Tacoma 2023: Make Yourself At Home

This is us on one of our regular walks across the pedestrian bridge spanning Hwy 16 near the Narrows. It’s a spectacular place to watch the sunset and is certainly one of our homey Tacoma spots.

As we hang our 2023 calendars on the wall and consider a new year we’re thinking about home and how we make it. We’re thinking, as we did last year, about what makes us feel like we belong, how we experience belonging in our lives, and how we can create it.

Making ourselves at home in a place—say a city, like Tacoma—doesn’t happen in just one way. A person could belong by being born here, by never not knowing this place. Or, a person could be born here and never really feel like they’re home. On the other hand, you could live here for just a few months or years and experience a deep sense of home. How does it happen? For us it came with time and with intention. As our years in Tacoma stretch into a longer path behind us, we feel the belonging that comes from driving by garden gates where the same vines bloom every year, from remembering places we spent time in our 20s that don’t even exist anymore, from recognizing people on the sidewalk even if we’re not sure how we know them. That sort of belonging just kind of happened. But then there’s the sense of home that’s come from intention, from deciding to make friends with this city. That’s the making part of making ourselves at home. Making friends with a place is kind of like making friends with a person—you listen, show up, help out, pay attention, participate, and receive. After a while you’ve made a connection that didn’t exist before.

In this list we’ve collected some of the ways we’ve found belonging, along with ways we’d like to continue finding it. These aren’t deep Tacoma secrets, or never-been-seen-before ideas. Rather than a daunting, finicky, step-by-intensive step recipe, this list is more like suggested ingredients for making yourself at home.

Lion dancers fill the scene with color and energy and age-old tradition during the Lunar New Year Festival in Lincoln District.

1. Commit to a Festival

Children of Tacoma sing and dance and make everyone clap and cry at the first annual Heart of Tacoma Festival.

We say “commit” but we don’t mean you need to organize it, or go back every year, or be exclusive. Just choose a festival or two in Tacoma this year and show up. Don’t just say, “I should go someday.” Really do go and experience it. The list of festivals below is not comprehensive. These are the ones that came to mind, and many of the links have information from the 2022 festivals, but they’ll point you in the right direction so you’ll know which page to return to, or what festival to search for as its time arrives. A favorite of mine, Tacoma Wayzgoose, hasn't returned since the Covid-19 pandemic began, but I’m including it in hopes it will return. Wayzgoose is a festival of printing artists and printmaking at King’s Books, a favorite feature of which are the giant steamroller prints created by running over paper with a steamroller in the side lot; it’s excellent!

The Proctor Arts Fest is city blocks packed with arts, crafts, people, music, and food. It’s fun!

We love the aromatic, savory toasted sandwiches and inventive salads our friend Micah creates for Memoranda Kitchen. Why not choose a business like this and stop by one Thursday a month (two would be even tastier)?

2. Become a Regular

Small town settings in stories have always really drawn me in. I think what I love is the way people go to the same places every day or every week and always end up bumping into people they know. Why is that appealing? It communicates belonging to me. I’ve mentioned before the subtle, yet positive shift I feel in my day when I go somewhere for an errand and the person helping me with my task or purchase knows my name. I even enjoy being in a place where I can see that others are regulars. It’s a cozy, small-world feeling.

The Fernseed on South Tacoma Way is a place where I’m a regular. We give flowers throughout the year, and that’s been even more satisfying since the stem bar opened at Fernseed.

You can be a regular at a park, in a shop, at a restaurant, where you buy groceries, in a church, at a place where you volunteer (more on that later!). Be a flower shop regular, a pet shop regular, a barber shop regular, a book shop regular! As we said, belonging isn’t all about money; be a beach walk regular, a stretch of sidewalk regular, a library regular (more on that later too). Go often, go the same day each week, or at the same time of day.

Becoming a regular can take a bit of money, but it’s more about where and how you spend it than how much you spend. If you have money set aside for groceries, try going to the same place each time you shop, maybe even get in line with the same cashier. After a bit, you’ll recognize each other.

Artist & Craftsman Supply is a riot of color staffed by helpful people who know a lot about the paints and papers and tools stocked by the store.

You could be a regular at a small Tacoma pizza shop for pizza night once a month, or at a sandwich shop like MSM Deli on 6th Ave, or our old friend Micah’s delicious Memoranda Kitchen?

If art supplies are a fairly constant need in your home, start visiting the same shop and choose one of the smaller chains or locally owned stores like Artist & Craftsman Supply rather than the big box operations.

Being a regular at a coffee shop is a classic way to carve out a place that feels like your own, and it doesn’t cost much. But those dollars in support of a small, locally owned roaster (or sandwich maker) can have a powerful impact both on that business and your daily life.

We love the day when these postcards from Line Break Press show up each month. Designed and created by students, they’re full of humor and good thoughts.

3. Get a Line Break Press Monthly Postcard Subscription

There’s nothing quite like getting some sweet mail created by local students to make you feel right at home here. Subscribing to the postcard of the month is like joining a special Tacoma club for folks who appreciate snail mail, want to support students in the arts for $6/month, and think surprises are fun. If that’s you, head to Write253 and sign-up. If you’re wondering what Write253 is about, check out their mission statement: “Write253 is a literary arts and printmaking organization whose mission is to provide meaningful and transformative writing, publishing, and artistic opportunities that cross boundaries and create community for teens and young adults in greater Tacoma.” If you didn’t like them before, now you do!

Image from Tacoma Art Museum

4. Explore Arts, History, Culture & Craft

Don't save museums just for trips and vacations, explore local museums and deepen your experience of home. Actually, museums can be a way of feeling like you’ve traveled to another place or time, so they’re a good destination on days when you feel cooped up or maybe wish you were away on holiday.

  • If a museum offers memberships and you can afford it, that’s a good way to support special exhibits, ongoing costs, and programming and to encourage yourself to go more often, but it’s absolutely not the only way to participate.

  • You could also commit to visiting a chosen museum 2 or 3 times this year if that’s a better fit for your budget.

  • Or go for variety; visit as many different local museums as you can in 2023. Even if you just go every other month it’s probably more than before.

  • If funds are tight go out for a free community night (Tacoma Art Museum hosts free Neighborhood Nights every Thursday from 5 - 8 pm) or choose a museum with free entry and just donate what you can.

Not sure where to start? Tacoma is home to a pretty impressive variety of museums for its size. We’ll share some of those and give you a start on museums to explore in our neighboring areas too.

Tacoma Museums

Image from the Pacific Bonsai Museum

Museums in Neighboring Communities

Image from Neighborhood Clinic - The clinic can’t run without its generous and compassionate volunteers with skills in translating, medical care, and office organization. Could that be you?

Picking up litter with a bunch of friendly Oscar’s Enemies volunteers is a surprisingly satisfying way to spend a couple of hours on a Saturday. We’ve been out in the summer, fall, and winter, from the Dome District to Lincoln to 6th Ave and so far the rain has held off! Join on Saturday, January 21st, location tbd!

5. Give Time - Give Love

One of the best ways to create belonging is by spending your time (rather than your money). Volunteer! Maybe even volunteer in a new way, or with a group you haven’t spent time yet. There’s a wide range of commitment levels from dedicated weekly time, to monthly or one-time opportunities. Here are few local non-profits and organizations where your hands, head, heart, skills, and abilities will be put to good use:

Swasey Branch

I’m grateful for the library on our block. It’s a place I can walk and always feel welcome. And I like showing this book Sing, Unburied, Sing in particular partly because it’s extraordinary and Jesmyn Ward’s writing is spellbinding, gut wrenching, illuminating, and distinguished. But I also like sharing it because the library introduced me to her work by featuring Salvage the Bones on their new books shelf years ago. I hadn’t gone looking for it, but there it was, and now Ward’s writing is part of my life.

6. Make Friends with the Library

South Tacoma Branch

The library is more than books (but if it was just books I would still love it), it’s a hub for the community, it’s one of the only places where you can just walk in—no money, no membership—and make yourself comfortable. I’m a fan. The library nearest our home is the Swasey Branch. It’s so close I walk over there frequently. I’m in and out to pick-up holds and return books, to use the printer, to browse the shelves and special displays featuring new books or themed collections. I wish everyone lived as close to a library as we do. It really makes me feel at home. Did you know new branches of the Tacoma Public Library are coming to Hilltop and the Eastside? This is something to celebrate! And did you know every library card holder automatically gets $5 worth of printing per month? No need to keep ordering printer cartridges at home.

  • Making friends with the library could just mean digging up your library card, or stopping by for a new one, and checking out books - that’s a good place to start!

  • Take the next step in the friendship and participate in community reading programs with TPL like Summer Reading, Extreme Reader Challenge, or Tacoma Reads. Tacoma Reads is a way to connect yourself with a big community of readers all experiencing the book selected for the year. And you can meet the author during a live interview toward the end of the year.

  • Join a Book Club! (Book clubs are virtual these days.)

  • Get your kids and teens involved. Try Radical Readers Book Club for readers under age 13, listen in on Storytimes, write letters to a new animal friend with Pasado’s Pen Pals.

  • Attend events and activities from regular weekly events to special opportunities. Find events on TPL’s Facebook page, or use filters to search for specific events on the TPL website. Learn how to create your own record label or podcast, join a Pokémon League, attend an author reading, and more, and more, and more.

  • When you visit the library, keep an eye out not just for books, but for original, public art. This is a good reason to jump around from library to library once in a while before you settle down into your local neighborhood branch. Our regular library is Swasey, just down the block from us out on 6th Ave where a handmade alphabet quilt hangs cheerfully over the children’s books. It’s a delight. But it was also a delight to head to the South Tacoma Branch for a particular book and to find stunning ceramic tiles stretching along the wall and jumping into curling glassy waves above the water fountain. Go explore.

Grit City Magazine produces a beautiful print magazine, often with a poster by a local artist inside. Subscribe, give a copy, support on Patreon, or follow on social media.

7. Engage in Local Stories - Listen, read & watch

There’s a big world out there, and we’re not suggesting you shut it out or forget about it, but we do recommend getting cozy with local new sources too. For one thing, local journalism will become a lost art, a thing of the past, unless we support it. For another thing, it’s enriching to know about what’s going on in the nearby world. You might hear a voice you recognize, you might learn more about a park, person, place, or establishment you love, you might begin to feel connected not only to your news source, but to the community too.

Listen

  • KNKX 88.5 (formerly KPLU) - NPR local and national news, blues and jazz

  • KTAH RadioTacoma 101.9 - “venue for local voices, news, and talent”

  • KUPS 90.1 - University of Puget Sound college radio, music station

  • InsideAbode Podcast - interviews with community members about the life, people, issues, challenges, and celebrations of our city

  • Channel 253 - hosts an array of podcasts rooted in Tacoma life, social justice, and community issues

Read

Watch

Keep in touch about Tacoma life, community, events, homes, and a bit about us.

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Hi, I'm Michael Duggan, a licensed broker with Windermere Abode. I would love to help you through the home buying or selling process. Please contact me to set up a meeting and get things started.