Bradford Pear, photo by smalltowngirl

“Why on earth did you move from New York City to rural Missouri?”

I’ve been reading some C.S. Lewis lately, and he summarized very eloquently a part of my reason for moving “home” that I’d not yet been able to put into words:

…This is, I think, one little [...]]]>

Bradford Pear, photo by smalltowngirl

“Why on earth did you move from New York City to rural Missouri?”

I’ve been reading some C.S. Lewis lately, and he summarized very eloquently a part of my reason for moving “home” that I’d not yet been able to put into words:

…This is, I think, one little part of what Christ meant by saying that a thing will not really live unless it first dies. It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go – let it die away…and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life…

-C.S. Lewis, from “Mere Christianity”

If I can find the thrills, the beauty and the intrigue in a life as simple as a small town girl’s life, then the world – and all the happiness in it -will be my own. Here’s to seeking out the greatness in the simplest of things. Here’s to life in Small Town, Missouri.

In my first year back in my home state, I’ve learned…

1. That the first year [...]]]> Today was my remarkably unremarkable one-year anniversary in my small town Missouri job. Coincidentally, I’m wearing the same Columbia fleece tonight that I’m wearing in this post, written the day I moved from Brooklyn, New York back to rural Missouri last February.

In my first year back in my home state, I’ve learned…

1. That the first year is only the beginning. I came here hoping for new and great professional and personal challenges. Boy oh boy, have I met them. And as the first year ends, I’m not over the hump yet…I know that year #2 is going to teach me, mold me, and refine me even more. Bring it on, second year…I’m ready for you.

2. That you can’t romanticize the past. (See my letter to New York.)

3. That my family is rockin’. I seriously can’t imagine having parents who are any more supportive, loving and understanding than mine are.

4. That the midwest does not, contrary to popular NYC opinion, make you fat.

5. That country music ain’t so bad.

6. That a big city, overly-educated woman can learn a helluva lot from a small town, life-educated man.

7. That small town Missouri has a lot going for it. A year into this blog, I’m doing anything but running out of fodder to write about. For each new post I publish, I have ideas for several more. And my readers and twitter friends are constantly making great suggestions for places I’ve not seen or heard about yet.

8. That persistence pays off – a year ago I hoped to someday be published, so I started writing and doing photography for smalltowngirlsguide.com. Now I’m writing and doing photography regularly for two magazines, and seeing opportunities arise to either guest blog or be the subject of other people’s blogs.

9. That the great social media experiment worked – I wondered if I could use SM to minimize the geographic space between me and my friends/colleagues in other cities. Social media can’t replace real-life interactions, but it can certainly help to maintain relationships at a distance.

10. That my marketing and social media ideas for nonprofits work. A year into the first NPO job where I’ve had significant responsibility, decision-making power, and strategic influence, I’m seeing real, tangible results.

For better or for worse, it’s been one hell of a year.

To anyone who’s venturing out into a new endeavor,  making a life change, or seeking the courage to try a new path, consider yourself encouraged. My first year in Missouri has brought every challenge and opportunity I had hoped that it would…and more. Much, much more. But the first year is only the beginning.

Take chances. Make the harder decision. Challenge yourself. It’ll be worth it, I promise.

On Sunday I took my mom on a small town blogging adventure to the Washington, Missouri Holiday House Tour. One of my favorite features of the homes we saw was the fireplace in The McKinnis House, which was decorated in letters that spelled “Believe”, along with lots of whimsical, wintery accents [...]]]>

McKinnis Home, photo by smalltowngirl

On Sunday I took my mom on a small town blogging adventure to the Washington, Missouri Holiday House Tour. One of my favorite features of the homes we saw was the fireplace in The McKinnis House, which was decorated in letters that spelled “Believe”, along with lots of whimsical, wintery accents and Christmas stockings.

Believe! photo by smalltowngirl

***

The Homes Tour also featured the following locations:

St. Peters United Church of Christ

The Kriete Home

Hillerman Nursery & Florist

The Meyers Home

The Schneider Home

The Gildehaus Home

Gary Lucy Gallery & Home

The Prenger Home

Tickets for the tour were $10 in advance or $15 at the door, and were available for purchase at Four Rivers Area YMCA, Hillerman Nursery & Florist, Urban Accents, Four Seasons Florist and the Gary Lucy Gallery. Stay tuned for more pictures and writing about smalltowngirl’s experience on the 2009 “Homes for the Holidays” House Tour.

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 [...]]]>

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.

Bellevue remains locked to the public the majority of the time, but I had a special opportunity to see the inside of [...]]]>

Down the Aisle, photo by smalltowngirl

Bellevue remains locked to the public the majority of the time, but I had a special opportunity to see the inside of the church a few weeks ago.

The church, founded in 1816, is very, very simple on the interior. Humble wooden pews line the sanctuary, and simple red carpeting pads the floor beneath your feet.

A piece of the church’s original carpet hangs framed in the narthex (thanks @gregscherer) of the church. Purchased in 1907, 90 yards of carpeting cost the church $63.95.

$63.95, photo by smalltowngirl

The windows at Bellevue are not elaborately stained or colorful. Instead, they are plain, tranparent glass with peeling paint on their wooden frames.

Window, photos by smalltowngirl

One of the things I like the most in the church’s interior was the sanctuary ceiling, pieced together with slats of wood running diagonal at 90 degree angles to the straight edges of the church’s walls.

Ceiling, photo by smalltowngirl

The hour or so that I spent inside the old building left me with an eerie headache and fatigue that the ghost-story-lover in me wanted to believe was caused by the spirits of angstful old Presbyertians, but which I should honestly attribute to allergies. Bellevue has been around for almost two hundred years. That’s a lot of mold and dust.

The Good Book, photo by smalltowngirl

Bellevue Presbyterian Church is located in Caledonia, Missouri. To read more about the church and see photos of its exterior, see my first post about Bellevue.

To read more about Caledonia, check out the following blog posts: Caledonia, Missouri, Smalltowngirl’s Many Hats, and Caledonia, Missouri Pt. II.

For more photos of my adventures in Small Town, Missouri, check out my flickr photostream.

Our hearts are like those lakes, oceans, seas, gulfs and streams sometimes in that there [...]]]> As a kid, I wasn’t afraid of much, but I was scared of what was beneath the surface of lakes, oceans, seas, gulfs or streams. Any natural water source that was too deep for me to see the bottom of terrified me.

Our hearts are like those lakes, oceans, seas, gulfs and streams sometimes in that there is a darkness within them. There is a black, broken place inside even the kindest of hearts.

When I was 15, I went SCUBA diving in the ocean off the coast of Mexico. I was surprised that the bottom of the ocean at that particular spot wasn’t dark at all. In fact, it was beautiful and colorful and filled with amazing textures and patterns. Tonight I’m reminded of the bottom of the ocean, and suddenly the depths of my own heart aren’t so intimidating.

As much as I loved the compexities of Brooklyn, I’m thankful for the introspection, faith and courage I’ve found in Missouri. The depths of our fears are far more gentle and beautiful than we can imagine.

I challenge you to dive into your own.

The coffee shop is lovely, with refreshingly happy and down to earth staff (no snobbish yuppy baristas here). There is a quirky turquoise mural of a [...]]]> Sitting at Foundation Grounds in Maplewood, intending to work remotely after a morning meeting at Westport, my work servers have crashed, and I’m unable to access emails or files for work.

The coffee shop is lovely, with refreshingly happy and down to earth staff (no snobbish yuppy baristas here). There is a quirky turquoise mural of a tree with white flowers blossoming on the wall, and mismatched (but coordinated) upholstery covers high-backed chairs.

The pear and brie sandwich I had for lunch was lovely (fair warning though – it was onion heavy, though the onions were raw and easily removable). The iced mocha wasn’t bad either. Foundation Grounds gets brownie points for using biodegradable plastic cups, made from corn.

In the cold case, I found Kambucha, organic juices, Honest Tea, and Stonyfield Farm yogurt – a fairly forward-thinking collection of foods and drinks for this part of the country.

To top off my visit to Foundation Grounds, I overheard someone speaking Mandarin Chinese, and turned to find a husband and wife speaking Chinese to one another. The husband, a St. Louis-born acupuncturist and his wife had just moved back to St. Louis three days ago from years in Seattle and Asia.

His Chinese was far more fluent than my own (embarrassingly rusty) Chinese is, but it was so uplifting to meet another person who has moved back “home” to this part of the country after seeing the world in hopes of contributing something to the communities we grew up in.

Today’s coffee shop encounter is a reminder that when things happen (like servers crashing), there’s often something better in store. It’s been a rough last week for me, but with my hope and optimism restored, I’m looking forward to what the rest of this week holds.

Much to my delight, there are already green peppers the size of my thumbs and tomatoes the size of golf balls. The [...]]]> I sat on the porch at dusk, drinking a Sam Adams. Not one to stay still for long, I wandered into the garden to put the trellis I bought yesterday in with my berry bushes.

Much to my delight, there are already green peppers the size of my thumbs and tomatoes the size of golf balls. The berries have me the most excited, though. My “golden raspberries” are looking suspiciously like blackberries, and my blueberries are growing, though they’re still green.

At the close of a week that’s been peppered with questions and concern, watching my little berries grow renews my belief that all things do grow and change. My hope is restored by these little green miracle plants that are becoming fruits and vegetables right before my eyes.

The thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that I have a very un-green thumb. It’s true. I’m notorious for not being able to keep plants alive. That said, maybe my little growing garden helps build your faith a little bit, too.

All photos by smalltowngirl

I love this coffee shop.

Still new (open for less than a month, I believe), Bauhaus Kaffee is the newest addition to quaint, downtown Farmington’s collection of stores and restaurants.

The owners, who are from Fredericktown, Missouri, have spent the last two years renovating the space.

I’m not sure how old downtown’s buildings are, but my [...]]]>

I love this coffee shop.

Still new (open for less than a month, I believe), Bauhaus Kaffee is the newest addition to quaint, downtown Farmington’s collection of stores and restaurants.

The owners, who are from Fredericktown, Missouri, have spent the last two years renovating the space.

I’m not sure how old downtown’s buildings are, but my guess is that they’re from the early 1900s. The sidewalk outside is red brick, and two tables with two chairs each, sit just outside the cafe’s front doors.

The cafe’s two floor-to-ceiling picture windows let sunshine stream in, and offer a view of the side of the court house, around which downtown Farmington was built.

Gleaming, subtly distressed hardwood floors are offset by black granite-topped tables and contemporary black leather sofa and armchairs.

Prints of German artwork hang on the red, exposed brick, and a piano sits in the back.

Beside the piano sits an empty guitar stand – empty because someone in the cafe has inevitably picked up the instrument to pluck out acoustic melodies each time I’ve been in the cafe.

I like to think that by way of my Sunday afternoon latte ritual, I’m helping keep Pat, the owner’s spirits high. Today we chatted about their scones being hand made from scratch each morning, and about the anticipation over the arrival of their new stove, which will accomodate homeades soups in addition to their already homemade baked goods.

Today, craving something sweet, I ordered a mocha. The taste was just as great as the presentation: