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Shermanilla has posted about the relative importance of place in making her happy. As readers of this blog (all four of you!) might expect, I have been dealing with the notion myself. On the one hand, I like Minnesota. The Boundary Waters are close at hand, and I like real snow. Even the summers have been bearable, if mosquito-infested. Last summer was unseasonably cool, so perhaps that is why I am more sanguine about summers in general. Those really hot sticky summers do produce some great lightning storms, something that California in general lacks.
On the other hand, without a graduate program keeping me here, there is no real reason to be here other than the fact that we are here already.
How important is place to happiness? I have been happy (much happier than I am now) in any number of lousy places. Certainly, Maryland did not have much to recommend itself. Takoma Park was an oasis of old houses and narrow streets, chock full of azaleas come April. But the summers there really bit, except for when the torrential rains came and I could sit on the porch and watch them.
The grass is always greener I suppose, and I think part of me thinks that a change of scenery is somehow necessary or sufficient for a change of heart. I know that Roomie and I really enjoy fixing up old houses, and perhaps that is what we are hankering for. Having dumped all the cash into this place that we want to (we would really love to redo the bathroom and the kitchen, but those are big jobs and we would like to pay off our home equity debt before we undertake any more renovating), it is somehow easier to think of starting anew in some place like New Mexico.
We have been trolling the MLS listings in search of the perfect place in New Mexico. Surprisingly, Taos is only slightly more expensive than Albuquerque, though jobs are much more scarce, and it is off the interstate—a consideration if I am going to wheel and deal in motorcycles. There is a lot in our price range, and some places even come with an acre or two. Oh, the barn could hold many motorcycles. And there may be somewhere an undervalued piece of industrial building somewhere crying out for development. Like the old library in Merced.
So here is the conundrum: place is important, but only insofar as place affects what I do. And certain places foreclose certain things to do. So does the chicken of place come before the egg of what-to-do? Or does the egg come before the chicken?
Posted by Underblog at February 10, 2005 7:37 AM
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Tracked on December 17, 2006 8:57 PM
i too wrestle with this dilemma, oh roomie. partly i think we want change because change is exciting, new walls to paint. new rooms to arrange. but is this a reason enough to trouble ourselves? is sagebrush to wander through reason enough to go through the hell of packing knickknacks? more importantly, what will you do that you couldn't do here, except, well, be here?
Posted by: sherman at February 11, 2005 8:04 AM
that last sentence made NO sense. let me try again:
what will you do there that you couldn't do here except NOT be here?
Posted by: sherman at February 11, 2005 8:05 AM
I yearn for sagebrush, big sky, and sunsets, but I nurse no illusion that it'll make me happier or different. I could as easily year for the ocean or skyscrapers or a ghost town on a sterile river.
Posted by: sherman at February 11, 2005 8:08 AM
yearn. sheesh.
Posted by: sherman at February 11, 2005 8:09 AM
If you contemplace it at all, you will quickly realize the truth behind "LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION." Pick a place (physical location, abode, friends, family, culture, climate, accessibility to chocolate, etc) and everything else will "fall into place", so to speak.... but don't move to run away from other issues... I have done that before and the move seems exciting, but you never get any happier...
(all 3 of us)
Posted by: Generation Bob at February 11, 2005 4:41 PM
all egg...
Posted by: heather at February 12, 2005 5:07 AM