I grew up skeptical of urban life. The seeds of that skepticism were planted in my suburban Massachusetts childhood. As children are, I was maximally open to the world’s magic. Blowing dandelion seeds, digging up worms, pretending the geese that pooped on our lawn were droids that needed to be shooed away with toy lightsabers.
I thought I’d want to live the way I grew up. Living in a city was a necessary evil, right? Maybe I’d live there just for work. But I’d find my way back in the peaceful suburbs. Full of noise and crowds and messiness… how could a life in the city be something enjoyable?
Finding Expansive Time
Love found me at the onset of the pandemic. And Jackie and I found ourselves in Austin. For the two years we lived there, it was a beautiful home. The people, community, and weather (mostly) was perfect for us.
But in the last 6 months, we felt increasingly restless, navigating the heat by jumping from AC’d-box to AC’d-box. The constant reliance on a car was grinding my patience to dust. We seemed to have capacity for one activity a day – even if it was just a trip to the grocery store.
Austin’s routine of work and car-bound life made time blur by. I don’t remember too much about 2022. It’s telling that I didn’t write an annual recap that year while my 2023 recap was filled to the brim.
There’s a psychological phenomenon known as “time compression.” When life is more routine, the sameness of each day blends into big blurs – punctuated by novel events; those small aberrations that ripple through a steady metronome.
Conversely, the days fly by when there’s lots of variety. Our memory, stuffed with experiences, make weeks feel like months.
Time expanded during our sabbatical in Asia.
We could do so much in one day. Was it just the wonder at seeing something new, a way of living I was beginning to deeply resonate with? Perhaps, but on reflection, there was a common thread between the places we stayed, large metros like Taipei and Kuala Lumpur – and smaller ones like Kaohsiung.
All were cities with walkable cores and reliable transit.
We felt better when we spent more time on our feet; when we could wake up, get outside, work, and then adventure to another corner of town for the evening.
Building Community
I write this a few months into a lease in Somerville, the eclectic neighbor of Boston and Cambridge. Many things I loved about Asia are missing here, and yet Boston’s little metropolis provides a similar flavor of expansive time.
I love living among people. Where people gather, experiences are created.
I walk to the grocery store, the gym, four different squares, libraries, and venues. I walk beneath neighborhood trees and the forested Community Path. For almost everything else, including visiting family in the suburbs, getting to the airport, and even heading to NYC, I hop on the train.
A car is still needed to transport gear for LokBros. And it’s still useful to get us further north, into the lakes and mountains, beyond the reach of the somewhat-decrepit commuter rail. But I rarely reach for it in daily life.
Mobility within a dense population full of interesting people, changes what’s possible in a day. And the possibility of a day changes the possibilities of a life.
It’s been mere months since we moved. But it’s felt long. Time compresses with frequent gathering: hosting interactive experiences while attending conferences, meetups, and salons.
When I can, in a day, stretch my capabilities with code, collaborate on new business ideas, attend a salon, and come back home to watch a Chinese drama with Jackie — the days feel short, the months feel long, and life feels full.
Living an urban life is living one with maximum openness to adventure. From city skeptic to grateful urban dweller, I wake up with one excited question: “where will my feet lead me today?”
From one former-city-skeptic-turned-grateful-urban-dweller to another, this resonated deeply.
Such a beautiful reflection on time and place. As someone who has lived in the same unwalkable town for 20 years, I get what you mean. It’s different when there’s kids, because the walk around the neighborhood is like a great adventure!