The easy way out

Wes asked: “You have to pick a place to live. Would you choose Framingham or Vegas?”

“Vegas,” I replied without thinking. He agreed, and paused.

“Okay, Vegas or Boston?”

I paused for just half a beat longer, but still returned with: “Vegas”. He agreed with that too.

We were driving the spaghetti mess of Vegas’ labyrinthine highways flanking the brightly lit casino complex of the strip, five minutes in to the two hour drive from the airport back to St. George. We’d started our day in the pre-dawn morning hauling luggage through the notoriously windy corridor of high rises, old churches and state buildings, and cobblestones of Boston streets to get the airport, and then done the usual marathon of plane travel back west. I was grateful to Wes for being up for the final drive in the dark. I’d semi-secretly run a half-hearted search for a night in Vegas, and just didn’t feel like dropping another hundred dollars on travel…but then again, I was near cross-eyed and also not feeling like driving.

Since then we got a full night of rest. Today’s the day we get all ready to hitch up the Mobile Art Studio and drive eight hours south to Tucson for the winter. We set sail at 7am tomorrow. The forecast is 37 degrees in the morning in St. George. By sunset, we aim to hit those sweet AZ 60s. Next week is forecast to hit 80 (but we’re heading to Death Valley to scout a backpack for Wes then – a whole other story, and adventure I haven’t gotten to wrapping my head around quite yet. This is part of mobile living, I think…a healthy blend of compartmentalizing and pacing oneself. Do you KNOW how hard this is for a born east coast worrier?!).

Having just steeped myself in some good ol’ east coastery, which is where I grew up, and surprised myself with my answer to Wes’ questions, I’m thinking about life, change, and how my/our perspectives might change with life experience. When I was younger, I sneered at the idea of “ease”. Hellbent on getting myself up to Alaska to be immersed in the toughest and also most exquisitely extremely beautiful environment I could imagine, I think I had an unarticulated opinion that were I to live somewhere a little more…inhabitable, I’d become a soft and boring person.

I still know I run that risk. Hear me out: my life is an elaborately constructed guard against losing myself to comfort and routine, both of which I know will simultaneously soothe and also kill me. I indulge in comfort plenty. But I live my life in a 19′ Airstream trailer, have forgone a salary in favor of being mostly a full time artist, and run up hills for “fitness” and “fun”. Within all of this, the macro ease is provided, simply, by climate.

Living this way in Alaska? We sorta tried that. I can wholeheartedly say I 10/10 do not recommend the sound of pouring, endless rain on Airstream aluminum for weeks at a time. And I’m only just a tiny bit exaggerating.

So yes: between Framingham and Vegas? It’s going to be Vegas. The broader desert climate works better for me, there are incredible outdoor opportunities within and just outside the city, it has ever-changing art, culture, and food, diversity in its population in a number of measures, an international airport, and affordable cost of living (depending on where you are). See also: Boston, which I love forever as my home city, and also is extraordinarily expensive. And cold!

I’m so curious if others have adapted in this way, as you’ve gotten older? Are there types of places that have gotten more under your skin that you never thought would? Have you outgrown places you once loved? Let me know in the comments.

More soon, from Tucson! In related news, here are photos from a recent, grand backpack and reunion trip with the Alaskan gals. I may talk some crap about Alaska, but there is no doubt that it has connected me with some of the best ever people. This was a trip for the books, and I’m happy to share what we learned with anyone who asks/might be interested in a similar trip.