As the glorious rising sun gently shares its rosy glow with the Southeast sky, effortlessly adding its golden hue into the mix, I contemplate my future. 7 days hence, I’ll fly to San Francisco, not for my usual visit but to stay—to live near my sons and their families----Adam and Jaimi, Jesse age 21, Katie age 20, and Nina age 23 (who currently lives in NYC but will visit often); and Jud and Samantha, Fletcher age 13 and Storey soon to be 11---- and multiple dogs rounding out the picture.
As a New Englander by birth and generally by preference, I’ve also lived in many places during my life—New Hampshire, Germany, Arizona, Connecticut, North Carolina, Texas, New Mexico, and Massachusetts---but it took the Pandemic to make me realize that people---my family especially---are more important than place and that visits are nice but no substitute for being there, at least not for me.
So, the movers who packed my stuff yesterday will load it all into a truck today and it will eventually head to California---one more place to add to that list. I’ll follow by plane a week later. I’ll leave family and dear ones on this coast, and that’s hard because people ARE more important than place. But fortunately, planes fly west to east too.
I’m starting a new life. While this will be a rather soft landing for me since my sons and their families are there and I’ve visited them in San Francisco for 20+ years, I’ve only lived in a big city once before in my life---that would be Boston for one year after I graduated from nursing school and worked at Beth Israel Hospital. And now I’m moving from a lovely rural area that’s quiet and gentle and has NO traffic to speak of. With all my prior moves, many of those transitions have been just that---a change from one place to another---but I didn’t change. In other instances, those transitions resulted in transformations of sorts within me. For multiple reasons, I found myself coming to different realizations about what I wanted, how I preferred to BE in the world, what my real talents were and how I could use those to make a contribution, and what if anything I needed to do to realize those passions. I’m looking forward to this latest transition that offers an opportunity to transform into the next version of myself---the evolving me that takes more joy in life, especially the small delights of just being with family---meals together, hiking, walking with the dogs, cooking/baking, learning new things, helping out in whatever ways, and grandmothering. And I’m ready to coach again, after a hiatus occasioned by the pandemic and the untimely death of my dear brother----transition and transformation are challenges and new opportunities I know well!
So, as the sun shines brightly on this new day, the anxiety of past weeks is replaced by excitement for whatever’s next. I’m delighted at the thought of just being with my crazy, loud, funny, interesting, busy, wonderful family---celebrating two birthdays in March—Jud’s and Storey’s. I’m excited to get my stuff and create my space that’s warm and welcoming and homey and functional for all the things I want to do in it---write, cook, bake, garden, listen to music, read, knit, learn to make baskets, get a dog, have lots of family visits, coach, meet new people . . . . And I’m excited to get to know San Francisco and California---to learn to drive in a big city, to visit special places (Joshua Tree comes first to mind), walk in the natural world that’s so different from the east coast, sit by the Pacific Ocean, eat crab instead of clams (but I DO love fried clams---with the bellies).
Life is endlessly interesting. And although I leave the people I care deeply about who enriched my life during this recent chapter, I’m looking forward to discovering what’s next and also to creating that next.
2.22.2022