The Wind (and Why I'm Here)

The wind brought me here. It could have blown us anywhere in the country, but it landed us here in Bickleton, a town reportedly settled because some pioneers decided they didn’t want to walk anymore. Look at a map of Washington—there’s a large section in the south central region with nothing there—we’re in the middle of that section.

Okay, there’s not nothing here. We could be more isolated if we lived on one of the farms in the area. But we live on the west end of town (it takes two minutes to drive from one end of town to the other, if you go the speed limit). In town there is a café with a few grocery items, a tavern (the oldest in the state), a carousel museum, a church, and a post office (so we hear, but it’s been closed down for months and has yet to reopen).

We live on a plateau at 3,020 feet. Which means it’s cold and snowy and icy and foggy and windy. Wind is the important thing. A year ago my husband was working as an EMT in Portland, Oregon. But his career was going nowhere, so last January he decided to switch careers, in February he started a program for wind turbine technicians, in October he got a job, and at the end of November it brought us here where there’s lots of wind.

I have never experienced such intense culture shock, and climate and landscape shock (is there such a thing?). I grew up in a valley surrounded by sudden and stunning mountains. We moved around the area a bit, but my adult life there was lived in a college town where there were always lots of people and lots to do. In 2006 my husband and I moved to Portland, Oregon for me to attend grad school. We lived on the outskirts of the city, but I spent almost every day walking downtown. I became accustomed to living in a metro area with a population of 2 million, and I was almost becoming accustomed to the rain, mostly because I had learned that it didn’t last all year and I would indeed see the sky again if I just waited long enough.

Now I live in a town with a population of 90. And it’s cold and snowy, which I grew up with, but living on the valley floor, I did not grow up with the kind of snow depths that can accumulate here. Despite being away from the constant rain of Portland, I still have rarely seen the sky since we moved here. It’s the fog that’s getting to me.

I used to be a perpetual student. I used to study literature and write and edit. I can still do those things, but now I do them in isolation. My full time job is raising my 18 month old daughter and cleaning a house that’s more than twice as big as any place I’ve rented before. I used to break up my long days alone with a toddler by going to the library and spreading out all my errands over as many days as possible so we had an excuse to leave the house. It’s now at least an hour drive to anything and my errands need to be run weekly at the most.

And so to ward off going stir crazy in this house (population 3) and this town (population 90), I’m going to write about my life here. You can follow along and be grateful that mail is delivered to your house and if you run out of food, it’s a quick drive to the grocery store. I used to have those things too, and had no idea how lucky I was.