SUNSPOTS

As someone who’s grown up in The Dalles for my whole life, I’m well aware of the crushing monotony that seems to be a defining characteristic of life in a small town, at least for people my age. As far as I’m concerned, and from what I can tell, as far as most people who’ve spent their lives here are concerned, The Dalles is a place where people go to just survive. “Getting By” is the nature of our community, and growing up my peers and friends have all generally agreed that this is the kind of place that, if you don’t leave right after high school graduation, traps you forever. The standard for “thriving” is measured by the odds of any given person “escaping” our little bend in the Columbia and starting over somewhere else; anywhere else.

I believed this wholeheartedly all through high school and it led me to choose a college 1500 miles and a time zone away from everything I’ve ever known. I got on a plane in August and never looked back, and threw myself into loving my new friends, my classes, the vibrancy of New Mexico sunsets, and just the prospect of starting a new life in general. My extroversion was heightened by my excitement to be independent and happy, and so when I found out in early March that I needed to pack up everything I had and come back to The Dalles two months early in light of the apparent plague, it broke my heart. My most intense and recent memories of this community were my own feelings of how much I wanted to leave, and the thought of walking back into the place I’d worked so hard to move away from was quite literally life-changing.

However, since I’ve been back there’s been something different about the energy, for lack of a better word, of the community that raised me. At one point, I was driving through town on my way home after leaving my house for the first time in who knows how long, and I was flooded with nostalgia that I wasn’t expecting. As I passed by places I’ve worked and the houses of my childhood friends, I had a startling thought that whether I gave it permission to or not, this town and the memories that come with it will always be my first home, and that means something. It may not be the home I thought I wanted, or even selfishly believed I deserved, but I’ve realized that experiencing this community feels completely different after I’ve learned to miss it, or parts of it, at least. It’s clear to me that the people here have learned to thrive on an adjusted definition of the word that encompasses contentment and quiet joy that ultimately is our saving grace in surviving the loneliness, boredom, and fear that comes with quarantine, especially for extroverts like myself.

Since the outbreak of this pandemic, I’ve noticed a swelling sense of community here that I wouldn’t have felt if I’d stayed on campus for the quarantine. From Christmas lights in April to signs of encouragement on storefronts downtown, the people of this town have done nothing but make the best of our current global crisis, a sentiment which I can only assume stems from the culture of patience that is cultivated in small towns such as this. Our livelihoods and security may have come to a screeching halt, but our way of being has not, and while the world pauses in the wake of sickness and disaster, I’ve started to find acceptance and comfort in being quarantined in the walls of my childhood memories. I’m learning to adjust to this new normal and my rush to leave is peacefully on hold. I still know that I’m not going to stay here longer than this pandemic demands, but for the time being, I’ve found solace in the understanding that even though the home I designed is states away, there are some constants in the midst of all this panic: the trees in my childhood backyard will still hold me, the earth is still taking care of us, and the future I want is waiting for me, not the other way around. Stay safe, stay home, and stay patient; we’ll get through this.