I wrote this several days ago. I held off on publishing because I had intended to post photos with the verbiage. I still haven't had a chance to load the pictures to my computer, so I'll have to add them later...

Before my sister left, she reminded me that this house is a blessing. I had been feeling so overwhelmed and fearful that it was hard for me to see the positive in this situation. It was hard to focus past the broken sink, the useless shower in the master bath, etc. I was stuck thinking about the cost of the move, and the cost of establishing ourselves in this new place. It all lead me to feeling stuck - far from "home" - unable to leave.

Today as I stood in the kitchen, putting away our fresh produce from the CSA, and listening to Tristan and Dustin laughing in the back yard, I could appreciate where we are. Here are my lists; a work in progress, in no particular order:

THINGS I LIKE ABOUT BEND

1. Community Supported Agriculture "Agricultural Connections" - amazing strawberries, farm fresh eggs, pasteurized (not homogenized) milk, herbs de provence cheese, reasonable prices
2. People - super friendly & helpful & welcoming, almost without exception
3. Weather - warmer and sunnier than Oakland, at least for now. Hot isn't muggy. It's nice.
4. Desert - dishes & towels air dry. (Not always the case in the Bay Area.)
5. Renewable energy option - we have the option to pay 10% more for our electricity from a renewable source
6. Quiet - a dog barking might wake you up, but that's the only thing that will. There are no crazy ghetto fights or sirens to disturb the peace (this includes internal peace, who knew?)
7. The sky - it's gigantic here. Yesterday, as we drove home from dinner, I was completely transported back to Burning Man for a moment. The sun setting behind the mountains in the east, the moon rising, in the west, the clouds punctuating the great big open that is desert sky. It's just beautiful.
8. The stars - you can see them! There are no street lights on our street. If a house doesn't have the front lights on, it fades from view. At first, this was disconcerting. Now I appreciate this urban plan as a feature. It reduces the glow around Bend so you can be in civilization, while still enjoying the incredible night sky in all its glory.
9. The parks & recreation department - really? Yes! Not only are the parks here immaculate, (they were actually painting the bathroom building when Tristan and I were at Juniper Park yesterday), but they are immense and well appointed. Juniper Park boasts an Olympic sized pool, a modern gym, a class schedule for everything from toddler swimming with parents to cross country skiing/snowboarding fitness prep with weight vests, 5k training class where you run a specific 5k with your class at the end, master swim classes, pilates, etc., all subsidized by local property taxes. In addition to this great roster, they offer childcare for $2.50 - $3.50/hour, max 2 hours. (If you buy 10 sessions, it's cheaper than buying as-needed.)
10. The parks & recreation department again! - there are weekly community events that are family focused. This includes a phenomenal micro-brew tasting festival that is so popular that people travel from out-of-state to attend, movies in the park (in the summer), music festivals, etc. All these activities are either free or very low cost.
11. My skin is clearing up! - I don't know if it's that I'm drinking more water since we're living in a desert, if the air and water are less polluted here, if the dry air is helping, or what the combination of factors is, but my skin looks great. D's noticing his skin is looking better too. Woo-hoo! That's a nice bonus!
12. Food - CSA aside, there are a lot of restaurants here, many with great food. I'll give a report on these as we conduct our culinary tour.
13. Beer - I haven't been drinking much since we've been here, but beer has to be including when compiling a list of Bend's attributes. If you like beer, you'll like Bend.

We're Here

It's been a long road separating my last post from this one.

Thursday: Jason, Phil, Gavin, Maria, and Ben arrived to start loading the truck at 10:30am. Our sweet neighbor Jihee helped clean the blinds and the bathroom with her infant Joan on her back. Sandy came in as fresh horses at 7:30pm. Somewhere between 9:00 - 9:30pm we got on the road in a caravan headed for Redding. When you drive north to visit (wink wink), the GAIA HOTEL IN ANDERSON is a little less than half way from San Francisco to Bend. The rates are low (see the deals tab here) and hotel is new and somewhat chic with comfortable rooms and a good breakfast buffet (again, at a great price = $7.00 for 2 people.)

Friday: We all (Dustin, Jason, Gavin, Maria, Ben, Tristan, and me) met for breakfast in the hotel restaurant at about 9:00. The guys drove off early while Maria, Tristan, and I took a more leisurely pace. We stopped for lunch in Klamath Falls. (Don't go past Klamath if you are driving north and need food or gas. This is the last major outpost before Bend.) As the sun was setting the guys finished unloading the truck and Maria, Tristan, and I arrived with groceries.

I can't explain exactly how I felt as we walked up and down the aisles of Safeway looking for food to stock the shelves in our new home. I'm not usually a Safeway shopper anyhow. (I prefer Whole Foods, Costco, the Farmer's Market, etc.) Strolling Bend's Safeway felt surreal. The people seemed like characters in a dream. I felt like I was drifting aimlessly around, ineffective and somewhat confused. I couldn't believe that this is my life.

When we arrived to the house, I showed Tristan around. We've lived in a small 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment for his entire life. Our downstairs now dwarfs that former living space. The best part was taking him out into the back yard. He toddled off the deck onto the grass and peered at the neighbors play structure and pool through the slats of the fence. "Open the park," he requested.

"It's not a park. It's a back yard." I tried to explain in a couple of ways that this was his back yard. That was their back yard. But neither is a park. It took a couple of days, but I think he understands now.

Saturday: After breakfast, the caravan reconvened. Dustin and Ben made stops to pick up the remnants of my father's belongings from his old house, a mere two blocks from where we now live. Then they headed over to the storage space that I employed to hold more of his stuff, and things that I wanted to keep.

Meanwhile, the rest of us went to check out the Habitat for Humanity store to see if they had a good deal on a washer and dryer. They did not. So the caravan continued on to Lowe's in search of major appliances.

Ben, Maria, Gavin, and Jason kept Tristan occupied as Dustin and I searched for and purchased our new washer/dryer. I haven't lived with a washer/dryer in my house for more than 10 years. San Francisco isn't known for such luxuries in rental situations. Now we have a great front loader washer and fancy dryer 20 feet from where I'm sitting. I've been washing our comforters and pillows in addition to our laundry and linens. I'm sure I'll soon fall into the, "How did I ever live without this convenience" that is prevalent in suburban America.

Our needs from Lowe's are great. There are MANY things that need to be seen to in this house. We took long enough that we had to say goodbye to Ben in the store because his flight time was getting close and we weren't done shopping for immediate necessities yet. There was so much going on it was a pretty brief goodbye. No tears. More of a, "Ok. See you later."

That night we went to McMenamins for dinner. This hotel used to be a Catholic School. The classrooms are guest rooms. The chapel is a movie theater. The Turkish soaking pool now inhabits the space where an alter once stood. The chain of hotels and pubs brews beer and distills spirits. If you're in Bend, or any other city that boasts a McMenamins: GO.

Sunday: We said goodbye to Gavin in the morning. He drove back to Sacramento alone. Then Maria, Jason, Dustin, Tristan, and I had brunch at the Victorian Cafe. This place has GREAT food. It's mostly local and sustainably raised. And it's TASTY. When you come to visit, it's likely we'll take you there. It's been our favorite place here since the first visit to Bend.

After brunch, we went to Drake Park. Jason and Dustin fed ducks with Tristan and took him for a walk. Maria and I sprawled on a blanket and fell asleep in the shade. It was 91F. Between the hard work from the days before, the good meal in our bellies, and the warmth of the day, it was a perfect time for a snooze.

That evening we took Jason to the airport. We had a teary goodbye. Tristan kept saying, "Bye Pops. See you soon." It's probably best that he doesn't really understand how far away everyone is going, or how long it might be until we see them again. Dustin and I were both pretty shaken by saying goodbye to Jason. We've had dinner with him almost every Wednesday for the past three years. It's going to be a big adjustment not having him over each week. It's sad to think about the gaps in time between visits. It's hard to think of how much Tristan will grow without seeing his extended family and how much less everyone will see his development. Again, it makes me sad.

Tristan's awake now and demanding Thomas while trying to drive trucks and cars on my laptop. More later...

Tomorrow

It's 10:37pm. My baby has been asleep for about an hour and a half, though he woke once with tummy pains. After a long fart he fell back to sleep.

I've now packed the lamp on my desk. Never has my desk been so bare while still in working order. I work in paper. Stacks of it. Boxes of it. It litters everything, despite my best efforts to shred, recycle, and file it. I envy people, like my husband, who can work with a spartan efficiency. I cannot.

Today I said goodbye to my therapist. I gave her a photo for her office. For the first time, we talked about her, instead of me. She's pregnant, due in December. I only figured this out two weeks ago as I spied another therapist patting her tummy just before I rang the buzzer to be admitted to the office. She's having a boy. He's a lucky baby.

Tonight I said the teariest goodbye yet. We had dinner with Jason, Angie, James, & Maya. I'm heartsick to be moving so far away from A&M. Ange and I met at a time when we were both new to the Lake Merritt area of Oakland. She had her newborn. I was still pregnant. In the months and years that passed, we, and our children, got to be the best of friends. It feels like I'm leaving part of myself behind as I walk away from them. I have tears in my eyes now even writing about it.

I'm actually grateful that my sadness has finally found its way to the surface. I'm happy that I love enough to have tears. I believe it's true that you realize what you have in someone when they are no longer in close proximity. I am blessed to have such love in my life. Even from afar.

Tomorrow begins a new adventure. Tomorrow begins what's next. Today is the end of an era. Today is the last day that I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. For now, at least. Believe me. I may come home to stay.

So Tired But Still Moving (no pun intended)

I'm writing from my empty desk. The only things on it are my lamp and a pen. I had ambitions of working today when I was planning things out in the previous weeks. I guess I was under estimating the tolls of moving. I know from experience that you use every last moment to extract home from one space and transport it to another. But it's easy to think I might really have started early enough THIS TIME to avoid the push that is sure to follow. I was wrong.

Status update on packing: The kitchen is packed. There are very few things left. Mainly the requisite items to make tea, which is crucial to attaining our goal.

The office is packed. Well, mostly. Our desk lamps, computers, the printer, and telephone aren't packed. The filing cabinet and our desks are in boxes. The books are safely tucked away. The six foot monster wardrobes are very nearly empty. And the stuff in the closet has been stored in boxes, ready to put on a hand truck and cart away to the next place for the duration of our time here.

Our bedroom is going to be easy since I've been organizing Tristan's clothes as he grows out of them, and making separate bins for them. The wardrobe boxes will devour our hanging clothes. And our dressers will easily empty into a couple of large boxes. We'll stuff the bed linens into 40 gallon trash bags (for easy identification when we arrive.) There are a few other things in the closet that require boxing, but that shouldn't take long.

The linen/toiletries closet is nearly empty.

The coat closet will be empty once I thrown my bins of hats, bags, and scarves into a box, and shove the coats into a wardrobe box. (I love those things.)

Since I had to pack my toiletries to travel to Costa Mesa for my high school reunion, my personal incidentals are packed. I'll be fine for over a week with what I have in two quart sized bags.

We've now said goodbye to nearly everyone. Tomorrow night we have dinner plans with the Maclean family and with Dustin's dad. Then Maria will drop by to pick up whatever she wants from our refrigerator and freezer, and the next day we're off. This still seems surreal to me. I realize as I give hugs to friends that it's goodbye for quite a while. We don't even know how long. But I've only cried once so far. It hasn't totally registered how far away we're going to be in a short time. D admitted to me tonight that he's a little sad to be leaving. Me too. I guess that's a normal feeling as you close a chapter in life. Feelings of excitement are mingled with a sense of loss. I know I'm gaining a lot, but my time in this area has been the best years I've known. The friends here are genuine and our relationships are deep. This was a fantastic era. And yes, it's time to move on.

I'd like to write and post photos about some of the meals I made to empty out the freezer and the pantry. But it's getting late and I'm very tired. I've been pushing myself to get this house sorted. I pushed myself to pack and rise and fly to So. Cal. I pushed myself to stay up late the night of the reunion. I pushed myself to hit the ground running and pick-up the pace when I returned. I've nearly pushed myself into illness. As D reminded me last night, everything is going to fall apart if I get really sick. Better to go to bed and take care of myself. (Thank you, honey!)

I feel like I've been sprinting through life for the last two months. I'm looking forward to settling in to Bend, and enjoying a slower pace of life for a while. Once we have the boxes put away I aspire to: go through old stuff and get rid of what is past tense; garden; decorate; cook; can fruit; preserve vegetables; hike; get back into photography; blog; and maybe mountain bike. (Thanks for the urging, Simon Han.)

Thanks for reading. It means a lot to me that I can walk this path away and still carry my friends with me. I love you. Thank you for being in my life.

T Minus 8 Days and Counting

My little family is moving to Bend, Oregon. As we prepare for our interstate relocation, it seems a good time to establish a blog. After all, everything else will be new and different. Maybe it's time for a new medium of contact with friends and family as well.

I've blogged in the past. Ineffectively. Inconsistently. To date, there's nothing that I've felt passionate about that I could dedicate myself to sitting and committing it to memory in this format. I mean, I love my son. But his care has been all consuming until recently. I haven't had the time and energy to blog about his development and care. I'm sure that will bleed into this. But for now, my intention is to communicate my experience about our move north.

To start, here are some photos.