The first city I’ve ever lived in was a full working day’s drive away, the farthest from home, at eighteen, I’d ever been. It was unlike any city I’ve seen or lived in since then, all other cities low-toned and grey in comparison. All my college memories reside in the first city.
For graduate school, I moved to a second city. The second city ran on different clocks. I was always late, no matter the activity, the day of the week, or the season. As if in consolation, the streets there were safer. A person could trek home alone at 3am in the winter. I think though it was a city I knew I’d be leaving, one I refused to know. No matter what happened, I wouldn’t stay, and because of that, I didn’t grow while I was there.
My third city was a vortex of ambition and youth. This was a city many people dream to work and live in. As beautiful as it was, this city I should have loved was a city where I was inert. As much as I needed to, I couldn’t sleep or eat. I was only late in the last city, but in this one, I botched so much, all those missed mealtimes and bedtimes. When I think of the third city now, it’s as if I had been expelled and should offer apology.
This is a long way to say, when I went back home, it was a place I never thought would be a part of the dream. Norah Jones knows. She says, “It’s not too late for love. ” What I feel for where I live is gentle and quiet like her song. “Tell me how you’ve been,” is what is said to this place that’s been here all along, filling and rounding out. “Tell me you’d like to see me too.” Jones’ songs start off sad and drift into slower and drawn-out melodies, but this one is the same measure from the beginning, throughout. The song’s not rushing to get anywhere. There’s time. The first bars are a long and slight progression to the lyrics, like early tentative steps back in.
