other home.

Over the course of one week, the course of my life has changed significantly. I knew it was coming, more or less, but it has taken a good few days to get my head around it. In three weeks, I'm moving to a new city. I'm going for a new job I'm thrilled about and a new life with someone I love. I will be leaving behind four years of friendship and good life in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts was my first other home. It was the first time I set out on my own and made a place in the world for myself, where the good grace of love and community found me and a family of people chose me. That is something beautiful and precious and difficult to let go of. But there is more of it out there and, after a lifetime of moving, I have at least learned the valuable lesson that you never really leave behind the people and places you've known. They are always a part of you. And the ones that matter, the ones that inspire you and make you stronger and better, those ones last.

For three years, I lived in a big house full of people, in the woods of Wellfleet, where there are also beaches and ponds and tourists and long, quiet winters. For those three years, once a week, 14 people sat around a table and had a meal together, cooked by two of us. Sometimes the meal was late and everyone sat in the living room, crabby, waiting, and watching Jeopardy. Sometimes the nights were warm and we sat outside at the long picnic table until the mosquitoes drove us in. Some of the meals were terrible - soggy grilled cheese sandwiches and giant pots of plain white noodles. Some of the meals were epic. There was always the threat of scarcity. When you cook for 14 people, there is always the danger of not making quite enough. Some weeks, I'd had a long day and I could barely tolerate the chatter and noise and press of bodies around the table. Other weeks, I sat down, looked around the table and saw family. I think I will carry forever the beauty of this group meal. The urgency of being together, on good days and bad, the necessity of connecting with the people in your life. The love of food and the gratitude for a gift.

For many months now, I've felt how easy it is for discontent to rise up in my life. I feel surrounded, lately, by avenues for me to look at things others have or things that I could have and easily lose sight of what is already here. I have wondered how we toe the line between contentment and aspiration. Where do gratitude and ambition meet? Or do they? There seems to be some tension I haven't quite sorted out yet. And I don't mean things alone, but everything in life. Where you live, the work you do, the things you accomplish, the clothes you wear, the people you meet for dinner. I mean all of it. I must admit that, at the moment, happiness seems to lie on the side of contentment. At the same moment, I must argue that the great creators and revolutionaries are never quite content with what is. Well, it is the worm in my brain these days, and I think a thing worth devoting some thought to.

On the train yesterday, I watched the people in rush hour who defiantly refuse to hold on. The train jerks left and right and stops and lurches ahead and these people stand staunchly in the middle of the car, Kindle gripped firmly in both hands. I am always tempted to stare at these people. What is their secret? I always feel I would topple over. And yesterday, the green line lurched to the left, and the middle-aged man, two hands clenched on an iPhone, fell across the seat and on top of two women. They reacted the way anyone does on public transportation - they tried to ignore it. The man scrambled back up and I saw his mouth mumbling curses at the train. I looked away for a moment, then looked back and saw the tips of his ears turn red. He was blushing and it suddenly seemed such a glimpse of human-ness. There was no great story to it, but that he was stubborn and he fell and he was embarrassed.

So my heart gave him a little love, and then I looked away.