I moved home to Salem, Oregon the week of my forty-third birthday. I spent my entire adult life thinking of myself as an original kind of female. With my crossbody purse and clunky-yet-comfortable shoes and distaste for umbrellas, I thought I stood out. In New Orleans I only knew a handful of women who considered moisturizer and tinted chapstick to be a sufficient makeup regime.
Here’s how I like to see myself: I am the woman who can be ready to go faster than her husband. With me, what you see is what you get. The bags under my eyes are not hidden under concealer and I’ve never found a white hair I didn’t embrace. I am up for anything and adaptable to most situations. Camping in the rain? Use a tarp and a fly. No time for a shower? That’s what ponytails and (if I can find it) dry shampoo are for. I’m not beholden to today’s expectations or yesterday’s traditions. I am comfortable blazing my own trail.
Moving home has shown me that Salem made me that way I am. I am one of the herd and this herd is a beautiful pack. If you are raising a female in Salem, read on.
The Salem girl is always ready to go, up for anything. This explains her penchant for fleece and the fact she is unconcerned with rumpled hair. She can change her own flat tire and paint her own house. She drinks beer because it tastes better than lower carb alcohol. If you call her at four on a summer afternoon, she’ll join you for a swim at the Little North Fork by five. She knows how to make her own fun, because she has to. Swinging after dark at a city park becomes an adventure with the Salem girl.
There is no guise with the Salem girl. The West is the place for pioneers, folks who choose the open space over cities established for a couple centuries. And Salem is the place for the pioneers who didn’t get caught up in the cool of California or more expensive and trendy cities in the #pnw with an excess of cool coffee shops. The Salem girl’s lack of eyeliner shows she’s not afraid of herself. She doesn't need to dress up reality or fit in. She also needs to be able to rub her itchy eyes—there’s a lot of pollen in the air. In other places I lived, women must play a part. Disguising yourself is routine. No need here.
When I was growing up, I was one of the least outdoorsy girls from one of the least outdoorsy families I knew. For the twenty-five years I lived elsewhere, the fact I owned and could pitch a tent and knew how to dribble and shoot a basketball (I didn’t even make the JV team) made me a specimen of capability, an homage to how competent a woman can be. I once got a data entry job in Manhattan because they were most impressed that my resume listed forklift driver as a previous job. This facility with the outdoors and large machinery is part of growing up here. It develops women who aren’t afraid to get wet or dirty or use a drill. We’ve fallen while skiing and on a damp hike and that time we tried a rock climbing wall and we know how to bounce back up. We don’t mind the mud, because it washes off.
Finally, female Salem-anders are not as burdened by an attachment to old things, traditional attitudes towards gender roles, as other American women. When the Missouri farmers showed up in Oregon, they had to get stuff done. Husbands and wives and sons and daughters worked together because they had to cut down the forest, steal the land from the native people, sow some seeds, and raise some cattle for cheddar cheese dairy cooperatives. This terrain did not allow the Salem woman of one hundred years ago to sit back and let someone else lead. Women in Oregon earned the right to vote in 1912, eight years ahead of Nineteenth Amendment. We don’t wait for things to get done; we do them.
When I moved to New York City, it gave me permission to embrace my aggressive instincts. When I was in graduate school in Boston, I welcomed the chance to examine and over intellectualize everything. My life in New Orleans allowed me to cultivate my creative and wild side. Being home has allowed me to be me, a proud Salem girl who now gets to nurture three more little ladies into Salem women.
