Friends,
Today in Unpacking, we’re thinking through the definition of home. Inspired in part by how much migration happened in 2020, how crazy the housing market is, and our own respective moves, we’re wondering if people feel at home in their new lives, especially as we’re turning some type of corner of the pandemic.
Carrie here. You hear a lot about how home is where the heart is. It’s especially nice to be in places that reflect your own inclinations and whimsies. You’re into what you’re into. Sometimes you don’t know it until you feel it. There’s a bit of magic to it.
This doesn’t jive as well with another idiom passed around on bookmarks and greeting cards: bloom where you are planted. Can you find your favorite nooks and crannies of a town, house, apartment, whatever, just about anywhere you go?
As more people contemplate long-term or part-time remote work, and no longer are tethering their location to their employment, how do you make sense of your own new choices? For instance, a lakeside city in Idaho is currently the hottest housing market in the US.
We think: This inquiry into “home” inevitably becomes about how you weigh and balance your own priorities. It also reflects the privilege of mobility — having the various forms of capital necessary to chart your own course. But in the post-pandemic era, it’s also a new question: Can you imagine something new for your future that wasn’t there before? Can you devise a path that fits you as a person, more so than fitting the profession or economy that you participate in?
We’ll go first:
Carrie: I’m wondering if this whole “bleisure” thing we talked about a few editions earlier could become a real thing, perhaps with some type of home-swap. Say I live in one place for nine months of the year, and then for three months (aka summer) I take a longer visit to see family. Cutting down on shorter trips and quick holidays and instead, extending out longer stays sounds like a healthy, cost-effective and greener way to go.
Emily: I think about this a lot. This summer I’m spending all my PTO visiting family and friends in states and places where I used to be able to quickly go after work or over a weekend. I’m incredibly grateful to have vacation days, and to have friends and family, but it’s just one of those moments where you feel the effects of living and working farther from where “home” is (or one of your “homes”). In this inoculated world, I’m going to get creative with this!
Water Cooler Conversation
Emily: If you want to nerd out over research on home, location and work, check out Professor Choudhury’s research out of the Harvard Business School. One thing he finds that struck me especially: living away from “home” is more beneficial earlier in one’s career but then the social and career cost of living far from “home” increases as you age.
Carrie: As a new parent, this adds up to me.
Carrie: Emily, did you listen or watch President Biden’s speech this week? I am about halfway through the C-SPAN video. Thoughts?
Emily: Why yes, my favorite part was when he talked about the need to lower the cost of prescription drugs (shoutout to my friend Sarah who’s doing great things at Patients For Affordable Drugs).
Carrie: Emily, I’m ready for your book recommendations!
Emily: Are you a thriller / murder mystery person? Greg and I are reading through Tana French’s series (start with “In the Woods”). My Boston book club is reading Say Nothing (part history, part true-crime). And if you’re looking for a FUN page turner, have you read The Guest List?
Emily: Wow, this is a heady newsletter edition, Carrie! Feel like I need to lighten the mood and talk to you about gummy candy again. I got the gummy stars at Whole Foods, and they’re just not as good as Haribo.
Carrie: According to the Internet, Haribo is a century old. Can you imagine how many people have eaten Haribos?
Emily: We need a whole edition on these candies.
Readers, are you making big moves? Respond to this email with your thoughts and feedback.
Your pals,
Carrie & Emily