“Would you ever live anywhere else?” To a lifelong New Yorker it feels like a stupid question but people still ask it, sometimes offering their opinion at the same time: “I could never see you anywhere else, you’re SO New York.” 

What they mean is neurotic, caffeine-addled and busy. I am always ignoring someone’s text or shooing away a pigeon, often at the same time. I’m constantly dashing from place to place, disappointing someone, running late, leaving early, being consumed with my own importance and lack thereof, ping-ponging between being robbed and beloved, stressed, unhappy and elated. 

But if I were to live somewhere else, if I were to pack up and move, I would go to LA. Cut the pigeons, cue the doves. 

I believe if you’re someone who survives only because you’re in a particular place, someone who requires this routine and that coffee blend, this exercise class and that bar; essentially, if you’re a plant that can’t live without the hard terra-cotta walls of a pot, you might be doomed to wither away and die. At the risk of sounding even more like Dr. Seuss: Building your identity around a location makes for a weak foundation. I like to think I could live anywhere for any amount of time. This is, of course, an unsubstantiated claim but I’d give living in a shipping container in the tundra a go if the rent was low enough and it had some southern exposure.