life is a many splendored thing

I have been thinking of what to say here for a few months now...and I am charging through this persistent resistance to say "it" - whatever it is in this moment, regardless of the words I've spun in my head up until now.


I am struggling between spilling over the moment, and coursing back to fish out all the things that have occurred since that night in the Newark airport, back in December.


This moment wins.


I just had a truly wonderful birthday gathering. I am beaming still, though I my body is now the only one inhabiting this house. I had 32 people celebrating me! They arm wrestled me. They hugged me and kissed me. They snuggled with me. They ate the 70 chocolate pancakes I made. They made oodles of delicious food and drink to share. They laughed with me. They filled me with gratitude for being alive, right here and now.


I turn now to reflection on the traveling life, for which this blog was created. The road trip is over. Yes, it's sad--but also right. The time was nigh to make a new home, to plant our roots where we've been itching to plant them: smack dab (who came up with that phrase!? it's spot on swell) in the middle of a community of people we've been getting to know and love for about 4 years now.


We arrived in California by plane for ostensibly one month, back in December, for family holiday time, a wedding in Yosemite, and some community events in the bay area. Once we got here, it felt so good, and so necessary, that we decided to stay.

We let go of our plans to drive southward along the east coast and visit places and people in the southern states for a couple months. Instead, we talked about flying back out on our return plane ticket in the spring, greeting 2 new babies (two friend expecting in May), and officially finishing off the road trip together with a balmy drive back across the country on Route 80.

Two weeks into our fabulous sublet in Emeryville, we got the call from our very generous and accomodating friends (playing host to our van and pod in PA), that they would be moving to Chicago at the end of February. I had just procured temporary employement, looking like it might become permanent employement, with a Fair Trade craft company in Berkeley. Adam was loathe to devote the time and energy it would take to drive back across the country by himself and then recover from it, having just gotten back in his work groove. So, we opted for plan C: Adam flew back on our return ticket to PA on a redeye flight, attended our friends' baby shower the following day, loaded the van and pod into separate trucks for the trip back to CA, dropped in on our old friend New York for a night, and flew back in one-way JetBlue style to CA. He stunned the shipyard crew with his millimeters to spare loading of the pod into the shipment container. It was an epic end-journey.

Now, the pod is back (I hugged it when I saw it), we have rented a fabulous flat in Oakland, I just celebrated my 27th birthday (a couple days early), and I'm off to my wonderful women's circle.

Three cheers for the incredible journey of life, and for delayed gratification.