back in the bk

i know it's been a whole week since i blogged, but for good reason. i got home yesterday from a family vacation in maine. (my grandparents owned a cabin there for many years, and my mother often waxes poetic about summers spent canoe-ing across the pond, walking into town to the pine tree frosty, and playing softball on their lawns.) we stayed in a beautiful lodge right on the waters edge, and spent our days reading, hiking, canoe-ing, and walking into town to the pine tree frosty. (seriously, so good.)

being in maine brought up a lot of feelings i have about where i have chosen to live. i grew up in oregon, and i loved it while i lived there, and there are things i miss. i miss the cool smell of pine forests, the blue of the sky on a clear day, the sound of the windchime on our front porch. it was a grand and beautiful place to grow up; as a child i felt safe, loved and encouraged by my parents and my community, and i feel that it helped make me open-hearted and excited about the world. but it is not a place i could ever return to. my heart truly belongs to this city we live in, and despite its dirt and grime, i love it in an often irrational way. being out of new york made me realize what a new yorker i have become. (s laughed at me when i was trying to explain this and said "and the bagels weren't bagels!") i feel tied to this city, i feel connected to it in a way i never felt about oregon (or it wouldn't have been so easy to leave.) i am the only person i know who left without hesitation, who moved on to such a tremendously different life. most of the people i went to school with are still in our little hometown, married with children and working local jobs. (a lot of the people i went to college with are still in the midwest, married or engaged and pursuing their dreams out there.) my choices have always felt different, and often difficult, in part because i have always chosen another path. not necessarily in a rebellious way, or in a particularly alternative way, but i guess i have felt that i could see the traditional option, or an option that felt safe, and i have chosen instead something that excited me (even as it scared me a little.) i am living a life i have fought for, a life that requires effort, and thus brings me a lot of happiness and satisfaction.

the other day, we were on the train and i looked up and saw the following quotation, which i have meant to share for awhile, and that i think sums up what i am trying to say (i am quite sick, so my powers of explanation are not at their best.)

there are roughly three new yorks. there is, first, the new york of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. second, there is the new york of the commuter--the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. third, there is the new york of the person who was born somewhere else and came to new york in quest of something...commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.

--e.b. white, here is new york