The Next Big Adventure

We're moving to Alabama. Sam landed a job teaching at a University there.

This one.

The move came as a shock. I hadn't planned on moving back to the South. We'd felt inclined to move all the way out here, from Boston to Arizona, and now we were going to move back across the country? And why, exactly, had we come out here? Nothing has really worked out the way we'd hoped. In fact, many of our ideas for surviving here have outright failed. Sam began to say, "You know when I found that five-leaf clover just before we moved? I'm thinking I found it so I'd know I was already lucky. I wish I'd known I was already lucky."  He also began to suggest we name our next child Equity Dwindle, which is rather a beautiful name, right? (No, I'm not pregnant.) If nothing else, we've learned this year. We've grown up this year. We've enjoyed being close to family. And the two of us have had time to hang with Henrietta constantly for the first two years of her life. And that's worth a lot to us.

Trying out pink headphones on our way there.

Last week we flew to Alabama to find a house. In five days, we looked at a few dozen houses, some of them several times. The very green trees lining the road were a delicious shock after the desert, and the way we felt about the town shifted dramatically every time we looked at a house. After a good house, one in a nice neighborhood with kitchen updates and a garden tub, I looked around and loved everything. After a house which reeked of dog pee and cigarettes, or one whose stair railing came off in my hand when I tried to grab it, or one that Sam said was surely a portal to a demon world, I felt very sad and lost and wanted to go home, wherever that was. 

Trees and the road. 

Henrietta was a trooper. Sam's mom came along, so she often stayed with her grandmother in the car watching shows on my iPad and eating a lollipop. The kid ate a lot of lollipops. But often she'd insist on coming in with us. I could see her in the car from the front porch, her face broken in devastation to be left behind, and her grandmother trying in vain to comfort her. So I'd go back out and extract her from her carseat, and she'd immediately find the door to the backyard and begin running as fast as she could, running and laughing and ignoring the insane heat and humidity, and raising her arms up in the air. Well, raising one arm. The other she kept clutched to her torso, holding her lamb with its head and arms draped over her arm. She learned how to pick bright dandelions, crumbling them in her hand so she held a tangle of wilting flower parts. Once we convinced her back inside the house, she had a knack for finding the empty room we were thinking of for her, the one with the big windows and lots of light. She'd go in and close the door, lie down on the carpet, kicking her legs and talking to herself for minutes on end.

The classic luggage cart game, with Grandma.

I think Alabama is going to be okay. I think it's going to be good. We found a pretty brick house with tall trees in the yard. Our friends from grad school who live and work there had us over for dinner, and they were so kind and delightful. Did I mention there are fireflies there? I've never lived in a place with fireflies.

House

Last night Sam and I stayed up late talking. We had one of those great conversations where everything is going to be new, so you're thinking hard about everything else you'd like to be new. We're going to get responsible with money--for real this time. We're going to each have offices at home, so we're going to work harder. We're going to stop keeping treats in the house. Henrietta is going to watch fewer movies (she loves movies with all of her heart). We're going to take turns going to the cool coffee shop with good writing space. It was dark in our living room here in Tucson, Henrietta finally asleep on my lap, the music from the credits of Tangled playing from the television. As we talked, I looked around at our bookshelves, still heavy with our books and knickknacks that have come along on all of our moves. I could imagine packing them soon. Wrapping them in paper and securing them in a box full of other things wrapped in paper. And I imagined walking around that new house--which I only have a shadowy sort of love for now, since I'm quickly forgetting what it looked like--and learning its walls and doors and corners, trying to decide whether my big white fish looks better on this shelf, or that one. Sam picked up our sleeping Henrietta and talked to her softly as he rested her head on his shoulder and her eyelids fluttered. I walked behind them, turning out lights, glad we'd all go together.

The view from the local State Park, where we decided which house to get.