Our New York City friends said we would never last in California. Transplants from Arizona and Kansas, respectively, Eirik and I had each fallen for New York at an early age. When I met him, Eirik lived an ascetic artist’s life, working 20-hour shifts in the film industry while writing a screenplay, and regularly walking 100 blocks for an errand rather than scrape for the metro fare. In my pursuit of a career in international development, I reveled in my power suits, platform heels, after-work networking meetings in SoHo, followed later by business school with jazz trumpet lessons and leading historical city walking tours on the side. Thrown together by chance in a rent-controlled apartment on (what was then) the seedy Lower East Side, Eirik and I bonded over our passion for life in the city. We were the kind of committed New Yorkers who traipse miles across town in the snow, loaded down with discounted gourmet groceries, know exactly which subway car to be in for any given stop city-wide, willingly hand-carry a large, vintage, black vinyl couch many blocks and up five flights of tenement stairs, and visit Lincoln Center for summertime tango lessons and wintertime Standing Room Only tickets to the ballet. Having met and married in NYC, we never intended to leave.
When my dream job in microfinance presented itself in California, we decided we could hack a few years of West coast living, as long as we made it back to New York before we became “too soft” (as per the famous truism, which also recommends leaving New York before becoming “too hard”). The town of Davis, California was so different from NYC in every way that we found it surprisingly refreshing. I begrudgingly got a driver’s license, learned to enjoy nature hikes, and Eirik discovered a whole new level of running with a great harriers group. I swapped out my all-black wardrobe, faux fur stole and high heeled t-straps for cozy natural-dyed hoodies, a CamelBak for hiking hydration and sporty sandals. We basked in winterless weather, the biweekly farmer’s market, forging awesome friendships and getting around town by bike. It helped that I spent about half my time traveling in West Africa; Eirik eventually joined me for six-month stints in Mali and then the Philippines. We surprised ourselves by embracing California as much as we had NYC—apparently, we were chameleons.
Life in Davis got even better with our first child, so when our second baby was on the way, we decided to take the home ownership plunge. We moved to the suburbs and embraced the experience whole-heartedly. Our garden quickly burgeoned with veggies, grapes, tomatoes, herbs, cherries, peaches and the tastiest little mandarins ever. I canned and dried our produce; through trial and error, we developed some killer DIY remodeling skills; and we basked in home-grown and home-cooked organic meals on our back deck. Our neighborhood blossomed into a close-knit group of families with kids who could run, bike and play outside unfettered while the parents organized block parties or shared impromptu beers in a front yard before dinner.
We cherished our large community of friends with shared interests and parenting values, including multicultural appreciation and a demonstrated commitment to principles of social justice. Our kids, whom I will call “Big Eyes” and “Sashay,” attended an inspiring and supportive nursery school, enjoyed summer camps at a Rudolph Steiner Waldorf school, and eventually won the lottery for spots at an excellent nearby public Montessori school, where they both thrived. They led charmed lives with caring teachers and hands-on activities at their schools, bike and scooter rides to tranquil neighborhood parks, deluxe birthday parties, regular “playdates” with friends, private musical instrument lessons, and a cornucopia of enriching toys spilling from their closets. We were living the suburban California dream.
Like a rapidly thumbed flipbook, almost a decade elapsed in a flash. Eirik’s work gradually ramped up, and my fever-pitch work and travel pace reached a transition point. I stepped off the career train and shifted “temporarily” to part-time consulting in the international development sector. Eirik tried out commuting to a job with a high-profile company in San Francisco, but found he much preferred programming from home. I dove back into serious ballet dancing after a two-decade hiatus, lucky enough to find a local instructor who was better than all my former New York City Ballet and other renowned teachers combined. Soon, Eirik’s and my shared dream of a “large” family, along with our tendency always to push things to the edge, led to our wonderful third child, “Smiley”. This also meant that unless we wanted to share a bedroom with him forever or talk over each other at the little kitchen table during our respective work meetings all day, we had outgrown our house.
Thus began an extended reflection about what to do next. Following the usual script, we began searching for a larger house in Davis. But while fully attuned to our privilege, we also could not escape a feeling of how did we get here? Living the high life in Davis was expensive and entailed trade-offs, like the kids’ rich extracurricular activities all year long in lieu of vacation travel. Was this what we wanted for the coming decade? By the time Smiley turned two, Eirik and I had both been working remotely for years, and in theory we could work from anywhere with an internet connection. Neither our jobs nor any relatives tied us to Davis. We loved (and still love) our California friends, many of whom are like family to us. We also still yearned to return to the friends and lives we adored in NYC or the Philippines. But if we had loved and thrived in these disparate places, what else might we discover? We found our way back to the drawing board, reassessed our priorities and decided to throw our options wide open.
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