I’m officially house-hunting. Did a tour this past weekend of a few different homes in a few different Detroit neighborhoods. A couple were clear “no”s, but then, a couple others, had very different potentials. Do I want a well-lived-in home in a historic neighborhood – a house I could move into right away without much work, a house full of character, and knotty pine cabinets, with a pair of big trees in a fenced-in back yard that Matisse can run around in? Or do I want a currently-windowless house that I can acquire at auction and really make my own, in a neighborhood with a wider range of ages and incomes, where others are moving in and doing work on their houses – an area with a beautiful park, where, I imagine, I’ll more easily meet and get to know the people on my street?
Many of you have been through this, and know this feeling. A couple friends here have written books about it. Drew wrote about it in A $500 Dollar House In Detroit, and Amy in Detroit Hustle. Going through it now, myself, I feel the way I felt last year, when I was working on two different story ideas. Both were worthy in their own ways and I had to decide on one. I felt the same way this past summer, when I was looking to adopt a dog.
It’s helped me to consider not only the differences between these houses but what they have in common: Access to nature, sense of community and history, a sense of home …
A case of “living your way into the answer,” I think. It’ll happen the way it tends to happen for me: At some point I’ll just commit; no regrets. Until then, I’ll keep listening for signals, and for other stories – the third and fourth storylines, and beyond.