Two Suitcases, A Lifetime

I showed up here roughly a year and a half ago with two heavy suitcases in tow and an array of other bags slung over my eager and determined shoulders.  Sidewalks were pounded, apartments were scoured, temporary homes were squatted in, subways were hesitantly navigated, and after two months or so of this frightening carousel, I settled in to a cool and spacious home in a little neighborhood called Williamsburg.  It was then, finally, that I began to think I could make a home of New York City.

And I did make it my home.  I discovered things with my own feet and eyes and ears and nose that had been discovered by so many before me but for the first time were being recorded in my own consciousness.  I wandered bookstores, traversed avenues, chose favorite benches in parks, and began to wear the paths of my own feet familiar.  I made new friends and then I made more new friends and each one had more and more in common with this new self I was creating.  I turned 30 years old, published a book, drank too much sometimes, missed my good friends far away, traveled out of the city to get perspective.  Perspective that looked like the Manhattan skyline disappearing and then reappearing days or weeks later looking exactly the same.  This is a city that changes by the minute and yet is completely timeless.

I rode a bike that didn’t go anywhere twenty-some times, sweat dripping even from my eyeballs, just to prove to myself that I could.  I jumped off a platform holding only onto a thin trapeze bar and let go at the precise moment a stranger in flame-printed tights caught me by the hands.  I fell in love with a man who lived far away from the city, in my past, and one day he showed up and said, “I live here now too.”  And the city was anew again with springtime and love and new tastes and sights and flutters of the heart.  And now I’m leaving, full and happy, like I’d just finished a luxurious meal course by course which has made me sleepy and euphoric.  I am satisfied.  This city has fed me bitter, savory, rich, and sweet but never bland.

What will I miss most?  It’s hard to say yet, for the imprints on my memory are still too close to see the whole picture.  Will I come back?  Absolutely, though I’ll be changed yet again and so will bewhat I discover when I come.  Can I be happy somewhere else?  Surely, for I am a nomad, an adventurer, and my home is within myself.

Tennessee was a wild horse that I tamed and made my own.  New York is a wild bull that bucked me off, but only after my eight seconds were up.  I’ve had my ride.  I have no regrets; nothing was missed; not a moment was wasted, even the rough ones.

I leave here today the same way I came – with two heavy suitcases in tow and an array of other bags slung over my triumphant shoulders – and yet I’m completely different.

Looking Forward to Hibernating

Speaking of all these small town, homey, fall feelings, I have to say that this season also alters my taste in home decor. The super modern, compact, minimalist rooms in my home (and pins on my pinboard) give way to cabins, rustic touches, and other cozy space inspiration. My taste in clean lines and neutral colors remains, though I can’t help but wonder if, come spring, I’ll want to come out of hibernation or stay curled up with my tea and books in front of the fireplace…

Keep up with my “pretty living” pinboard for more cozy spaces throughout the season.

Dream Home

Although I currently live in New York, I’ve spent my entire adult life until this year in Nashville.  So if you ask where I’m from, or where home is to me, that’s what I will tell you, for Nashville has become my home.  To me, now, it’s where I’m “from.”  But when I think of the feeling of home, the place where I grew beside corn fields and among the sun and snow and silence, I think of somewhere that’s so far away from me these days that it feels almost imaginary. Like a dream I used to dream over and over but not anymore.  My perennial memory is kicking in with the change in seasons.  You see, Fall is the absolute best time in Pennsylvania.  There is something in the air; a clarity, a massive space where there is room for everything, and a scent that’s unrecognizable by science or our brains but must be something like magic.

I yearn for that kind of quiet.  There aren’t many places in my life, in New York or Nashville, where I can stand outside and not hear any man-made noise.  No cars, no chatter, no industry.  At home, I could.  The click and hum of insects, a breeze through the trees, the rustle of an animal in a field or the woods, the trickling stream at the edge of the property.  I yearn for the sights: the fireflies making the yard look like the sky is on the ground, or the sky itself holding more stars than you can believe are out there, the golden early evening light, life – everywhere, how big the sky is overhead.  I yearn to be able to walk and walk and not encounter anything but my own mind – and maybe a deer.

How I became a city girl, I’ll never know.  But for the next few months, as fall puts the world to sleep around us, I’ll be dreaming of Pennsylvania.

What does home feel like to you?