Writers talk a lot about “sense of place,” but what I’ve realized over the years is that every writer has a very particular sense of place — the kind that makes them feel grounded enough to create. For some people it’s mountains, forests, or wide lakeside vistas. For me, it has always been cities.

Maybe this is a side effect of having spent most of my adult life in Toronto, but even after years of living in a more rural setting, I’ve never quite developed that serene, meditative relationship with the woods that so many people describe. I love nature, don’t get me wrong — but I love it the way a museum-goer loves a beautiful painting: with appreciation, admiration, and a very healthy respect for the fact that I should not step inside it.

Part of this may be because I live in bear country. Actual bear country. Our driveway camera has picked up a large bear multiple times, whom I eventually named Bartleby (“Bart” for short). Bart is impressive to watch on a screen — majestic, lumbering, oddly philosophical-looking — but I have absolutely no illusions about approaching him. In my mind, forest trails aren’t quiet havens; they’re potential waiting rooms for predators with far better camouflage than I have.

And so, despite the stunning landscape around me, I’ve learned that my creativity blooms most naturally in environments where I feel at ease: places with sidewalks, streetlights, neighbourhood bookstores, little cafés, and that gentle hum of human life unfolding around you. There’s something about being part of an urban rhythm — even a quiet, low-rise one — that brings my mind into focus in a way that deep forest silence never has.

It’s not that I need constant motion or noise; quite the opposite. What I love is the texture of a city: those incidental sounds and passing faces that remind you you’re part of a larger story. That’s the environment where scenes start writing themselves in my mind, where dialogue starts sparking, where I suddenly notice something that feels like the seed of a new character.

As I look ahead to the next few years — and the possibility of eventually settling in a new place — I find myself gravitating toward this truth. I used to think I needed to adapt to whatever environment I was in. Now I’m beginning to think that perhaps the right environment is something you’re allowed to choose.

Which brings me back to the dream I mentioned last month: a coastal neighbourhood with that slightly bohemian heartbeat of the 2000s Toronto Annex… but with the ocean just down the street. A place where I can wander out to a café with my notebook, hear gulls somewhere overhead, walk home along tree-lined streets without worrying about startling Bartleby’s west-coast cousins.

Stories grow best where the writer feels most at home — and this year, I’m giving myself permission to consider what that truly means.