How Do You Place the Importance of Where You Live?

Years ago I would walk through Boston’s North End, loving the intermingling smells -- the harbor’s salt water with the fresh bread from the bakeries and garlic from the Italian restaurants. I’d feel the uneven bricks below my feet. Hear the hum of nearby Logan Airport and the street traffic which used to run above ground prior to the Big Dig. Here was a city I treasured, that became a part of me, a part of my history. Still, in the back of my mind I knew I wouldn’t stay—that this wouldn’t be my forever home.

I’ve lived in a number of locations—and have appreciated their history, uniqueness, and people. Certain places felt more like home than others, but none so much as settling into the western Philadelphia suburbs. My heart feels that solid sense of belonging. Yet a notion always glimmers that maybe we’re missing something—that there could be other addresses to enrich our life experience.

How attached are you to your sense of place? Your house? Your town?

My husband and I often entertain the thought of working and living abroad for a couple of years. To provide that wide-open, global perspective, the cultural appreciation, the possible absorption of a new language. Relocating would teach our kids resilience, that change is a part of life, and that as long as we’re together we’re home.

On the flipside we appreciate the sense of stability, creating a rich history with friends and family, and becoming a real part of the community.

Does anyone else weigh settling down vs. exploring elsewhere? Especially now, at this stage in life?

We have friends who live abroad and those who move frequently within the States—and the wanderlust part of me thinks, “That’s amazing you have the gumption, that bold sense of adventure as part of your family fabric,” and I wonder if we could really uproot, take that leap, and start over just like they do.

And then I look around and feel there’s no place I’d rather be, sort of how Jesus Jones sang the lyrics in 1990.

“Place” impacts not only the shaping of our current lives, but how we reflect on our life experiences. I love the sentiment Ladette Randolph expresses in her memoir Leaving the Pink House, “I best understand my life though the houses where I’ve lived…Houses are often the archives for my deepest, most resonant memories, the places where I’ve curated my life stories.” The same applies to cities, towns, and neighborhoods.

I know home is where the heart is—yes, surrounded by those we love, but it is more—I need to feel an intuitive connection of peace and promise—to the local scenery, the familiar smells and sounds, and the rhythms of daily interactions. Look around you, breathe in the sense of place that envelopes you, and hopefully you feel the comfort wherever your current landscape takes you.

“Place conspires with the artist. We are surrounded by our own story,
we live and move in it. It's through place that we put our roots.”                               --Eudora Welty