Sunrise at YMCA of the Ozarks, photo by MilliGFunk

1. A Small Town Girl’s Guide is a Finalist in the Riverfront Times “Web Awards”!

Immediately upon my arrival home to St. Louis this evening following my long weekend in Arizona, I discovered that A Small Town Girl’s Guide was selected as one of five finalists for the RFT’s “Best Personal Blog” award. Wish me luck! The winners will be announced soon.

2. I Wasn’t Hurt When My Car Died.

I was driving in the passing lane on a very congested Interstate 55 when my car stopped accelerating. I was driving 70 mph one minute, and within seconds no amount of pressure on my gas pedal would convince my car to gain speed. I had to cut across a lane of traffic to get the opposite shoulder, where I waited for an hour for a tow truck and a ride home. Thankfully, I didn’t cause an accident, even though my car had to be towed and repairs are going to be costly.

2. My Family Rocks.

While I traveled to Arizona this weekend for the Rock ‘N Roll Arizona Half Marathon, my parents dog-sat for me. They also loaned me their car to help me get to and from the airport since my car was in the shop. And they were waiting anxiously to hear about my trip when I got home tonight. In short, my family is nothing short of amazing.

3. New Friends.

I had a truly great weekend staying with new friends in Mesa, Arizona this weekend. Tim, Jan, Nick and I all ran the Rock ‘N Roll Half Marathon together on Sunday, and they let me stay in their house all weekend. Nick was an excellent tour guide, and all-around, I had a really fantastic long weekend.

4. Old Friends.

While in Arizona, I had the opportunity to share dinner with a classmate from graduate school and his wife and kids. It’s incredible how fast time goes by, and with it, how new friends become old friends. Thank you Colin and Ona for hosting us!

5. A Great Race!

The Rock ‘N Roll Half Marathon was a good race day for me. I’m lucky that I’m healthy enough to do things like half marathons for fun, and I’m even luckier to have had such a great group of people to run with this weekend (See point 3, above).

Just after finishing the Rock 'N Roll Arizona Half Marathon 1/16/11

I noticed a badge on South City Confidential that said “Grace in Small Things”, so I did some research.

Since highlighting the good things in life is a big part of what A Small Town Girl’s Guide does, I thought it would be fun to join GiST and start focusing one post per week on expressing my gratitude for the goodness in my life.

Here’s my first GiST list. Happy 2011!

1. This blog.

A Small Town Girl’s Guide is going to be featured in a story in Insider573 Magazine, a beautiful, full color bi-monthly magazine published in Farmington, Missouri and distributed in the 573 area code. I’m so flattered and excited to be part of the magazine’s upcoming issue! This blog has been a creative outlet for me over the last few years, and it’s provided me with inspiration to continue exploring Missouri.

Flying Solo - at Monster Art Gallery on Cherokee Street, photo by The Bison Rancher's Daughter

2. Breakups.

Yep, you read that right. Break-ups aren’t easy, but I’m thankful for them in a bittersweet kind of way. After a phase in life ends or a person leaves us, we so often discover things about ourselves that we hadn’t noticed before. Taking something away makes room for more, and there’s no arguing that my life is overflowing with positive opportunities right now.

Rosie and the Funk, at the Daniel Boone Monument in Marthasville, MO

3. Rosie.

It took the aforementioned break-up earlier this fall to make me realize how long I’d been putting off adopting a puppy. A few days after Christmas, I adpoted Rosie, and I’m so happy that I did! She’s got a great personality, she’s smart, and she makes me laugh every day.

Running in San Francisco, photo taken by @soleilune

4. Running.

Running has been a life-changer for me. I ran my first half-marathon in 2010, and I’m looking forward to the Rock and Roll Arizona Half Marathon on Sunday in Phoenix, Arizona. I can’t say enough good things about the role running has played in my life, the kind of confidence I’ve gained through my training, or the way it’s re-framed my thinking about what’s achievable.

Saying Goodbye to the NYC roommates, photo by PappaGFunk

5. Leaving New York.

New York City was brilliant and amazing, and it shaped my perspectives in a remarkable way. Moving to New York was one of the best things I’ve ever done, but so was leaving it. Don’t get me wrong, I still miss it, but a lot of good things have happened in my life since moving back here. I’m writing for numerous magazines, my blog and social media work has earned recognition, and I’ve come to know some good people here.

So that’s that. My first GiST post. My goal is to post a new GiST list at the start of each new week.

Interested in GiST? Learn more here.

Fresh Farm Eggs and Milk, iPhone4 photo by Small Town Girl

My memories of Asia are sometimes sparked by the most common things. This morning, for instance, distinct memories came to me of an Indonesian breakfast as I was eating my own breakfast here in small town Missouri.

Fresh cage-free eggs, unpasteurized cow milk (just milked from the cow on Thursday), and hot tea sat on my tiny kitchen table this morning as The National played on my iPod dock behind me. Though in reality I was facing the interior wooden walls of a cabin in Missouri at 6:00 a.m., I suddenly felt as if I was sitting in the second-story open-air hotel restaurant where I ate breakfast my first morning in Indonesia.

I’d arrived there after spending a year living and working in Taipei. I had chosen to travel alone for several days in Bali before meeting up with friends in Singapore so that I’d have a bit of time to process the year I was leaving behind me (and which was, to date, the most difficult year of my life). I’d spent part of the year with mono, part of it grieving the loss of a loved one and part of it coming to terms with the end of what I thought was a love that would last the length of my lifetime.

Sitting alone on that second-story Indonesian guesthouse deck I was on the opposite side of the world as my family and friends back home. I felt a tender sense of being lost – a feeling that was probably very appropriate considering my unlikely geographic and emotional positions that year. My independent world travels ran parallel to the journeys I was on in my heart.

The sunny skies of Indonesia and the two months of Asian backpacking I had embarked upon the previous day allowed me to explore things in the world and in my heart, and the fresh air on the island was a hint of hope for the days, weeks and years in front of me.

Several years later, here I am, sitting alone in my little home in the rural reaches of Missouri eating eggs and hot milk tea made from the eggs and milk I bought at a farm up the road. By all external accounts, I’m an independent small town Missouri woman with a solid sense of self and a full-time job that keeps me bound to the place I’ve come to call home.

Somewhere in my heart is still the young woman whose small town Missouri world became exponentially larger when she got on that plane to move to Asia a few years ago. In fact, if it weren’t for that year in Asia, I’d probably never have found the peace to move home to rural Missouri from Brooklyn in early 2009.

So while The National plays on my iPod deck in my house this morning, gamelan music rings in the ears of that younger version of myself whose heartbreak and wanderlust found her working in a foreign place and traveling through countries she had never dreamed she’d have the opportunity to visit.

We have an agreement, the younger wanderlust me and the stable Missouri me. We’ve agreed that change is good, and that exploring our geography and the geography of our heart isn’t something that’s limited to life in our mid-twenties. Each day is a new opportunity to learn. Each day brings news chances to expand views and perspectives.

It may not seem as exotic as Indonesia, but sometimes small town Missouri feels just as foreign to me. Today, as I do on most weekends, I’m getting ready to head into Missouri’s small town culture to try to understand it and its people; to find its beauty and intrigue, and to share it with you.

Small Town Girl in Bali, Indonesia

Small Town Girl on a Boat

1. I’m training for my first half marathon, which means that I’m getting super-buff (!!!) and spending most of my free time running.

2. I’ve taken up a new hobby which also helps me feel buff. You’ll have to come back later this week to read more about that.

3. Cool side projects are popping up for me. From writing for additional magazines to potential sponsored travel opportunities to speaking at conferences on social media and nonpfrofits, things have been taking off in a great way outside of my blog. These projects mean that I don’t have quite as much time as I used to for exploring small town, Missouri.

4. By moving to a place where cost of living is so much more manageable than it was in New York City, saving money is easier. As a result I’m taking my first big vacation since moving back to the United States in 2007. Where am I going? You’ll have to come back tomorrow to find out.:-)

Moving from Taipei to New York City to 12-Miles-From-Nowhere has been awful at times. It’s been lonely as hell. It’s been trying and difficult, and it’s made me question who I am, what I want, and what I believe. Sixteen months after starting my job here in rural Missouri though, I can see that this move was exactly where I needed to be, even if I still don’t know all the reasons why.

Opportunities are unfolding that I could never have anticipated, and I’m living out dreams that I never thought I’d be able to accomplish. Sometimes we have to keep our eyes on horizons that seem far out of reach so that we’re on the right trajectory to crash into the amazing things life has in store for us. Wherever you are on your course in life, find that horizon and focus on it. Good things will come, I have faith.

On my list of things to do before I celebrate my 30th birthday is learn to make martinis. Considering that I love fresh fruit and that I love to make things from scratch, it’s not far-fetched that I’d attempt making my own blueberry-infused vodka to use in blueberry cocktails (martinis included) later this month.

I’m fascinated by the berries and the vodka, coexisting in this chilled 2-quart jar. The longer the vodka sits, the more the skins of the berries tint the vodka purplish-blue, so that each time I open my refrigerator I’m graced with a new variation on the same ingredients. The vodka and the blueberries are on a journey.

While the flavors of the blueberries and the vodka will eventually blend, the berries themselves remain firm. There’s something allegorical about this relationship that gives me hope that I can continue to adapt to rural Missouri without losing what distinguishes my life experiences from those of the friends and family who surround me here.

As with so many aspects of my life in Small Town Missouri, the vodka’s incubation tests my patience. It’s the slow change of the vodka and blueberries that fascinates me though, and so my experiment with homemade liquor has become a lesson in enjoying the process – of my kitchen concoctions, and also of myself.

Central Park Leaves, photo by smalltowngirl

It’s not just New York that I miss, but then again, it’s probably never place, separate from the rest of life, that anyone misses. For the last two days, I’ve missed New York City with an aching, depressing, loneliness that only hits at the end of the day, when my guard is down, my mind is resting, and my heart takes control.

It’s not just the cold, windy streets of New York in November that I miss. It’s not just the feeling of the air on the day when a light jacket is no longer enough. It’s not just the weeks when the leaves disappear from the trees and orange leaves turn to brown that eventually becomes covered by snow. It’s not just the smell of the subway or the sound of my cowboy boots clunking against the concrete.

I miss more than that.

It’s not even just my yoga classes in the tiny, musty old basement of the YMCA in Greenpoint, even though those yoga classes brought me so much peace and clarity. It’s not just the long ride on the G train from Fort Greene to Long Island City to see the man who held me so close for so many months. And it’s not just the hot tea he’d fix me on cold winter nights when I arrived at his apartment, cheeks and nose reddened from the cold. It’s not just the two-eggs-and-cheese-on-a-kaiser-roll-and-a-coffee-with-cream-no-sugar that was my Friday morning street vendor breakfast tradition.

I miss more than that, too.

It’s not just the long walks on Sunday mornings, when Brooklyn was relatively still. It’s not just the dodgeball league I played on or my studio of piano students in Bensonhurst or my coworkers at the Garden. It’s not just the shortcuts I learned to take or the feeling of accomplishment that came from doing even basic things like laundry or grocery shopping in such a massive city. It’s not just the craftsman in Union Square or the dozens of great little shops in SoHo or the amazing wine bar in Fort Greene.

I miss everything about New York and what it represented in my life.

I miss that time when I was fresh back in the United States after twelve months studying Chinese and working and traveling in Asia. Nothing was too gritty, too real, too raw for me then. I miss my New York City love life and the man who loved me. I miss my tiny bedroom with my big window in my fourth story walk-up on my Cosby Show block in Brooklyn.

I miss the way I felt when I lived there; like the entire world was at my fingertips, and I could do anything. It felt like I was at the front edge of the world; of fashion, of finance, of the Arts…of pretty nearly everything.

So tonight I admit that for as much as I’m trying to love Missouri and seek out what’s beautiful and interesting and gritty and inspiring about this state, I miss New York City.  I still believe that the move back to Missouri was the right decision, but I miss New York with an aching throbbing loneliness that I don’t even know how to begin to address.

I wandered, taking pictures, allowing my mind to wander, too.

I ate festival foods, and I felt the warm sun bring freckles to the surface of my cheeks. I met with old friends, and I paid way too much for the biggest, fanciest candy apple I’ve ever seen.

I bought gourmet cheese from an organic goat farm in Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri, and I took notes as the farmer talked about what recipes I should try using the cheeses in. I’ll spend my day tomorrow cooking. I also went to a coffee shop, where I read the RFT and blogged and drank coffee.

I wandered across town to my favorite record store, where I listened for hours to CDs by bands I’d never heard of while strangers trickled into and out of the store. Somewhere inside the sounds of the music I recovered something of mine that I didn’t quite realize I’d lost in the first place.

I may blog as smalltowngirl, but this small town girl’s heart belongs in a bigger city.  Even though I miss Brooklyn more than I thought possible, I know that it’s time that I found ways to make St. Louis my home.

I’d been in New York City long enough to have become one of those people who counted on regular yoga classes to keep me centered, balanced, and, well…sane.

Yoga was a big enough deal to me that I wouldn’t have accepted the job here if I hadn’t found a place in Farmington that offered regular yoga classes.

When I walked into my first class, I was disappointed to find that I was the only person in the room under 40. It didn’t take me long, though, to realize that my elders could kick my butt ten times over in some of the poses. Maybe 40 isn’t so bad afterall.

One of my favorite people in the class is also one of the oldest. A retired California police officer (or maybe sheriff?)-turned beefalo (half cow, half buffalo) farmer, this gentleman would arrive to class in overalls and work boots, underneath which he donned sweatpants and a t-shirt for class. By his side was always his white miniature poodle, Bridgette.

Bridgette became one of the bright spots in my weeks when my transition from NYC to MO was at its hardest points this spring and summer. She would curl up on a pillow beside her owner’s mat and nap through class, and when she woke up to stretch, she did her own little doggy yoga with her big, sleepy puppy stretch (i.e. downward facing dog).

A few weeks ago, Bridgette was diagnosed with lung cancer. This Monday when I arrived to class, her owner was there but she was not. They’d put her to sleep that same morning, and her absence in the class left a sinking spot in  my chest.

It’s amazing what a very small part of one person’s life can do to help make very big, very hard pieces of her life more bearable. Bridgette truly was a bright spot in a fairly dark transition for me, and I’m sure she was a shining star in the lives of the man and woman who had to put her down on Monday.

I found myself fighting back tears as we ended Monday night’s class. RIP, little yoga dog Bridgette. This yoga girl misses you.

***

Westmount Wellness World is located at 164 Westmount Drive in Farmington, Missouri, on the back side of the Citizen’s Chiropractic Office. Yoga, Meditation and Tai Chi classes are all offered at Westmount Wellness World. For more information, visit www.citizenschiropractic.com.

The lyrics of the last stanza of the song, “New York Minute” say,

What the head makes cloudy
The heart makes very clear
The days were so much brighter
In the time when she was here
But I know there’s somebody somewhere
Make these dark clouds disappear
Until that day, I have to believe
I believe, I believe

In a New York Minute
Everything can change

Forward. photo of smalltowngirl

I moved away from New York City four months ago, and I’m just beginning to comprehend the meaning of the New York Minute.

Don’t get me wrong – I thought that I understood it before.  It’s only now that I’m outside of New York, though, that I really get it.

In the last four months, the whole of my life has changed like a whirlwind.

Today, a yellow envelope arrived in the mail from the guy my world revolved around for almost half of my time in New York.

His return address has changed, and in the envelope was no note. There was nothing personal inside the envelope at all, actually. Inside the envelope was a t-shirt he’d found of mine, and a CD with “pictures of you” scrawled across it in red marker.”

My memories of New York are so real. So alive. So huge.

And yet, this little piece of plastic seems to represent how tiny those memories really are in the grand scheme of my life. Should I feel cheated that my memories are so easily captured and contained? Maybe. But I have to believe that if those two amazing years in New York City seem so tiny now, it bodes well for how big and extraordinary my future must be.