I think it’s fair to say that the average person would assume life in Brooklyn to be far more thrilling and way more dangerous than life in a Missouri town of just over 2,500 people.  On the average day in said tiny Missouri town, the average person’s assumption might be accurate.

Today, however, was no average day.

***

Today was the first day of the month. Today was also April Fool’s Day. And today, I attempted to go to the local Wal-Mart Supercenter mid-day instead of going to Wal-Mart at my usual 10:00 p.m (or later).

My first near-miss was the tall, skinny gentleman with the little boy, walking European-like on the wrong side of the aisle. As I approached, they were walking in the center of the aisle, but as I got closer to them, they suddenly veered directly in front of me.

I’ve heard stories of deer doing this when they see headlights. Once the deer has already crossed the rural highway, it sees headlights over its shoulder, freaks out, does a 180, and leaps directly into the trajectory of the giant hunk of metal hurling itself down the highway.

Evolution eliminates the dumbest animals. If only shopping carts did the same.

My second near-miss were the two pre-teen girls who did exactly the same thing! They darted in front of my cart, ducked into the aisle to my immediate right, and slid around me as the resumed their original path.

It occurred to me that these girls were either not very smart or not aiming for efficiency.

I  paid for my things and exited the store. I used the pedestrian cross-walk to move from the building to the row where my car was parked. I noticed that a car coming down the row was beginning to move faster.

The closer I got to the intersection, the more the older lady in the red Chrysler accelerated. The woman drove out of her lane and through a parking spot, accelerating as we approached me. She whizzed past me, an arm’s length or less away, as she ran the stop sign and drove into the cross walk.

She had nearly run me over.

Annoyed, I huffed and puffed to my car, anxious to get safely to the comforts of Rosie and our cozy little cabin. I pulled out of my parking spot and headed down the row just in time for a 20-something boy to come remarkably close to ripping off the front of my car as he cut across my lane to make a left-hand turn into my row.

***

I think it’s fair to say that the average person would assume life in Brooklyn to be far more thrilling and way more dangerous than life in a Missouri town of just over 2,500 people.  On the average day in said tiny Missouri town, the average person’s assumption might be accurate.

Today, however, was no average day.

Photo Credit: Alex Whitney (thanks Alex!)

The first year I lived in Brooklyn, I had only been working in my job for six weeks or so when the holidays arrived. Because I didn’t have any vacation time to use, I had to fly back from St. Louis to New York City on Christmas day. I remember schlepping my luggage from the airport to the subway, trying to leverage suitcases and backpack through subway turnstiles, up steps and down long Brooklyn blocks.

Those were the less romantic days of life in New York – the days when cab fare wasn’t possible, and hard work was the only way I was going to get from Point A to Point B.

That was one of the loneliest Christmases I can remember. My roommates were all at home with their families, so my apartment was cold and quiet. When I arrived at work the next morning, I had the building almost entirely to myself.

When I heard news yesterday that all of the airports in the greater New York City area were shutting down for 24-48 hours, I was indescribably relieved that I wasn’t one of the many people stranded in a cold, lonely airport terminal. Reading this blog post in the New York Times’ “City Room” about stranded subway trains, made me even more glad (if that’s even possible) that I’m in Missouri with it’s pleasant little dusting of snow.

In the two years since I left New York, this might be the very first time when, in the deepest, darkest parts of my heart, I’m truly glad I’m not there. I hope my friends in New York brought home well-stocked pantries in their little apartments, and that they’re able to hole up inside until the roads are cleared and the subways begin running smoothly again.

In the meantime, I’m going to appreciate my dry, snowless drive to work today a little bit more than usual.

MilliGFunk & BrotherGFunk at a Halloween Festival at the Brooklyn Place of Employment

Towards the end of my years in Taiwan and New York, I was beginning to get a better idea of what I wanted for myself and my life. I had identified financial, professional, and values-based goals for myself.

Let’s start with the most tangible and easily quantifiable goal; money.

When I was offered my job in Missouri, my organization in Brooklyn provided me a counter-offer as incentive to stay in New York.

I ran all of the numbers, from taxes to rent to average utility payments to commuting expenses, and while I could have continued to build my life in New York, it would have taken me a decade more in New York to reach goals I could conceivably have achieved in a few years in Missouri.

Financially, the move was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my adult life. The cost of living in New York City is more than six times the cost of living in rural Missouri.  By saving as much money as I have in rent, utilities and groceries since moving to Missouri, I’m making financial headway that would have been impossible in New York, even if I’d accepted my organization’s offer for promotion.

Speaking of my organization, there were some significant professional reasons why moving to Missouri was the best decision for me at that juncture in my career…

***

This is part two in a multi-part story that I hope will answer what seems to be my life’s biggest question, “Why did you move from New York to rural Missouri?” Come back tomorrow to read more.

In many ways Brooklyn was the place that felt the most like home to me of everywhere I’d lived and traveled. I came to Brooklyn expecting to take a few interviews, catch up with friends, and see some museums over the course of nine days.

Sitting on the Stoop of my Brownstone in Fort Greene, Brooklyn

I was surprised to find myself falling in love with the streets and brownstones of Park Slope. Apparently my parents knew before I did that New York was the place I needed to call home at that point in my life, because when I called them to announce that I’d cancelled my return flight to St. Louis, they weren’t at all surprised.

I felt as if the city’s streets were a treadmill set to move at precisely the speed of life at which I was most comfortable. I loved the eclectic people, the coffee shops, pizza by the slice, and hearing foreign languages all around me.

I had a small network of friends in Brooklyn who offered me couches to sleep on, taught me the subway lines, and helped me find freelance work. By the time I found my full time job a few weeks later, Brooklyn was the only place I could imagine living.

Brooklyn is the physical place that has felt the most like “home” to me. At some point, though, I began to realize that my love for location was holding me back from other things…

***

This is part two in a multi-part story that I hope will answer what seems to be my life’s biggest question, “Why did you move from New York to rural Missouri?” Come back tomorrow to read more.

Original Artwork Created Light-Heartedly in Paint by MilliGFunk

The question I’ve probably heard more than any other single question since February of 2009 is “Why did you move from New York to rural Missouri?”  Some decisions aren’t simple, and my move “home” to Missouri was one of them.

Let me start by explaining the quotes around the word “home”. It’s part of my philosophy on life that “home” is relative. Home can be a physical place like a home town, a house, or an apartment. It can be people like family and friends. It can be your parents, your spouse or your kids. “Home” is relative to the person defining it.

So what did “home” mean for a girl who’d spent her twenties living in five states, seven cities and two countries, and traversing countless other places in her travels?

What did “home” mean for someone who’d earned more education than was useful in any practical sense, and who’d spent at least three years living nomadically, more or less? Come back tomorrow to find out. This is the beginning of a multi-part story that I hope will answer what seems to be my life’s biggest question, “Why did you move from New York to rural Missouri?”

Somewhere on the Lower East Side of Manhattan sits – for lack of a better description – a bicycle in a sweater. I wonder if someone knitted the bike at home and then brought it outside to display it on the street, or if its sweater was knitted separately and attached to the already-locked-to-the-sign bike? Either way, this bike is full out hipster-fresh ugly.

photo by David Factor

My friend Factor emailed me this photo last week after my post about the beautiful, classic Schwinn I found for sale in small town Ste. Genevieve, Missouri and the public art bicycles I blogged about last February, also found in Ste. Genevieve.

So my question for you is if you had to have one of these bikes living on your block, which would you prefer; the Ste. Genevieve bikes or the Lower East Side sweater bike?

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.

Tonight a friend in New York sent me this link to a live streamed album by a Brooklyn-based band called The National. I happen to be a big fan of The National, and have listened to two of their previous albums (Boxer and Alligator) countless times. I suppose there’s something about this group of NYC-transplanted Ohioans that I can relate to. And their music, well…it just moves me.

This newest album, High Violet, managed in its first two songs to bring me to tears.

“Terrible Love”, the fist song on the album, has background vocals reminiscent of Bon Iver, with grungy, industrial percussion that makes me think of Godspeedyoublackemperor. By the end of that song, The National had my full attention, and my mind had wandered to my ex. He and I split up in January of 2009, but he was my best friend in New York.

As if it had read my mind, the album goes on to a second track called “Sorrow”. With lyrics including, “It’s in my honey it’s in my milk. It’s only about half a heart alone. On the water, Cover me in rag and bones, sympathy. Cause I don’t wanna get over you. I don’t wanna get over you.”

As if their new album weren’t killing me already, The National had to tear my heart out a little bit more with its fourth track, “Little Faith”:

Now I’m stuck in New York
And the rain’s coming down
I don’t feel like we’ll go anywhere
Stuck in New York
And the rain’s coming down
Still in line for the vanity fair

Leave our excellent souls
Head for the coast
Leave our excellent souls
Everything goes

All our lonely kicks are getting harder to find
We’ll play nuns versus priests until somebody cries

So that’s that. I’ve not made it through the rest of the album yet, but so far it’s done exactly what music – in my opinion- is there to do; it’s made me feel. It’s stirred things, raised questions, unearthed emotions, and made me feel, well…alive.

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.

I’ve not forgotten you. Even as I lace up the hiking boots that I’m wearing to work today, I haven’t forgotten you. Even though I swore to myself a year ago that I’d never wear them to the office, I still remember you. As I look at the work-issued polo shirts hanging in my closet, I haven’t forgotten the promise I made to you that I’d never submit to wearing polos.

Nor have I forgotten the agreement that we made against me ever, ever wearing  khaki pants. But the polos are my “uniform” at work, and the khakis aren’t Dockers, they’re North Face. I bought them at REI, and they’re just so darned practical. Don’t you see that I can leave the office in said khaki pants and boots and head straight for the trails? Not that I’ve ever gone hiking directly from work, but you just never know when I might need to.  No, no, no…I promise you, New York. I haven’t forgotten you.

Even though I listen to country music sometimes in the car, I haven’t forgotten New York. My ipod is still loaded with Dark Was the Night, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, The Black Keys, and a slew of other artists who actually sing and write their own songs. And when Emily Wells comes on, I close my eyes and in an instant I’m back on the G train heading to Long Island City from Fort Greene.

New York City, I have not forgotten you. But I’ve learned not to romanticize you, either. As I look out my Southeast Missouri window and a halfway frozen creek and low-rolling hills covered in snow, I can see the sky and breath in fresh air. My view of Fort Greene Park on South Oxford Street wasn’t bad, New York, but this one is better.

And don’t think that I’ve forgotten the four flights of stairs I had to climb to get to my apartment there, New York, because I haven’t. Here in Southeast Missouri, I don’t have to carry my groceries up those steps. Nor do I have to haul my laundry up and down them on my way to that dingy, expensive laundry mat two blocks away. In fact, I have my own washer and dryer here, and my laundry room is bigger than my bedroom was there. You want me to forget those exhausting little details, but I haven’t. I remember you, New York…I remember everything about you.

I remember the beautiful spring days and the way the fall rushed in on me on one particular Saturday morning when suddenly the walk to the farmer’s market required a jacket and a warm cup of coffee between my cool hands. I also remember the woman who was raped in plain sight a block and a half from my home. Don’t think I’ve romanticized you, New York.

I remember the rush of riding on that Triumph Bonneville for the first time over the bridge into Manhattan on our way to see some obscure indie film. That was the first time I saw the skyline without a layer of scratched, greyed subway car window glass between it and me. But you know what, New York?  I also remember how God-forsaken cold you felt that day when my relationship with the man who drove that Triumph ended.

You’re a bitter sweet city, New York. You felt like home to me in so many ways. Ways that I don’t anticipate I’ll ever feel at home in any other city or town. But you and I? We’re over. For now at least.

So please, New York. Please, let’s remember the good moments fondly, but let’s not forget what a pain you can also be. Let’s let go of what was so that I can enjoy what is, and so that you can move on to your next unsuspecting small town girl. She’ll arrive on your sidewalks without realizing that you’re after her heart, and you’ll slip into that heart, making yourself irresistible to her just like you did to me. Girls like me are a dime a dozen to you, New York, so please, please, let me go.

Thanks New York.

Love,

MilliGFunk