Early & Alone #32: The Appeal of Other Places
My trip to Bloomington, Indiana was one of those trips where time loses its meaning, the hours and days oozing together, borderless, both full and empty. I was there to visit two friends (a couple) I hadn’t seen since they’d moved away from our neighborhood in Boston nearly a year ago. I missed them dearly, so it was wonderful to catch up, hang out with their sweet pup, and be shown around Bloomington, an idyllic college town.
I’d started Cape May, my friend Chip’s debut novel, on the plane and it was an apt companion for my trip. In it, high school sweethearts Effie and Henry travel from their home in small town Georgia to Cape May, New Jersey, for their honeymoon. Because it’s October, they find the seaside resort town deserted. They consider just going home, until they link up with three glamorous people staying in a house up the street, inadvertently crashing a debaucherous party which both shocks and thrills them. Soon, they are spending all their time with the trio, taking easily to the lifestyle of endless gin & tonics and lazy days by the ocean, which Henry had never even seen prior to the trip. Of course, this lifestyle wreaks havoc on Henry and Effie’s fledgling marriage. Henry especially falls under the spell of this vacation lifestyle, a life so completely different from everything he and his new wife have ever known that neither of them will ever be the same.
This change in routine, the loss of time’s restrictions, is what we are looking for when we travel. It’s at the root of our desire—to “get away from it all.” But we are mostly aware that vacations are temporary. Sometimes we even look forward to going home, where we slip back inside our real lives like shrugging back into our own clothes in a fitting room after trying on something new and different. There’s relief and comfort in the familiar—there’s a reason we’ve built the lives we have, after all.
Something about Bloomington felt different from a typical vacation, though—maybe because it’s not a typical vacation destination, like Miami or Puerto Rico. It was probably a combination of factors—perfect spring weather, the celebratory air of a college town on commencement weekend, visiting with my two dear friends, but it all coalesced to make me fall in love a bit with Bloomington. We took long walks, browsed bookstores, and ate nearly all our meals outdoors. The beer was cheap and the people were friendly. There was something earnest and unpretentious about it all. Because my friends have lived there for nearly a year, they were excellent guides, making sure I got to see the highlights of town, but we also did the things they might do if I hadn’t been there—we took their dog for walks around the neighborhood, drank coffee and read the morning paper around the kitchen table, met their friends for pizza and a movie, then saw them again a couple of days later for drinks and cheese in their backyard.
It made it easy to imagine what my life would look like if I left the nightmare housing market and bitter winters of Boston and moved somewhere like Bloomington—affordable and small and friendly and pretty. I could build a whole new life for myself! I could live alone! I could get a dog! Maybe the dating scene would be easier to navigate! Wouldn’t I be happier? Wouldn’t life be simpler?
My friends introduced me to a movie I’d (shockingly) never heard of called Wanderlust. It features Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston as a married couple who are priced out of their “micro-loft” in Manhattan and forced to move in with Paul Rudd’s awful brother in Atlanta. On the way there, they get into a car accident and find themselves stranded at a commune. Of course, all sorts of wacky hijinks ensue, and Justin Theroux charms the couple into staying with the promise of living off the land, communing with nature and community, and, of course, free love. Obviously, the promise and novelty eventually sour and they realize there is no such thing as running away from real life. Both Wanderlust and Cape May were reminders that while we all have a “grass is greener” outlook, maybe our grass is just fine.
There may be places that are better suited for us to live, places with more temperate weather and affordable housing, but these places all come with their own set of challenges. Bills and chores and loneliness and self-doubt and procrastination and fear don’t evaporate upon picking up stakes and moving to a new place. If I moved to a place like Bloomington, I’d be desperately lonely, missing my friends and family and the life I’ve created for myself in Boston.
There’s a good amount of talk in the dating world about which cities are the “best” for singles, the ones with the most attractive ratios of men to women (or vice versa). Everyone thinks that dating wherever they live is the worst—but that’s because dating itself is difficult, no matter where you live. This topic came up on a recent episode of the Love Letters podcast and I liked the conclusion the host, Meredith Goldstein, came to: it’s not about which city you’re dating in, but about how comfortable and happy you are in that city, how at home you feel there. And for me, right now, Boston is my home.
What I’m Reading: Currently reading Edwidge Danticat’s Claire of the Sea Light, a novel that’s been sitting on my bookshelf for years now but I’ve been putting off reading because I thought it was about a little girl. It’s not, though! It’s actually linked stories of people in a small town in Haiti. I really like it so far.
What I’m Watching: Rewatching the first season of Fleabag in anticipation of the second season which drops on May 17. Can’t wait!
What I’m Listening To: A fair amount of L7 and Hole after finishing Michelle Tea’s Against Memoir earlier this week.
What I’m Wearing: This isn’t really wearing, per se, but I asked for a Revlon One Step hairdryer for my birthday and I love it so far. It makes my hair super-smooth and soft.
What I’m Eating: I made this Alison Roman recipe last night and it was delicious. My advice is to cook the chicken a little longer than the directions say, though.