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| Sweet potato pie and Earl Grey Tea |
It’s the middle of
December. I awoke this morning to a world wrapped in cotton wool, all sound
deadened in the mist. Today, we’ll add our star lights to the front porch. We’ll take out our Christmas books and begin
to read them. We’ll turn on the Christmas music. Soon we’ll decorate the tree.
And here’s where we are
this year: Still in Virginia. Still in the last house we moved into, except for our youngest daughter, who has moved on to a place of her own. My husband is now working for a
different company, and he’s finding his work there quite
satisfying.
My son has happily changed
his university major to athletic training, works all the hours God sends and
has managed somehow to make the dean’s list for at least the last two semesters
he’s told us about. My oldest daughter works at two hospitals and assembles electronic
components, takes riding classes, belongs to a drama group, and several social
groups as well as taking literacy tutoring every week. She has a lovely
boyfriend.
Our youngest daughter loves her job at an animal shelter in a nearby town, and is settling in to her new digs in
a neighborhood that seems to suit her well. I love the place. We text or talk
every day, and we get to see her almost every week.
Sadly, we lost our cat, Panda, this
year to old age. He was thirteen. His ashes are buried in the back garden under
the new fig tree. But before we lost him, he had time to enjoy many happy
arguments with his two new friends: Starr,
also known as The Devil Herself, and Jackie Chan, the Ninja Kitty, two kittens
that we took it upon ourselves to house and provide for.
Now I have a wonderful
word for any of you whose children or close acquaintances go to work at an
animal shelter. It’s the handiest word ever if you use it, which I didn’t. The
word is: No.
Our dog Scout remains as
wonderful as always, just with more gray around the muzzle, but as ever, still
a puppy at heart.
I continue to substitute
teach, mostly at my favorite elementary school here. I also occasionally work
for a company that organizes moving and estate sales, which I quite enjoy. I am
blessed to work with overwhelmingly lovely people.
The mist is lifting now.
Birds swoop and dive around the multiple feeders in the front garden. The hawk
that lives just into the treeline must be hunting elsewhere this morning. Foxes
live in that part of the wood as well. One of them occasionally saunters across
the back garden at first light. I see him sometimes sniffing the woodpile as I
pour my morning coffee.
It doesn’t seem like over
two years since we left England. And then again, it seems longer. Sometimes it
feels like time is one of those big rubber bands that stretches and stretches
and then snaps back with a pop.
This is our third
Christmas back in America. It has been such a long transition, this last one,
the move from England. It has been so full of twists, good and bad. Such drama.
And while I told myself I embraced my new life, still, I held a great part of
myself back.
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| A moment of silence |
I have
found it quite difficult to let go of the memories of what was our daily life
in Harrogate, and to compare it with our life here: Our neighbors there, our
friends, our home, our back garden, our doctors, dentist, favorite shopkeepers,
pubs and restaurants, schools. The Harrogate Theatre, that wonderful old place.
And Betty’s. Oh, Lord.
Without thinking about
it, without realizing it, for the longest time, I silently held back my
affections from this place, resenting it only because it is so different from
the life we had there. Then realizing what I was doing, I stopped and took a
good look around.
This
is not Harrogate. But it is a wonderful place, and we are lucky to be here. And
now that I’ve forgiven it for what it is not, I’m really beginning to love it
and to see all the wonderful opportunities the area offers.
Still, we’ll always love
Yorkshire. Always miss it a bit. I’ll probably always pathetically tear up at
the first strains of Jerusalem. Can’t help it.
It was a warm
Thanksgiving this year. After a meal of fried chicken, baked salmon, mashed
potatoes, green beans, creamed corn, collards and biscuits with lemon cake for
afters, the five of us waddled out to the woods behind the house for a stroll
on the trail. It was mild enough to remind me of my childhood Thanksgivings in
Alabama.
We meandered mostly together through the woods
along the creek, gathering pine cones for the fire place.
It is a never-ending
source of wonder to us that these big people in our lives are the same ones who
used to be so little as to fit in our laps. And they won’t understand for years
what it’s like sometimes for my husband and I to be with them as they are now, remembering
how they used to be, and who we were when we were younger with them.
Or know the frustration
of being unable to remember some of the last times--the last time we tucked
them in bed;the last time we kissed an owie; the last time we read them a story;
the last time they fought over who got to sit next to one of us; the last time we
picked them up from school.
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| American fireplace--English post box |
The frustrating thing
about last times is that you don’t always think about or even know when they
happen. Not for years.
Such is life. So here’s
to the next times. The ones that we hope are coming. Here’s to watching It’s a Wonderful Life yet again, and decorating the tree. Here’s to
having our big, festive meal on Christmas Eve, and sleeping in on Christmas Day,
and eating leftovers. Someday other family members will join us. Some Christmas
we’ll be on our own.
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| A daily reminder |
Because as we have found,
life is mostly transition. And like my mother told me many times in an
inadvertent lesson, “Don’t nobody want to fool with a fussy plant. Get you one
that’ll bloom wherever you put it, and can take some rough handling.”
So Merry Christmas
another year. We wish you happiness in whatever and however you celebrate. And
we hope that you are always able to bloom wherever you are planted.
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| Still waiting for Santa |
Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays.
Thanks for coming. Come again soon.
Leann
