a love letter to neighborhood discounts
reflections on home
I recently visited my friend Erika in Vancouver where they moved about a year and a half ago for grad school. Erika, like me, is exceptionally extraverted and preternatural predisposed to exploration. They’ve gotten to know Vancouver well, and it was lovely to see their people and their spots and their life there.
Whenever my friends move and after they’ve been in a new place for a bit, I like asking:
What was the first moment this place felt like home?
Some people say they actually don’t feel at home where they are; where they live is transitory — it’s liminal. Some people do feel like where they are is home, but it didn’t happen at a specific moment; it happened gradually over months or even years. And then some people answer like how I do.
When I think about the places that I’ve been lucky enough to call home, there’s always such a clear point at which that happens.
Many of y’all have visited me at my last apartment on Adams Street. To get to my place, you most likely have to walk up a very steep hill on Montecito Ave. Sure, there are other ways to get to my place besides taking Montecito but it’s the shortest and fastest route as long as you don’t mind raising your heart rate for a few minutes. I would go up and down that hill on Montecito multiple times a day, most days, for years. The first many months, I would go up slowly and strain and by the time I reached the top, I would be huffing and puffing and wheezing. There was a moment though, around 6 months into living on Adams Street—on my way home from work, mindlessly listening to some music—that I realized that I had climbed the hill without breaking a sweat at all. I remember feeling a surge of emotion. Of pride that this route was mine and it felt so comfortable now. I lived in that apartment for 3 more years, making many more memories on infinite walks with countless people, but that is the moment that Adams Street first felt like home.
I recently moved, now sharing an apartment with Isha on Broadway, the main street in Downtown Oakland. We’ve developed a few routines, but one of them is not new. Every weekend, we go to Firebrand Artisan Breads down the street and get coffee and pastries (usually a blackberry danish and always iced lavender lattes). We’ve been doing this even when I lived on Adams Street and we try really hard, and go out of our way, not to miss a weekend; busy schedules be damned! We’ve gone at least 50 times and tried dozens of different delicious danishes and morning buns and bomboloni. I’ve sat in every chair in the house and know my favorites.
And after all that time, a few weeks ago, Alex, the barista who has gentle eyes and wears many earrings and often dons a bright green crop top, gave us the neighborhood discount. When they saw my reaction, they laughed and said, “Y’all are in here every week. We appreciate our regulars.”
That was the moment Broadway first felt like home. I love being apart of a neighborhood. I love meeting my neighbors and we’ve meet so many on Broadway, but integrating them into our lives is hard with busy schedules. We make time for Alex and Firebrand every week. And I love recommending Firebrand; I’d need a few more hands to count all the friends I’ve told to go there.
That may have been a single moment, but it was certainly also a gradual process. Building up traditions takes time, and it's so worth it. Whether it's my weekly bakery visit, Katherine's biweekly farmers' market berry run, or Dhruv's annual round-table Chinese banquet gathering his closest friends, traditions are things to look forward to and a key way to practice community.
There’s another thing I do that makes me feel like a place is my home. In my walks (of which there are many), I’ll stray from the path that Google Maps tells me to follow and look for paths between blocks and through side streets and alleyways. Maybe there’s an unmarked staircase I see. Most of the time, it’s just a fun excursion, and I revel in the detour and small reminder of my free will. But sometimes, I’ll find a shortcut. And it feels amazing. Transparently, each shortcut shaves no more than 60 seconds off of a route, but chain enough of them, and I was able to get to my old apartment on Adams street, down the Montecito hill, to the 19th Street BART Station within around 12 minutes.
Curiously, saving a small amount of money with the neighborhood discount at Firebrand and saving a small amount of time with my neighborhood shortcuts make me want to do those things more. And I find more enjoyment, more entrenched in home, every time I do them.