instead

I am proud to announce that I have done the following moving preparation steps:

1. Retrieved five or six boxes from the garage.
2. Purchased better bathroom cleaning products for the deep clean.
3. Moved a suitcase to the hallway so I can begin to sort my clothes.

I have a really long way to go.

People keep asking me if I know where I'm going to live, and the fact is that I do not. I am moving in two weeks and I have made no progress on finding a place to live, other than perusing cr@igs1ist occasionally. 

I have an idea of where I want to live. That isn't the same thing.

But the sun was shining yesterday, and my friend S. and I walked down to the little tea shop that I should have been patronizing every Saturday the entire time I lived here. We pulled chairs into the sun and talked until we lost the sun behind a tree, and then we walked up the hill and then further up, with her little son K., and we ate dahl and naan while K. watched the Land Before Time on my laptop.

And the sun was shining this morning, and I met friends for brunch at a place with long communal tables, and when we'd eaten and drunk, we drove out to a hike along a creek, through mossy rocks and trees. Afterward, we drove to a coastal town for seafood. I kept looking at the State of Happiness scenery, trying to drink it all in, because in a very short time I will have a different drive to the coast, and a different drive home. 

Gone West may very well be my favorite city in the world, but this place has wormed its way into my heart, too, and it will be hard to leave so very many good things behind.