“You could make a real home here,” people have said to us. They’re right. It’s peaceful here: neighbors with kind faces who actually drive the residential speed limit on our street, citrus trees and a planter full of basil and parsley in our backyard that we have somehow managed to keep alive. Even the “noise pollution” (the subtle whoosh of traffic on the freeway behind us) sounds pleasant. We’ve made some attempt at settling. We hung pictures, we painted, we hired a plumber to fix the pipes and threw a housewarming party (in that order, thank god). Yet.
I am, have always been, restless. Or hungry, if you prefer. I blame the books and the solitude that comes along with reading so much. Dwelling in other worlds, other lives gives me an appetite: to learn more, to see more, to read everything, to eat more meals that make me weak in the knees. If it seems strange that I haven’t spent more than three consecutive years in any one city since I graduated college, this may shed some light on it. I get curious about other places, other ways of living too easily. I married a similarly transient soul, which is fortunate or unfortunate for the two of us (probably a bit of both).
We’ve found soulmates in each other, but not yet in a place. Since we moved out of Downtown LA, into Studio City, we’d quietly resolved to stop looking for it. A house in the suburbs seemed a standard landing place, one we shouldn’t plan to leave for the foreseeable future. We’ll get there, we thought, and contentment will follow. It didn’t.
The pull toward something new, a change of scene, feels even stronger this time. I’m already elsewhere in my head, longing for the thrill of a new city, the chance to learn its nooks and crannies. I said we’ve never found a soulmate in a place. That’s not entirely true. We’ve known for years what that place might be, if we gave it a fair shot. But New York City, objectively, is a tough place to live. It’s not practical, we always told ourselves.
But we are not practical. We are restless, if not downright impulsive this time. We made the decision a few weeks ago. A decision from pure pathos. I still haven’t come up with an explanation that will make any sense to anyone. So here is one that doesn’t make sense: I like brick buildings and riding the subway, Brooklyn makes me nostalgic for my grandparents and the stories they told me about growing up and making a home together, I like seeing live jazz at 1am, and I like the special kind of solitude that is being alone amongst hoards of people. And I won’t even mention the food. That goes without saying. Adam has his own reasons for loving it, too. They’re not as bonkers as mine, but I’m grateful he has them and wants to try this as much as me.
So we’re going to New York. Now you know, if you didn’t already. I am thrilled and terrified in equal measure. I also might be severely unhinged. Only time will tell. But for now, my restless mind has another adventure in another city to contemplate. And I feel more settled now that we’re busy packing our stuff, getting unsettled, if that even makes sense. It probably doesn’t, but here we go anyway. Again.
