DB: Pormanteau

I’m just fresh back from the Hoh Rainforest, a little mossy wonderland that surrounds and follows the Hoh River down a western ravine of the Olympic Mountains. It’s a National Park, which means that at some point someone in charge set it aside and said, “This is a good place, a place that should last. Lets make sure that it stays good.” I’m glad for it.

I wonder if the same could not be done for some of the better places in Tacoma. “We the city of Tacoma, as her people, recognize the power and importance this place has for our culture and community growth … therefore we promise not to sell it to a developer from out of town, or let it fall to the wolves that still exist intown.”

I’m sitting in Corina bakery, drinking the organic blend of the valhalla coffee that Rachel used to serve at the Blackwater. The rumors surrounding her closure range from the moronic to the absurd, but as a daily customer and a friend I understand her private nature and I respect her wish for mystery. I know its silly to imagine that the BW could have been saved by the City of Tacoma stepping in, but I can’t help but think there must be some ground level commerce that could be set aside for young business owners with third places in mind.

To me a 3rd place is as necessary as a kitchen or a bathroom in my apartment. I need a living room that connects me to the outside world, or I will be wrapped up so tightly in my guitar strings and sewing machines that no one would see me again…much like the path of my parents before me. Work, Dinner, TV, Work, Dinner, TV, Work, Dinner, TV, Work, Dinner, TV, Work, Dinner, TV, weekend….yard-work…lunch…ball-game…TV. Church was the only place we came in contact with anything outside of our regime. And luckily for our dogma, church was full of people doing life just like we were.

I wonder where my search for a new hang out will take me next. Corina is nice and the coffee is excellent today, but I can’t say that I feel I belong here in the same way that I belonged to the blackwater. A third place for me is partly mine and partly the owners and partly everyone else’s. It was not surprising that many people who came into the Blackwater felt, “like I wasn’t cool enough for all the hipsters.” You really need to feel at home in a place to make it your third, there has to be an element of you in the walls. If its not there its easy to blame it on all sorts of elitist bull-crap, but ultimately its just not you.

Strangely, two of the places that I’ve felt the most home at and encountered the most “other” at downtown are the late Helm and Blackwater. Complain as you might that they were homogenous hipster party hangouts, I met more people outside of my affinity at these two places than at any singles bar or “community” gettup.

I’m moving out of my warehouse within the next few months. Partly because its just time for me to be done running the party and partly because I really need to be able to walk to my third place…and my third places are gone. Imagine that someone took your kitchen…you’d move too. Im pretty sure that I want to stay in town, but a big part of choosing where to go next will depend on the third places that exist in the walkable neighborhood.

Good luck Rachel, Sean and Peter. You were a reason to stick it out downtown and make my alley a better place. Goodnight Tacoma, enjoy your sleepy sparkling gritted dreams…may they all come true as your districts are “improved”.