Living in New York after 14 years, I'm such an outdoors kind of person. I love gardening and building things. I like restoring old furniture.

The city needs dirt under your nails

There's something quietly radical about craving dirt under your fingernails while living in one of the world's densest cities. Most people assume that if you choose New York, you're choosing concrete and convenience and the pull of endless stimulation. But what Butcher's describing is actually pretty common—that persistent hunger for tangible, slow work that contradicts where you've planted yourself.

The real tension here isn't between loving the city and loving gardening. It's between two different kinds of engagement with the world. A city gives you intensity, connection, and endless novelty. But gardening and restoration offer something the city can't easily provide: the feeling of direct causation. You plant something; it grows. You refinish a table; it transforms. There's a completeness to it. When so much of urban life feels like you're riding currents you didn't create, hands-on making becomes almost necessary—not despite living in New York, but because of it.

The slightly unexpected part is that these aren't opposing desires. They're often the same person seeking balance. You don't outgrow wanting to build and restore just because you've chosen complexity and speed. Sometimes you need both. The city feeds one part of you. The garden feeds another. And that friction between them? That's usually where the most interesting people live.