There is No Best Coast

thoughts on how familiarity keeps us incurious, how movement disrupts our perceptions

There’s something to be said for staying put in one place long enough for its familiarity to sink in so deeply that the unfamiliarity of another place feels threatening, terrifying. This is the risk of permanence. Upheaval becomes cataclysmic when roots have never been trained or adapted for transportation. 

Anytime I’m back home in North Carolina on the opposite coast of where I am now, 2,467 miles from my current address, people comment about the perceived ideological and physical dangers of the West Coast—often its people who have never been further west than the Mississippi River. They do that thing people do when they assume a person shares their convictions, give me looks to prompt a confirmation of their notions about the godless, liberal wasteland of California, filled with far-leftists and hippies and people who’d hug trees before they’d ever grace a church (as if this is a bad thing). 

What I think but do not say is that California alone has a land area of 155,812.8 square miles, and that this state is as diverse in geography as it is in people, boasting deserts and rainforests, coastal beaches, and towering mountains. Some of the oldest trees in the world reside within California’s borders, containing histories we can only guess at, bearing trunks so wide and tall they appear otherworldly, worthy of our hugs and protection. What I think but do not say is that the Pacific waters baptized me body and soul on a cloudy June day in Northern California, that I stood on the brink of a collapsed volcano and felt the sacredness of the place move through the soles of my feet and fill my whole body with wonder, that I am in true awe of Oregon’s verdant mountainsides and highway waterfalls, and have experienced more kindness and hospitality in Seattle than, perhaps, any other American city. West is not necessarily best but west is astounding, made all the more (personally) profound because of how far I had to travel to experience it.

Moving westward was hard because moving is always hard. I didn’t want to trade the Rockies for the Sunset Cliffs or make friends from scratch yet again. I didn’t want to pay over $5/gallon for gas or hunt for parking every time I left my house. I struggled to connect to the land initially because my heart longed for the aspens and alpine lakes that had enveloped me in serenity and beauty. 

But 12 months isn’t enough time to truly know a place. Four (nearly five) seasons here and my perspective expanded as I began finding my way, wading through tide pools, scurrying down steep paths to sandy beaches, eating fish tacos on sunlit patios, hiking hilly trails, and paddling around the tranquil Mission Bay. I will always complain about California gas prices but never its people who are people just like East Coast people are people: kind and rude, impatient and welcoming, friendly and indifferent. There’s all sorts here as there are everywhere.

This is why I’ll always advocate for movement, for leaving the familiar for the unfamiliar. Our perception of the world expands when we allow wonder to lead us out of routine into the unknown.

Joy Sullivan

writes in her poem Instructions for Traveling West, “First you must realize you’re homesick for all the lives you’re not living. Then you must commit to the road and the rising loneliness. To the sincere thrill of coming apart. Divorce yourself from routine and control. Instead, find a desert and fall in.” 

Realize you’re homesick, that the world is more beautiful than you know, that your place isn’t the only good place, that differences are necessary, that deserts are alive, that movement is always disruptive but disruption is formative, that the more you see the more you’ll feel, the more you’ll long for more sunsets, and vistas, and giant trees, and freezing waters.

As Joy reminds her readers: “Joy is not a trick.”