City Mouse, Country Mouse

I love Aesop's popular fable, City Mouse-Country Mouse. It's been told a thousand times in a thousand different ways, but the fact remains that we all have very different ideas of what's home. As a former "country mouse" (or at least a "small Southern town mouse"), I now live in a wanna-be "city." If I didn't hate cold weather and were independently wealthy, I'd move to New York City in, well, a New York minute. I love the grit, the energy, the community of urban living. I love masses of people of all generations, affiliations and persuasions living on top of one another, eating and living and moving together and tripping over one another in the streets.

One of my favorite memories of city life is from a trip to Madrid, when I was strolling down a street near a park early in the evening, and I watched elderly couples in elegant suits walking hand in hand, doting parents ushering uniformed children home from school, young boys engaged in a boisterous game of soccer, tourists looking befuddled at city maps, all mingling and enjoying the same summer air, then coming together later for fellowship over food and wine and post-dinner gelato. To me, there's something so powerful and rich and alive about being one of many, of living and breathing and mingling in such proximity to neighbors and strangers alike.


While it's unlikely that I will leave Atlanta and even less likely Atlanta will ever grow up and evolve into a real city, I still long for the day when I won't need a car, when I can wake up in my aparment upstairs and wander downstairs to my storefront office to work, breaking occasionally to purchase fresh produce from the local market, snatch up that cute dress from my neighborhood boutique or share a good meal with a friend at our favorite local restaurant, while stopping to chat with shop owners and neighbors along the way. I'll end my day with a long run in the park with my husband and our dog, then watch the sun set over the orange-kissed skyline of this beautiful city I call home.

A Place Where I Belong

My friend Laura Benjamin is an amazing songwriter (shameless plug alert: check out her music at www.lbcollective.com), and one of her many gems is a song called "Yankee Girl." In it, she sings about her journey from suburban New York City to Atlanta, and it contains two of my favorite song lyrics ever, "It's been a long, long time, but I think I've found my voice" and "I've finally found a place where I belong."

I was pondering both sets of lyrics on a ten mile run yesterday. I think most of us search for that place where we belong. In high school, I was the shy, smart music geek who secretly wanted to be the pretty, popular cheerleader. In college, I was still--quite shockingly--the shy, smart music geek, and spent entirely too much time trying to fit in with the "right" sorority and the "right" people that I missed out on some great friendships and experiences. And while I found moments of belonging in graduate school, Ohio isn't exactly where I wanted to put down permanent roots.

As I was running along the Chattahoochee yesterday, it hit me: I was at home. Not necessarily in that location (though it's one of my favorite places to run in all of Atlanta), but in the act. Running is my home, my community, my passion and my joy. Whether I'm nodding to a new mom pushing her baby in a stroller, waving at but secretly hating that 60 year-old guy with the beer belly whizzing by me or screaming "Go Team" at other purple-clad people at races around the country, I feel like I'm surrounded by family. Crazy people like me, who find abundant joy and happiness in the ritual of simply putting one foot in front of the other.