On Being a Seattle Native
Today, when I walked into work, I saw in the restaurant under my office not one or two, but a table full of my middle school teachers. It was like the type of thing you would have nightmares about. You get up, go to work and instead of your fun-loving co-workers you are doomed to a day of torture in the style of Ms. Jones’ in-school-suspension. On top of that, you must make awkward small talk as they try to remember whether you were the student they liked or the one they expelled for dealing pot in the hallways.
The city of Seattle has somewhere around 600,000 residents. I say ‘around’ because it turns out that due to budget cuts Seattle no longer has a demographer, thus the city website cannot give me a better estimate. But my point is, your chances of running into someone you know in a city of 600,000 seems small (especially to those of you who have never run in to an ex-fling in Grand Central Station in the hazy fog that is New Year’s Day). But If you have lived in this city your whole life, you have to figure you have a decent connection to at least a good five hundred of them. Giving you a 1 in 1200 chance of knowing one of them (I’m seeing those middle school teachers checking my math…). When you look at how many random people you see on a given day, you suddenly realize, that being a Seattle native, you are doomed (blessed?) with getting to see old playground chums, ex-boyfriends and the girl who once barfed on your shoes at Bumbershoot on a fairly regular basis.
Now I know that there is a number of other factors here–The part of town, socio-economic circle, the fact that people move away and other people move into town and a tweak for people that you have not bothered to commit to memory. But when all is said and done, I appreciate that living in a city as small as Seattle I am able to see people from my past on a fairly regular basis without extra effort.
And even better? That I live in a city big enough that I can walk right by the table of middle school teachers in the noise of the crowd and giggle loudly with my middle school friends that I’m still in touch with without ever having to say a word.
:-D That’s a great feeling! My old town (and I hadn’t even grown up there, just from college on) I’d go somewhere with a big huge crowd and wonder who all was in there that I’d know. And over the next week, I’d hear someone say “oh, when I was at such-and-such event.” It’s wonderful to have those tie-ins.
you’re a rarity. I’ve heard people talk about how people that live in Seattle are from somewhere else (like me!). More specifically, I can think of a bus driver on the 73, I believe, talking about how she’s lived her entire life in Seattle, but yet she has yet to meet someone else of her kind.
My friends and I joke that Seattle is no more than two degrees of separation. Nice, at times, but exhausting at others. Especially the whole fear of running into an ex thing.