The Boho Zone

I was looking over some of my old essays today, and came across this one that I've rewritten periodically over the last twenty years. This version is essentially the fifth revision, though I didn't change much from the fourth one, written in '94. I wrote the first germ of it about 1984, when I was in grad school and dying to get out of East Lansing, as an idealized vision of what I thought I was missing, and then rewrote it to reflect the reality a little more closely over the years. It's been part of writing exercises for students, and a way to clarify my motives for moving here, and what I wanted out of life once I'd settled in. Though I've traded the tiny space in Brooklyn for a much more middle class existence since the last rewrite, I think it finally reflects a clearer sense of my priorities and reality than the original dream-vision ever did. But it was that dream that propelled me here, so I can't be too harsh with it, naive as it was. Ah, the foolishness of youth!