Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Always coming home to you...

Ahh, deep breath in... the sun is out!!! Yay!  Just when I thought I might fall into the never ending hole of the grayness of winter! Warm days... the kind that they have in LA 325 days out of the year... I think about the fact that I was supposed to move there with my best friend after high school and in the gray of winter I think... WHY didn't I? Well, because it is 95% concrete, both the environmental and human landscapes are artificial for the most part, there is WAY too much traffic, no dependable public transit and there is very little sense of community... So, basically the only items on my pro-list were Charlie, warm weather and the beach...

I have thought about other places since then... I have been obsessed with Portland for years now... they have much of what LA lacks, public transit, community, outdoor beauty, an amazing art/music/ culture scene...there culinary scene is exploding right now-I dream about moving there and opening my own restaurant. this sounds great except that I am guessing it would take a month or two before the severe lack of sunlight rendered me useless in life.  So I guess maybe Portland would not be so great right now.

  Then I think about living somewhere on the east coast...Maine, Massachusetts, or upstate New York.  My favorite season is fall, and a few years ago I got to experience the Northeast fall all the way up and down the coast... It was absolutely beautiful.  The air was clean and crisp, the trees were breathtakingly stunning, between the coastline and the mountains there was very little left to be desired up there... except maybe a culture that is slightly more personable... people in the Northeast were snobby! Now, in all fairness, I will strike up a conversation with anyone about anything and I am sure for those who have grown up under non-Midwestern social circumstances that friendliness can be equally as off-putting, but I don't know how anyone can live with that much disconnect to others...the Northeast would be an amazing place to be hermit, but maybe not to live and work.

So then, there are only two places left: Canada, and Ireland. Canada is where all of my family lives except my parents, and , they do have it all, they have beauty, amazing seasonal changes, beaches, and serious community... where my family lives is as close to perfect as you can get...it is Yellow Springs with a pier and a beach.  And Ireland is much the same, my favorite town that I visited there was Galway, the people were tremendous as was nearly every thing I experienced there... It was so gorgeous in almost every way.  There is only one thing keeping me from packing up and moving up there... me. 

Everyone always seems to have some sort of shit to talk about the place in which they are from... but I don't.  In high school it was a different story, I just want to move to LA and be a rockstar (nvrmnd the fact that I had no apparent rockstar talents!), but, in the last ten years I have seriously come to appreciate living in the Midwest.  All of things I would look for if I were to relocate are here, (except maybe a good public transit system, but hey, you can't have it all all the time).  My family is here.  And while I may not have a ton of friends, most of the people that I really and sincerely care about are here.  I have a job, two of them actually... and there is much beauty to behold right here in my own extended backyard.  So, I guess for now, I'll just stay where I am and soak in the sun.