The move to Pittsburgh loomed large. For weeks, I chewed my thumbnail and surveyed my apartment, wondering when I’d gotten so much stuff. I stepped out the front door and studied the line of cars, bumper to bumper, at the curb, wondering how I’d ever manage to park a U-Haul. What to do with my couch? How to guarantee the return of my deposit? My orange tabby cat stretched himself asleep across my chest, and I frenzied over whether he’d handle the transition all right. I woke up to my lover and wondered how I’d stomach mornings without him, without New York, without the pigeons dutifully surveilling the sidewalk below.

The day arrived, and step by step, we delivered the baby. We unlocked a U-Haul in Jamaica, Queens, found a spot for it right outside, and the great shifting of items began. August meowed with increasing concern as his world disappeared from the apartment. On the last trip, we left our keys on the sill and took him out the door with us. Gradually, the scenery shifted from urban sprawl to the sun-soaked greenery. We arrived to Pittsburgh, parking on a slope, and moved everything to the sidewalk. Then, somehow, we took it all upstairs.

The first morning, I woke Josh so he could bear witness to my crying. I would miss New York, would miss him and our life; the absence of logistics, its problems to untangle and solve, finally permitted all the leaving to take the stage. For a moment, my world spun, but his hand steadied mine. I surrendered to some well-earned sleep.

The next morning, we grabbed coffee at the neighborhood YINZ and then set about returning the U-Haul. We piloted the loud and unwieldy thing through Pittsburgh, its infinite slopes and swerves. We dropped it at the North Shore and began the long walk back, spotting a German neighborhood and a park, quaint and rolling and green. We crossed a yellow bridge into the Strip District, grabbed a bite, and walked on home.

The sun abided, golden. You have made a home before. You will make a home again.

–

So, how’s Pittsburgh?

The question has been a bit of a constant. For months, I’ve been figuring out how to ‘story’ this place for folks who haven’t experienced it firsthand. For New Yorkers, I came to describe it as ‘a lovely exhale,’ a place where starting the night at midnight is a rarity and a single meal rarely costs $60. For folks back in Indiana, I highlighted its Midwestern sensibilities, its stunning topography, and the striking sincerity of its people.

With a year in Pittsburgh under my belt, I’ve come to understand it through a series of images: Yellow bridges, sidewalks crowded for Pride, for a Pirates game, for Fourth of July fireworks; a tunnel through a mountain that delivers you into the heart of downtown; black-and-yellow sports memorabilia along the Strip, where lines form to get La Prima coffee and the best cannolis I’ve ever had; the gobblerito, a Thanksgiving-themed burrito (and true semi-annual event) at local chain Mad Mex; the dancefloor at Lucky’s, a gay bar that must be experienced to be understood; the passing of a Thanksgiving turkey onto the fire escape, where my roommate delivers it to our neighbors for sharing; an abundance of rivers and mountains and the joy of using these as a setting for community on a Saturday.

I love the feeling of being on a plane landing in a place I’ve come to know as home. Pittsburgh has, to its credit, always met my return with gentle weather and pristine skies. The airport is comically far from the city, but my intuition has come to estimate well how many pages I can read on the PRT bus, immersed in another world as it carves its way through neighborhoods and shopping malls.

Of course, what I will remember most about the Pittsburgh year are the people. I will remember the friends who welcomed me in, wide eyes and open hearts, who belted with me on the dance floor in West Virginia and run with me through the moon-kissed sidewalks of a Pittsburgh Saturday. I could populate a paragraph with only first names and, Yinzers, I promise you would find yours. Nobody here has been too busy to know me or care.

I will miss everyone.

–

Almost a year, to the day, I will be leaving Pittsburgh. Josh and I found an apartment in Astoria, a move that makes sense for us, for him, for me. It dawned on me, this week, that my cat hasn’t been outside of this apartment building since the day we brought him into it. Soon, there will be another U-Haul, another strenuous thousand trips up and down, boxes arranged and stacked. Together, we return to make a life in a neighborhood we already love, and I know much of it will feel like an exhale, an inspiration, a light turned on.

But there is so much I will miss about the Pittsburgh year. To know a place as home is to miss it when you’re gone, and Pittsburgh has become a home. Already, I am braced for nostalgia for my neighborhood baristas and their banter, for the Saturday Farmer’s Market and its gyro stand, for the breweries I have come to love best.

Before this year, I had only either lived on my own or with a lover. I wondered, at times, if I’d missed the opportunity to live with a best friend, the Joey to my Chandler. Over the past year, I’ve had the honor of making home with one of my best friends, a thunderclap of a man who keeps a rusty tambourine in the back of his shower. Over twelve months, I’ve basked in the unmistakable ambiance of his joie de vivre, playing nodding sidekick to his afternoon making his mom’s sauce and meatballs in a sundress and Lucille Ball wig. His cigarette smoke lingers on the towel hanging from my bedroom door, and my cat has learned to adore the crunch of his uncooked spaghetti. Of course, Ross and I will continue the love affair that is our friendship, a connection we’ve nurtured since before COVID-19 rocked our worlds apart, but I will treasure these pages. To know him is a gift, and to love him is an honor.

Time, as always, ushers the turn of the page, but – for now – my thumb halts it in place. I will spend the next few days, the final remnants of the Pittsburgh Year, reading over golden beer and climbing (always climbing) the sprawling, infinite hills.