The semi-urban life

(Image from Hooked on Houses)

I have this fantasy of a life in New York or Paris, where I live in a walk-up apartment filled with light, which holds all my possessions but somehow does not feel crammed (except, of course, for the overflowing bookshelves). I dream of doing all my food shopping at greenmarkets, swinging a tote bag over my shoulder, or at impossibly chic, overpriced corner markets filled with exotic cheeses, meats and wines. I dream of living my life in one city neighborhood, like so many New Yorkers do, without a car or a basement or a long commute, able to find everything I need within a few square blocks. (Including green space, because woman cannot live on concrete alone.)

In my daydream, which is clearly a result of having watched a handful of Nora Ephron films many times over, I manage to jettison the boxes of extra things-I-might-need-someday, the odd items of clothing, kitchenware or nostalgia that clutter the cabinets and drawers and spare room in my current apartment. (As it happens, I live in a second-floor walk-up, filled with light and also with overflowing bookshelves.)

In this dream, I finally get a handle on buying and keeping only what I need; I do not spend hours on public transportation every day; and the places where I live and work are within walking distance of one another. And life is manageable, because it has shrunk to a radius described by the path my feet can take on a given day.

But of course that’s not how my life really is.

I was raised in a sprawling, midsize town in a part of the country where people do not take public transportation unless they cannot afford to drive, and where no one lives in adorable little apartments or shops at chic city markets for the simple reason that there are none. (The one exception to the first rule: my tiny, adorable garage apartment during my first year out of college.)

I grew up with an attic and a walk-in closet and several big-box stores within easy driving distance, and that is (mostly) how I lived in the first years of my marriage, when my husband and I rented a three-bedroom house in a town similar to (and only a few hours away from) my hometown. We drove everywhere and we shopped at Target and we had, as my mother never failed to remind us, way more furniture and household goods than she and my dad had when they started out as newlyweds.

When we moved to the Boston area in 2010, we struck a compromise: an apartment in the first ring of suburbs, splitting the distance between the city itself (where we couldn’t have afforded the rent anyway) and his new job 25 miles south of Boston. As a result, we – especially I – live a sort of split-personality, urban-suburban life.

I park my car on the street next to our house. I do laundry in our basement. I store Christmas decorations and boxes of oddments down there. I drive to the grocery store and the library weekly, to the hair salon and Target every couple of months, and we drive to church on Sundays. Most of my best friends live farther out in the suburbs than we do.

But every weekday morning, I walk two blocks and then take the subway to Cambridge, where I walk to work and to lunch, to the post office and the bank, sometimes to the overpriced deli/market, and (soon, I hope) to the farmer’s market. It was this way when I worked in downtown Boston, too: I had a beat, a neighborhood, a series of paths, a set of places I went to shop and eat and do business. It was limited in distance, and it felt – it still feels – manageable, somewhat close to that New York fantasy. And yet every day I commute home, and the contradictions – space, logistics, mindset – surface again.

Most of the time, I am grateful for my glimpses of both worlds: the glamour, culture and walkability of a city, combined with the lower rent, relative spaciousness and affordable parking of the suburbs. But sometimes I wish I could live wholly in one place or the other, instead of always having one foot in each. I think it might be easier, or at least simpler, and less exhausting.

What do you think? Do you live in the city, the suburbs, a small town? Or do you live a life in between, like me? Do you like the situation you have, or do you wish you could trade it for something else?

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Gone to Texas

Last week, I hopped a plane at Boston Logan one morning, wearing a shirtdress with tights, tall boots, a scarf and my plaid wool peacoat. Several hours later, I landed in sunny West Texas, where I spent the evening – and the next several days – in jeans or shorts, short-sleeved tees, and bare feet.

After two (more) feet of snow recently, the warm sun on my skin felt miraculous. But even better was the chance to spend time with this little guy:

That’s my nephew, Ryder, who came straight to my arms even though I hadn’t seen him since Christmas, and who will (I have no doubt) be walking any day now. Meanwhile, he’s a speedy crawler. He loves flipping through board books (especially those featuring Sandra Boynton’s crew of quirky animals), knocking down towers (which my mom builds for him over and over again), and clapping for himself. And anything with wheels. (My uncle has already bought him his first few John Deere tractors.)

Time seems to slow down when I go back to West Texas, especially when it’s not a major holiday and there’s no real agenda. I spent lazy mornings sipping tea and reading the newspaper with my parents (we have a longstanding tradition of finding typos in it – they abound). We ran through Rosa’s three times for chicken fajita burritos dripping with queso and paper bags full of warm tortilla chips. My mom and sister and I browsed junk shops for the perfect table to put behind Betsy’s sofa, then spent hours in my brother-in-law’s shop, painting and sanding and staining. (Their new house, which was still a construction zone at Christmastime, is finally finished, and gorgeous.)

I love many things about my life in Boston, including my new job (where my supervisors were kind enough to let me take this already-planned vacation). But every so often, I feel the urge to get back to that dusty oil town where I grew up, to eat fiery salsa at Mexican restaurants or juicy steaks grilled by my dad, to travel the familiar roads of my childhood and teenage years. To laugh with my sister and quote old movies with my dad and hug my mom, and to watch the dusky pink and orange and purple of the sunsets I still miss. To go to the church where I grew up and hug my parents’ friends, who are also my friends, and tell them about my life so far away.

Despite last week’s crocuses, it’s still cold and snowy in Boston. But I am warmed by the memory of four days of sun and salsa, and spending time with a few of my favorite people in the world.

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Folding My Way Home

Image from the Flickr Commons

Home is where you do your laundry.

I have yet to see this phrase on any of those distressed wooden boards painted with cheery slogans, so ubiquitous in shabby-chic home décor shops. In my homeland of Texas, the signs often say “Home is where you hang your hat,” adorned with a cowboy hat (or boots). I love the variation I saw on a pillow last year: “sweet home sweet,” a four-year-old’s variation on “home sweet home.” And for the last few years, my husband and I have quoted the line from folk band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes: “Home is wherever I’m with you.” We often feel like foreigners in our suburb south of Boston, but we have chosen, and keep choosing, to make a home together, wherever we are.

There are no signs on my walls about laundry, or washing dishes, or my other daily and weekly chores. But after nearly a decade of washing and spinning and hanging clothes to dry, in half a dozen houses on both sides of the Atlantic, I’ve come to believe that laundry is a quiet but essential part of the way I make a home.

I’m back at the the Art House America blog today, musing about laundry and how it helps ground me. Head over there to read more.

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on prepping my home for winter

The view from our porch in Abilene, TX, after a rare snow

A couple of years ago, I read a blog post by a northern friend (I can’t remember who it was), about preparing her apartment for winter. Since winter days in the north are short and dark, everybody spends more time cocooned at home, and she was focusing on making her apartment a place her family wanted to be, rather than simply a place to dump winter gear and hide out from the elements.

At the time, I was still living in Texas, where the barrier between inside and outside is nearly equally porous in all seasons – or slightly more porous in winter than during our 100-degree summers. So, besides pulling out the Christmas decorations, flipping on the heat, stocking up on tea and putting an extra blanket on the bed, we didn’t do much to prep our home for winter.

Well. Now that I live in Boston, I know what she was talking about.

We’ve long since removed our single a/c unit from our bedroom window and bundled it down to the basement until next summer. Our oil furnace lives in said basement, and we’ve fired it up and will be refilling it soon. I’m nosing around our windows, checking for drafts, and stuffing rags into them where necessary, to keep more heat inside. And I’ve been spiffing up the bookshelves, switching out my wardrobe and clearing away several boxes’ and bags’ worth of clutter. Because we will be – we already are – spending a lot of time inside this winter, and I want our home to be clean, tidy, welcoming, warm, comforting.

It’s no coincidence, of course, that comfort is my one little word for 2011 – and while emotional comfort has sometimes played hide-and-seek with me this year, I’m learning to create physical comfort for myself and others. There’s also a primal instinct at work here – the urge to nest, burrow, store up provisions for winter, like the squirrels (who are already getting fat). My stocking up consists of weekly grocery shops and a large supply of tea and yarn, but it’s driven by the same need to have a warm place to hide out and rest.

We will still come and go this winter, of course – to work, to church, to friends’ houses, to the city on some Saturdays. And I hope we’re better prepared than we were last year – we’ve got all the necessary gear, at least. But I hope this mini-clearing out, this taking stock as we settle in, will help us enjoy our time at home even more this winter.

Do you live in a climate where it’s necessary to “winterize” your home in any capacity? If so, how do you do that?

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list #33: what we hear from our windows

I adore open windows – though, growing up in Texas, it was often too hot or too cold to push up the sash and let the outside air in. This summer, however, we’ve been reveling in our open windows (except for the occasional downpour, when we rush around shutting them all). The other night, J suggested I make a list of the sounds that drift in through them, so here it is:

1. Conversations in languages I can’t decipher. (Our neighborhood has a large Asian population.)
2. Snatches of conversation in English. (Which I can usually decipher.)
3. Fire sirens. (The fire station is two blocks away.)
4. Bouncing basketballs, rasping skateboards and the shouts of high school boys. (Usually together.)
5. Dogs barking.
6. The occasional airplane, headed for Logan, or from Logan to parts unknown.
7. Car and truck engines (we live off a busy street).
8. The wind in the trees and around the eaves.
9. Occasional music (though we never can find the source).
10. My husband blasting his music as he drives up, then shutting his car door, locking his car with a beep, and singing as he comes up the driveway.

What do you hear out your windows?

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one year in boston

I’ve been reading through my blog posts from last summer. Remembering how it felt to slowly say good-bye to Abilene, which had been home for eight years. Looking around our apartment, at the sun-spangled hardwood floors and the twinkle lights framing the windows, at the shelves of books and the sink full of dishes, and wondering how it is that we’ve been here a year.

Didn’t we just pull up in that moving truck the other day? Didn’t we just start settling in, finding the library and the grocery store and a new church, dealing with the mound of paperwork required when you move halfway across the country? Didn’t we just learn to navigate the T, and build mental maps of Quincy and central Boston and the greater Boston area? Didn’t we just learn to shovel snow, buy down coats, collect all the tips we could for surviving our first winter?

Well. Yes. We did. A year ago.

A year ago this weekend, we moved into our apartment with the help of three dear friends (one of whom carried our loveseats up the stairs on his back). We spent our first Sunday morning at Brookline. We set up bookshelves and bedframes, arranged our dishes in the cabinets, began organizing the books. A year ago today, J started his first real, full-time, grown-up job, and I began six months of exploring the city and looking for work. (Six months ago, I started my own full-time job.) We’ve survived a full cycle of the seasons here (and I believe everyone’s comments about “seasonal amnesia” – the summer and fall do make you forget, for a while, how brutal the winter can be).

We’ve struggled, at times, to make our way in a culture and city so different from the place we came from. We’ve missed being known, shaken our heads at the expense of living here, adjusted to commutes and the sad lack of Tex-Mex food and two months of frequent snowstorms. We’ve fought to make a place for ourselves, to draw together a circle of friends, to live here now instead of mourning the friends we left behind or the ease of life in Abilene, or worrying unduly about the future.

Perhaps that is the gift of this time in Boston – to be here now, to embrace each moment, each struggle, each inconvenience or tough experience or unexpected joy. To let each day, each event, be simply what it is, rather than letting it all overwhelm me. To treasure the new friendships we’ve gradually made, while acknowledging that our community here will always look different than our community in Abilene. To appreciate what’s available here, instead of wishing for what’s not. To let life in this new place open us up, let it become part of who we are, even if we don’t stay forever.

It’s been a difficult year in many respects – requiring equal parts bravery (my word for 2010) and comfort (my word for 2011). I don’t expect I’ll ever describe life in Boston as easy. But it’s been instructive, exciting, rich with new experiences, full of challenges and unexpected twists and opportunities (though at times they’ve felt more like trials and obstacles). In short, it’s been an adventure – which is what we were looking for, after all, when we left Abilene.

More than once over the past year, I’ve wished we could spirit ourselves back to Texas, back to the church and the university and the friends and family we left, back to the ease of familiarity, back to the comfort of being home. Sometimes I still wish that. And I think – and hope – we’ll go back someday.

But the story of our lives in Boston isn’t finished yet. This chapter had a rocky start, but it’s by no means at its end. We’ve renewed our lease and committed to stay a while longer, to keep meeting the challenges and embracing the joys. To keep finding out what it means to make a home for ourselves up here, and to know and be known in this place we’ve come to love.

Here’s to another year – at least – in Boston. And to all it holds for us, however difficult and scary – and rich and exciting.

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You can’t take the Texas out of the girl.

When I lived in Texas (read: most of my life), I used to get frustrated at some aspects of Texan-ness. The summer heat, for example, is blistering, and the cities sprawl out over the plains, making it difficult to walk anywhere (and I do love to walk). Spring and fall, at least in my part of Texas, are always too brief. It can be hard, in smaller towns, to find the diversity of cultural events, cuisine, bookstores and historical richness that I appreciate in the Northeast (and the UK). It can also be hard to find folks whose religion doesn’t get mixed up with their politics (though I suspect that’s true everywhere).

When I studied abroad in Oxford, I came to resent the common perceptions about Texas – especially during the Bush years, when people who knew nothing else about Texas recognized it as his homeland. When people asked me where in the States I was from, I often felt a little defensive when I answered, “Texas.”

Here in Boston, I get the “where are you from?” question just as often as I did in the UK. This time, though, I’m proud to self-identify as a Texan. I don’t try to be obnoxious, but I make no bones about it when people ask me where I’m from.

Maybe it’s because I’ve settled more into my own skin, taking pride in my heritage, my family’s roots, my sense of belonging to those Texas plains with their scorching heat and breathtaking sunsets. Maybe it’s just that I miss Texas more than I ever thought I would. Maybe it’s simply contrariness, or a desire to separate myself from some of the difficult aspects of life in the Northeast. Maybe it’s all of the above.

Whatever the reason, I’m prouder to be a Texan than I’ve ever been. I say “y’all” frequently (and don’t plan on stopping any time soon). I reach for chips and salsa as an afternoon snack, and I frequent the “ethnic foods” aisle at the grocery store to buy tortillas and salsa and black beans. I start longing for summer weather around the middle of May. I hold doors for people and say “thank you” when people hold doors for me. And my heart does a little happy dance whenever I hear someone else say “y’all.”

Although I’m (gradually) settling into this Boston life, my internal compass still points far southwest of here, to two mid-sized towns on the West Texas plains, which hold my childhood, my family, my university, my high school and college years, and hundreds of people I love. And I’m prouder than ever to claim that heritage, even if it means I’ll always be something of a foreigner here.

Especially as the weather warms up, I’m glad to be in Boston. But Texas will always be home.

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small steps back toward balance

Well. I don’t know where the last week went.

Between having Abilene friends in town, a couple of evenings out with other friends, my Monday night class at Grub Street and my regular coffee night with the girls, I somehow spent seven evenings in a row away from home, returning to collapse in front of the computer for a little while before crashing into bed. I didn’t cook. I did maybe one load of laundry. And I ended up thoroughly exhausted.

This dizzyingly social spell came, of course, after a long, hard, lonely winter – it seems it’s feast or famine around here. And while spending time with friends is a feast – one for which I have longed, as we settle into this new Boston life – spending time at home, with my husband, is its own kind of feast. And I missed indulging my domestic tendencies – it’s so satisfying to have my nest in order, and it can be so wearing when everything gets out-at-elbows.

Sarah addressed this same issue lately, confessing she has felt spread thin, and then recommending a small step (or two) back toward normalcy, toward balance, toward peace. For me, the small steps came in a quiet evening at home, in which I did a couple loads of laundry, splashed around until all the dishes were done (for the first time in I won’t tell you how long), painted my toenails bright summery pink, and made a summery pasta salad, creamy with goat cheese and juicy with cherry tomatoes. We ate it warm in bright ceramic bowls, at the cafe table on our porch. A tiny Asian girl walked by holding her grandmother’s hand, and when Jeremiah waved to her, she waved back, solemn under her black bangs.

I know we’ll have a few more zany weeks like this one, as summer brings visitors, vacations and its own kind of busyness. But I’m hoping to strike a better balance most of the time. To make time for dinners on the porch, small but vital acts of self-care, pulling warm lavender-scented sheets out of the dryer, baking something delectable, and curling up with a beloved book on the couch. (The other night it was The Saturdays, and I am newly in love with every member of the Melendy family.)

What small steps help to re-balance you, when life goes off-kilter or just gets over-busy?

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songs about home

You may have noticed I’ve been missing home this winter. The weather, the distance, the long months of unemployment followed by the transition to a new job – all have had me missing the familiarity of Abilene. Which is perhaps why two songs on the subject have lodged in my heart and stayed there.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes have been everywhere recently with their folk hit, “Home.” Just watch this beautiful video of a dad and his little daughter singing it and tell me you aren’t sold:

Closer to (my) home, a college acquaintance of mine (Brandon Kinder, who also sings lead for the Rocketboys) recently released an EP, and as a sneak peek, released the music video for a song also called “Home”:

Two lines in these songs, one from each, get me every time. The first, sung repeatedly among all that whistling, is “Home is wherever I’m with you.” I am lucky, I know, to have people in Boston with whom I feel at home – most notably my sweet husband, and our fellow Abilene transplants. (I’ve talked so much about them because I have, literally, clung to them – they are not only kind and funny and wise, but they represent that familiarity I miss.) And I/we have made new friends with whom we also feel at home, and in whose presence we can relax, open up, laugh, cry, be known.

The other line, from Brandon’s song, hits me with more poignancy: “You’re never gonna be that far away from home.” I know in my bones it’s true, in important ways – home is something you carry with you; home is people, not always a place (see above); those people I love in Texas/Nashville/Oxford/all over the place are still home to me, and we’re not that far away, in the grand scheme of things.

But there have been so many times this winter when it hasn’t felt true. When it has felt like we’re a million miles from Abilene and our families and the life we used to have. When I have wondered if Boston will ever feel like home, and if we’ll ever get back home, to wide sunset skies and Tex-Mex food and Friday nights filled with high school football.

I still don’t know the answers to those questions – though I have a suspicion Boston will eventually begin to feel like home. Until then, I’ll be holding both these songs close, thankful for the people who make that Edward Sharpe lyric true for me. And trying with all my heart to believe Brandon’s words…to trust that home is often so much closer than I think it is.

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unemployment and the guilt complex

Last week marked my six-month anniversary of being unemployed. Happily, I got a job offer on Monday morning – which also happened to be my sister’s birthday. (Her reaction, when I called to tell her the news: “Happy birthday to me! You got a job!”)

However, the offer was contingent on a successful check of my references, so I waited in limbo for four days while the good folks in HR did what they had to do. And that was almost worse than not getting the offer at all – so paranoid was I that they’d find some small reason to revoke it.

My week of limbo/liberty was blessedly free of hitting the job boards, but full of the other activities which have filled my last six months: a freelance project or two; laundry and dishes; making soup for lunch; walking to the post office and the branch library; playing around on Twitter and blogs; sipping tea at the dining-room table while journaling or writing. And feeling guilty.

No, I don’t feel guilty about doing freelance work, tending my house or even taking a break for a cup of tea. I love my quiet mornings here at the dining-room table, sunshine coming in the windows, my current bouquet (this week it’s daffodils) blooming away. I love being able to stir up a pot of soup or nip down to the branch library for a new novel. And I am so glad I haven’t had to brave the cold during our string of snowstorms (though I am now joining the commuting hordes at my local T station).

Rather, I feel guilty about all the things I haven’t done while searching for a job. Couldn’t I have applied to more jobs, gone to more networking events, worked harder to score more interviews? Should I have taken a part-time job somewhere to make money, or applied for plain old temp work instead of specialized writing temp work, or allowed myself fewer excursions to downtown Boston? I definitely should have spent less time browsing the Web, clicking links and reading my favorite blogs. And couldn’t I, in six months, have completed a full draft of that travel memoir I’m always talking about writing?

I’ve felt guilty about all of the above, and also about spending my days at home, warm and cozy and wearing jeans, while my sweet husband spends his days driving around the South Shore of Boston, seeing clients for therapy, often not getting home until seven or eight o’clock. I’ve felt guilty about not doing more to help him provide for the two of us. I’ve wondered if I were going about this job search the “right” way, if there is a right way. And I’ve felt especially guilty because I’ve actually enjoyed my unemployment.

I didn’t enjoy the financial strain, of course – which has grown worse as we’ve needed to pay for heating oil and slightly higher bills in the winter. Nor did I enjoy the loneliness, the feelings of cabin fever and isolation when the weather grew frigid and I began spending nearly all of my days inside. When the weather was nicer, I could find more excuses to spend afternoons downtown, poking around the shelves at the Brattle or browsing the clothes racks at Second Time Around, or sitting on Boston Common, book and camera and journal in hand. But since winter hit for real, it’s been pretty lonesome around here, despite my love of solitude and the connections available online.

But I have enjoyed some parts of my time off. For one thing, I didn’t have to rush right into an office when we moved here in August; I had time to unpack, to hang pictures, to arrange our apartment and explore our neighborhood. I’ve spent happy hours browsing at the libraries in Quincy and many sun-soaked afternoons on Boston Common. I’ve gotten to know the heart of Boston, which for me lies in the two green spaces in its center, the bustling Beacon Hill area just north of them, and the narrow streets east of the Common filled with some of my favorite Boston spots.

For another, I’ve had time to write – which I craved in Abilene, particularly when my job at ACU grew crazy and deadline-filled. I’ve kept writing for ACU, written dozens of articles for Halogen, blogged more regularly than perhaps ever before, and written some secret things I hope I’ll get to share with you one day. I’ve had lots of time to sit at this table, daydreaming, dressed comfortably and never lacking in sleep or good food or time to do whatever I pleased. Time like this is a gift to a writer, and I’ve tried to appreciate it and use it well, instead of squandering it in useless pursuits or spoiling it by obsessing about money. (Not, I might add, always successfully.)

But most of all I’ve enjoyed the freedom of this time – the complete liberty to structure my days however I want, even if that has included a little too much sleeping in and a bit too much “wasted” time. I’ve loved being in control of the hours of my days, although I’ve spent the vast majority of those hours alone. I’ve hardly had anywhere to be at a certain time for months, except church and a few outings with friends. It’s reminded me so much of my life in Oxford, where my only obligations were classes, church, working for ACU-Oxford and volunteering at Oxfam. I’ve had lots of time – however heavy it’s hung on my hands sometimes – to just be.

Starting this week, all that will change. I’ll get up with my alarm clock, to shower and dress and head downtown to Emerson College, where I’ll spend my days writing and organizing content for the college’s website. I will have co-workers, an office, a lunch break, a commute, and many fewer hours to myself. (And much more money in the bank than I’ve had.) I expect to enjoy most of these things, or learn to adapt to them – though I know there’ll be an adjustment period. Mostly, I’m thrilled to have found a job I think I’ll love, at a place I already admire. (And when the weather turns warm, I can go eat my lunches on Boston Common – happy thought!)

Have any of you ever struggled with guilt during unemployment/a career break/graduate school/another instance of downtime in your life? How did you handle it? I’d love to hear your stories.

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