Decrepit dream house
Plus, a week-four check in
Hi! Beginning March 20, I’m posting every Thursday for eight weeks as a change from the usual ‘whenever I feel like it’ schedule. The topics so far have been heli skiing, old heartbreak, and volcanoes. If you make it to the bottom of today’s letter, you’ll find a reader survey about this experiment. I invite you to fill it out :)
There’s an abandoned house that’s been on the market for a while. It’s listed as a tear-down but the owners want an insane amount for the land. Then again, it’s a perfect spot, with views of both the inlet and the mountains.
I fantasize about this house and the things I don’t currently have. I want to live on the edge of the park strip and drink my coffee looking at Mount Spurr. I want to fill my space with housemates and visitors and walk everywhere and plant gardens and feed the birds.
I’ve often been obsessed with finding the right geographic place as if, once I inhabit it, the environment will meet all my needs. A certain table in the library. A particular street or apartment or room.
From the ages of 22 to 33, I lived at fifteen different addresses. Fifteen! The New York apartments are documented here. And in the less than five years of living in Alaska, I’ve been in five different houses. Considering I’ve lived in my current one for over three years, it was a mere eighteen months for the other four.
The urge to leave for greener pastures is one I know well. Nothing gets you out of a rut quite like uprooting everything, she foolishly says. The reality is not so successful. While the rut temporarily goes away as the logistics and emotional turmoil take over, once settled long enough in the new place, the grooves are the same.
Yes, yes: wherever you go, there you (and all of your problems) are.
˚ᨒ↟ 𖠰𖥧˚ᨒ↟ 𖠰𖥧˚
I first knew I wanted to stay in Anchorage while in the process of leaving it. It was an ordinary moment driving down Dimond Boulevard, a busy and unpicturesque road to the south. The day was grey but some light broke through and warmed the late-summer chill. A revelation amidst the mundanity of a strip mall beneath the sheet of mountains: I like it here. I don’t want to leave.
Despite wanting to stay, I was scared to commit to another year. The prior winter was long and dark and I wasn’t sure I was ready to face it again. Looking back, I wonder if I wasn’t ready to face the person who emerged. I’d tapped into a freedom that long eluded me and was uncovering my essence. I was frightened by what I saw.
So I left. The excuse was a job offer in Seattle that sounded too good to be true. Perhaps it was. My link to Anchorage remained and, several years later, I returned.
It’s the idea of commitment, more than anything, with which I struggle. It’s humbling to admit I like something, as opposed to the safety of the ice queen’s indifference. It’s humbling to choose a path I want regardless of competing enticements.
It’s not like other places haven’t grabbed me. They have, and I don’t believe this is the only one where I can fully be myself. But perhaps like love, a lot of it involves timing. I arrived somewhere that made me feel comfortable at a time when I was ready to experience it.
ᨒ↟ 𖠰𖥧˚𖠰 ᨒ
A place is shaped by its people. I sometimes wonder how much of my obsession with finding the right library tables or apartments was about feeling the energy of the people who shaped those places before. Like a dog sniffing a telephone pole, remnants abound.
It sounds comforting to know where your ancestors settled and to sense their kinship in the earth. To believe they walked along the same stream and admired the pine forest as it opens behind the house.
A place is shaped by its people, and for a while I forgot that. I let myself isolate and push everyone away until it felt like no one was left. As much as I enjoy my own company, I was starting to resent being alone.
𖠰 𖠰𖠰↟𖠰 ᨒ↟ 𖠰𖥧˚𖠰 ↟
I’m learning to notice the itch of dissatisfaction without seeking to run and fix it. Wondering if there’s a way to reinvent the space I’m in. After three years of the same arrangement, I moved my bed to the opposite wall and now the whole house feels different. Standing where my bed used to be and thinking how my feet had never touched that part of the floor.
The new view enlivens me. A reminder of the power we have to change the places we inhabit. The choice to stay and complicate as an alternative to running out the door.
It strikes me that running is the same as hiding. Moving to a new place to avoid the discomfort of being seen in your messiness, in your rut.
The thing is, no one can help us if they can’t see that we need help. Part of my work is to unpack why I silence myself. Why, for so long, it was easier to do the emotional and physical labor required to uproot, run, and hide, than it was to remain in place and fall apart.
ᨒ↟ 𖠰𖥧˚ᨒᨒ
This eight-week experiment stems from the same desire to show up and be seen. It’s uncomfortable to watch my engagement drop as I send newsletters out more frequently. I’ve second-guessed my decision and worry about adding to the deluge of emails you receive.
But then, a lifeline. Someone told me last Thursday that they woke up and remembered they’d receive a post. They looked forward to the certainty that I would be here, albeit virtually, as promised.
That’s the community-building I desire. Being accountable to myself and to others. Using the resources I have, this newsletter included, to show up in sustainable ways.
I’d like to hear how this weekly posting schedule feels on your end. It’s still an experiment, though I’m open to extending it past the eight weeks.
Feel free to respond by email, leave a public comment, and/or take the below survey. Engagement is the name of the game! I want this to be reciprocal in that I want to know what does (and doesn’t) work.
Can’t wait to hear from you. In the meantime, here is one more photo of my decrepit dream house… ha. I took these a week or two ago when the sun emerged strong and spring-like, and now the snow falls like confectioners sugar tapped from a sieve. It’s beautiful, this season of the in between, with a different view each day. Until next week—
I want a house that needs work and has trees at the windows. Of course my condo has the trees… I could not do without those but my two cats desire a porch and I keep promising them.
I love the weekly posting. I always love to read your newsletter. And yes to the discomfort of engagement drops and unsubscribes. Funny how that works, huh? You put in the work to be accountable and consistent but the paradox of what happens as a result makes you question what it's for 😅. But a reminder that the accountability is also (mostly?) for ourselves.