A good support network draws her back

“I graduated high school in Buffalo, N.Y., and then the day after I graduated, my family moved to Spokane. My dad got called to serve as the dean of the Episcopal cathedral, St. John the Evangelist. And at that point, my mom was really ill, so I opted to take time off before going to college and just moved here with my family.

“During that year that I spent here, I really didn’t get to know the city at all. I just primarily took care of my mom who passed away that year. So I lived here for a year, and then I moved back east to go to school (at Brown University) in Providence, R.I., which is where I had originally intended to go to school. I went there for a couple of years and then left there on a medical leave and opted to come back to Spokane to regroup, because this is where my dad and my brother were.

“When I moved back the second time, I had already developed a few friendships that I had made from coming home, because I came here during my breaks from college. I made a few friends and moved back and they took care of me, and I’ve been here ever since.

“I think the reason that I’m still here – in fact I know the reason that I’m still here – is because I’ve developed a really good support network here through friendships and my dad and my brother. My dad has gotten remarried, I have some stepsiblings and their family’s really awesome.

“It’s in my plan to leave this coming fall (2006) and finish up my education at Brown. I never finished my B.A. and I really want to, and Brown’s such an excellent opportunity. And I’m young, I can travel.

“Spokane has really given me a great place of healing. … I feel like I’ve really developed a solid core of people here who I know I can still draw from even when I go away. I don’t know if I’ll ever come back to the Northwest. I really like the Northwest; I’ve always lived in the East before. I miss the bluntness and straightforwardness of the East. I think that Spokane feels very Midwestern, and in some ways I really appreciate that because people are nice to you when you’re ordering food or getting coffee or meeting them randomly in bars or whatever. But I also feel like it’s pretty hard to judge who your real friends are, because there’s a lot of outward affection, which might not necessarily reflect inward feeling. The East Coast is like ‘I’m gonna be mean to you, or I’m gonna be nice to you,’ and you get what you get.

“And I miss the diversity of the East Coast, too. … I think that the Inland Northwest in this area is pretty white. I’m sometimes – not frequently – but I’m sometimes shocked by conversations I overhear here, or things that well-educated, well-traveled people say that just seems absolutely inappropriate. But I don’t think that’s frequent. … It probably happens everywhere, but it’d be nice to go somewhere where there was a little bit more diversity.

“But I think even in the last five years I’ve been here, I’ve seen Spokane take great leaps forward in the arts and music community, so I think that we’re on the right track. So I might come back when I’m done with school. Who knows?”