Two Years in a New Colony

Once again it's time to commemorate an anniversary of Southern living. Three years ago tomorrow was the first time I visited Raleigh, and a year later I was in a car with my tranquilized cat heading south on I-95 for my new home. Today I sit in my Raleigh ITB apartment with the french doors wide open to the much maligned Juliet balcony while an improbably comfortable and dry July 3rd graces the courtyard below. Free tickets to the Durham Bulls game tonight thanks to Freelon, some understated celebrating tomorrow with friends, road trip to the beach next weekend with other friends... if complaining wasn't a biological imperative of every cell of my body, I'd be an idiot to start now.

I still get surprised looks when I tell people that I simply chose to live in Raleigh without any ulterior motives. Work did not bring me here, nor a spouse or family. I set out my desires and criteria and found a match that made my Excel spreadsheet happy. After all, if you only went places you knew intimately, you'd never be able to go anywhere. So there were no guarantees of a successful match, and to be honest, there are often times that I agree with the bewilderment of my colleagues. Raleigh is not a glamorous place. All of North Carolina is not a glamorous place. It is not at the end of any roads, it is not a frontier, not a center of great wealth or political power, and although naturally beautiful, it has neither the best beaches nor the grandest mountains on the East Coast. Aside from some notable exceptions--banks in Charlotte, technology in RTP, and college basketball--North Carolina seems almost devoid of superlatives. North Carolina is that girl in high school that was pleasant and everyone could be friends with, but was not the valedictorian, cheerleading captain, track star, French Club president... just a good decent friend who you had to look up in the yearbook decades later because you could never quite remember her name.

North Carolina lacks a compelling story. And Raleigh, as its capital, fares no better. But the reason why I continue to find this place attractive is because of the narrative that is as latent as the humidity--there is a story emerging here. Today the story lacks definition and it suffers from the obscurity of the people and places that contribute to it. But every day it seems to come closer to the surface, becoming more organized and more accessible. Much as California captures the imagination of the world today as both utopia and dystopia, North Carolina is in the process of becoming the next crucible for America's dream. Imagine moving to the empty and hot Los Angeles basin before it became America's western metropolis, and that is the feeling that keeps me here in Raleigh today. Things will happen here, ideas will be tested, mistakes will be made, and ultimately this place will be a completely different heaven or hell than the purgatory it is today. As long as I keep feeling that potential energy coursing through this place, I'll be here watching it.