Los Angeles was always the goal. Washington, DC was just a necessary step. Nobody smoothly transitions from Taunton, Massachusetts to Los Angeles, California. 11 years in DC was like an apprenticeship. It was too long of an apprenticeship, but it was that. When the apprenticeship came to an end, I knew it was time to move to Los Angeles. And yet, I’m writing this in the middle of the country, in the Oil Capital of the United States, wondering how the last 10 months of my life happened. 

I’ve taken to referring to living in Tulsa, Oklahoma as a “layover.” A brief and thoroughly inconvenient stop from one great place to another. But as this time in Tulsa has come closer to its conclusion and as it gets closer to boarding time, I realize that’s all a little too unfair to this interesting and complex city. 

In all of my years of traveling, I have never met a city that I couldn’t become enamored with. In my lifetime, I’ve wanted to move to: Fort Lauderdale, New Orleans, Boise, Birmingham (Alabama), Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Berkeley, basically everywhere but Chicago. Only one city, though, had their visit so indirectly strategically planned as to actual win my long-term presence. 

Amanda and I spent months debating where we were going to move to once our lease expired in late September 2018. It was Los Angeles vs. The City of the Moment. We would convince ourselves that any one of about 20 American cities could compete with LA and be a better fit. Boise, Seattle, Phoenix, Houston, Denver, and on and on. Each week, there was new competition for LA. In early August we settled on Las Vegas, made all of the rational arguments to ourselves and our friends and colleagues and actually told people that’s where we were going. A week later, I came to Tulsa with Amanda for her work and convinced myself that Tulsa was the right place to move. We had already been recruited by a very ambitious, type A gentleman who met with us in DC in May and laid the groundwork for Tulsa. Being on the ground, and being away from the commotion and intensity of DC was so relieving that I missed all of the things that would lead Amanda and me to regret our decision to move to Tulsa almost instantly upon touching down here in October. 

We were assured that Tulsa was not the conservative hellscape that the rest of Oklahoma is. It was a pocket of comparatively progressive thinking. The first week living here, I had a man at a soccer match yell “Drain the swamp” at me. Another man, at a bar, explained to us that the Civil War wasn’t about race or slavery even, but really it was about the economy (stupid). People told us that wasn’t emblematic of the Tulsa way. And yet, I had very few people approach me to talk about carbon taxes, the Violence Against Women Act, or how Mitch McConnell is the worst person in American politics, yet somehow gets away with it. It was a profound moment when we realized that you don’t see any MAGA hats in Tulsa and that was because nobody felt the need to make that statement here in the way that they would if they were vacationing in Washington, DC. 

Which brings me to “Tulsa Nice.” I was hired by Tulsa Public Schools to serve as their Media Relations Manager (and de facto spokesperson) in November, right as the transition to Tulsa life was getting harder and harder for Amanda and me. When people asked me how I liked Tulsa in introductory meetings, I would be watered-down honest with them. I didn’t share the “Drain the Swamp” or Civil War anecdote with many people and didn’t talk about the appalling racial segregation. I just simply said the transition was harder than we expected but that we were here and were going to make the most of it. 

Then, one day, a very high-level staffer who I’ll spare using the name of, but a nightmare of a person who I never heard a pleasant word spoken about before or after, told me that I needed to exhibit a commitment to Tulsa, the city. I wasn’t sure what they meant. Tattoo the city flag on me (I’d do that…it’s a pretty cool flag)? Pledge allegiance to Mayor G.T. Bynum?  This person being a transplant themselves, with the very transparent mission of getting hired in a larger school district in 3-5 years, this felt startlingly uncomfortable and uncalled for. I had done everything asked of me in my 3 weeks on the job, despite being given responsibilities at a level well past what my onboarding plan had outlined. Their criticism was in no way rooted in my professional performance. It was that they just simply didn’t like me. The crux of their argument was that when people asked me about living in Tulsa, I needed to just lie to them and say, “things were great.” I needed to be more “Tulsa Nice.”. 

I quit that job two days later. 

“Tulsa Nice” as a concept and as I’ve come to learn it, involves suffocating any thought counter-programmed with the “way one should think” here. “Tulsa Nice” also involves walking with your head down and ignoring a pleasant “Hello” in the hallway of your apartment building. People will literally stand with their face to their door waiting for Amanda and me to walk by them before exiting. This actually happens. “Tulsa Nice” involves snapping your fingers at busy servers in restaurants or just yelling orders at them from 20 feet away. “Tulsa Nice” is willingly not talking to strangers. I realized early on here that I couldn’t go to minor league baseball games by myself. In every other city and park I’ve been to, people want to chat about baseball or travel or both. I spent 3 hours in Birmingham chatting with the boosters for the Montgomery Biscuits one night and had a blast even though I missed 50% of the game. There was a father and son in Pulaski, Virginia who were eager to talk baseball with the stranger sitting next to them at an Appy League game. I have a theoretical rolodex filled with business cards of real estate agents, lawyers, dentists, and accountants across the country who I’ve shared 3 hours with behind home plate in American towns and cities.  In Tulsa, I found myself sitting in isolation at games, until I decided I needed Amanda with me if I wasn’t going to sit in awkward silence by myself for 3 hours. Because there’s very little more awkward for me than saying, “wow what a slider this kid’s got” and having the gentleman or woman next to me react as though I’ve just said Islam is the one and true faith. 

And yet, with all of those 1,000 words, I am going to miss it here. 

Life is easy in Tulsa (as a financially secure, white, cis, heterosexual married white man). There’s no traffic. There is what people think is traffic, but it is not city traffic. If you cannot get from downtown to the east side in 15 minutes, there was probably a nuclear explosion. Going to the grocery store has never been an endeavor here. In DC, it was like a 90 minute project. Amanda and I would strategize like we were invading a hostile territory. Here, we can go 4 or 5 times a week and it’s a breeze. Dining out is great too. There aren’t a lot of truly great restaurants here, but you never have to wait on the sidewalk for them or contemplate paying a person to do the waiting for you. One of them, the phenomenal Oren, would have a Michelin star if it wasn’t in Oklahoma. The level of craftsmanship in their cooking, plating, and service is unparalleled here or many other places. The craft beer scene in Tulsa is great too. American Solera is, in my opinion, one of America’s best breweries. Not “hidden jewel” best or “in a small city” best. Just simply “best.” And whenever we want to try one of their new beers, we can just go and get one and sit and enjoy it. No lines. No standing next to a bathroom trying to find space. No raffles for the opportunity to taste the beer. If American Solera was in DC, we’d probably rebel against it because of how hard it would be to go to. And if perfect hazy IPAs and barrel-aged ales and stouts are not your thing, there’s a good Belgian-centric brewery here (Cabin Boys) and a place that makes complex, funky, European-influenced ales (Heirloom Rustic Ales). And a handful of others who do what they do pretty well.

American Solera and Oren deserve special sections though. Solera became our happy place here at the end of our first week. We were filled with regret already. We missed our friends and their kids so much and the prospect of being far away from them had really hit us both simultaneously. We sat outside on a warm October night and realized that we had found a place that felt comfortable. The staff is incredibly kind, friendly, funny, and engaging. We go once a week on average, because there’s so much tap list turnover and it’s just a great place to see and chat with familiar faces. Same at Oren. The service industry as a whole is excellent in Tulsa and very much the opposite of the general public who we’ve interacted with. Much of that, from observation, appears to be based on the need to be patient. If you don’t have patience with demanding and entitled people, you can’t be a good server in Tulsa. The staffs at American Solera and Oren are some of the best I’ve come across in all of my travels and I will miss them immensely. 

I say “miss them” because after putting it off for years and years, Amanda and I are finally moving to Los Angeles in two weeks. We don’t know for how long. It’ll be at least one year. My guess is that it will either be for a year or forever. A lot of that depends on what I’m going to do professionally and let me tell you, that’s another essay on its own. If you have ideas, send them my way. Time will tell just how much we’ll miss Tulsa and how we will ultimately view this strange 10 month layover in the middle of the country. But there will likely be a day where we’ll think back fondly to the ease of life here, before ultimately balancing that out with the difficulties we had. There’s good and bad in all places. If nothing else, that’s what I’ve learned while living on Tulsa Time.