I was looking through some old pictures and it made me think about where I grew up. It was beautiful, to spite the fact that it was miles away from everywhere! So here are some reasons why where I grew up was cool.

The backyard where you have to sit, drink coffee, and watch the sunrise. At least once a week. 

Moon reflecting in the lake.

My super cool cat. He died a few years ago :( but he was so bomb.

My parents house.

The family dog, leila. She’s still around, in case you were wondering. 

Wild things.

Swans.

Shadowfax

late nights outside in summer.

grasshoppers.

Rain storms.

Quervo.

goodnight!

I just found a bodycon-ish (can you still call it that when you’re pregnant?), perfectly striped, sweater maternity dress from my sister in law. It reminds me of this scarf. I’m now ready to rock the baby bump. 

It’s a quiet evening in our one month of real summer. In comparison to the south it’s still a rather frail show, but I’m enjoying it while it’s here. For the most part. I might have been heard to say yesterday that I was ready for fall. Maybe. 

Nevertheless, it’s silent tonight. No one is carrying on some rambunctious dialog on our street (which sounds more often like an all out brawl), and the poor little puppy that has been howling behind our house for the last three weeks has apparently matured into enduring the night in silence. I’m sipping an ice cold glass of water with brilliant slices of frozen peach and stalking high heeled winter boots on the internet that I will most likely fall and die in when the ice and snow show up. 

I was interrupted by the memory of something I realized a few days ago (pregnant brain has made this a daily occurrence. I now remember things that I have remembered. It’s confusing, I know). I realized it has been more than forever since I wrote something that I really wanted to write. I think that’s pretty sad, so here I am once again. I looked back and saw that it has really been several years since I just sat down and wrote on here….time has beat level, but infinity has changed. You wear it differently as it sinks in deeper. 

Infinity has changed, but all things do as they grow. I find that I no longer feel the need to perform acrobatic feats with words, though they do still give me lots of joy. Perhaps my writing is less interesting for it, but it is certainly less taxing on my mind. I realized one could  create crazy, outlandish, and vivid pictures when attempting to say anything, but it feels more like art to me now, and not the way that I want to simply write of my life. I also don’t care for the Washington pot holes, but that’s a different story.

Over a year ago  I married the love of my life, and ever since then I’ve been meaning to write about what happened next. Obviously it’s very late in coming, but I’d like to do that now. It would at least give me a lot of closure if I can file away that mental post it note that’s been hanging around for twelve months. 

Dirk and I said “I do” on a dock on a lake in Georgia, under the stars and by the light of candles, on June 12, 2010. It’s one of those magical nights that you know you’ll never forget your whole life. Even if the details fade you know there will be a scent, like some soft memory of a distinctly beautiful flower, that will never fade. We went to New York City for our honeymoon and had lots of great adventures. Five weeks later we packed up the little volvo with every possession we thought we would need for what was then an eight month move, and started a road trip that would end in Washington State. Over 3,000 miles away, in the inland north west, there is a city called Spokane, and that was to be our new home while Dirk finished school. 

We spent five glorious days driving across the country, and finally ended up in Spokane. I remember it wasn’t as majestic as the rest of our drive…and to spite that fact that we had both been there before, the arrival was slightly less glorious than I had pictured it in my head. It was hot, we didn’t know a soul who was in town at the moment, and we couldn’t figure out how to get to our landlords office due to construction season. I’m pretty sure I was just functioning on adrenaline, because looking back I think I was actually in shock. I just didn’t know it for a good 6 months. 

We finally moved into our new little apartment as a happy newlywed couple setting up house for the first time. It was exciting but also surreal. We moved into a second story unit in an old house in Browne’s Addition, which is a historic neighborhood just next to downtown Spokane. I only cried once, when Dirk told me that I picked out an ugly rug (he was right. The thing is hideous), and finally all of the change came flooding in at once. I remember laying on the bed while he comforted me just wondering where the hell we had moved to. 

The next 8 months would end up being some of the hardest, but some of the best months of my life. People would come back from vacation and we would start to make friends. Community would grow around us, and it would eventually change us. I would FINALLY break down and decorate and create in my poor little barren home (I came to realize that I just can’t live in a state of temporary housing…it is eventually deadening to me. I need to create, design and nest. Even if I’ll only be there for a month. If I ever forget this again and take ease over creativity someone please be so kind as to remind me). It was so good. I felt like we were trees, growing and learning, and being pruned and growing again. This part was a little intoxicating, like the way a tree must feel in spring when it just can’t help but burst forth in a million little leaves. But it was also hard. And so very different.

The culture was different. The communication was different (people in the northwest didn’t seem to know what “beat around the bush” meant. Because they in fact, have never done it. The object is more like “beat through the bush” and get straight to the point. For my southern mannerism steeped mentality this was a shock). Hospitality was different. The town was different. Life was different. In the course of one month everything I ever knew changed. There was nothing familiar left except my husband, and perhaps a song I knew on the radio. 

To make a long story shorter it took me most of our first 8 months here to figure all of this out. To realize that my whole world had changed so quickly that I couldn’t even keep up…and in turn to realize that there were some important things that I missed. I realized I missed our families pretty early, but I didn’t realize that I missed fields, and peaches, and corn bread, and red lipstick, and high heels, and flowing dresses, and music, and creativity and all of the people that liked those things too until much much later. I don’t think I really knew it until one day this spring Dirk realized that our life looks very much like his when he grew up, but not very much like mine. He asked me if I missed my life, and for the first time I realized I really did. We’ve done better since then.

By the early spring things felt more settled. We had made it through our first “real” winter (I learned a lot. Number one on the list is those ugly snow boots are not bad fashion statements, as I had always thought. They are in fact necessary items to own here), and I had noticed a settling. It felt like things were sinking down deep. My husband actually felt like family now, and I had started calling our apartment “home” instead of “the apartment.” But change would come knocking once again! 

Two weeks before Dirk’s graduation date we found out that I was pregnant. We had just committed to staying in Spokane for another year to train and for Dirk to work. The set up seemed perfect, and we would have children when we moved back to Georgia. We were overjoyed to find out that our plans were not going to work out exactly like we had meant….but I was also left trying to reconstruct my picture of what our family would look like. I suddenly realized that I had created a picture of unattainable perfection for many years: when we had our first baby we would be the parents that cried with joy when we found out, just like in the movies. We would have a house, with a yard, a swing, and a lovable great dane. I would be super-mom who baked bread, got everything done, and taught cute children violin. Our parents would be near, and they would ooh and ahh over our little one while we went out for date night. The baby would have it’s own room, which I would decorate to perfection…complete with trend setting colors and Anthropologie curtains. We would probably shop at crew cuts and I would chase our rambunctious little one while wearing Jeffrey Campbell platforms. 

In a move that is probably far more fortunate than unfortunate, that is not what my life looks like right now. We live in a one bedroom, there is a very small shared yard, and not a swing in sight. We also still live in Spokane, where you have to hibernate for 4 months out of the year. Anthropologie is rarely in the budget (and crew cuts probably never will be), and I can’t find a single spot to stuff a great dane. Our parents are 3,000 miles away and I still can’t make a good crepe. All in all my perfect little family just isn’t going to work out. Thankfully. Because honestly, it probably wouldn’t be as good or as beautiful if it did. I would be stuck in my own, satisfied little daydream. Instead, infinities dress had to change…but it’s no less infinite. 

The great dane and the swing are going to have to wait, but little baby Jane is going to have the cutest little nursery (even if it is in her parents room for a while) without Anthropologie. Our parents are still miles away, but we’ve got the best group of friends anyone could ask for, who have become our family here. And every single one has diligently volunteered 6 months in advance for date night duty. I’m still trying to figure out how to wear platforms in December (i like to plan ahead), how to dress a baby bump, and how to make a good crepe„ but I’m sure it’ll come. 

I’m still excited to move back to the South in a few years, but I’m also present here. And it’s good. I’ve been pursued more lovingly than I can dare believe, and the result is not something to shun. 

But right now I need to go work on my banana bread. I haven’t given up on at least a little bit of the super-mom part. 

(p.s. this isn’t formatting correctly when posted. my apologies)