A Bigger Bite

image from here

Later this month, I'll venture back to the Big Apple, this time with the intent of living a week in the life of a New York resident. No big splurge shopping sprees, no high-dollar restaurant tickets on my agenda. Just meetings with letterpress printers and trips to the grocery store and gym. Yes, I'm going to try and transplant my quotidian life up North for one week. Sure, I'm going to take full advantage of the buzzing culture that abounds in the city that never sleeps. But, I'm also going to try and really see the city without my rose-colored glasses. Riding on the subway, walking through the cold. I'll carry my belongings on my person, all day, up and down the city streets. These are the sometimes harsh and frustrating realities of living in an expansive city and sharing space with millions of other people.

While moving and beginning again in a new place (any place) is altogether uncomfortable for me to even conceive of doing, I want to believe that I could do all over again what I did when I began a life in the unknown place that is now my home in Birmingham. I am still young, despite how settled I sometimes feel.

So, I'm going to try it for a trial run, hoping that a week will grant me the discernment about this that I've been seeking. Who knows... It could all lead to a grand realization that life where I am is all that I want it to be. Or, I could have to face the frightening possibility of picking up and trying something different. I teeter on the idea that this could quite possibly be the most selfish thing I ever do. But, unless I step out for a moment, giving space to my questions, I wonder if I'll ever hear an answer to the innumerable prayers I've prayed, simply asking God for a call to something, anything.

I pray for the courage to be faithful, whatever that means.

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Some fun things on my to-do list:

Let my imagination take off at Spacecraft.

Get crafty with the folks at Etsy.

Get in a bind at the Center for Book Arts.

Read between the lines at the Purgatory Pie Press.

Get a kick out of the Upright Citizens Brigade.

Thumb through the pages at Printed Matter.