05/18/2001

Readers Crow about their Home State

Nikki Bruno's article "Returning to the Nest" prompted many like-minded readers to share similar feelings about choosing Connecticut as their home. Others wrote about the freedom they enjoy as "uncommitted" adults. I want to thank Nikki for touching on subjects that so many readers could relate to. I was surprised to receive so many letters!

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Hi Nikki (or Beth),

I usually don't read the articles on the SNET web site, but there was something about your article that caught my attention. I also returned to Connecticut after quite a few years. I moved back to my hometown and, although I have not been here for a long time, I feel a sense of comfort in the familiar surroundings and pleasant memories from the past. It gives me such a strange feeling of comfort to be here that I honestly hope I never have to leave again. My sister in Boston has repeatedly attempted to get me to move there, but I just can't seem to find a reason to move there as long as there are decent opportunities here, even though I can't deny that Boston is an infinitely better place for single people.

However, Connecticut is a far better place to raise a family. At any rate, I just wanted to share my experience with returning home with someone else who has had the same experience. As far as graduate school goes, I recommend the University of Hartford. I hope that your return home provides you with unimaginable happiness!

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I thoroughly enjoyed Nikki's piece. Why? Partly because I am 49, divorced, and feel precisely the same way! Having raised children, endured heartache, tried to keep a relationship together with a partner who wanted out, and readjusted to life without taking others into account ... I LOVE IT. I lived in central Pennsylvania for a few years to enjoy some peace, to enjoy the marvelous college town of Lewisburg and to sample something different. I came back home because it was necessary. I will stay in Connecticut or southern Massachusetts because I choose to. Nikki wants marriage and family some day, and that is wonderful. To those singles out there who are not sure, I'd say that being alone in middle age is just fine. I have many, many close friends -- the kind of people to whom I can say anything about my foibles, fears and dreams, without fear of judgments ... women who have been and will be there for me (and I for them) regardless of partnering status. Sometimes I long for a committed relationship with a man again, but I am still not sure I'd trade in the joys of being alone.

So to those singles out there who wonder whether they will regret being alone later, if Ms. or Mr. Right doesm't appear? If you are living a life in Connecticut that is on the path that suits you -- way inside where you live -- you won't BE alone... your life without a partner will be rich. Thanks to Nikki for writing something that reminds me of all I have.

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We may or may not have ever been formally introduced, Nikki, but am I right that you once sang soprano in the Oakland Symphony Chorus? I sang tenor with them until switching to the SF Symphony Chorus this year. To say that you wouldn't recommend looking for good pizza in the Bay Area, you must never have made it to Zachary's Pizza in Berkeley. (On the other hand, I have never been to Connecticut, let alone to Pepe's, so I can't make a direct comparison.) Beyond that minor oversight, however, I enjoyed your article and agreed with your main points.

I nearly joined the single set in Connecticut last year, when I was choosing an advisor for my PhD program in mathematics at UC Berkeley and one of my top choices left the faculty here to accept a position at Yale. There were several good reasons to stay, rather than follow him, but to be perfectly honest, the deciding factor for me to remain here was probably the same as your reason for leaving: I'm at home here.

Most of my family is in Utah, which is a short, relatively inexpensive flight away (or one day of driving), and each year I make several trips back and forth, as have some other family members. It wouldn't be nearly as convenient to shuttle to and from New Haven.

It's more than just being within a one-day radius of "Home" that keeps me here though. I also have a nephew and niece even closer to my home; in fact, their home is within walking distance of my home base on campus. That's enough to make Berkeley, in particular, feel like home to me. (Have I crossed the threshold beyond which a repeated word ceases to have any meaning? That wasn't my intention--I just wanted to drive the point home.) All in all, I'm quite content to stay here forever--or at least until I graduate, whichever comes first.

There's no paucity of possibilities for playing, either, here in the Bay Area. As you rightly point out, playing is an important sort of preparation, in its own right, for later commitments and their concomitant encumbrances. But in the end it is the commitments we make, continuing from contemplation to consummation, which make a home a home in the first place, and which make home the first place in our hearts.

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I, too, have recently moved back to Connecticut, although for different reasons, and feel the same way about it being "Home". I have lived in many cities around the country, but you can't beat the closeness of the New Hampshire mountains, the Cape Cod coast, or anything in between. Great article!

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Nikki, were there outstanding social factors that caused you to leave San Francisco? Perhaps you might also share how your career was coming along in that environment. Very competitive there? From what I have heard, San Francisco is much different than CTonnecticut urban centers. Were you turned off by that western lifestyle?

Nikki's response:

What I liked best about the social climate and lifestyle in the Bay Area (forgive me for the generalization) is how open and casual it is. People (again, in general) are extremely accepting, and you can try out all aspects of your personality, opinions and style without receiving the kind of harsh judgment, suspicion, categorization and back-stabbing you might get in the Northeast. I can't express how liberating that is.

The other side of the casualness, however, was what felt to me like an elusive, noncommittal attitude toward making plans. It was always "Yeah, cool, sounds great, yeah, let's go out sometime, cool ..." and then nothing concrete was settled, and that just didn't work well for me. I sometimes felt like I was standing on quicksand when I wanted to get to know someone better socially. Most of my close friends out there ended up being from different areas of the country (east coast, south) or, interestingly, from southern California, folks who had fled the superficiality and flash for the more down-to-earth North.

Overall, though, it was a lack of roots to anchor me that brought me back east. Also -- and this relates to your second question -- I wanted to develop my career in publishing, and the NYC area is the epicenter of the book publishing industry. San Francisco was a good place to explore the nonprofit world, which is what I did for my first year and a half out there, and, of course, many of my peers were benefiting quite beefily from the tech explosion in and around Silicon Valley.

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Please send questions or comments to bbruno@snet.net.