I’m home after a long trip, and I’m nesting hard. My coat closet has half the crap in it that it had two weeks ago, my necklace chains are all untangled, and my bedroom closet has nothing in it that doesn’t fit. Bathroom cabinet, I’m coming for you next!
I spent almost all of June in and around New York City, and it was such an exhilarating change of pace, I toyed with the idea of relocating there. I’ve never lived in New York, and always said I’d like to someday. Maybe now’s the time. Just for a couple of years. “Do it!” my friend Lisa said over a plate of sea bass at Soho House. “I want to introduce you to so many people.”
I mulled it over as I unpacked and repacked my suitcases, hopping from the east village to New Jersey to the Hudson Valley to the Flatiron district. I was having a blast, so many places to go and things to do. Could I make a home here?
Back in Los Angeles, I’d grown restless. When I first moved into my Beachwood Canyon apartment in spring 2020 I was giddy in love with it, with its high, coved ceilings, vintage charm, and the perfect spaces for all the things I might want to do in a day. But recently I’ve been feeling hemmed in by its walls.
It’s where I cooked and ate four hundred dinners alone during the Covid lockdown. It’s where my dog, Boots, died on a Tuesday night, right there in her little nest beside my bed. It’s where I pushed myself to the brink of burnout working to bring my business out of a pandemic slump. It’s also where I discovered a lump in my breast last summer, and during the months I spent in bed recovering from a string of surgeries, its corners became cluttered and its rooms lost their luster. Lately all I’ve wanted is to walk out the door and go anywhere else.
As a child, my family moved around a lot. Big moves, from Vancouver to Auckland to the rural Canadian prairie and back to the Pacific Northwest. I carried on this itinerant tradition by moving to LA alone at 19, and then to London, and so on. I don’t have one true hometown; I have several. Why not add New York to the list?
So I set up a search on StreetEasy, looking in Park Slope, where Lisa says lots of lesbians live, Cobble Hill, the Village, the lower east side. For $3,000 a month and up (way up), I saw tiny one-bed units carved out of once-larger apartments. A narrow bedroom with half a window. A makeshift kitchen crammed into what was once a closet. Student level accommodations for executive salary prices. I’d be paying more in New York and getting less, but I figured I could make a livable home for myself there.
A home is basically a life support machine, its form and functionality calibrated to serve whatever goes on inside. Home is also an expression of our personality and values; an external manifestation of the interior world. When I look around my home, I see my preoccupations in the stack of books on my bedside table, and my quirky habits in the overly complicated coffee setup that makes my perfect cup. The walls are hung with paintings that I made. Each of these objects holds a portion of my heart and mind. They anchor me in my history and support my evolution into the person I am becoming.
One of my favorite things in my home is the altar that sits right in the middle of my coffee table. It looks like typical LA decor — candles and crystals and sticks of palo santo — but it has an important function. Most mornings, I sit in front of it cross-legged and meditate as I ease into the day. Sometimes I pull a card from an oracle deck and reflect on its message.
It’s from one of those oracle decks, gifted to me by a friend, that I learned an excellent word that has become meaningful to me. Hiraeth is a Welsh word that means deep, sorrowful nostalgia for a place we can’t return to. The first time I pulled the Hiraeth card, I immediately recognized myself in it. A tiny figure in a swirling, pink cosmos, and the words “Longing for home. Homesick for the stars”. I’m a restless person, and have spent most of my life feeling slightly out of place almost everywhere I went, like a tourist who might pass as a local but really doesn’t belong in this city, this house, this body, on this planet.
For me, the home that hiraeth hearkens to isn’t a geographical motherland; it represents my longing to return to spirit, or maybe just a yearning for secure contentment. Isn’t that what home is? A sanctuary; a place of our own where we belong, where we can relax and be ourselves.
The second time I shuffled that deck, the same card popped out again, and the third time, too. What a crazy… coincidence? The interpretation in the accompanying booklet says that the Hiraeth card is a call to “fully commit to embodying your life… To put two feet completely in.” Yeah, I’ve never really done that. When it appeared yet again on the fourth day, I gasped aloud in shock. Ok. Message received.
That was almost a year ago, and my outlook on life has shifted since then. As breast cancer led me to face my mortality and question my choices, I have made it a priority to embrace my life and shape it into forms that please my soul.
I’ve also learned to cultivate my inner sanctuary. Do I truly know that I belong here, within my own being? Do I feel safe with myself? Is my heart a peaceful and restorative place? A place where I am known, loved, and accepted?
No matter how beautiful a house we may live in, even a Hollywood Hills mansion or a Park Avenue penthouse, if we can’t feel at home with ourselves, we will feel untethered, lost, and out of place. I still get those feelings sometimes, but they don’t frighten or upset me like they once did; I now see them simply as signals that I’ve wandered away from the home of my heart and have gone looking for an inviolable sanctuary in the wider world. And of course that never works in this place, where all things are temporary and inherently uncertain.
But when I am at home within myself, I always feel at home, no matter where I hang my hat. This spiritual home never denies me entry. It’s only my attunement to it that I sometimes lose track of, like a toddler who temporarily loses sight of their parent at a party. We venture out there in the world, and each time we do, we are given the opportunity to return home to Self and Source.
And really, when you think about it, there is no “venturing out” and no “return”. The act of “homecoming” is actually just a surrender, a tuning-in to the peace that’s always available within.
Much as I enjoyed New York, leaving proved more difficult than I’d expected, with multiple flight cancellations keeping me grounded there for nearly a full extra week, and I have to admit it kind of broke my fevered romance. I saw a few friends and did a bit more exploring, but mostly I stayed in my hotel and caught up on work. The air quality was lousy. The crowds were exhausting. I was over budget, overstimulated, and looking forward to getting back to Los Angeles.
When I finally walked through my front door, the apartment I’d grown dissatisfied with suddenly looked like a palace, and a bargain, too. Instead of an outgrown container, I saw a once-loved but neglected space that could be made delightful again. It just needs a little love and attention, and I’m ready to give it. Sure, I could have moved to New York. I still might, at some point. If I can make a home there, I can make it anywhere.
xo
Come map out your book with me in LA
It’s that time of year when Wonderwell is hosting another round of the Big Leap, our one of a kind, immersive book planning program. If you’ve got a nonfiction book burning in your heart and want soulful and supportive professional help to quickly bring it into focus in a smartly polished book proposal, this might be just the thing for you.
Pre-retreat calls start August 2, and we’ll be in person in the heart of Hollywood from August 16-20. Check it out here, and if it’s calling to you, put in your application and we’ll talk. As of this writing, there are two spots left.
Wherever you go, there you are is a saying that I have carried my whole life as I travelled the world. Yet I’m not sure I’ve done the extensive inner work and exploration that I so admire in you and in this piece. I’ve often considered moving to NY but my conclusions mirror yours. It’s exhausting, crowded, bad air and ever more expensive. For now you have made the right choice.