Some days it seems that everything is different here. The weather is dramatic in its changes. The mountains are rounded and squat, and are dotted with foliage rather than evergreen needles. We have a steady stream of cardinals coming to our bird feeder and only the occasional jay (blue jays, not stellar jays). Homes are built from bricks and people let their faucets run as they brush their teeth. Conversations value politeness that confuse me by their lack of candor. On my commute to work drivers consistently go sixty-five in a forty zone aggressively tailing me until I do the same. Even the delicious ice cream parlor down the street does not really serve ice cream; they serve frozen custard (which makes my taste buds dance with glee). And now, with blue just across the river, we have just become a red state.
And yet...I am starting to feel at home. It is hard for me to know what has facilitated this comforting change. Perhaps it is the job I now go to four days a week that sets a routine and allows me to really know this small stretch of Northern Virginia. Maybe it is the California visitors we are starting to host who give us the opportunity to show the best of our new neighborhood. Likely it is time and the adaptability of the human species to settling into what is different. We humans are nothing if not incredibly adaptable even though we often seem to do it kicking and screaming along the way.
We are now so practiced in our adaptability. It is sometimes difficult to recall with any clarity that I so recently left my home of twenty-five years, the home in which I raised two children to adulthood, a home I loved and made my own. It is a distant memory with the illusion time provides of spending months confined to a temporary rental house as I made plans to change my life in a most radical way. The other night I prepared Coquilles St. Jacques for family and friends and was reminded of a birthday when I made the same dish and hosted friends outside on a somewhat chilly September night while we sat six feet apart and, hardly leaving our chairs, enjoyed the normalcy of each other's company with such gratitude to be together. Now I live in a house that is over one hundred years old and almost twice the square footage of my house that seems to come from a different life ago. And, I am starting to settle in.
This week-end we celebrate some family birthdays (and Kiel's newly awarded tenure!) by visiting Connecticut with the prize of spending time with Tala who is now 21 months old. We are delighted with the prospect of spending the night with her while her parents steal away for some well needed rest and relaxation. She is much more fun than work now. She knows us now, calling Thomas Papi and me Lola (Lala just did not stick) and telling us "Hilary, Nate, airplane, fly away". She is a budding little person who reminds me with a clench to my heart why I braved this adventure.
We come home then to spend Thanksgiving with Nate, Hilary and Nate's family. We gave Hilary our family table with the two leaves when we moved. We will pass the baton as she hosts dinner at her apartment for all of us. I am thinking about our last Thanksgiving in California when we loaded up the trailer and moved to an Airbnb after the movers took our belongings and started the long haul across the country. We were having groceries delivered then because of Covid but there was a snafu and the groceries never arrived. We heated up some soup and zoomed our kids across the country pretending to enjoy our Thanksgiving Day. We both felt so sad saying good-bye to California and all those people we loved, and we blamed the sadness on a terrible Thanksgiving dinner. It seems so long ago this happened, as if time changes its substance when we make a huge transition. All the adjusting and adapting has taken its toll on us almost a year later. But, here we are, finally settling in and, as Thanksgiving approaches, counting our blessings on both coasts.
