This post will probably not be worth reading for those of you who Google my name because you know me as a reporter, or an intern, or a fledgling journo desperately grappling to make my name and brand myself (hire me?).
Not that this post will be inappropriate, or rude, or grammatically incorrect, or even poorly written (hopefully — though I did just use an Oxford comma). But there is no argument here. No beginning, no middle and no real editorial-style end. AP style will be inconsistent and my human side will invariably take over, and I will gush. And gush. But I just have to expound, just for once, about missing home.
For anyone who may have been living under a rock or just not adequately Facebook/Twitter stalking me for the last few months (rude), I’m in New York, living in Long Island and interning for Newsday this summer. This is by far the biggest opportunity of my life, and the scariest, and most exciting, and every day I feel like I’m in way over my head.
One of my former editors and biggest life mentors once told me you should never feel too comfortable at an internship, otherwise you’re missing the point. That every day when you walk in those doors, it should be a little scary, that talking to your editors should be a little intimidating. It is those things every day, yes, and it’s also brought me the farthest from home and the people and things (and dog, and horse) I love.
Before I moved out here to live for ten weeks in this dorm at SUNY Farmingdale in a less-than-picturesque, landlocked town sliced in half by a flat, ugly highway and dotted with furniture outlets, I lived in a barn in rural Oregon. The grass was luscious, the hills were rolling, and I fed horses twice a day, every day. I mucked stalls and tossed hay. Whenever I felt like it, I could crawl on my horse bareback and take off through lumpy, untouched fields behind my rustic little kingdom. I ran through deep woods and biked through waves of scenic farm land to work and to school.
I didn’t have internet. I didn’t have TV. As a student and a 21st century American I was never far from those things, but when I was home, they didn’t exist. There were candles, books, my dog and the smell of hay. There were insistent nickers from my horse, who lived across the barn aisle from me, every morning when he heard me wake up and start shuffling around. There were mice and bugs, and once, there was a snake. And that was pretty much it.
Here, there is no dog, no horse. The grass is prickly, the trees were planted, and the view from my window is a black mesh fence and a Target parking lot. And if I’m having an exceptionally bad week, I can’t just escape everything, jump in my car and mob up the I-5 corridor toward home.
Things smell bad here, too. The air is thick and wet and the sky feels really, oppressively close. I was completely appalled the other day when, in the newsroom, we got a notice saying that the air in Long Island and in the city wasn’t fit to breathe, and that everyone should try to stay inside that day. Increased smog and reduced air quality, and whatever. Everybody else shrugged it off, but I locked myself in the newsroom all day and didn’t leave until I had to go home.
Some deep paranoid creature inside me gets extremely antsy when I get some of this New York tap water in my mouth while taking a shower. I’m aware of how awful I sound, but I lived in rural Oregon (arguably the most environmentally conscious state in the U.S.) and drank the coldest well water you’ve ever tasted, right out of my kitchen sink. So cold it could give you a headache. So cold your tongue might go numb for a few seconds afterward, or if you touched it to the back of your hand, it felt like a spongy ice cube.
But I love being in New York. I’m young. It’s flashy. There are more car accidents, house fires, murders, shows, parties, free concerts, people, stories, energy. I grew up here, in Westchester, and my aunt and uncle and the town I’ve feverishly dreamed of coming back to since my mom and I left are always just 40 minutes away, now. I get to go there every weekend. I run through the streets I biked as a kid, and the second the heavy, dank smell of this one specific breed of pollen hits my nose, my insides go nuts: I see myself as I was at 7 years old — lopsided, long-legged and in love with this world I knew.
When we move, we grow. For me, I was lucky enough that moving meant coming back to a place I’ve quite literally fantasized about since they dragged me away, kicking and screaming and clinging to door frames, at 9 years old. And this is all just an extended visit, a summer trip — in September I have to go back to Oregon and figure out what I want to actually do with my life.
I told myself I’d come back here, and here I am. And I’m proud, and humbled, and ecstatic and scared. But sometimes, when I want to go for a night run under this black dome of stars, or suck in the smell of pine trees and ripe blackberries until my lungs go numb, or hear the rain on the barn roof, I have to think about what I’ve left behind.
Adventures in the News Hole 
Thanks for the reminder of why this place isn’t so terrible. I’ve been trying to get out of here for the last three years, but the stars haven’t aligned. Maybe I don’t have to be unhappy here after all (though I would still like to live in the same city as the man I love).
How do I keep accidentally liking my own posts? This is BS.
I like your post, and not accidentally! Love this one actually. You do a great job appealing to the senses and evoking your rural life, your temporary city life, and your childhood.
If you had moved from Portland to Long Island it might have been enough of a shock, but to move where where you lived must have been quite difficult to get used to. But I bet you are doing great at Newsday, and I hope it’s a really good experience.