Today is Friday. Twelve more days and we're heading east, back to Wisconsin. I don't know what to expect, but I'm excited and afraid. I'm excited to be near friends and family and to maybe take on various projects and hi-jinx I've had rolling around in my head that are specific to that area. But I'm afraid we're going to get stuck there. I don't even know if that would be the worst thing in the world; that place is a happy one for me. I just don't know if I want us to raise our kids there.
Why not? I mean, I guess if there's one thing I've learned in my life is that people are basically the same. At least in the limited number of places I've been. Then again, I don't think wondering whether I want us to raise our kids in Appleton has anything to do with the people. The people in my hometown are the greatest people I've ever met.
Is it culture? Opportunity? Diversity? I want our kids to experience all of those things, and they are of course limited in Appleton, Wisconsin. How limited, I don't think I know yet. It will be interesting to be back for an extended, and possibly indefinite period of time after living on the West Coast for the past eight years. Growing up there, I never wanted for opportunity or experience. (Then again, you can't want for things you don't know about.) But now that I've lived a little bit of life outside that bubble, my own interests and priorities have changed. Now I look back on Appleton and in many ways see a place that doesn't really fit me anymore.
It's not that I think the West Coast fits Rose and I perfectly, or that I experienced so many things that can't be experienced in Wisconsin, or that it's a better place than the Midwest. (We can hardly stand it here in Santa Barbara.) But we loved Seattle and Bellingham, and while I don't really know if I'd want to raise children in Bellingham, I would feel great about doing it in Seattle. Of course there's always the possibility that our kids would hate a place like Seattle.
Maybe I just shouldn't worry about it. I turned out, after all, somewhat ok. And Rose turned out great. But I'm a pretty smart guy; a critical thinker, thoughtful, compassionate, creative, open-minded, fucking hilarious. Of course you hope your kids will turn out better than you. So how will I determine what's better than me? Is it being smarter? Taller? Stronger? More honest? More "cultured"? More experienced in something? Funnier? (Sorry children. Probably not possible.) More talented in some way or ways? More wealthy? Actually, aside from getting way ahead of myself, those all seem like shallow assessments of worth.
So maybe place has nothing to do with any of that, or at least very little. Maybe in imagining what raising kids is going to be like, I'm giving place too much influence, and not giving Rose and I enough. Obviously, we will have the biggest influence on how the kids develop. (O... M... F... G... Am I just now realizing this?) So maybe it's more about the people in a place. Maybe it's more about relationships and friendships. The places I've lived most happily are the ones in which I developed the strongest relationships. I certainly don't think we could do any better than raising these two babies around our friends and family in Wisconsin.
For right now, all I know is that Pete, who is one of my very best friends and who is from Wisconsin, is coming on Sunday night. He's going to help us pack and we're going to do some bike rides. After that, Rose's mom is coming. She's going to help us pack, but we're not going to go on any bike rides. Then, after that, we're getting into the Volvo and driving. Driving east, back to Wisconsin, the place where we grew up.
