A few summers ago I flew to Seattle. It was not my first visit to the PNW but it was the first time I visited Charla’s family and friends up and down the Pacific Northwest. As a side bonus, I learned things I hadn’t known before:

1. It it cool and hip to say PNW when referring to the Pacific Northwest.
2. It is neither cool nor hip to pronounce the name of the city of Tacoma as “Tack-oma”.
3. There are jellyfish everywhere in the Puget Sound, which freaks me out.
4. I don’t remember if you’re supposed to say “Poo-Jet” or “Pee-yoo-jet” when pronouncing the name of Puget Sound.

We watched the astonishing sunset from the porch of some friends overlooking the Sound in the ridiculously cute town of Steilacoom (I don’t even know how to say it) that took my breath away. It may have been then, or sometime after, that I said to Charla, “Maybe we should live in Seattle.” Her response wasn’t an enthusiastic approval of that idea.

Seattle – the PNW – plays tricks on people like me. We go during the most glorious time of year and love it while pretending that the remaining eleven months are just as nice with warm temperatures, gentle breezes and not a drop of rain. I’ve been told that’s not the case.

Several months later after many visits to my hometown of Thousand Oaks, the suburb of tract homes and people I’ve known for decades – a place great for kids but boring for teenagers and twentysomethings – Charla said, “I can see myself living here.” Really? In my younger, more arrogant days I would have been scandalized. But this time, I felt flattered. My town, and I, mattered.

I suspect that we won’t wind up in either the PNW or TO anytime soon. I do know where my real home is though. It’s wherever we are, where our girls are, where our puppy is, even though he bit my fingers and dragged them off of this laptop keyboard because he just wanted to play.