Peach upside-down cornmeal skillet cake (bye bye, CA!)
So. It doesn’t really feel any different, really. We loaded up our stuff, we drove away, we unloaded our stuff, we set up our bed in a completely new room in a new city in a new state, and soon we’ll even leave that. We drank beer at lunch today (on a Wednesday!), and if I didn’t check my email for another five days there’s not really anything that could happen to me.
But nothing feels significantly different. It’s kind of like when we got married, and I took the fact that absolutely nothing felt different as a good sign (a very good sign – but we’ll save more on that for some future installation of Bowen’s Thoughts on Marriage). And this time, as we went through the motions of leaving, I kept telling myself to feel something BIG – like when we ate at our favorite bakery for the last time, and when we spent our last evening on campus, and when we handed over the keys to our house. (Funny story about that, below.) But everything just felt kind of … normal, and I’m taking that as a good sign that all of this is happening at the right time. When I’ve tried to force myself to see the significance of everything, I just see this sort of satiny, infinite ribbon spreading out ahead of me – I think it represents time, maybe? Or freedom? Something like that. I’m not really sure why I picture the next year as a ribbon, but in any case I have this really strong visual that I don’t understand but that I associate with positive feelings, certainly. (Or maybe it’s guilt at all that perfectly good leftover double-sided satin wedding ribbon I threw out as we cleaned out our house.)
So since I apparently don’t need to spend any time “transitioning,” I just get to focus on doing everything that catches my eye as worthwhile or fun or interesting (as long as it doesn’t cost too much money). Which at the moment means enjoying summer, especially a summer a little more temperate than our Previous Place of Living. We’re in Eugene for the next 10 days or so, including a few days working at the Oregon Country Fair, plenty of time in the backyard, some exploring of what we’re hearing is a pretty fantastic new “Brewery District” in town (more on that next week, I’m hoping), and lots of summer fruit.
