I'm home again, a full 90 minutes before the blog deadline. I was going to write about how troublesome it is to have personal connections to celebrities, but right now all I can think about is HOME. I had some complicated feelings about Boston this weekend, but I felt such happiness as I got closer to home. The first time I saw a sign for Boston, I was mostly just happy that I wouldn't be driving forever. Driving on to the Mass Pike and finding a familiar rest stop (of known and much better quality than those in Connecticut, thankyouverymuch) made me start feeling at home again. Watching the distance to Boston creep downwards on signs, driving past towns I know, letting out a little cheer when I hit 495, having been on Long Island's 495 mere hours ago, getting on to *my* stretch of 95... My favorite things about taking route 2 home is coming over that hill and seeing Boston shining down below me in the distance. Boston. My home.
I spent this weekend in Manhattan and on Long Island, where I grew up and where most of my family still lives. My life has been split about 65/35 between Long Island and Boston, so far. The only time I've spent more than two weeks outside New York or Massachusetts was my summer in San Francisco last year. I really enjoyed my time in San Francisco. I also really enjoy Seattle, Chicago, New Orleans, Miami, Madison... and those are just in this country. I've only left North America once, and all I saw was London and Dublin. I've never even been to Mexico or any part of Canada beyond Toronto. There is *so much* world out there that I haven't seen, and yet I find myself wanting to buy a house in Boston and plan to live here for the rest of my life. I am torn between my desire to travel and explore and expand my horizons, and my desire to form a really solid, permanent rock hard connection to a place, to plant my flag and call it my own. I want the luxury to spend perhaps three months of every year in different places, for 1-3 months at a time, and to take some of my nearest and dearest friends with me, because with the right people, I'll go anywhere. If everyone I knew in Boston decided to move to Iowa, I'd go. History and architecture and culture are nice, but places are really about people to me. There's a Billy Joel song, "You're My Home", that has this to say:
Well I'll never be a stranger
and I'll never be alone
wherever we're together
that's my home.
Home could be the Pennsylvania turnpike
Indiana's early morning dew
high up in the hills of California
home is just another word for you.
My boyfriend came to San Francisco with me last summer, and I realized that home is, in fact, wherever we're together. I know that is horribly sappy, but it's a very convenient thing to realize.
San Francisco is painfully far away. I am very disappointed that transcontinental travel is not getting any faster. I realize it is utterly amazing that we can fling ourselves three thousand miles in six hours, but it's still a pain. If Boston and San Francisco were "quick weekend trip" distance apart, my life would be significantly easier.
New York, however, is right there. People go from Boston to New York and back again in a single day, and it's grueling but not insane. I can't count how many weekend trips I have taken down there. The buses have gotten really cheap and convenient, it's a totally reasonable drive if you have a car, there's a ferry to Long Island, flights are cheap and fast, and there's even Amtrak, which is sometimes the right option even though it is not the fastest or cheapest. :-) I grew up 40 miles from Manhattan, a mile from a train station that would send you right into the heart of Manhattan. I was always in "the city", as we always called it, several times a year for my entire youth, but I never spent the night there until I was in my 20s. My trips were frequent, but very contained. I went to museums, Central Park, parades, and so many Broadway shows, and then I always went home. I feel like I know New York, but I know that I only know it as a visitor. I've still never spent more than three nights in a row in the city. Yesterday I wound up in the upper west side at 7 am on a saturday, and found yet another New York experience that was entirely new to me. I want to stop these one night stands and have a serious fling with New York, the way I did with San Francisco, but it's hard to convince myself to make that kind of commitment when I can in fact just go there every weekend if I want to. Oh, New York, I don't know what to do with you!
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