The Salad Days

This always meant a lot to me. What my zip code will be means something to me. A zip code is nothing more than a number, so I would think. But in the life that my wife and I share together, it has become more than that. It has begun to symbolize the kind of life we want for our children. True, it is not the ideal for me. I would like to raise my kids in a more truly urban enviornment. But the neighborhood which we have chosen will suit us well. It is the type of urban space one could only find in Minneapolis. Half a mile from a lake, half a mile from a creek, half a mile from Minnehaha falls, less than a mile to a light rail, and half a mile to a library, Italian cafe, post office and a business district. Is my dream of subsistence without automobiles a reality? Sadly, no it is not. This neighborhood is not everything of which I dream.

But it is so quintessentially Minneapolitan. When we were looking for a home, the only clear input I gave Steph was that I wanted to live in Minneapolis or St. Paul. Not Edina, Eden Prairie, or any other suburb. I want to try something new. Minneapolis will never be Chicago, but thank God it will never be New York. As we hope to settle next month into a place that will be our home for some time, the possibilities before us seem infinite. I am so glad that I will live in a city that is at once metropolitan and unassuming. Provincial and consumed with itself yet so open to outsiders.

As I drove around Lake Nokomis with my wife and kids yesterday, it seems unlikely that these blocks which are so unfamiliar now will one day be like Chestnut St, Brink Ave, or Prairie in Evanston. But the familiarity with a true city will probably never fail to excite me, as I call Minneapolis my home.