So, I am sitting in the lovely home of Betty Tisel and Sarah Farley, in the Kingfield neighborhood of South Minneapolis. I love this home. It is so warm and welcoming. It's a beautiful structure, inhabited by a caring family, and the energy is bright and clear. Betty and Sarah, along with their children Owen and Nora, have welcomed me into their home a half dozen times in the last couple of years, and I am always cognizant of the gift.
I am in welcoming home, in a city I love, on a beautiful day that began with a love filled morning when I met my beloved Susan Raffo for coffee. Susan asked me a question this morning about home, and if I thought of New York as home now. I had a complicated emotional response, but the answer, for me, is clearly no.
I love New York. I do. I feel comfortable there. I have managed to learn her rhythms and seasons. I can navigate her with ease, and I understand the dangers and the gifts that she can offer. She is less of a Big Apple and more of a Big Onion. I am constantly peeling back her layers and discovering new, wonderful, and terrible things about her. I am beginning to understand her governance structure, and I am integrated into community there in a way that I have not been in any other place except for Minneapolis.
Except New York isn't home. Minneapolis is. Yesterday, I was driving around with my childhood friend, Dr. Dawn Anderson, and I was struck again and fell in love again with the beauty of Minneapolis. Tree lined boulevards framing beautiful and architecturally distinct homes. The Minneahaha Creek bisecting the southside of the city, graceful bridges spanning its breadth. The streets covered in emerald canopies, wildflowers and sculptured gardens in front yards and along the curbs. In a city of 22 lakes, the creek, the Mississippi River, and designed so that no resident lives more than a half a mile from a park, and you can imagine that in the summer, it is a gracious and gorgeous place to be.
We won't talk about the winter right now. But, I actually love Minneapolis in winter too....but I like to love it from inside a heated building.
From the people, to the way community is built here, the access to arts and performance, the education of the people, the diversity of the populace, the amazing food, and the more amazing friends, all combine to make this star of the north my home. It's in my blood and heart, and although it has been four years since I moved away from this place, coming back is like stepping into a favorite pair of pants, worn enough to be soft and to conform to my shape and shades, and it feels like love to be here.
Who knows if I will ever return to Minnesota as a full time resident. With the trajectory of my life as it is right now, that is seeming less likely. But Minnesota, and Minneapolis in particular, will always be a part of my heart, it will always be home, and it will always be a place where you will find me, from time to time, wandering its streets, dancing in its bars, and loving its people.
This is what home feels like. xoxoxo.
I am in welcoming home, in a city I love, on a beautiful day that began with a love filled morning when I met my beloved Susan Raffo for coffee. Susan asked me a question this morning about home, and if I thought of New York as home now. I had a complicated emotional response, but the answer, for me, is clearly no.
I love New York. I do. I feel comfortable there. I have managed to learn her rhythms and seasons. I can navigate her with ease, and I understand the dangers and the gifts that she can offer. She is less of a Big Apple and more of a Big Onion. I am constantly peeling back her layers and discovering new, wonderful, and terrible things about her. I am beginning to understand her governance structure, and I am integrated into community there in a way that I have not been in any other place except for Minneapolis.
Except New York isn't home. Minneapolis is. Yesterday, I was driving around with my childhood friend, Dr. Dawn Anderson, and I was struck again and fell in love again with the beauty of Minneapolis. Tree lined boulevards framing beautiful and architecturally distinct homes. The Minneahaha Creek bisecting the southside of the city, graceful bridges spanning its breadth. The streets covered in emerald canopies, wildflowers and sculptured gardens in front yards and along the curbs. In a city of 22 lakes, the creek, the Mississippi River, and designed so that no resident lives more than a half a mile from a park, and you can imagine that in the summer, it is a gracious and gorgeous place to be.
We won't talk about the winter right now. But, I actually love Minneapolis in winter too....but I like to love it from inside a heated building.
From the people, to the way community is built here, the access to arts and performance, the education of the people, the diversity of the populace, the amazing food, and the more amazing friends, all combine to make this star of the north my home. It's in my blood and heart, and although it has been four years since I moved away from this place, coming back is like stepping into a favorite pair of pants, worn enough to be soft and to conform to my shape and shades, and it feels like love to be here.
Who knows if I will ever return to Minnesota as a full time resident. With the trajectory of my life as it is right now, that is seeming less likely. But Minnesota, and Minneapolis in particular, will always be a part of my heart, it will always be home, and it will always be a place where you will find me, from time to time, wandering its streets, dancing in its bars, and loving its people.
This is what home feels like. xoxoxo.
Beautiful, Brandon! I was born in Brooklyn, NY lived there up until 16 years ago, when I moved to Minneapolis. When I called my sister in NY to tell her that I arrived, I said "I'm home." She asked me did I hear what I just said. I said yes, that I was home. And I was and still am home.
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