My first night sleeping in New York City I was convinced crazy people were crawling up my fire escape to rob and brutalize me.
But no, it was the clank and clatter of a city.
My first night sleeping in Montana, I was sure an angry bear was breaking down the screen door to eat me.
But no, it was a persistent wind.
Adjusting to the ways of a new place takes a while.
After three weeks living on 100-acres where large potentially aggressive animals do roam, I’m trying to be composed about it and not lambast myself for being scared or cautious. Right when I thought I was slipping into a Zen place about solo exploring through huckleberries, we met our neighbor, a woman who has lived here for 25 years.
“Oh yeah, there’s a resident mountain lion, she explained, “But she knows the rules.”
“Does that scare you?” I asked, trying to seem aloof about it… (more…)
I’ve been thinking about how people actively connect to place. Not everyone is active in this process; many let it happen to them; many do not notice. But my cousin Lauren is always in an active phase. She strolls through cities with her point-n-shoot in her pocket–looking for street art. I even had the privilege of her showing me around NYC, the city I lived in, and indoctrinating me into who painted what, who pasted up what, how, why. It is a knowledge she has cultivated. And done best in her own hometown of Chicago for the past three years. For example, her photo to the right is a “tip toe heart in hands paste-up, chicago.”
Dear Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber, Marc Webb, Eric Steelberg, the producers, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, and everyone else involved in making the movie 
I heard her music played around a campfire in the Catskills, the first songs worth earning callouses on new guitarists’ fingers. I listened intently to her lyrics, repeated in these voices– so honest and clear while still weaved in metaphor. I took Ani back to high school with me and then on to college. I’ve been toting her tapes, cds and mp3s ever since, but I’d never seen her in performance until last night. A powerful voice emanates from her small body while she attacks the strings on her guitar, tuned uniquely for each song, with fingers wrapped in electrical tape. 
Last Wednesday, I stood at the back of a 
As my friend Eric puts the final touches on an electric fence for his six lambs, a ratty old blue Honda bumbles down the dirt road. It’s Eric’s neighbor, the woman he calls “crazy Jane.” We’re in Barnet, Vermont. She’s a New Yorker who moved here two decades ago. She’s approaching 70 years old. She has shaggy gray hair. She’s a writer. She’s a Buddhist. She is eyeing me, surely thinking, Who is this new person visiting our tiny community? What’s her deal? I tell her where I’m going, what I’m up to.