Jackelopette

I’ve been here in Olympia/Lacey for three-ish weeks now… and I love it.

I guess there is a multitude of reasons:

1. I chose it.
2. David!
3. Friends!
4. Pretty views! And weather!
5. I have a car.
6. I have space to nest, and someone to nest with.
7. I will soon have kitties
8. I am close to plenty of shopping and other recreation, and I’m near the outdoors when I need a fix.
9. New friends! And old ones coming out of the woodwork. Acquaintances and cousins I haven’t seen in years, if not decades.

In the meantime, David is off in Yakima doing silly things (let us not go there, for it is a silly place) for the next couple of weeks. Mike has deployed to Iraq with I Corps, and will be there for a year. Of course David will be going there, too, at the end of the summer.

Now that Mike’s room is cleared, I am facing a pile of stuff from storage that now needs to find a new home… I am nesting. Interrupting all this is a huge deadline for work, when our project launches to the world on April 22. Between now and then, I don’t think I’ll have much control over my schedule… but what’s new?

I suppose I should write something. After all, it’s been a year since I began this leg of the journey.

A year ago I’d just finished my first week of working at Council, living in DC, and learning how to live outside my comfort zone.

A year later I’m back in Davis, living far more independently than the last time I was here, and learning how to adjust my comfort zone to accommodate who I’ve become.

I catch myself missing my life in DC, especially with the weather turning and the leaves beginning to fall. Twelve months ago I was still infatuated with an idealized version of the past. I still am, though the nature of that past is mutable and scintillating. Looking back on a year ago is like gazing through a soap bubble. Some things are blown large, others pushed to the edges, colors shifted and movement exaggerated. I’ve changed, too. From pushing myself to expand my boundaries and get Out! each weekend, I am pushing myself to be satisfied with this smaller circle.

I know now that I can survive and even begin to thrive without my California circle. I know that I cannot go long without seeing people whom I love. I need a touchstone every month or so to reassure me that I have not lost them, that they are still there though our lives move in different paths. I could do it again – I could return to DC and forge a new happiness. I catch myself longing for that larger, faster life.

I also catch myself in moments of contentment and happiness, and I wonder how long I can make them last. Where once I would have loved to remain in Davis, I find now that I am looking to the next place. I am not totally happy with the rhythm of my life right now, but it is working for me far better than the last iteration. I get in plenty of travel, and in the last six years my appetite for travel has only increased. I’m feeling a lot more at home now than in the last apartment I inhabited. But this is not where I will remain forever.

I feel as though I’m rushing with a current toward an edge, as though the spring will bring with it a torrent of change. Where two years ago that spring was full of lassitude and aimless uncertainty, and a year ago a mix of entrapment and excitement, this one promises greater confidence and clarity.

Check with me in a few months to see how I feel then. I am far, far better off now than a year ago, and that was better than the year before. I’m getting closer, ever closer, and one day I shall arrive.

With the amount of travel I’m racking up this summer, I will have many, many frequent flier miles. Let’s hope I have the time to make use of them.

My little one-bedroom apartment is great, but it’s lonely and expensive to live here on my own. Therefore, I’m making arrangements to move into a shared house – I don’t know which one from my list yet, but I’ll be saving between $300 and $500 a month by moving. Yes, it’s a bit stressful with all the travel going on, but I think long-term it’ll definitely be worth it.

ACCESS 4-H is moving along well. I lost a lot of confidence in the last couple of weeks, but after 10 days with Bob, Jon, and Jess it’s back and much improved. I was getting overwhelmed with everything going on … now I’m still busy but I feel like I can handle it. That’s good news for me.

So yes, I haven’t been blogging much, and I probably won’t be for a while. But I’m still alive and moving fast.

I have had a busy, busy month.

I’m now living in a 1-bedroom apartment, in Davis, with my beloved cat and my very own bills. While I have the basic furniture, I’d really like a couch. The bedroom, kitchen, and dining room are all functional, but I have no place besides the floor to crash and watch movies.

That said, I haven’t had a whole lot of time to contemplate the lack of couch. The first weekend back in Davis I spent arranging all my many boxes of stuff and acquiring more stuff to store said stuff and basically settling in to my revised life. Then there was Picnic Day – I entered one of the Alumni Association drawings and ended up with a new duffle bag filled with stuff. Not bad, but more stuff to arrange.

I left for San Francisco the Monday after Picnic Day for the Web 2.0 Expo with my colleagues. Not a bad trip in the least, but it did mark the first of several overnight trips away from my new nest. We spent the majority of the time in meetings with our developers and ironing out bugs… but the eating was good and the company enjoyable.

Two weeks ago Grammy passed away.

I had just returned from San Francisco when I heard, and was looking forward to a trip to Seattle. I ended up heading back to Ojai instead. I won’t say the weekend was easy, but it was surprisingly relaxing in many ways.

I sang Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus at the funeral, and spent most of the weekend reconnecting with all the family members I haven’t seen in a year or more. It felt a little strange at first, but the overall consensus was that Grammy always wanted to be in the middle of wherever the family party was taking place, so it was our duty to give her a good party. There were a few who missed the proceedings, but I think we gave Grammy a good send-off.

About 30 minutes after I returned home, I started a lovely bout of digestive upset. It knocked me out for the bulk of Monday and Tuesday of last week. After a frenzy of catch-up work, I headed up to Seattle for the first purely relaxational weekend I’ve had in a long time. Oh, it was lovely.

Now I’ve returned to Davis once more, and perhaps this will be a normal week. No, in fact it won’t.

I’ve come down with a cold.

So a couple of weeks ago, as I was in the throes of my homesickness, my boss (who is awesome) offered me the chance to return to California. Specifically, Davis.

So all my plans got tossed in the air, I’m moving in less than two weeks, and I have the joy of coordinating all the ACCESS stuff plus packing and finding an apartment and dealing with the moving of all my stuff between Ojai and Davis (again), aaaand oh yeah. Steven and Allison are getting hitched on the 5th of April. I depart DC with all the stuff I’ve accumulated here on April 3. On April 8 I head north from Ojai with said stuff, plus all the stuff from my previous residences.

Yup.

Color me busy.

On my wish list:

1. Sweaters. Lovely warm sweaters. Loose turtlenecks, pullovers, layer-able sweaters… it’s cold here.

2. A Garmin or similar device … since I’m planning to drive out here in April and will be exploring the east coast in the spring and summer, seems like a smart thing to have.

3. Friends for exploring and hanging out here. I dearly, sorely miss my people back in California, but if I’m going to make this work I need people here, too.

4. Travel vouchers for Sacramento, Seattle, and Burbank/LA. Those are my ports of call and I intend to visit them as often as possible.

It’s hard packing up my life in Davis and saying goodbye to the town and campus and people I’ve known … especially when I don’t know if I’ll be back anytime soon.

I said goodbye to Jeffrey – caught him just before chorus practice began. I rode my last bus and strolled along my quad’s sidewalk. I have eaten sushi and breakfast at Crepeville… and now I shall eat gnocchi and carouse with my Significant Roommate.

It’s hard to do all the things I would normally do here without beginning to believe that it will continue this way.

I’m not good at saying goodbye. I’m always thinking about a next time, a someday, a possibility. I suppose that makes me an optimist, yes?

The last few days have held enough reasons to rejoice in my old friends that I am ready for whatever fate throws my way.

It’s bittersweet, of course; none of us are in the same locations or frames of mind anymore. Some things have grown easier, some harder. There are friends with whom I’ve lost touch and would like to regain it. There are others, who still haunt the old relationships, whom I’d rather forget.

In reconnecting with the Ventura/Ojai folks I risk losing my Davis family – not because I lack affection for them but simply because I am not there. I find it hard not to follow my more immediate friends, though I know that in the long term I hold this place more deeply in my heart than I do Davis. I’ve near-brothers and near-sisters in both places – those friends of the heart that I could never leave wholly behind.

It’s hard, having to wait. Hard trying to convince myself of one place’s merits over another – and knowing that it all depends not on my choice but on someone else’s decisions. I haven’t spent so long a period at home since I moved into an apartment; it’s required a lot of adjustment but I’m finally content as an adult here, too.

I don’t recall ever dreaming of an escape from Ojai. Of course I’d go away to college, travel, learn, live, love in other places – but I never truly felt trapped here the way so many others do. I never minded the deep roots.

The more I wait for a way to stay in Davis, the more I’m quite satisfied to live in Ojai. I suppose that’s for the best, really – ready to live in either place, accept what comes.

I never saw a need to be jealous of my friends as their lives changed; I’ve always seen life as a series of chapters in an unfinished book. Characters move across the pages, recurring or not as their roles demand. There are some whose return I applaud again and again, no matter how long or how distant their absence. There are also some to whom there are things I’ll never say.

The closer I get to the answer I’ve been awaiting, the less I want to hear what I used to wish for… I keep telling myself it’s all right to feel as I do – that there are no rules for the post-college soul-searching I’ve been doing. It feels a bit *safe* to want to settle back here. I blame it on all the talk of dreams and excelling and proving oneself that we’ve all heard a thousand times before. Still, I don’t find it any easier.

So, consider me still in limbo. Assume that I’ve no answers, for assuredly I’ll let you know the moment I do.

…They’re really far easier when they’re a bit more sudden. The last 12 months have been both the most painful and the most joyful of my life … but then again I suppose I’ve said that before now.

I feel as though my last year in Davis has been my most rewarding: I’ve found new friends, new experiences, new connections to the town itself. The transition to non-student life, however, is still incomplete, and I have to say it’s been very difficult. I’ve always identified myself as a student. Pretty much anyone under the age of 18 (or 23 in my crowd) is a student. The primary bits of information about my friends: name, gender, school, major. It’s doubly so when you’re living in a college town. There are exceptions, but essentially you’re a prospective UCD student, a current one, a staff member, or an alumnus/alumna. I always feel a little strange in choir rehearsals when a difference is made between student and non-student status. I still have to stop myself from raising my hand.

And now the change I’ve been trying to predict for the last twelve months is looming – and I’m still trying to make it an impermanent one. That is, the choice to leave Davis. I find it difficult to foresee myself living here on a long-term basis. All my experience as a student has led me to believe that the collegiate life is a fleeting one. They tell us over and over: enjoy it while you’re here, it ends far too quickly. With that in mind, I find it a little odd and yet perfectly natural and expected for me to long to stay here. At the same time, I’ve made it my home. In the last three weeks alone, I’ve begun considering other aspects of Davis life besides the University. The layers and varieties of musical opportunity are vast! There are actually people my age here who aren’t just grad students!

But Ojai is still home and I’ve always assumed that I would return there at some point, as an independent adult. The climate is better, the mountains and beach call me home every summer and winter, and the equine Western/trail-riding lifestyle there is far more comfortable than the English/jumping/dressage scene up here. If I were in Ojai, I could easily see myself resuming it. In Davis, I don’t think I will anytime soon. There are comparable restaurants, festivals, arts and entertainment in both places.

The most difficult part? The people. I have the family I grew up with in one, the family I found and created in the other. I love both, and I’m not using the word lightly here. And I find it impossible to choose.

Carmina Burana (CD)

Yeah, the DVD is taking forever to complete (they’re still waiting for the a/v department to finalize it!) but in the meantime they’ve given us a means to order multiple copies of the audio…

Order, listen, enjoy.