Early this morning I drove my dad to the airport. It’s not that I’m not excited to be up here, or that the idea of living by myself away from my home is impossible to fathom (after all, I’ve done it before), but I couldn’t help but be hit by a wave of melancholy as I left the airport. As long as my dad was up here none of this really seemed real. I was just on vacation visiting a strange city. But when he left my last chance to turn away from this left with as well. For the next ten months I’ll be on my own up here, trying to make a difference with an entirely new set of people and places. It’s exciting but… melancholy.
Luckily I didn’t have time to stay tearful for long. Today was our first event for City Year, a BBQ down at Woodland Park. Woodland’s only about a mile from where I live, and is an oasis of grass compared to what I’m used to. Greenery just seems to spring up naturally here in Seattle, without rhyme or reason. There are parks and bits of grass and plants everywhere I turn. It’s a bit disorienting. To my desert-trained eyes it looks too full, as if Seattle was almost trying too hard. It’s lovely and nice, but where’s the breathing room?
The entire house trooped down there, mostly in house cars or by bus, and as we were officially meeting the staff and other members for the first time we all took a little longer than usual to get ready. First impressions are hard to take back. The bbq was fun, although it was cursed by the unfortunate side effect of all ice-breaking type parties: the small talk. The first half hour or so of any event always involves everyone trying to get to know everyone else and asking the same questions of everyone else, what’s you’re name, where are you from, how did you hear about the program, etc. These small bits of conversation are inevitably followed by moments of silence while everyone involved wracks their brain for something to say and looks around wildly for something to talk about. But everyone was really friendly and it seems like it’ll be lots of fun to work with them.
It’s interesting… City Year recruits for diversity (on basis of race, socieo-economic status, education, sex, age, etc.) so all of us are incredibly different people. But at the same time we are all here because of City Year, because for some reason or another we want to give up a year of our lives to serve. We may not all be the idealists that they’re hoping we are, but we all are here to help children. Because of this we all have a built in connection to each other, something that we have in common. When you add to the mix the fact that a lot of the corps seem to be really interesting and eclectic I think I’ll have a lot of fun here.
I also love my neighborhood! I’m near the University District, so I’m close to all of the fun bookshops and shops around there but am a little removed from the fraternity houses and drunk college kids. I haven’t really explored the area too much yet, but apparently Fremont (just a short jaunt down the hill) is almost like an artist colony with little privately owned shops and gigantic art pieces. I think I even saw a folk music shop when I was passing on the bus (yay! I’ll finally be able to get my psaltery tuned). The area I live in is close to all of these nice big houses and with all of the walking and biking trails around I really feel as if I’m in the center of everything. I’m looking forward to exploring the area further, there seems to be tons of public art pieces and strange little shops. I’ll need to go to one of the farmer’s markets this weekend and pick up some food, some of the girls here want me to help them bake bread. Hopefully I won’t mess it up! Although the recipe I have is one of the easiest ones I’ve come across I don’t have my kitchenaid with me to make the kneading easier.
My room itself is great too. I’m on the second floor of the house, which means that if I want to be part of the hustle and bustle of downstairs I can be, but if I want to have a little peace and quiet then I can just go up to my room or to the deck on the second floor and do what I want. I think this is going to be a good thing, especially given that the downstairs is primarily populated by a bunch of guys right out of high school. It’s fun to hang out with them, but I think once I start actually working I’m going to be glad of the opportunity to escape.
Tomorrow is our first real day, registration! We’ll be getting our uniforms fitting and running through some of the masses of paperwork that we have to do to officially become members of City Year. I’m actually kind of excited, but more so for the start of training on Monday!