their mother. Those who live on the land work, almost to a fault, to preserve the natural beauty & antiquity of their home resulting in a world that feels almost alien to those of us who have become so accustomed to the strip malls & park lotted developments of our modern, American, late-capitalist system.
The PNW is a palette of sullen vetiver, slithering grey, lush alpine, contemplative blues, & rich earthy browns. The unique & ravenous landscape sits nettled perfectly between the Cascade Mountains & the Pacific Ocean feeding & nurturing a rift of ultra-fertile volcanic soil that gives life to everything that plants roots in its ancient fields. Trees grow tall & slender, fed by the creeping mists & the drizzly, spitting rain & waterfalls & life flow freely throughout.
The coast of The PNW is a unmastered darkness that feels simultaneously like the cold embrace of welcomed solitude & the longing for something simpler & altogether uncomplicated. The ocean does little to hide its fury & ferocity here but also isn’t afraid to share the most vulnerable & quiet aspects of itself. The life that teems beneath its hushed waves is cold & hardy & embeds small bits of its soul into the driftwood & tumbled cobbles that wash up on its shore.
I have yet to meet anyone who has made their way up to The PNW & not fallen in love with it. There is simply something for everyone & I think that it connects with something intrinsically primal within us all & makes us feel strangely at home. Despite its urban developments & modern amenities there is something about it that just makes you want to reconnect with nature. It makes your soul yearn for darker days propped up in a cabin by the sea or in the mountains with an exquisitely crafted cup of coffee, some fresh fruit & berries, a fire in the hearth, & a warm bowl of chowder in hand. It is the coziness of a home but lives more so in the space of yearned for loneliness in the best possible way.
I love The Pacific Northwest because it is somewhere that the Earth still sings, it is somewhere that forces you to understand where you fit in the great circle, & that beckons you home away from the noise & the tech to just be in the pure surroundings of Mother Earth. The PNW feels like a fresh breath of the cleanest air, it is at the same time timeless & archaic. I love the PNW because it is the land that birthed me & it is also the land that draws me into the deepest embrace whenever I have the privilege of returning.
-C