Hanging Out Around Town

Being home has been wonderful, like being able to breathe again after a year of holding my breath. I know this sounds melodramatic, that lots of people live far from their places of origin, but it's my truth. At the place in life where I currently reside, just south of middle age and well aware of the quick passage of time, being home is all I really want. I want to live and walk and talk and breathe and laugh New England. I want to be able to have an afternoon of unrushed laughter, tears, and conversation with my Mom. I want my daughter to spend time with her family without having to squeeze those moments into small snippets. I want to avoid the yearly arguments over who sees us and when (because too many of our family members don't communicate with one another). I want to feel really really at home with where I live.

Today, Sparkle Fairy and I wandered around Porter Square. We had breakfast, then did some shopping, stopping first at a natural foods and goods store, then at a funky little book store which featured a cafe complete with vegetarian sandwiches. I watched my daughter scarf down a sandwich filled with arugula, tomato, and avocado, smiling at her aversion to most forms of meat, an aversion we largely share. Artsy crunchy people are my people and it was refreshing to be in an environment so full of these types of people, with resources I love close by. There are people like this in Florida, but it's a different scene altogether.

As we walked to the subway with my Mom later, I noticed that the air had cooled a bit, carrying with it the promise of autumn. It's late summer here and soon the weather will be tinged with a crispness, worthy of sweaters and big soft blankets. Back in Florida, it will still be hot in October, a fact I liked when I first moved to the state but have tired of after too many years of living in the southeast. I'm weary of the bugs, the heat, the hurricanes, and the absence of people like my best friend of twenty five years, who lives here in MA. I'm tired of living in a place that has never been my home the way that this place is.

I'm enjoying it as much as I can.