Winter 2006

No Place Like It

It took driving across the country with wishbone to learn where home is
Minneapolis, Minn.

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I circumnavigated the U.S. in about three months. People everywhere were kind and helpful, and Wishbone made friends wherever we went. But nowhere felt like “home.”

I landed at my parents’ house in Pittsburgh with some relief. At last I could relax, be myself, enjoy their company.... “So, have you decided where you’re going to live?”my mom asked me the morning after I arrived.

“Not really,” I said, thinking, Can’t I just hang out here for a while?

Mom, wanting answers, asked me about this daily. I had none. So I decided it was time to visit my brother in Cape Cod. It would be the perfect time to bond with my young niece and nephew.Maybe make plans to start a bookstore/dessert place with my brother. But my brother was content at his present job and wasn’t up for such a big risk. And deep down, I knew it wouldn’t feel right to live there.

“Are you coming home for Mark’s wedding?”my friend Kristi e-mailed me from Minneapolis. “I guess so,” I wrote back. Another friend married; another one bites the dust. “Maybe I’ll look for an apartment when I’m out there,” I typed as an afterthought.

Without trying very hard, I found a sunny apartment in St. Paul, overlooking the Mississippi River.“Maybe I’ll look for some freelance work,” I told my friends. I had enough money to hold me for several months.

The thing was, though, I wasn’t supposed to be back here. I had even gone so far as to consult a psychic in Sedona about the best place for me to live. She gave a big thumbs-down to Minneapolis/St. Paul. “I see you trapped there and frustrated,” she said. “Great for work, terrible for romance.”

So, what should I do?” I asked Tim, who was cutting my hair. Tim was also a psychic. Lest you think I spend all my money on psychic readings and put too much stake in such nonsense, well, you’d be right. But the reading was included with the haircut.

He paused for a minute. “They’re not telling me where it would be best for you,” he said. (“They,” being his spirit guides.) “The lesson here is more about choosing to be happy, no matter where you are. Because if you can’t be happy here, how can you be happy anywhere else?”

It’s the old “bloom where you’re planted” story, I thought. What a cliché. (At least I got a good haircut.) But wasn’t there some truth to that? I had the world’s best dog, a sunny, warm apartment, the prospect of lots of work. Plus, plenty of friends who were thrilled that I was back.

What about the six months of winter? Well,Minneapolis/St. Paul was a Northwest Airlines hub. I could fly anywhere warm and sunny in just a few hours, right?

A few months later, I got a job and bought a sweet little house. And yes, I am seeing someone.

OK, so that last sentence isn’t true, but i really doesn’t matter. I can’t profess that this place is for everyone, or even the best for me. I know it has taken me ten years, and time away seeing other places, to really appreciate it.What my travels seem to point out is that there is a trade-off everywhere. If you want a temperate climate, for example, be prepared for huge crowds, bad traffic, and impossibly expensive real estate. If you want to afford a house, be prepared for fewer job opportunities and six months of winter.

I’m reminded of the gift of this journey every time I sit and chat with my neighbors at the local coffee shop, or walk Wishbone to a friend’s house, or when it takes a mere twenty minutes to drive just about anywhere I want to go.

What a gift to be able to choose. So I choose to plant here. And I choose to fly to the beach every winter.

Minneapolis/St. Paul is home to former governor Jesse Ventura, writer Garrison Keillor, the Mall of America, and Barbara Brown ’82, a freelance writer, editor, and marketing consultant.

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