hello, goodbye.

note:  the text of this blog was completed two weeks ago, but some difficulties getting our internet up and running and the death of my beloved mac notebook just weeks shy of its seventh birthday prevented a more timely post (yes, i do back up!).  i apologize for the lack of pictures, varying text sizes and weird formatting--i'm apparently not pc compatible.  once we get our technology in order, we will be back with more news and pictures of our new home.
**********



view from our balcony, the final morning

 we're still very much in the throes of our big move, but now seems as good a time as any to touch base.  life is so full of goodbyes, but i seem not to get much better at them in spite of all the practice.  the first goodbyes began back in june, to david's and my coworkers.  while i cannot fully speak on behalf of david, i know he felt a great deal of nostalgia throughout this process and has commented many times about how much he will miss his class.  i can however speak fully on my own behalf, and i have to say, leaving my coworkers was heartbreaking.

nursing is an extraordinary career, so full of emotional and physical challenges we must harden ourselves with dark wit and sarcasm to withstand the constant anguish and sorrow that accompanies most patients throughout their stay.  i have seen the strain and even collapse of units where individuals refuse to support one another, but i was truly blessed to land on a unit where i could not only survive, but learn, grow, and thrive under the watchful guidance and hearty backing of all my colleagues.  within my first week of employment, i told david i'd been "adopted" by my unit, a term that turned out to be exceptionally accurate since these people quickly became my second family.  they saw me through so many mistakes, so many triumphs, and day after day with their constant reassurance, they shaped my reason and ability into the nurse i am today.  

i met so many wonderful friends through work, with relationships that extend far beyond the walls of our hospital.  i was so touched and flattered by the lovely goodbye wishes they sent me along with.  after many lunch parties, post-shift beers, a surprise party and even a choreographed musical number in my honor, it was time to bid farewell to this special group who have left such an impression on my burgeoning career.  i can only hope to find a group a fraction as delightful as those i have left behind.  i will miss you all more than you know.



north street beach

 next, we said goodbye to life in chicago.  with our departure for west virginia, the kids walked out of what has been their only home for the last time.  while it's true that reese slept in a bathroom, our entire waking existence took place in one small living room and our couch and tv resultantly took a major beating, not to mention the countless stubbed toes, bruised shins, and all out trip-and-falls (and that's just the adults) that occur when too much stuff meets not enough space with a healthy dose of sleep deprivation thrown in, that tiny high rise apartment was very much our home.  

as much as i scorned living there as my infants grew into toddlers, within those four walls i brought home two babies, watched them smile and roll over, sit, stand, walk and play for the first time.  we developed eating and sleeping and playing rituals centered around that space.  though we'd return to chicago without them to pack, i knew once they left it would never feel the same.  as we packaged our lives as neatly as possible into boxes, we stacked them inside bean's now-empty room against her window that played such a crucial role in her young life.  at that very window, she learned to gesture, then grunt, then utter words and form sentences.  

she went from silently jamming her pudgy finger into the glass to "look, two trains, mama!  big red truck and bicycle, mama!"  it was a window we opened at the start of each morning to greet the world, and closed each night to end the day.  she spent hours looking out that window, describing the bustling world below her to me and reese.  when her room was empty of boxes and belongings, i washed all those finger prints and crayon marks off for the first time ever, totally erasing our memory, turning our home back into an empty space for the next tenants to transform.  how strange to think they will never know the joys and the struggles that took place between those walls.

12th street beach at northerly island

after two very long and productive days of sorting and packing our life, it was time to say a proper goodbye to chicago, our home for the past three years of our lives.  because of circumstance, we did so little in these years to appreciate the actual city itself.  however, any place you live and work and raise children in will have a way of getting under your skin and becoming home.  with only one day to say goodbye, we first had to think of our favorite part of the city and start there, which is hands down the lakeshore.  one of the few but notable perks of our neighborhood is proximity to the lakeshore, where i spent most of my alone time on extended runs, as well as frequent trips to the beach with the kids.  

after relocating to my sister's house, we made our way to the beach i used as my turnaround point on long runs, the beach david and i came to on our first trip in chicago long before we were even engaged, to do some reading and day drinking.  from there, we walked four leisurely miles along the shoreline, stopping for snacks and dips along the way, back to our apartment to check on our cats.  that evening we devoted to our other favorite part of chicago, our friends.  we were flattered by the turnout at our last minute gathering at a favorite bar.  and after that, it finally started to feel real that we'd be leaving the life we'd pieced together as best we could, which had turned into something wonderful.

castaways at north st beach



lakefront trail, southward view of the skyline

 
the next morning we headed by train back to michigan to reunite with the kids briefly and say goodbye to northern michigan, where i spent many winters and summers growing up.  it was the first time we'd been able to bring the kids, and we took full advantage of the ample outdoor space, playing hide and seek in the yard, chalking the driveway, and daily visits to lake charlevoix just across the street.  we were thrilled to host my friend and coworker nina, who spent many of her days off commuting to the city, muffins in tow, to spend her free time helping me with the kids, who truly adore her (bean even renamed one of her dolls nina).  the crowning achievement of any mother's helper is to spend a weekend at the family beach house, and so, nina topped off her career doing just that.  we were so happy to have her there.



willow on the bank of lake charlevoix



backyard at boyne

we moved out of chicago exactly as we moved in, crashing at my sister's house as she and her husband bestowed their generosity upon us, taking us for a final vegetarian feast in the sweltering chicago heat.  with no babies around, it felt less like three years had passed than three weeks.  it all felt so familiar despite all that has changed, the completion of residency and nursing school, the birth and life of our children, and my sister now with twins on the way (!).  we woke at dawn to gather our cats and lock our keys inside our apartment.  i took ample mental snapshots as we exited our building for the last time, took our final walk across roosevelt and awaited our last el train.

since stepping foot in northern california, i haven't been able to detect a single similarity to the midwest.  the sacramento airport is full of wine bars and bistros rather than fast food.  the air is crisp and clean, with the smell of fog and trees.  i won't go into the stink of chicago but to say that the only time it's tolerable is if you're walking past a bakery.  the familiar skyline, the sears, trump and hancock towers, the stunning architecture that announced to me each night after work, "you are home again," is all just a memory now replaced with towering rolling hills covered in yellow grass and patches of towering live oaks.

for as long as i can remember, i have dreamed of moving to northern california, before i met david or it became a real possibility.  i can't really explain why, considering i could count on two hands the days i've spent here, more than half of those after the decision was already made.  wherever my impressions and images and beliefs about this place were conjured, i can't honestly explain.  but it has beckoned me for decades with promises of majestic land and sea, of fertile earth and like minded people, anything and everything beautiful this continent has to offer.

carmel

tomales point

big sur

and now that i am here, i find myself cowering in the wake of making a decision so final that is so much bigger than me.  there is a certain amount of pressure that comes with uprooting your entire family and moving it clear across the country to a place nobody knows or is even close to, that now i will grow old in a place i'd spent all of 5 days in because i wanted, not had to.  it all seemed so right on paper, david's lifelong intent to get back to california and thus my green light to do the same, three years in the city showing me what a country mouse i really am, reinforcing our desire to raise our family in a college town, with many big city perks (dining, culture, diversity, music) without much of what made chicago so hard (expense, lack of space, poor public schooling, crime, filth).  we picked a perfect microcosm in the universe, with seemingly everything we want now, and will want as we and our children grow.

big sur

clinging to what is familiar, i have taken a few runs around town.  the air is dry, so even in the sweltering summer, it stays cool into late morning and again late in the evening.  the streets are so wide, with spacious bike lanes and doubly wide sidewalks.  i've never seen anything like that, even growing up in the suburbs.  our own street is teeming with smiling neighbors with young children and dogs of their own.  you can traverse all of davis 20 times over without ever crossing a street thanks to the complex network of bike paths.  you can't walk more than 50 yards without running into a park.  there is so much green, so much space, so many playgrounds.  in the fields surrounding our home we see hawks, owls and jackrabbits.  the streets are lined by towering trees.  i had forgotten how many stars there were in the sky.  

tule elk on tomales point trail

the kind of life that we want will be so easy here.  hard, perhaps, to avoid.  how can it be everything we'd imagined, yet still feel so unfamiliar and strange?  when we join the rest of the city at the farmer's market  with the organic produce and parks and carousel, with so many children running and playing, the eclectic collection of ethnic restaurants on charming downtown streets, when we take a short drive to the coast and every turn is a new vista that takes my breath away, when i hike along the pacific coast and i stumble upon 30 slumbering tule elk and am humbled by how small i am, the vastness, the silence, it all resonates with me much more deeply than any city ever could, and i say to myself, yes, you've come to the right place. but for now, those moments merely punctuate a feeling of not belonging, of isolation, of yearning for lake michigan shoreline, the spires of the sears tower blinking outside my window, the sound of the el running beneath us.

tomales bay



big sur



 

finally coming into all we have worked for and planned for, all we have anticipated, only serves to emphasize just what we sacrificed to get here.  the kids are learning to sleep in their new rooms, to play in their neighborhood unencumbered by strollers, now both walking and talking, exploring with more boldness each day what will soon be all they understand or remember.  i know that we too will gain mastery of this life, that i will not always be so literally and figuratively lost in my surroundings, that we will soon develop new routines, traditions, and comforts.  but we lack their blessed youthful memory, and it is not so easy to erase the recollection of what came before, or that while what we left behind feels like such a massive piece of us is missing, it goes on as though we were never there.

so, another goodbye has come and gone.  as goodbyes go, we miss what we know we will miss, and also so much that we never realized we would.  we continue to unpack, to settle, and to wait for the time when we feel ready to say hello.