Skipping Town Again
Brace yourselves. I’m going to say something that will take many of you by surprise. It took me by surprise, too, when it hit me:
I like it here.
I like our life here. I like having Andrew work just five minutes away from home. I like our house, our enormous house, with so many closets I have one just for empty boxes. I like being five minutes from Target. I like having a car—two cars. I like feeling for the first time in my life like we are in a settled family home.
Aside from the convenience, I do not like Roseville itself; but that convenience, and the low cost of living, count for a lot. I did not like Sacramento. However, I do like California. I like Tahoe and wine country and San Francisco. No, I love those places, and I love the experiences we’ve had there—discovering the Nob Hill Café; seeing Shakespeare by Lake Tahoe; tramping around Jack London State Park and having dinner at the Fig Café and sleeping at the Jack London Lodge. I love the winery we belong to; I love the members’ picnics we’ve gone to two years in a row. I love the Huntington Hotel on Nob Hill. I love the gorgeous, rugged coastline. I love the crab shack we’ve been to a few times in Bodega Bay. I love the blue sky and the fresh air and the redwoods—the redwoods! The redwoods at John Hendy Woods and Muir Woods and the ones in our yard.
I love the relentlessness with which we’ve gone about exploring California—driven first by our insane hatred of our first home here, Citrus Heights, and then by our curiosity and, finally, attachment to our favorite places. I love the fact that we are expert weekend-trippers—and are becoming decent weekend-trippers-with-baby, too.
I love our HMO, our landlord, our donut shop, our Trader Joe’s. I love our farmer’s market. The market! The flea- and farmer’s market. I love our backyard. Our fig tree. Our loquats. Our strawberries and lemons.
I say this now—nay, I realized all this now—because we are skipping town again. After almost three years on the West Coast, we’re moving back to New York City for Andrew’s new job. My heart is racing as I type this. I don’t know what to do, what to think, how to prepare, if preparation is possible.
Gentle readers, I’ve been keeping this from you for some time, and now I can finally write about it here. This all began in February, when Andrew first applied for the job. Then, about two months ago, Andrew heard he was jpotentially going to get an offer. (That kicked off a lengthy process of further interviews and applications that I won’t go into here.) When I heard the news that day in April, the only thing I could think to do was change Lucia into an I Heart NY onesie—which I did, promptly. I watched her that afternoon in her little onesie, bouncing in her doorway bouncer, completely unaware that her little life was About. To. Change.
I don’t know too many details yet; and I’ll write more soon. For now, all I know is this: we’re going home.
I like it here.
I like our life here. I like having Andrew work just five minutes away from home. I like our house, our enormous house, with so many closets I have one just for empty boxes. I like being five minutes from Target. I like having a car—two cars. I like feeling for the first time in my life like we are in a settled family home.
Aside from the convenience, I do not like Roseville itself; but that convenience, and the low cost of living, count for a lot. I did not like Sacramento. However, I do like California. I like Tahoe and wine country and San Francisco. No, I love those places, and I love the experiences we’ve had there—discovering the Nob Hill Café; seeing Shakespeare by Lake Tahoe; tramping around Jack London State Park and having dinner at the Fig Café and sleeping at the Jack London Lodge. I love the winery we belong to; I love the members’ picnics we’ve gone to two years in a row. I love the Huntington Hotel on Nob Hill. I love the gorgeous, rugged coastline. I love the crab shack we’ve been to a few times in Bodega Bay. I love the blue sky and the fresh air and the redwoods—the redwoods! The redwoods at John Hendy Woods and Muir Woods and the ones in our yard.
I love the relentlessness with which we’ve gone about exploring California—driven first by our insane hatred of our first home here, Citrus Heights, and then by our curiosity and, finally, attachment to our favorite places. I love the fact that we are expert weekend-trippers—and are becoming decent weekend-trippers-with-baby, too.
I love our HMO, our landlord, our donut shop, our Trader Joe’s. I love our farmer’s market. The market! The flea- and farmer’s market. I love our backyard. Our fig tree. Our loquats. Our strawberries and lemons.
I say this now—nay, I realized all this now—because we are skipping town again. After almost three years on the West Coast, we’re moving back to New York City for Andrew’s new job. My heart is racing as I type this. I don’t know what to do, what to think, how to prepare, if preparation is possible.
Gentle readers, I’ve been keeping this from you for some time, and now I can finally write about it here. This all began in February, when Andrew first applied for the job. Then, about two months ago, Andrew heard he was jpotentially going to get an offer. (That kicked off a lengthy process of further interviews and applications that I won’t go into here.) When I heard the news that day in April, the only thing I could think to do was change Lucia into an I Heart NY onesie—which I did, promptly. I watched her that afternoon in her little onesie, bouncing in her doorway bouncer, completely unaware that her little life was About. To. Change.
I don’t know too many details yet; and I’ll write more soon. For now, all I know is this: we’re going home.
Comments
We felt the same way about California. We LOVED San Diego. I still dream about that beautiful place with those beautiful people. But we were never really at home there. IT felt right coming back to the north and back to the east coast.