I drove down to Santa Cruz with my dog this weekend. I’m not sure when I had been there last, but I have a sneaking suspicion it was for my birthday last year, which would mean a whopping fifteen months between visits. I felt lighter the minute my car was in the midst of the pine trees that line Highway 17, and by the time I’d reached my favorite view of the ocean, the entire world felt like a better place.
The egregious cute dog picture here.
This got me thinking about the homes of my heart. I have two places I’ve lived in the past that have the same effect on me. I feel happier thinking about them, and when I am actually physically present within them, I feel this strong sense of homecoming. Of rightness. One of them is Santa Cruz, and the other one is London.
That’s not to say that Silicon Valley, where I live now, isn’t my home. I know a lot of people here and have some fabulous friends close enough to see often. I really like the park near my house. I know my way around. I know where to obtain goods and services. I have spent several years of my life here. But it isn’t my heart’s home. I don’t feel joy from simply living here. I feel grateful for the mild weather, but that’s not really the same thing as joy.
Now Santa Cruz, I can tell you what makes it special (even though I do not go down there anywhere near often enough). London, I can talk on and on about why I love it. I wish more people would do that, actually: give me the opportunity for a long London monologue. If we are together and you want to make me happy, bring up London, be ready to listen patiently, and we’ll be all set. But Silicon Valley, well. If you want to be involved with a tech start-up, this is the place to be.
However, I am NOT involved in a tech start-up. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it would be fascinating. But it’s not what I’m doing right now.)
What effect does it have, I’ve been wondering, when you spend so many years not living in one of your heart’s homes? I’ve been here for eleven years this winter, and even the first year, when I lived in San Francisco proper, was not what I’d call an unqualified success (although that might be related to the neighborhood I chose to live in). It must happen to a lot of people, living in a place because of work or family or finances or because that’s just how it worked out, even though it doesn’t resonate with them. Maybe it doesn’t really matter. Your friends and communities are probably more important in the grand scheme of things than your geographical location.
And yet, here in Santa Cruz, I look so much like ME.
But I miss looking out my bedroom window at redwood trees. I miss walking by the ocean. I miss London’s parks and the indifferent sandwiches I’d eat on the omnipresent benches, and I miss taking the Tube down to the Tate Modern on a Sunday afternoon. I miss rambling on the Heath and getting lost beforehand and afterwards, and I miss carrying my A to Zed everywhere I went (although now, I suppose, cell phones have replaced A to Zeds). I miss the late night excursions to the physics building’s merry-go-round and the cheap music concerts and the two pound coins and the inevitable pub and the scarf shops.
I could go back, I suppose, but I think there’s an element to heart’s homes that is related to time and context. I don’t think we can simply return to living in our heart’s homes whenever we feel like it. They might no longer fit exactly right. Sometimes we may be lucky and another right time to live there may come along. Other times we have to discover new ones instead.
Where are your heart’s homes?
The Practical Free Spirit 
I feel the same way about Santa Cruz. I was just there a few days ago — sat at Natural Bridges, walked down West Cliff, got an amazing cup of cappuccino… felt so…present and aligned 🙂
West Cliff is my favorite, and it has been ever since I first visited Santa Cruz when I was eleven or twelve.
Montreal and Hong Kong were, at different times in my life. Like you, I don’t think it would be the same if I moved back; I feel like I might have out-grown Montreal, even though I still love to visit, and Hong Kong was home for an amazing period of my life that’s most definitely passed. Toronto is where I am now, and the only thing that keeps me here is how big the sf community is here–but even with that I rarely see anyone more than once a month or so, at most, it’s just not the sort of place where it seems easy to make strong friendships (or I’m at the wrong age for that, one of the two).
You’ll have to talk to me about London at some point, maybe at WFC; I’ve been thinking of eventually moving there, that or to the west coast.
I don’t need a second invitation to talk about London. 🙂 It’s not easy to immigrate there, though, although there is a program for Canadians, I believe (but of limited duration stay, like a year or two).
I don’t think my heart has a home yet.
I lived from 1981-1988 in rural eastern West Virginia which for a long time held a certain nostalgia value and which I did appreciate as a small child as much as I wish I would have. But when I visited in 2009, it really cemented in my heart what I’d know in my head for a long time: there is nothing else there for me in those rural mountains, except scenic beauty and frozen custard.
From 1988-present, I’ve lived in the same Florida county (albiet in 4 different places), except for 4 semesters living in an on-campus dorm apartment at university in Jacksonville.
By high school, I had grown to dislike the local area, but I think that’s typical for high school kids. I’ve stuck around for work and really having a lack of knowing where to go. I haven’t traveled enough to be pulled anywhere particular and I’ve got few social connections anywhere else.
While I don’t feel the same disdain I did as a teenager, I still dislike where I live: it’s hot, humid, annually threated by hurricanes, and has lots of mosquitoes, a large a retiree population, and high unemployment.
After I finish my degree in the spring, I look forward to finding a job (and hopefully a career) somewhere and seeing where that takes me. I’m ready to go; I can say that now as a logical decision not a purely emotional one, and I think I am far more prepared to strike out on my own when the time comes than I was in the past.
Moving to a completely different location definitely takes a certain amount of chutzpah, especially if you don’t know many (or any) people who already live there.
I hope you find somewhere you love to live where you can also build your new career. 🙂
I lived in Mountain View – right in the middle of Silicon Valley – for a few years in the 90s. I was then away for… wow, 11 years. Still, going back there two years ago, and a few times since, felt very much like going home, in a way that even going back to the place where I grew up doesn’t.
Yes, I know, Mountain View is not regarded as a phenomenal place to live by many people; it’s very much suburbia. I think it has something to do with it being my first experience of living abroad, and my first real experience of being significantly distant from family and friends – and soon after finishing uni, also. And, to be honest, it’s not Mountain View per se – that just happened to be where my apartment was – but the whole area: Palo Alto and Stanford, the hills surrounding 280, the small towns in the Pacific coast, even San Francisco. I guess I should say the SF Bay Area is my heart’s home.
I’m not sure that place will ever be home – physical home – again for me, but visiting it always makes me feel happier.
Well, out of all the towns in Silicon Valley, Mountain View is my personal favorite. And the Bay Area does have a lot of positives. So I can imagine how it could feel like a heart’s home, even if it doesn’t exactly feel that way to me.
I don’t remember introducing myself at the Foodie Event at Jaym’s. I kept thinking I had met you, as I subscribed to your blog from a repost.
Back to topic…San Francisco has been my “town” for the last 2 years, North Beach feels a little like a home since January. I’m still looking to find home. Home is still the “romanticized” image of comfort, safety, and retreat from the rest of the world.
Great writing as aways!
~Lexie
Yes! It was great to talk to you, even if we never were formally introduced. I think Jaym should host more foodie events. 🙂
It’s interesting because I don’t feel like the town I live in is one of my heart’s homes, but I do feel like the house I live in is home. And that is definitely a wonderful thing to have.