The Two Places

On New Year's Eve 2005, I moved to California accidentally.

I'd been living in New York for twelve years, and I needed a break. Nothing major--I'd just bought and renovated a Williamsburg apartment I loved, in a building with friends. But I'd also collected a large number of bad-date stories and a career made up entirely of tangents. I wanted a small adventure, a few months somewhere to rejuice.

At the time, I was working for O'Reilly Media, which is headquartered in Sebastopol, CA. In the wine country an hour north of San Francisco, the town is compact and pretty and utterly without cheap short-term rentals. So when a director at O'Reilly offered me his guest house, I put my stuff in storage, bought my dog an FAA-approved crate and flew us across the country.

I intended to move back to New York in June.

But then things, as they are wont to do in an earthquake zone, shifted. In the late spring, O'Reilly offered me a significant promotion to stay in California. At the same time, a fling I'd been having out here started turning serious (which is to say, my boyfriend got a cleaning lady).

And these two developments occurred at exactly the moment I became otherwise ready to return to my regularly scheduled life in New York.

There's no mystery here: you already know what I decided to do. But more than two and a half years later, I'm still profoundly surprised that I live in California. And even as I've developed great ties in the Bay Area, I haven't become any less connected to NYC. Which adds up to life in two places. And a blog to figure out what that means.

Comments

[judith wolfe]

Love your blog name and love that we will be hearing from you. As a past bicoastalist I will truly appreciate your insights.

[Jana Eggers]

Congrats on the new blog! I look forward to hearing your stories. As a bi-continentalist now, I know I will relate. And, it will also help me remember Cali, as I get there too infrequently now.

From the US Air lounge at LaGuardia...
Jana

[terrie]

It's great to see the new blog -- it's an interesting topic, but I know you're going to fuel the twangs I get for visiting NYC again...too many places and not enough time!