Trail's End Week 8 2021

It is a gray and rainy day in Alexandria today but that won't stop us. We are going on a driving adventure today. We have hung up our down parkas and shaken the dust off our raincoats as the days creep into the balmy forties and fifties. The other day I wore a baseball cap instead of my knitted and pom-pommed winter hat when I went for a walk in the neighborhood. Everything is looking up.

For example...everyone I know who is over 65 has received at least their first vaccine. The FDA approved the Johnson & Johnson one shot vaccine so that means the younger ones will be protected sooner than we thought. Right across the river from my new home the country is being quietly and competently governed by a real leader. The bulbs all over my neighborhood are peeking through the thawing ground and soon there will be daffodils and tulips and lilies everywhere. And (drum roll please), we bought a house!

(Yes I do believe that is a cherry tree in the front yard just beginning to blossom)

Here is the best news of all ~ there is a dedicated guest room in our new home so we can bring California to Virginia. We are not going peacefully into our new home. We are enticing all of you to come to us where we are less than a mile from the train that goes to Union Station in DC and to Grand Central in NYC. We are less than a mile from the metro that goes to all areas of DC. We are less than three miles from Reagan National Airport which has many daily direct flights from the Bay Area. We are walking distance to Old Town Alexandria and smack in the middle of a charming neighborhood in Alexandria known as Del Ray. And we long to welcome you into our new home!

We were feeling unmoored so we took our incredible privilege and moored ourselves. We were walking around our new neighborhood the other day and noticing how much like parts of Berkeley it is. There are lawn signs everywhere."Black Lives Matter", "In This House We Believe...", "Biden/Harris" (still proudly displayed). Our neighborhood is semi-urban with big and beautiful houses among row houses among apartment complexes. Dogs and children everywhere, and boutique coffee houses, a used bookstore, cafes with vegetarian fare and two yoga/pilates studios. You get the idea. We needed to feel at home and we found the Bay Area of the South. Now if only we could import the weather. Well we can't so we will simply entice our friends and family to want to visit us with promises of sleeping in a real Murphy bed and visits to all the Smithsonian museums.

You can take the girl (and boy) out of California but you can't take the California out of them. We are sure we will be forever known by everyone we meet in our new community as "the Californians" and we wear that badge with pride.

A gift I received the other day from a dear, dear friend