North vs South

A few days ago, I headed West. I landed in Seattle due to a free flight and was picked up to get to Portland. I’m from the South, so, naturally, the first thing I noticed was that people out here are, well, uglier. Not to be mean or superficial, but in all contrast, Southern ladies and gents are more aesthetically pleasing. Perhaps it’s the sun, genes, or my natural disposition and objective opinion.

Keep in mind that there is also a contrast in hygiene and grooming etiquette, so the playing field is… different. Women tend to be hairier in the Northwest. They shave less and appreciate and embrace the natural aroma the human body produces. Fortunately, the 300 days of clouds and cool temperature reduces sweat, which reigns in the smell, and bestows on them a glowing skin color that in the South is seen only in the winter months.

My plane in started its dissent into Seattle around sunset. Coming from the land of pines, rolling hills, vinegar based BBQ, and hot summers, what I saw made me feel like I was in Narnia. The Cascades were reaching up from the coolness of the air, peppered with pockets of clouds settled in the valleys. As my eyes scanned these majestic mountains, it seemed as if they were all pointing somewhere. And they were.

Though these mountains at first look rugged and grand, they soon looked as if they were sitting… squatting, in awe of Mt. Rainier which towered over all of them. The Cascades look like ant hills as the sun perfectly accentuated Rainier’s north, snow-covered slopes

There is a verse in the Robert W. Service poem, “The Spell of the Yukon” that says,

“There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There’s a land — oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back — and I will.”

Life is very different in the Northwest. So who cares about fashion and hygiene when you live in the midst of such beauty that points to something far greater, where it would be easy to straddle death on the whim that you might see something magnificently stunning? I’m not ready to shed good Southern hospitality, food, and maybe not even the good lookin’ folks. But to live in a land that beckons and beckons…

I want to go back – and I will.