Some of the posse, for a beautiful dinner at Laura's on my last night
It has been a while, yes, but I had to first get the Russian set up. And before that, I had to find him, which took a while too. But now his liquor cabinet is full and the shelves that are needed for his Cyrillic philosophical books are empty and there's a teapot waiting for him.
Sandra, who has experience in these things, had suggested Furnished Finder, which the traveling nurses use. Erica told me about sabbatical.com. I signed up for both and took an aggressive stance, reaching out to subscribers to see if they might be interested in living somewhere different than where they'd designated in their profile. Next, I stopped by local realtor offices, asked people I spoke to and finally when I started getting nervous and it was suggested I reduce the rent or minimum stay, sent out an APB to pretty much everyone who might know someone. Like other things, for example finding business, I put my energy in one place, and the answer came from somewhere else. Within hours, gentle Andrew and his skeptical wife Lena were touring my place, he smiling and nodding, she with a tight face and no eye contact, perhaps feeling powerless in the face of the decision he'd clearly already made about where his father would be staying.
Finding Mikhail was the first piece of the puzzle. Well, not really, as with all stories about lives and decisions, this one is somewhat convoluted. There had been the question of where I belong, knocking around in my head for years, and once I no longer had familial responsibilities, it visited me more frequently. Despite good intention and significant effort, I got no closer to an answer. Enter a previous blog post, the one about Ghosts, which had me going to the website of Mrs. West, because she will always be that for me, and some kind of weird thing happened resulting in my ownership of a three-session package for spritual guidance. A bit of a shock, to put it mildly. In our first session, she said many things that were breathtakingly spot on, one of which was that I didn't belong in just one place. I could feel struggle draining out of me and the energy coming in.
So, you're moving to France because a medium told you to, asked Julie quizzically. Yes.
A dear friend had given me a nice connection in Aix. I began to pursue what it would be like to live there, but something wasn't sitting right. Even if your favorite saying is "Leap and the net will appear", there's a certain amount of stress that accompanies a decision that you aren't able to envision because it's a country you don't know well, nor do you know anyone. I decided to pay attention to this discomfort rather than charging forward, sitting with the uneasiness. On a grey Saturday, I was lying on the couch trying to sort things out when I heard the What's App buzz on my phone. It was an old family friend I'd not been in contact with for perhaps a year, year and a half. She asked me what I was doing, I came clean, then she asked me if I wanted to spend the winter in Arles with her. Without having any more details, I replied yes, and that was that.
The third piece, work, has not yet resolved and I'm uneasy about it. I spent the summer virtually pounding pavements with an unusual lack of success. Moving again into the feeling world, I found myself wondering whether there was something else out there for me, and let worrying about it take a back seat. A state of limbo will have to do. Stay tuned and send ideas.
I'll be warming up with a fun boondoggle accompanied by the other two wenches, as we've named ourselves, with whom I'll be spending a week in the UK, doing wenchy things like going to Stratford-on-Avon to see Othello while also navigating congestion tax.
It's an odd thing, stepping away from a life you love with people you love, doing things you love. Why? I have asked myself many times within the last month. Again, it's that feeling thing, there's something compelling me to spread out a bit. So, the days have been those of long goodbyes with so many people not pictured above nor mentioned by name. The finality of depature has meant an opportunity to be incredibly present and treasure each moment. There was an element of everything being surreal, in slow motion, making it so natural to share and receive love, to cherish.
Last night, my last night of USA and uninvited texts from political causes, came out of a paddle game that prompted Laura to invite us for dinner at her house. We sat at her beautiful table laid with plates she'd bought in Hungary, enjoying bourbon and Vermont cider with a thyme sprig, an Instagram recipe for her Vermont-grown squash. We collectively forgot it was a Monday night, sitting for hours, moving from one topic to the next with an ease that comes from being with people you know well and trust. Moms, Halloween, health, Cincinnati, 70+ year-old influencers, sons, the F word, retirement, Stowe, Norwich and Hanover, benign neglect, and my favorite saying of the night "(a certain political party) has the mental acuity of dental floss".
With one foot in Laura's kitchen and another in Concourse C, I have equal amounts of agitation to get this party started and to return to all of you who have made this last month one of the nicest I can remember.
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