If lost, please contact:

           HELP- I need some feedback.  I don’t know where I’m from and I need to figure it out before I go any further!  I spent 14 years growing up just outside Boston, 3 adolescent years in Exeter, NH, 4 college years in Chestnut Hill, and 6 very impressionable young adult years in NYC.  I mean, home is where your heart is but I’ve left mine in a few places over the years.  Should I say Boston since it represents my roots?  It may be my home when I return from my trip but that doesn’t mean I love that dirty water now.   Of course it DOES have those sports teams (that will be the bane of my existence) that make for good talking points.  Some people speak so fondly of the homogenous city ‘where everybody knows your name’ mostly because there’s a good chance it’s Murphy or O’Malley.

           

          And then there’s NYC.  The greatest city in the world.  Everyone knows NYC so I would never have to repeat myself. After 6 years, I know the lay of the land much more thoroughly in NYC than Boston.  I know the smell of the garbage juices around port authority at midnight, I’ve seen the sun set directly in the middle of 42^nd street on the summer solstice, I’ve heard the ostentatious bums ask for money when I’ve already offered them food.  The life I’ve made for myself was in NYC, my friends are all in NYC, and, for god’s sake, my mattress is still in NYC.  Is it really an evil empire that will cause people to assume the worst in me?  Or will they wish they knew the pride and privilege that runs through a New Yorker standing in the middle of 3^rd Avenue looking up and down the island when “Empire State of Mind” comes on the ipod?

So, what should my luggage tag say? 

If lost, please contact:

Kerri Sanders

Boston, MA or New York, NY?