Sunday, November 29, 2020

Hello from Newburyport

 A break on these pages usually implies a lot happening!  And so, here I am with the latest update: a move!  After 3.5 years of being an apartment-renting Cambridge dweller, I have returned to home-ownership and a bit more of a nest.   I purchased a beautiful home a few months ago and am settling in and unwinding into a season of classic New England charm and "town" life - I say town, because having lived in a suburb and more of a city, Newburyport is neither - it's walkable and alive and yet, neighborly and quiet.   A nice place to be.  

As significant changes generally invoke a reflection for me, I have been thinking about this move.  The move from Andover to Cambridge was so important to me and so beautifully necessary.  I needed to decompress.  I needed to not be challenged by suburban norms and home making when I really had no stamina for either.  I needed a place where I felt the status quo was a bit less defined and people a bit more transitory and global.  I found all of that.  I found a piece of myself - I found confidence, I found a new rhythm for Joe and I as a unit of two, I found friends I hope to always have and I found that the "grass isn't always greener" and extremes of political inclination can be exhausting.  It was an exercise in progress of self and when I felt ready, I was once again able to close a chapter.   Life, I'm realizing for me, may be a book of several short chapters rather than one long one.   There is no right way.  

J loves the house and he has a new adjective, "adaptable".   He learned about it in the context of the animal kingdom but I told him that he, too, is adaptable.  My little buddy - he goes with the flow and seems to enjoy each chapter as it comes.  He loves all the space in the new place and calls his 3rd floor "his private island".