City Life

During my last few months in NYC, after Andrew moved to Barcelona and before I joined him there, I spent my Sunday mornings alone. I’d wake up in my beautiful, sunlit Park Slope apartment, get dressed, walk to the newsstand across the street to by a Times, walk down one block to the muffin bakery, buy a cup of coffee and a muffin, and then sit in the narrow, charming bakery and read the entire paper. Bliss.

I miss those days—not the alone part, of course (though I never minded that), since Andrew and Lucia are the best kind of constant company—but the city-ness of it, the easy routine that wove home life and city life into one seamless, happy swaddle. We have our routines in Roseville, too, good ones—picking up the Times from our front porch; going to the farmer’s market—but the all-in-the-neighborhood nature of our previous New York life is, of course, lacking.

For four days this week, though, I get to experience it all again. I’m currently in San Francisco—Andrew has a big conference, and Lucia and I tagged along. Our temporary home is the Sir Francis Drake hotel in Union Square, and we’ve made our room our own, thanks to the ridiculous number of bags and accoutrements we brought with us (Boppy; small cooler for breastmilk; feed bag for me; stroller; diaper bag; etc. etc. etc.). Yesterday, Andrew only had a couple of meetings, so we walked around with Lucia and went to a Thai place nearby for dinner, where Lucia entertained us with raptor cries as we ate. Today she and I have most of the day to ourselves, a day that will be filled with more strolling, lunch, perhaps even a cup of tea at a café. City life.

I feel like a more familiar version of myself here, even though this version has a baby strapped to her chest; the rhythm of getting around a city feels comfortable and good. There are so many ways that living in a city would be difficult with a baby—but just as many ways that it would be wonderful, too, at least until it’s time for Lucia to go to school.

Lucia loves walking around in the Bjorn, and for some reason, she breastfeeds better here than she does at home—regularly, eagerly, without fuss. And you can see from this picture with this post that she, too, has found her place in the city.