Whenever I travel somewhere new, I always envision myself living there. Sometimes it’s a quick ‘no, I could never’; other times it’s a ‘mm, maybe’. There are some places though that tug at me across the miles. Maybe I once lived there, maybe I visited so many times it seemed unreasonable to settle down anywhere else. Whenever I feel a pull of a place, I start to refer to it as my city love: a place where I can see myself living, where I feel a sense of home, that calls to me across distance. 

Home is not just one place for me. I have moved around a lot- I never had one house that was home, I had many. When asked “what’s your hometown?” I used to buffer, unsure of the correct answer. Is it the place I was born but don’t remember living in? Is it the place I spent the most time? Or is it the place I feel most at ease? 

Before I had this idea of a city love, I had lived in, left, and missed Toledo.  Up to that point in my short life, it was the city I had lived in the longest and considered to be home. I remember walking up to a teacher at 6th grade camp in southern Ohio shortly after our move sobbing “I miss Toledo” with tears streaming down my face.  Looking back, I now know Toledo was my first city love. And I still love that city! I now refer to it as my hometown love; a special city love designation. It is the city that built me- where I found a love of reading, art, swimming, nature, and sports. It is the foundation to everything I am and love. A true hometown. 

The city that officially inspired the term “city love” though was Washington, DC. Twenty years ago, I spent a summer living there between my junior and senior years of college while I did an internship with a public defender’s office in Maryland through The Washington Center. It was an amazing experience that changed my life in so many different ways. One of the biggest was falling in love with a city that kept calling to me even after I left. 

Soon after returning from my summer in DC, I started to refer to it as my “city love”. The idea of having a love affair with a city grew from there. Over the years, I collected a southern city love (New Orleans) and an international city love (first London, then Edinburgh). Through these same years, I often dreamt about moving back to the OG city love, DC. That is until another city caught my eye.

My love for Detroit grew from the moment I visited for the first time on that fateful day in June 2010. I quickly found myself with two great city loves and I could see myself living in both. When I was job searching after graduating with my master’s degree, I was torn between the two. I actually almost moved back to the DC area a few years after graduation, but it wasn’t meant to be. 

I am a firm believer in everything happening for a reason. While I was incredibly distraught at the missed opportunity- both the job and the move, looking back on it now, I know it didn’t work out so I could be where I am today- at home, in my city love of Detroit.

Since establishing my home in Detroit, new city loves are hard to come by. Even the pull of old loves is less potent. I went on a baseball adventure to DC a year after moving to Detroit, and it was the first time I did not feel the pull to move back there. It was a true testament to how settled and at home I feel here in Detroit. 

My location loves have now grown beyond cities. In my adventures across Michigan, I have gained more Great Lake loves than anything else in recent years. (I mean, have you seen Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, or Lake Superior?! Come on.)  I also feel a stronger pull toward being in nature- hmm, nature loves? (I’ll keep workshopping this). Maybe as I am getting older, I’ll feel less of a pull to stay in the busy, bustling city and will be called more to be amongst the trees, lakes, and scenery. Whether it’s a Great Lake or a desert oasis, whatever comes next in my story will definitely be something I love! For now, though, my city love story is set in Detroit.

Do you have a city love? Share below!