My Own Home
number 006
I found out yesterday that one of my favorite places in Austin—maybe in the whole world—is going to be closing at the end of the month. It’s not enough that a year of our lives has been taken away; places we care about deeply are starting to disappear or change. I am affected more than I thought I’d be by this, even though I would expect myself to be pretty affected. I am angry. I am sad. I am heartbroken. Bufalina felt like my own. Barracuda felt like my own. And each loss feels more and more personal. I can’t help but think about the inevitable: long after I’ve moved away from here, I’ll return, and very few of the places that felt like my own will still exist.
When I think about home, I don’t think of any single place.
Virginia was 1114 Ashley Drive, Rivermont Pizza, Fireball and cider, the park with the trains in it. It was Toolry and Speakertree and Glass Oaks and Yuengling and sleeping in a bed with Tucker for the first time and my best friends living beside me. Then, when I moved to a new place, more best friends living in the apartment below me. It was a friendly rottweiler named Harper and a silly little pug puppy dressed as a robot in a historic house that I lived in as a young, married, twenty-something.
Austin is pizza too—Bufalina and natural wine and the mozzarella of the day that always seems to find its way to our table even though we didn’t order it, and a dessert that follows the same path to us. It’s jumping in Barton Springs and then baking under the sun with a book in hand. It’s crying in the parking lot of a movie theater. It’s a coffee shop in a tiny triangular building run by one of your favorite humans on planet earth. It’s the spot in my backyard where I wore a bathing suit to lay in the sun so many times I realized that maybe it was my natural form. It’s friends’ backyard firepits and blizzards from Dairy Queen and Sonic corndogs. It’s the hotel lobbies that let me frequent them in the beforetimes.
Thich Nhat Han, a Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk whose words are often a guiding light for me, says that “Your body is your first home. Breathing in, I arrive in my body. Breathing out, I am home.”
There’s a type of meditation that my friend and dear pen pal Morgan encouraged me to try at the beginning of the pandemic that I still do sometimes, even though it always makes me cry.
You start the same way you always do: in a comfy chair with your hands in your lap, and your body relaxed. Then you imagine yourself walking into one of your favorite memories.
It’s noon in Paris. I am dragging my suitcase from the train station, past Notre Dame, and to my hotel. I’ve just flown a redeye in from Texas, not able to sleep on the twelve-hour ride over. In and of itself, it’s not a particularly pleasant memory—I am sweaty and exhausted. I’ve just had a hell of a time navigating myself from an airport to a train station, and now I have a half a mile walk with 14 days worth of clothing and all my photography equipment in tow. I am alone and in Europe, something I’d dreamed of since I was a child but never thought I’d do. I make it to the hotel, old and picturesque, standing a few blocks away from a world-famous book store and ten bakeries that make the street smell heavenly. It was more picturesque than I could have imagined. I expected to feel scared, but I didn’t; I just felt equal parts tired and happy. If I focus hard enough, It’s like I’m there. I can feel my exhaustion and elation in each breath. I can escape to a timeline where the very magical occurrence of someone paying me money to get on a plane and come work for them in France was something that happened to me. When I arrived at my hotel, I threw myself on the bed and felt so at home—in myself and in the world around me. I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and it was a kind of bliss.
That is the feeling I chase now. That blissful sense of belonging. That hospitality that only I can offer myself.
May we all find pockets of that this week. May we all find belonging in our own bodies. I know I desperately need it, and I’m imagining you do too.
Reading: A lot of information about the stock market, but I’m undoubtedly green… and I’d like to be the other kind of green at it. Each morning we read The Artist’s Way Every Day, and in I’m in between books which means one thing: I’m re-reading Just Kids by Patti Smith.
Writing: Just morning pages this week. Also a little bit about the ever-changing landscape of Austin, TX.
Listening: So, so much jazz. And this episode of The Cut on Tuesday about being in love with your best friend.
Watching: Search Party!
Buying: Stock in BMBL if I can get my hands on it. I’m eyeing this t-shirt from Big Bud Press. I just got these almost totally sold out shoes from Chromat x Reebok. I was recently gifted the coziest lounge set from Calpak and can’t wait to wear it all weekend.
Focusing on: new digital boundaries with screen time, ways I can show up as more myself on Instagram.
ALSO: Let’s hang out! It seems we are all very lonely and a little lost right now. I am planning a digital happy hour for anyone that wants to stop by on the 26th of February. It will be a zoom meeting. There will be snacks (if you remember to add them to your grocery pick up.) It will be fun. If you want to attend, fill out this form.
WOWZA! You’ve made it this far! Thank you for supporting me by subscribing to this newsletter and sharing it with your friends. It means the world to me that you’d continue to invite me into your internet living room.
Let’s say for a second that you like what you see here and want to continue the support. In that case, you can do one or more of the following:
Forward this email to a few friends who would dig it.
Follow me on Instagram and share my work there.
Follow the publication I co-founded with the imitable Beth Hitchcock.
Buy me a coffee.
Book me for photography services or hire me to write for your publication.
See you next Thursday!
Pretend It’s A Newsletter is a weekly digest from Chelsea Francis. Chelsea Francis is a curious and very soft woman who lives in Austin and travels worldwide when it’s not a pandemic. She often writes about growing up in the 90s, rural America, reading, the internet, relationships, mental health, and personal style.