The Safety of Home

“Log cabin, anyone?” I text my daughter enroute to the subway.

She answers me back, “Sounds good to me. Been thinking about it lately, actually.”

“We’ll have to compare floor plans,” I counter.  

I have just left work after a 13-hour day, the 3^rd that week (it’s Wednesday), and she is still at work with no end in sight. We are both working way too many hours of late. And we are both wondering whether it’s worth it. 

I think often of someone I know who left her life (or moved into it, depending on your outlook) to write. She moved 3000 miles to live in a little cabin that featured no indoor plumbing and had a wood stove for heat. She stayed there over twenty years, living a very basic life, mostly content.  Could I do that? In all honesty – and that’s what this is about – probably not. I was never a fan of camping for many reasons, even though I have done plenty of it. I do not want to go outside to access the bathroom, and I want a thermostat to regulate the heat. But what if I decided to give up this life and do something different? Where would I go? Is there another place I could call home? 

I spend plenty of time lately thinking about just this. I count the years until I will turn 66 – the magic age for my baby-boomer cohort to retire with maximum Social Security benefits. Gosh…. That’s nine years away. I do not want to wish my life away, but I am not convinced I want the status quo for the next nine years. Could I do with less and live the life I want to live? And where?   

New York City is my home. I’ve lived here for 26 years, and I still feel thrilled when I approach my city and its skyline. I consider it irrelevant that now I actually live slightly north of the city in a suburb. I am, as the t-shirt I once bought my (then) 4-year-old daughter proclaimed, a “New York City Girl.” 

I always felt destined to be here. Growing up in a small town in western New York, I felt chronically dissatisfied with my surroundings. I wanted bigger. I wanted exciting. I wanted possibilities.  I fled that small town and moved to New York City in the early 80s, knowing only one single person who lived here. I don’t think anyone in my life said, “You go, girl.” Mostly they tried to get me to reconsider –  thinking, hoping it was just a phase. They did not know that New York had been calling me for years.

And New York has lived up to my expectations. I love the glorious opportunities of this city….always knowing that if I want to, I can go to a play, the ballet, the opera, a concert, and all kinds of museums and galleries. I can eat any kind of food I want, almost any time of the day or night. I can take a class in anything that strikes my fancy, in my choice of locations, and nobody will look at me funny. And I love the anonymity of this city. As a child, I always felt “watched” and it made me extremely self-conscious. I was never sure what I was supposed to do or how I was supposed to be. Here, I can just be on the street, unknown, unwatched, simply me. I have found freedom in that. 

        

Could I, would I still feel whole and safe if I gave up my home?  Would you?