West Coast to East: Why we traded
Ocean, check. Sand, check. We’re in! (Higgins Beach, ME)
It’s official, we’re mainers
About 3,000 miles, as the crow flies, from our cozy little beach house in San Diego, our new little Victorian apartment in Portland’s West End awaits. It’s always been tricky to navigate the conversation politely to our SoCal friends in attempting to explain why we’re leaving the land of year round flip flops and perfect weather for a city that will likely be under snow for half of the year.
So, let me do my best to explain why we barely hesitated in packing our lives up in our cars (yet again), and drove across the country.
Checking out the beach scene in Oregon.
Family first
We should start with the most obvious reason. Returning to the coast on which we were raised is our most rational talking point. Our families scatter the east from Ontario, through Vermont, New Jersey, and Europe. The call to come “back home” made sense to us as we dig our heels into the trenches of our thirties. Usually we can end a conversation that starts with “why move?” with a simple “family!” and that’s the end of that. It should be noted that we haven’t actually chosen the actual cities our families live in to keep our sanity in tact. Hey, we love them, and we want to keep it that way!
Ian is happiest up high, and cold AF.
Four years of sunny and 75 was making us soft
Yes. We actually like winter. But in San Diego, we would wince if it was too cold (below 70) or too hot (above 78). Great weather expectations chipped away at our appreciation of a four seasons landscape. All the sunny warm weather that was delivered to us on a silver platter, eroded our grit.
Back east if you can ice pick your car out of it’s parking spot in less than 5 minutes, or make the walk to work without breaking off a piece of hair, you had a successful winter commute. Maybe it’s because it’s how we were raised, but I don’t think I could relate to my own children if they didn’t know how to drive in a blizzard, or shovel the driveway. It’s a life skill that one day they might choose to leave behind, but for these formative years you bet your ass they’re learning how a snowblower works.
Ice hikes are fun, I swear!
Those Spectacular Shoulder Seasons
Most people often concentrate only on the hazards of the polar vortex, but it’s the fleeting 2 months of spring and autumn that make a 5-6 month winter so bearable. It might even be the main reason we’re coming home. Spring blooms and first signs of patio season erupts a joy unbeknownst to sun-kissed southerners. The frost melts away S.A.D. and the turn of season can feel like the turn of a century. That springtime buzz felt in every city after winter should be bottled. It’s the best high on the planet.
The slightest hint of warmth in an east coast city, and everyone’s outside “sunbathing.”
A quick existential reflection
I wonder if all the years as a young child, raking dead leaves, harvesting root vegetables, and learning about a garden’s seasonal cycle was a slow introduction into questioning my own life cycle. There’s something poetic about the bursts of vibrant orange, yellows and reds, before everything becomes quiet and still. You start to realize that your hours of daylight are about to minimize profoundly, so you better start making every moment count.
So far, so (really) good
In Portland, the ocean is still within grasp, and the coastal pace of life remains relaxed. The wind is salty, warm and yet crisp. It wakes the senses. Plus the city has an abundance of art galleries, amazing restaurants, and great music venues. It’s bustling, but very small and community based. In a five minute walk we’re downtown, in a five minute drive, we’re in the country.
Plus, if we crave the electricity of a much bigger city, Boston, Manhattan, Montreal, and even Toronto are all within a day drive.
From what we can tell so far, Maine’s rugged and craggy silhouette is tracing nicely against our own. The ancient fog that sits on the shores of the Atlantic, illuminated slightly by the little fishing villages and lighthouses, ultimately became a more appealing landscape to us in our constant search for a coastal town to call home.
San Diego, LA, and many of California’s gems will always hold a special place in our hearts. Especially all the friends and loved ones who are there. Who knows, one day we might return. For now, it’s the green and white mountains, the endless freshwater lakes, and the old brick cobblestone roads that have our full attention.
This is technically Switzerland, a little more east than Maine, but now our flights to Europe are cut in half!