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Learning to Live Again
Jun. 10th, 2009 12:35 pmAndy and I moved to Atlanta almost a year ago now, on August 15, 2008. We actually moved to Kennesaw, a fantastic community about thirty minutes to the northwest of downtown Atlanta, depending on the traffic. And even though we've been here almost ten full months, we haven't actually made it a home yet.
In my Atlanta icon featured on this post, I quote Seanan McGuire's song "This Is My Town," saying, "I walk these streets as a stranger." This is utterly apt. I haven't done much exploring of Atlanta beyond knowing how to get to my university and finding a salon (which incidentally has a Whole Foods and a Cheesecake Factory nearby, two other locations that I am moderately familiar with). Andy hasn't done any exploring of Atlanta at all.
Why is that? How have we lived in a place for nearly a year and not attained more of a familiarity with our city? When we moved, we moved without jobs. I was beginning my first semester of graduate school a mere three days after our move-in date. Andy was comfortable in his experience as a history teacher and in the news we'd repeatedly heard, that Georgia was desperately looking for new teachers. We were looking into a bright future.
Within a month of our moving here, the economy fell apart. The promising university job that Andy had lined up disappeared as the order for a hiring freeze came down the line while they were still processing his background check. Suddenly, jobs were scarce and growing scarcer. I was buried in one of the hardest semesters I hope I ever have to face and so couldn't find a job, and Andy's striving came to naught.
So, yes, for nearly a year now we've been living as conservatively as we could. We don't have the funds to go out, nor did we really have the time when I was taking classes. On some level, I know that I've also been hesitant to embrace our surroundings: afraid to really allow myself to love this place, to experience it fully as a home, terrified that it'd be taken from me by this horrid economy and job market.
This is a totally counter-productive way to live, meaning that you don't actually live at all. You survive. You move through the days in tension and caution.
Well, as my friend Bellee might say: fuck a bunch of that.
On Monday, I decided to get my library card. As part of that living conservatively deal, I don't have a large enough book fund to really keep me happy. Besides, I have many fond memories of trawling through the library for treasures as a kid, discovering some excellent books I might otherwise not have been exposed to (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire when I was 14, for one!). Since you have to live in this county to have free access to its libraries, getting my library card seemed like a good way to plant the first flag and declare "This is my home!"
I'm so glad that I did. The library actually didn't end up having any of the books I was looking for and was a tiny bit disappointingly dingy, but that's okay! I have seventeen libraries at my disposal now! I can search their card catalogue online! The library building itself was gorgeous and huge!
And, best of all, I had to get there by driving through downtown Marietta.
The only parts of Marietta that we'd been exposed to so far were rather rundown and not actually places you'd want to hang about in. I wondered why I'd heard such good things about the town, why Alton Brown chose to make it his home over Kennesaw. Well, let me tell you-- now I know!
Downtown Marietta is lovely. Full of pedestrians, older architecture, clean and pictureseque storefronts, tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants. It was the type of downtown that made me long to ditch my car, leap out onto the sidewalk, and just ramble. It was a tiny balm to my soul made slightly raw by the absence of Tokyo.
I didn't have a chance to explore it on Monday and Andy and I don't have the funds to enjoy it properly. However, we will be returning there. We will embrace it and explore.
In my Atlanta icon featured on this post, I quote Seanan McGuire's song "This Is My Town," saying, "I walk these streets as a stranger." This is utterly apt. I haven't done much exploring of Atlanta beyond knowing how to get to my university and finding a salon (which incidentally has a Whole Foods and a Cheesecake Factory nearby, two other locations that I am moderately familiar with). Andy hasn't done any exploring of Atlanta at all.
Why is that? How have we lived in a place for nearly a year and not attained more of a familiarity with our city? When we moved, we moved without jobs. I was beginning my first semester of graduate school a mere three days after our move-in date. Andy was comfortable in his experience as a history teacher and in the news we'd repeatedly heard, that Georgia was desperately looking for new teachers. We were looking into a bright future.
Within a month of our moving here, the economy fell apart. The promising university job that Andy had lined up disappeared as the order for a hiring freeze came down the line while they were still processing his background check. Suddenly, jobs were scarce and growing scarcer. I was buried in one of the hardest semesters I hope I ever have to face and so couldn't find a job, and Andy's striving came to naught.
So, yes, for nearly a year now we've been living as conservatively as we could. We don't have the funds to go out, nor did we really have the time when I was taking classes. On some level, I know that I've also been hesitant to embrace our surroundings: afraid to really allow myself to love this place, to experience it fully as a home, terrified that it'd be taken from me by this horrid economy and job market.
This is a totally counter-productive way to live, meaning that you don't actually live at all. You survive. You move through the days in tension and caution.
Well, as my friend Bellee might say: fuck a bunch of that.
On Monday, I decided to get my library card. As part of that living conservatively deal, I don't have a large enough book fund to really keep me happy. Besides, I have many fond memories of trawling through the library for treasures as a kid, discovering some excellent books I might otherwise not have been exposed to (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire when I was 14, for one!). Since you have to live in this county to have free access to its libraries, getting my library card seemed like a good way to plant the first flag and declare "This is my home!"
I'm so glad that I did. The library actually didn't end up having any of the books I was looking for and was a tiny bit disappointingly dingy, but that's okay! I have seventeen libraries at my disposal now! I can search their card catalogue online! The library building itself was gorgeous and huge!
And, best of all, I had to get there by driving through downtown Marietta.
The only parts of Marietta that we'd been exposed to so far were rather rundown and not actually places you'd want to hang about in. I wondered why I'd heard such good things about the town, why Alton Brown chose to make it his home over Kennesaw. Well, let me tell you-- now I know!
Downtown Marietta is lovely. Full of pedestrians, older architecture, clean and pictureseque storefronts, tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants. It was the type of downtown that made me long to ditch my car, leap out onto the sidewalk, and just ramble. It was a tiny balm to my soul made slightly raw by the absence of Tokyo.
I didn't have a chance to explore it on Monday and Andy and I don't have the funds to enjoy it properly. However, we will be returning there. We will embrace it and explore.