Returning to Buffalo

In coming to decide upon living as such—which isn’t that much of a change in lifestyle to be quite honest—and requiring a city of a considerable enough size to live in, I consciously decided, after a year of traveling about the paved portions of the country, to return to my hometown of Buffalo, NY to test these theories. Buffalo offers many advantages to one who consciously decides to live like this: cheaper rent, lower cost of living, and less distractions of the biggest cities of the nation, such as New York, that would constantly drain one’s pockets. All of these are signs of a struggling economy perhaps, I know. But I am not attempting to appeal to one who is merely looking for a job but one who is truly dedicated to living where they love and looking to work less all in the hopes of living more.

(This is not to mislead one into thinking I will be only here for the next year. Even on such a limited budget as I have allotted myself, I still plan on being able to sporadically travel from time to time. But I will eagerly be using Buffalo as my central base and will be paying rent here year round.)

While away, for whatever conceivable reasons—reasonable or irrational—Buffalo never escaped my mind. Most people who have left know exactly what I mean. It was always an empty, unsatisfied feeling that only returning could cure and beyond that I can say no more. The feelings that are strongest are the hardest ones to put in words. And one should tread very cautiously in trying to find those words. I suppose my actions for the next year will show my love for the city far more than any mere words in this context would be able to indicate.

I have heard many people say they would gladly come back to Buffalo only to add “if only” to the end of their statement, always feeling that there is some nearly irreconcilable condition that prevents them from returning. All too quickly and eager we seem to be to make things appear impossible when simply doing them is as simple as we make them! I didn’t return on the basis of finding a great job; I didn’t return only for the summer ready to jump ship at the first sign of winter; and I certainly didn’t return based upon an even more arbitrary notion such as thinking the city would be worthy of returning to only so long as the Sabres won the Cup. No city is merely what jobs it has to offer or the success of its sports teams—it’s in the feel, the sights, the seasons, the people (the thing Buffalo has over every city in the world is that it houses the majority of my friends and family), the scars and all and so much more—and to reduce it to nothing more than those particular conditions is to eliminate the wonderfully enormous brevity that truly attracts one back to a place. What better way to show the riches of a city—or anything, for that matter—than from the viewpoint of the poor?

I however had no conditions other than simply wanting to return and so I just did. I took a few weeks to travel in returning, have not worked since the end of April, and have used my free time—the best of all times—to reacquaint myself with the city all the more.

To paraphrase Arthur Miller, I have willingly returned home to Buffalo with little money, no job, no prospects—I’m the happiest man in the city.