Radically Choosing The Un-Hip Home

In all my wildest imaginings of where I would find home I did not expect it to be Tulsa Oklahoma. After two weeks here I am still in the newness, first blush of a place I plan to live for a long time to come. I am excited, exploring like a little worm investigating the interior of a ripe apple. What layers does this city hold for me? What opportunities can our family glean from this place? What can we bring here? These questions lie on the surface of this overwhelming sensation of, I am home! I don’t have to move again!

I have chosen to have a place and community I call my own regardless of where it is. I have lived many places in my life, mostly in the Northern states. I grew up in New Haven Connecticut. As a young adult I lived mostly in the Northwest with a lot of travel to Europe and South America. Most recently I moved from Austin Texas.  My new home is buried deep in the Mid-South in a red state, so be it. I say screw moving for a job, screw the idea of moving to the over inflated markets of hip, liberal, coastal cities and living dirt poor under the confines of cool. Screw all that, I am moving to Tulsa. And Ha! in my face, it is hip here. Tulsa does have a thriving alternative scene complete with artists, climate change activists, hippie farmers, entrepreneurial young couples and pug lovers. Not as many radicals as in the Northwest but still choosing to live here. Making this place work from an alternative vantage point.

What I feel I chose is simplicity, a life based on connection to loved ones, a do-able place where I don't have to live on the edge and can write from the fringe. A place we can afford to live in and be able to buy tickets to visit the people we love in those above-mentioned hip, liberal, coastal cities. It is a relieving feeling having a place called home. My cancer crab nature has been looking for roots my whole adult life. I love the sense of time I feel in getting to know this place. There is no urgency to get to know everything right away. I can move at a tortoise pace and watch the flowers of opportunity unfurl before me.

I am living the life of an autodidact, playing with my 3 1/2 year old companion, checking out library's, museums, parks and cozying into communal living with my in laws as we make way for the huge adventure of becoming first time home buyers. 

Something about getting older has made me feel more grounded in the person I am, not striving anymore to be something greater, or in a particular culture that I have to fit into. And gosh, people are so friendly and humble here. I am really enjoying the laid back attitude of this place. I am home for now and it feels so good.