Taking the geographic cure

And by the way, I think the geographic cure -- the phrase used to describe as fallacious the idea that one can escape one's problems by moving to a new place, instead of changing one's thoughts and behavior -- is underrated. OK, admittedly there's no such thing as a geographic "cure"; the human condition is chronic, and its pains can only be lessened, not done away with. Wherever you go, there you are, and all that.

Still, there's a lot to recommend it. What is vacation about if not the idea that a temporary respite from the everyday routine, almost always involving changing places, will cure your ennui and fatigue? More broadly, I've lived in five cities since graduating college, and I absolutely believe I was happier in some locations than in others -- and that my happiness had a lot to do with the location.

Last night I was telling Julie that come spring, we will have been in Dallas for as long as we lived in New York. She was startled by that, saying it feels like we only moved here recently. I know what she means: life in NYC was so vivid. Of course it was a different life there: we only had one child, and he was under four years old, is the main way. By the time we left NYC, we were ready to get out, having tipped over from being people for whom the demands of life in the city were no longer more than compensated for by the rewards of same. If we were still living there, we'd be miserable (barring a quadrupling of my income). Still, the most cherished memories of my life are associated with living there, and I wouldn't trade them for anything. For some reason, I felt ... well, not like a different person in NYC, but more of the person I think I truly am. Or at least, was at the time. Something about the urban environment, in its variety and humanity (and, crucially, walkability, which made it all human-scaled and accessible), appealed deeply to me. I've gotten to where I watch Woody Allen movies now more for their New York locales than anything else ("Hannah and Her Sisters" I completely adore). Though born and raised in the rural Deep South, and I can say that I've never felt more at home in a geographical locale than living in Brooklyn, New York. Which is strange, maybe, but true. Again, it's no longer true, I'm sure, but for that time in my life, NYC was the right place, through and through.

To say that the geographical cure is a total fallacy is to say that external conditions do not appreciably affect our mood, and consequently our way of relating to the world, don't you think? I'm a different, and more agreeable, person outside of summer; the heat and the humidity is so oppressive that I find I'm walking around under a cloud much of the time. Basically, paradise for me is autumn in New York.