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Fitting in

Sister 3 asked me the other day how New York "fit." What she meant, of course, was how I fit with the city. Did it overwhelm me? Did I feel lost in it? Could I see myself returning to the Big Apple?

Quite simply, was it too big for this small town Texas girl?

No, it wasn't. Not at all. As I told Sister 3 (and I can't believe I used the rom-com "Sweet Home Alabama" to illustrate my point), I fit back home on the farm AND I fit in NYC. (For "Sweet Home Alabama"-illiterates, there's this scene where Reese Witherspoon's character, who has left her small town and made a success in the big city, is talking to her ex in a pet cemetery about the fact that she fits into both her old life in rural Alabama and her new life in NYC. Trust me, the scene is much more romantic - and apropos to my life - than I've just described.)

It was a strange feeling this summer, but New York City felt very small, even tiny at times. Maybe because it's landlocked. I could walk from the western border of the island to the eastern border. There were only so many streets that ran from the north to the south - around 230 or so. I could take the subway from the southern tip of Manhattan near Brooklyn to the upper tip right by the Bronx.

From Riverside Park, where I used to run every evening on the banks of the Hudson River, I could actually see New Jersey - a whole other state.

See, NYC was small, especially compared to the expansiveness of Texas I'd grown up around

As a kid, I would climb up the TV tower at our house, jump to the roof and climb to the very top peak. On clear nights, I could see the lights from all the surrounding towns - all 30 miles away.

NYC may be big in terms of population, but to me, it just seemed like a tiny little island. Not near as big and scary as a North Texas pasture that goes on until the horizon.

Posted by Lara Richards at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Breath of knowledge

I'm in the midst of a big huge job hunt for a position with a law firm next summer. (Yes, sadly, in law school, you start looking for a job for your second summer during your first summer.) I've had countless interviews over the course of the last few weeks, which means I've sent out countless "Thanks for interviewing me and I really like your firm and here's why I'm a fantastic candidate" e-mails.

I sent out essentially the same e-mail to probably 20 or so people I'd interviewed with when I finally caught a glaring - and yet oh-so-Lara - typo.

I wrote a sentence about how I have a variety of interests at this stage in my young law career, from intellectual property to criminal law to labor and employment issues to litigation. And then I wrote, " . . . and I hope to find a firm with a breath of knowledge in these areas."

What, pray tell, is a BREATH of knowledge? Is it like a whisper of intelligence? A murmur of enlightenment? A sigh of wisdom? (Obviously, I had meant to write "breadth of knowledge.")

Hopefully, no big fancy law firm caught my typo. If they did, well, I hope it made them chuckle.

Posted by Lara Richards at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Home sweet home

Many people have asked me how I feel about living in New Orleans.

The answer is simple: It feels like home.

I've had the pleasure and good fortune to live in many places across the US: A summer in LA, 2 years in Boston, 2 years in Austin, a few months in New Mexico, 4 years in the Indiana (OK, so maybe that one wasn't that pleasureable).

I've visited practically every state on some sort of vacation. I like to think I've seen the best that each place has to offer.

And yet, none of them felt like home. One sister asked me out of all the places I've lived before, which one I would return to. The answer: None, until now.

I can't explain what it is about New Orleans that has enveloped me so. It's warm, yes, both in temperature and in people. It's slow and easy going. It feels like a small town and yet, when you're wandering down Bourbon Street bumping into strangers, it feels like a big city.

I chose to come to New Orleans for law school because I figured it'd be a great place to live for three years. Now, well, maybe it'll be more.

Posted by Lara Richards at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)