Seven Ways I've Changed Since Moving Here

When I visited family in the Bay Area a little over a month ago, everyone was talking about of a mentally-ill man off of Alameda’s Crown Beach. The 52-year-old man had waded into frigid, chest-deep water and stayed there for close to an hour while onlookers, including police and firefighters—who said they weren’t trained in water rescue—did nothing.

It may be naïve, but my first thought was, ‘That wouldn’t have happened in Elk Grove.’  If Elk Grovians were faced with a similar situation, I imagined, their small-town sense of mutual responsibility—combined with a certain country heartiness—would have kicked in, and somebody would have pulled this guy to shore before it was too late.

Whether or not my psychoanalysis of The Grove is correct, it got me thinking about the differences between my old home in San Francisco and my newly adopted hometown, and how the culture here has affected me.

Here are a few ways I’ve changed since coming to work here seven months ago.

1.     I’m nicer. “Everyone in Elk Grove is so friendly,” our summer intern—also a foreigner, but from somewhere a little more close by, Folsom—said after her first week on the job. It’s true, and it’s rubbed off. I find myself saying hello more often to strangers on the street, and not being as surprised when they say hi back.

2.     I’m fatter. In my old neighborhood in San Francisco’s Mission District, I regularly walked 12 blocks each way to my local yoga studio for class. Elk Grove’s robust trail system aside, the city’s wide boulevards and mall-dependent retail aren’t exactly designed for pedestrians. I’ve had to learn the hard way to carve out time in my day for exercise, instead of expecting it to happen naturally as a part of my daily routine.

3.     I’m more accepting of people with different political beliefs. I’ve always thought it was flawed systems and collective psychoses, not individual evildoers, that caused social problems like the lack of quality health care or crime. Sometimes you have to fight other people to change things. Sometimes you have to fight hard. But it’s not personal. Since coming to Elk Grove, I’ve softened even more—not just tolerating opposing views or reflecting them in my reporting, but truly empathizing with the people who hold them.  With Elk Grove split almost evenly between Democrats and Republicans, and many moderates among the city’s elected officials, I think this is a collective trait.

4.     I’ve learned to rely less on Mapquest for directions. During my first few months in Elk Grove, my trips to local businesses looked like this: 1. Type business name into iPhone. 2. Try to decide which strip mall appears closest to meaningless four-digit street number. 3. Circle desperately around mall, hoping to spot business. I’ve since learned to ask for directions. Usually, they sound something like, “Drive down (street with Laguna in the name). Make a left at the Taco Bell.”

5.     I crave space. Lots of it. Like, some days even semi-bucolic Sacramento is too much for me. On those days, when I pull off Highway 99 and glimpse the wide expanses of concrete, neat rows of trees and empty fields, something inside me unfolds, stretches out and says ‘Ahhh.’ I used to scoff at three-car garages and SUVs. Now I scoff and sigh longingly at the same time.

6.     I’m ever-so-slightly less race-conscious. Growing up in the Bay Area, identity politics held sway, and many neighborhoods were dominated by specific ethnic groups. Not so much in Elk Grove. As far as I can see, this means some communities are less organized or able to advocate for their rights. It also means a refreshing lack of segregation and lots of mixed-race, middle-class families who share the same schools, streets and parks. As my own outlook starts to adapt to this environment, I’m both comforted and troubled: comforted because sometimes it feels damn good to ditch the labels and just be human, and troubled because I don’t want to become inured to the injustice that exists everywhere, including here.

7.     I listen to more country music. Like the other night when I was waltzing at with a college student from Nebraska. “San Francisco?!” he sneered when I told him where I was from. “I’ve been there. It doesn’t compare to Elk Grove.” While my first love will always be the Yay Area—home of hyphy and fog, with smoked salmon on every corner—some small part of me wondered if he could be right.